PYTHEAS OF MASSALIA
THE VOYAGE TO THULE
Among all the vague and fabulous ideas about the North that prevailed in
antiquity, the name of Pytheas stands out as the only one who gives us a
firmer foothold. By his extraordinary voyage (or voyages ?) this eminent
astronomer and geographer, of the Phocæan colony of Massalia (now
Marseilles), contributed a knowledge of the northern countries based upon
personal experience, and set his mark more or less upon all that was known
of the farthest north for the next thousand or fifteen hundred years. Even
though later writers like Polybius and Strabo declared themselves
unwilling to believe in his "incredible" statements, they could not
neglect him.[37]
Pytheas wrote at least one work, which, if we may believe Geminus of
Rhodes, was called "On the Ocean"; but all his writings have been lost for
ages, and we only know him through chance quotations in much later
authors (chiefly Strabo and Pliny) who have not even read his work
themselves, but quote at second hand; and several of them (especially
Polybius and Strabo) tried to represent him as an impostor and laid stress
upon what they thought would make him ridiculous and lessen his
reputation.[38] The scraps of information we possess about him and his
voyages have thus come down on the stream of time as chance wreckage,
partly distorted and perverted by hostile forces. It is too much to hope
that from such fragments we may be able to form a trustworthy idea of the
original work, but nevertheless from the little we know there arises a
figure which in strength, intelligence, and bold endurance far surpasses
the discoverers of most periods.
[Sidenote: Personal circumstances and date of the voyage]
Of Pytheas's personal circumstances we have no certain information, and we
do not even know when he lived. As he was unknown to Aristotle, but was
known to his pupil Dicæarchus (who died about 285 B.C.), he was probably a
contemporary of Aristotle and Alexander, and his voyage may have been
undertaken about 330-325 B.C. So little do we know about the voyage that
doubts have been raised as to whether it was really a sea-voyage, or
whether a great part of it did not lie overland. Nor do we know whether
Pytheas made one or several long journeys to the North. According to a
statement of Polybius, Pytheas was a poor man: for he finds it (according
to Strabo, ii. 104) "incredible that it should be possible for a private
individual without means to accomplish journeys of such wide extent." If
it be true that he was poor, which is uncertain, we must doubtless suppose
that Pytheas either had command of a public expedition, fitted out by the
merchants of the enterprising city of Massalia, or that he accompanied
such an expedition as an astronomer and explorer. At that time the city
was at the height of its prosperity, after it had expelled the
Carthaginians, as the result of the successful war with them, from the
rich fisheries of the Iberian coast, and had also succeeded in
establishing commercial relations there, whereby its ships were able to
sail out beyond the Pillars of Hercules; a thing which cannot have been so
easy for them during the former sea-supremacy of Carthage in the western
Mediterranean, which was re-established in 306 B.C., whereby the western
ocean again became more or less closed to the Massalians. It is very
probable that the flourishing city of Massalia desired to send out an
expedition to find the sea-route to the outer coasts of the continent,
from whence it was known that the two important articles of commerce, tin
and amber, were obtained. But it is evident that Pytheas had more than
this business motive for his journey. From all that we know it appears
that with him too the object was to reach the most northern point
possible, in order to find out how far the "œcumene" extended, to
determine the position of the Arctic Circle and the Pole, and to see the
light northern nights and the midnight sun, which to the Greeks of that
time was so remarkable a phenomenon.
[Sidenote: Astronomical measurements]
We know that Pytheas was an eminent astronomer. He was the first in
history to introduce astronomical measurements for ascertaining the
geographical situation of a place; and this by itself is enough to give
him a prominent position among the geographers of all times.
By means of a great gnomon he determined, with surprising accuracy, the
latitude of his own city, Massalia,[39] which formed the starting-point of
his journey, and in relation to which he laid down the latitude of more
northerly places.
[Illustration: Gnomon]
[Illustration: Sundial]
Pytheas also made other astronomical measurements which show him to have
been a remarkably good observer. He found that the pole of the heavens did
not coincide, as the earlier astronomer Eudoxus had supposed, with any
star; but that it made an almost regular rectangle with three stars lying
near it.[40] The pole of the heavens was naturally of consequence to
Pytheas, who steered by the stars; but it is nevertheless striking that he
should have considered it necessary to measure it with such accuracy, if
he had not some other object in doing so. He may have required the pole
for the adjustment of the equinoctial sun-dial ("polus"), whose pointers
had to be parallel with the axis of the heavens;[41] but it is also
possible that he had discovered that by measuring the altitude of the
pole above the horizon he obtained directly the latitude of the spot on
the earth, and that this was a simpler method of determining the latitude
than by measuring the altitude of the sun by a gnomon. Nor is it likely
that he possessed the requisite knowledge for calculating gnomon
measurements unless they were taken either at the solstice or the equinox.
