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In the 5th Century BCE, Sataspes, a nobleman from the court of Persian Emperor Xerxes I, was ordered to sail around the African continent. He crossed the Columns of Hercules, but returned without fulfilling his mission and was thus executed.
Sataspes was a Persian nobleman, and a member of the Imperial family: his mother Atossa was the sister of Emperor Darius I. His name means “hundred horses”.
During the reign of Emperor Xerxes I (486-465), Sataspes was sentenced to death for abducting and raping the daughter of the Persian general Megabyzus. However, his mother, who was the Emperor’s aunt, managed to convince Xerxes to spare Sataspes’ life. The Emperor then entrusted him a mission: like Pharaoh Necho II’s exploit over a century earlier, he was to sail all around Africa. If he failed, his death sentence would apply.
For his expedition, Sataspes recruited an Egyptian crew; at this time, Egypt was part of the Persian Empire. He crossed the Columns of Hercules (Gibraltar Straight), going in the opposite direction from Pharaoh Necho’s expedition.
However, Sataspes’ expedition did not go very far: after some time, he turned around and returned to the Columns of Hercules. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, at the farthest point he reached, he met “a race of small men, who were wearing robes of palm branches”. He probably didn’t even reach beyond the South of modern-day Morocco.
The failure of Sataspes’ expedition can be explained by the strong currents on the West African coast, which would have prevented him from going further.
On his return, Sataspes claimed that he could not accomplish his mission because his ship had stopped and would not sail further. The Emperor had him impaled.
