King João II was entranced by the legend of Prester John, a mysterious and probably apocryphal 12th-century leader of a nation of Christians somewhere in Africa whose kingdom included the Fountain of Youth. 595 B.C.) sent Phoenician sailors out from the Arabian Gulf to sail around the African continent. Dias was probably in his mid- to late-30s in 1486 when King João II appointed him to head an expedition in search of a sea route to India.ĭid you know? According to Greek historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. He likely had much more sailing experience than his one recorded stint aboard the warship São Cristóvão. Almost nothing is known about the life of Bartolomeu de Novaes Dias before 1487, except that he was at the court of João II, or King John II of Portugal (1455-1495), and was a superintendent of the royal warehouses.