To judge by quotations in various authors he must have given the latitude
of several places in numbers of parts of a circle north of Massalia.[42]
These results of his may perhaps be partly based on measurements of the
polar altitude. Whether Pytheas was acquainted with any instrument for the
measurement of angles we do not know; but it is not unlikely, since even
the Chaldeans appear to have invented a kind of parallactic rule, which
was improved upon by the Alexandrians, and was called by the Romans
"triquetrum" (regula Ptolemaica). The instrument resembled a large pair of
compasses with long straight rods for legs, and the angle was determined
by measuring, in measure of length, the distance between these two
legs.[43] As the pole of the heavens did not coincide with any star,
such measurements cannot have been very accurate, unless Pytheas took the
trouble to measure a circumpolar star in its upper and lower culmination;
or, indeed, in only one of them, for he may easily have found the distance
of the star from the pole by his earlier observations to determine the
position of the pole itself. It is also quite possible that by the aid of
the rectangle formed by the pole with three stars, he was able to obtain
an approximate measurement of the altitude of the pole. Another indication
used by the Greeks to obtain the latitude of a place was the length of its
longest day. To determine this Pytheas may have used the equinoctial dial
("polus"), or the water-clock, the "clepsydra" of the Greeks.
[Illustration: Greek trading-vessel and longship (warship), from a vase
painting (about 500 B.C.)]
[Sidenote: Pytheas's ship]
It is not known what kind of ship he had for his voyage; but if it was
equal to the best that Massalia at that time could afford, it may well
have been a good sea-craft. As it was necessary to be prepared for
hostilities on the part of the Carthaginians and Gaditanians, he doubtless
had a warship (longship), which sailed faster than the broader
merchantmen, and which could also be rowed by one or more banks of oars.
It may have been considerably over 100 feet long, and far larger than
those in which later the Norsemen crossed the Atlantic. It has been
asserted that Pytheas must have gone on foot for the greater part of his
journey, since, according to Strabo [ii. 104], he is said to have stated
"not only that he had visited the whole of Britain on foot, but he also
gives its circumference as more than 40,000 stadia." But, as Professor Alf
Torp has pointed out to me, it is not stated that he "traversed" it, but
"visited" it on foot. The meaning must be that he put in at many places on
the coast, and made longer or shorter excursions into the country. That a
man should be able to traverse such great distances alone on foot, through
the roadless and forest-clad countries of that period, seems impossible.
[Illustration: Pytheas's probable routes]
We do not know what previous knowledge Pytheas may have had about the
regions visited by him; but it is probable that he had heard of the tin
country through the merchants who brought the tin overland through Gaul
and down the Rhone to Massalia. In a similar way he had certainly also
heard of the amber country. Besides this, he may have been acquainted with
the trading voyages of the Phœnicians and Carthaginians along the west
coast of Europe, and with the voyage of Himilco. Although it is true that
the Phœnician sailors tried to keep the secret of their routes from
their dangerous rivals the Greeks and Massalians, they cannot have been
altogether successful in the long run, whether their intercourse was
hostile or friendly; a few sailor prisoners would have been enough to
bring the information.
[Sidenote: The voyage northward]
When Pytheas sailed out through the Pillars of Hercules he soon arrived,
in passing the Sacred Promontory (Cape St. Vincent), at the limit of the
world as known to the Greeks. He sailed northward along the west and north
coast of Iberia (Portugal and Spain). He made observations of the tides,
that remarkable phenomenon to a man from the Mediterranean, and their
cause, and was the first Greek to connect them with the moon. He proceeded
farther north, and found that the north-western part of Celtica (Gaul)
formed a peninsula, Cabæum (Brittany), where the Ostimians lived. He
supposed that it extended farther west than Cape Finisterre; but errors of
that sort are easily understood at a time when no means existed of
determining longitude.
