You may remember Mago Bill as the name of some of my earlier blogs. Well, now in my dotage, I am beginning the resurrection of one or those Mago blogs. You may remember that I believed that the given name of my paternal great grandfather was Mago William. While that Mago may have been called Will, he may never been called Bill, but it makes me smile to do so.
My, somewhat imaginary, Mago Bill has inspired my interest in history and supported my political vision.
Thoughts of Bill, Mago Bill, lead me to the following. The Phoenicians had certainly heard of Atlantis, but that fabled land had been lost for thousands of years before these Phoenicians posted themselves near the Pillars of Hercules. Those pillars may have been called the Pillars of Atlas, or even the gates of Atlas. They certainly guarded the way to the great Atlantic Sea and to the isle beyond the Western Isle.
The paragraph above led me to thoughts of many stories, but I will stick to my notes on those who knew the name “Mago” well.
They were a knowledgeable people whom we might now begin to call Carthaginians. They knew much of trade and navigation. They also knew of mining, metallurgy, the writing of languages, and of defense and attack on land and sea. They were seamen. They that the islands not too far beyond the Pillars not only contained gold, silver, lead, and tin, but also contained men who knew about mining and metal working. They may have known about the little people who could follow the veins of metal deep into the earth. Those Carthaginians knew that men all around their smaller sea valued tin for making their bronze.
The name and perhaps title of Mago was well known among those Carthaginian Phoenicians. I have found the use of title among them as early as 750 BC. You may find that it was used much earlier. I do find strong evidence that they were carrying on trade with the Western Isles from 500 BC to 400 BC.
The Magonids were a political dynasty of Carthage room about 550 BC to 340 BC. The dynasty began with Mago I, under whom Cartage became prominent among the Phoenician colonies in the western Mediterranean. Under the Magonids the Carthaginian Empire expanded to include Spain, Sardinia, Libya, and Sicily. Diodorus and Herodotus often better tell us of the doings and happenings of the Magonids more honestly than do the Romans.
There was a Mago II and then a Mago III who led the Carthaginians. There also seems to have been A Mago who commanded, or navigated for the trading fleet which connected the Western Isles to the Mediterranean. You may know, or have guessed, that the isle beyond the western Isle is the island nation we call Ireland.
It might have been Mago, that knowledgeable ship-master, who so impressed a Sheehan as to name his, or her, son Mago. My great, great grandfather later called his son Mago William. That is a source of my inspiration to call a blog of mine “Mago Bill.”
I am inspired to post more on Mago and Mago Bill.
Thank you for reading this short which I hope you have found pithy. Would you enjoy a longer piece. What would you like to read more about?
RCS