Did the Romans know of the Canary Islands?

[JeffF]

Did the Phoenicians/Carthaginians know of these islands? They had colonies beyond Gibralter and it seems reasonable that they would have.

Did the Romans know of these islands and if so was there any trade or interaction?

[Jona Lendering]

Ptolemy seems to call the archipelago Paena (more).

[Epictetus]

Strabo may have known of them too:

And, too, the Islands of the Blest(5) lie to the westward of most western Maurusia,(6) that is, west of the region where the end of Maurusia runs close to that of Iberia. And their name shows that because those islands were near to blessed countries they too were thought to be blessed abodes.

5 Strabo has in mind the Canary Islands.

6 That is, Morocco, approximately.

[Medusa Gladiatrix]

As far as I know they knew the Canary Islands and supposedly a Roman ship sank between Lanzarote and La Graciosa. Unfortunately the Archaeological Museum on Lanzarote was closed when I had been there in 2008 so I couldn't check if the information in my travel guide was true that they have a few Roman artifacts.

[Swampster]

Pliny had the fullest description - it is that which gave them the name.

http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/lapalma/pliny.html