Cornelius Balbus expedition:[5] The first expedition done by Romans in the Sahara—according to Pliny—was the one of Cornelius Balbus, who in 19 BC probably reached the river Niger near Timbouctou. He moved from Libyan Sabratha and conquered with ten thousand legionaries the Garamantes capital in Fezzan and sent a small group of his legionaries further south across the Ahaggar mountains in order to explore the "land of the lions": they found a huge river (the Niger) that in their opinion was going toward the Nile river. Indeed in 1955, many Roman coins and some Latin ceramics were found in the area of Mali.