[Sidenote: Britain]
Farther north he came to Brettanice (Britain), which he appears to have
circumnavigated. The Sicilian historian Diodorus, an elder contemporary of
Strabo, says [v. 21]: "Britain is triangular in form like Sicily; but the
sides are not of equal length; the nearest promontory is Kantion [Kent],
and according to what is reported it is 100 stadia distant (from the
continent). The second promontory is Belerion [Cornwall], which is said to
be four days' sail from the continent. The third lies towards the sea
[i.e., towards the north] and is called Orkan.[44] Of the three sides
the one which runs parallel to Europe is the shortest, 7500 stadia; the
second, which extends from the place of crossing [Kent] to the point
[i.e., Orkan], is 15,000 stadia; but the last is 20,000 stadia, so that
the circumference amounts to 42,500 stadia."
These statements must originally have been due to Pytheas, even though
Diodorus has taken them at second hand (perhaps from Timæus). But Pytheas
cannot very well have acquired such an idea of the shape of the island
without having sailed round it. It is true that the estimate attributed to
him of the island's circumference is more than double the reality,[45] a
discrepancy which is adduced by Strabo as a proof that Pytheas was a
liar;[46] but neither Strabo nor Diodorus was acquainted with his own
description, and there are many indications that the exaggeration cannot
be attributed to himself, but to a later writer, probably Timæus. Pytheas
in his work can only have stated how many days he took to sail along the
coasts, and his day's sail in those unknown waters was certainly a short
one. But the uncritical Timæus, who was moreover a historian and not a
geographer, may, according to the custom of his time, have converted
Pytheas's day's journeys into stadia at the usual equation of 1000 stadia
(about 100 geographical miles) for one day's sailing.[47] Timæus served to
a great extent as the authority for later authors who have mentioned
Pytheas, and it is probably through him that the erroneous information as
to the circumference of Britain reached Polybius, Strabo, Diodorus,
Pliny, and Solinus. In this way geographical explorers may easily have
gross errors attributed to them, when their original observations are
lost.
[Sidenote: Astronomical measurements in Britain]
From statements of Hipparchus, preserved by Strabo [ii. 71, 74, 75, 115,
125, 134], we may conclude that Pytheas obtained astronomical data at
various spots in Britain and Orkan. Hipparchus has made use of these in
his tables of climate, and he was able from them to point out that the
longest day in the most northern part of Britain was of eighteen
equinoctial hours,[48] and in an inhabited country, which according to
Pytheas lay farther north than Britain, the longest day was of nineteen
equinoctial hours. If the length of day is fixed in round numbers of
hours, a longest day of eighteen hours fits the northernmost part of
Scotland,[49] while the country still farther north with a longest day of
nineteen hours agrees exactly with Shetland.[50] These data are important,
as they show that Pytheas must have been in the most northerly parts of
the British Isles, and reached Shetland.[51]
[Sidenote: Thule]
But the bold and hardy explorer does not seem to have stopped here. He
continued his course northward over the ocean, and came to the uttermost
region, "Thule," which was the land of the midnight sun, "where the tropic
coincides with the Arctic Circle."[52]
On this section of Pytheas's voyage Geminus of Rhodes (1st century B.C.)
has an important quotation in his Astronomy [vi. 9]. After mentioning that
the days get longer the farther north one goes, he continues:
To these regions [i.e., to the north] the Massalian Pytheas seems also
to have come. He says at least in his treatise "On the Ocean": "the
Barbarians showed us the place where the sun goes to rest. For it was
the case that in these parts the nights were very short, in some
places two, in others three hours long, so that the sun rose again a
short time after it had set."
The name of Thule is not mentioned, but that must be the country in
question. It does not appear from this whether Pytheas himself thought
that the shortest night of the year was of two or three hours, or whether
that was the length of the night at the time he happened to be at these
places; but the first case is doubtless the more probable. At any rate
Geminus seems to have understood him thus, since in the passage
immediately preceding he is speaking of the regions where the longest day
is of seventeen or eighteen hours, and he goes on to speak of those where
the longest day is of twenty-three hours. If on the other hand it is the
length of the night at the time Pytheas was there that is meant, then it
seems strange that he should require to be shown by the barbarians where
the sun rose and set, which he could just as well have seen for himself;
for it is scarcely credible that after having journeyed so far his stay
should have been so brief that the sky was overcast the whole time.[53]
If the longest day of the year was determined by direct observations of
the points at which the sun first appeared and finally disappeared in
places with a free horizon to the north, then days of twenty-one and
twenty-two hours at that time will answer to 63° 39' and 64° 39' N. lat.
