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The Romans organised several expeditions to explore the territories beyond the Sahara desert. The aim of these expeditions was not to conquer these territories, but to open new commercial roads.
The first Roman Saharan expedition was launched in 19 BCE, by Lucius Cornelius Balbus, the proconsul of Roman Africa. He left Sabratha, and invaded the Ghadames Oasis, which was previously inhabited by the Garamantes. He then explored the Sahara, all the way to the Niger River. Balbus, who was born in Gades (Cadiz), Spain, in an old Punic family, might have had access, through his family, to information on the old Punic trade roads. He became the first Roman to cross the Sahara.
In 41 CE, Suetonius Paulinus, a Roman general who had been sent to Mauretania to suppress Aedemon’s insurgency, became the first Roman to cross the Atlas Mountains. After defeating the insurgents, he traveled through the modern-day Moroccan Sahara. He apparently reached the Senegal River.
The Romans were always fascinated by the Lake Chad, which Ptolemy called the “Lake of the hippopotamuses”. In 50, Septimius Flaccus left from Leptis Magna and crossed the Sahara, passing through the Sabha Oasis. He reached the Lake Chad in three months, and then explored the Chari and Logone rivers.
In 90, Julius Maternus left from Sirte, and crossed the desert to the Kufra Oasis, from where he continued travelling with the King of the Garamantes, all the way to the Bahr Salamat and Bahr Aouk rivers, in modern-day Southern Chad. He returned to Rome with a two-horned rhinoceros, that was exposed at the Coliseum.
The Romans also travelled South by river, on the Nile, and by sea: down the West African coast from Mauretania, or by the Red Sea, all the way to the island of Zanzibar.
Roman coins have been found in Mauritania, close to Akjoujt and Tichitt; in Mali, in the Niger River area; and further into West Africa.