Calculated theoretically, from the centre of the sun and without taking
refraction into account, they will be 64° 32' and 65° 31' N. lat.
respectively.[54]
In addition to this there are two things to be remarked in the passage
quoted in Geminus. First, that the country spoken of by Pytheas was
inhabited (by barbarians). Secondly, that he himself must have been there
with his expedition, for he says that "the barbarians showed us," etc.
Consequently he cannot, as some writers think, have reported merely what
he had heard from others about this country (Thule). Statements in Strabo
also show clearly that Pytheas referred to Thule as inhabited.
Other pieces of information derived from Pytheas establish consistently
that Thule extended northwards as far as the Arctic Circle. Eratosthenes,
Strabo, Pomponius Mela, Pliny, Cleomedes, Solinus, and others, all have
statements which show clearly that Pytheas described Thule as the land of
the midnight sun.
If we now sum up what is known of Pytheas's voyage to the North, we shall
find that it all hangs well together: he first came to the north of
Scotland, where the longest day was of eighteen hours, thence to Shetland
with a longest day of nineteen hours, and then to a land beyond all,
Thule, where the longest day was in one place twenty-one hours and in
another twenty-two, and which extended northwards as far as the midnight
sun and the Arctic Circle (at that time in 66° 15' N. lat.). There is
nothing intrinsically impossible in the supposition that this remarkable
explorer, who besides being an eminent astronomer must have been a capable
seaman, had heard in the north of Scotland of an inhabited country still
farther to the north, and then wished to visit this also. We must remember
how, as an astronomer, he was specially interested in determining the
extent of the "œcumene" on the north, and in seeing with his own eyes
the remarkable phenomena of northern latitudes, in particular the midnight
sun. It is not surprising that he was prepared to risk much to attain this
end; and he had already shown by his voyage to the northernmost point of
Britain that he was an explorer of more than ordinary boldness, and equal
to the task.
Nevertheless it has seemed incredible to many--not only in antiquity, but
in our own time as well--that Pytheas should have penetrated not only so
far into the unknown as to the islands north of Scotland, but that he
should have ventured yet farther into the absolutely unexplored Northern
Ocean, and found an extreme country beyond this. He would thus have
pushed back the limit of the learned world's knowledge from the south
coast of Britain to the Arctic Circle, or about sixteen degrees farther
north. As a feat of such daring and endurance has appeared superhuman, a
great deal of ingenuity has been employed, especially by Müllenhoff [1870,
i., pp. 392 f.], to prove that Thule was Shetland, that Pytheas himself
did not get farther than the Orkneys or the north of Scotland, and that he
heard from the natives of the country still farther north, which he never
saw. But in order to do this almost all the statements that have been
preserved on this part of Pytheas's voyage must be arbitrarily distorted;
and to alter or explain away one's authorities so as to make them fit a
preconceived opinion is an unfortunate proceeding. Unless, like Polybius
and Strabo, we are willing to declare the whole to be a freely imaginative
work, which however is remarkably consistent, we must try to draw our
conclusions from the statements in the authorities as they stand, and in
that case it must for the following reasons be regarded as impossible that
Thule means Shetland:
[Sidenote: Thule is not Shetland]
(1) It is improbable that (as Müllenhoff asserts) so capable an astronomer
as Pytheas should have made a mistake of several hours when he gave the
length of the night as two or three hours. There is little intrinsic
probability in the conjecture that he had overcast weather all the time he
was in the north of Scotland and Orkney, and therefore relied on the
approximate statements of the natives, which he did not fully understand,
and which when translated into Greek measures of time might produce gross
errors. But it is worse when we look at it in connection with Hipparchus's
statements from Pytheas, that in Britain the longest day was of eighteen
hours, and nineteen hours in a region (i.e., Shetland) farther north,
where the sun at the winter solstice stood less than three cubits above
the horizon. Unless he has given the latter region a long extension to the
north, he must have made several conflicting statements about the same
region. It will be seen that this leads us to a violent and arbitrary
alteration of the whole system of information, which is otherwise
consistent.
(2) The assertion that Pytheas did not himself say that he had been in the
country where the night was two and three hours long, conflicts with the
words of Geminus. Cleomedes also tells us that Pytheas is said to have
been in Thule.
(3) The definite statements in a majority of the authorities that Thule
lay within the Arctic Circle and was the land of the midnight sun, also
exclude the Shetland Isles. The astronomer Pytheas cannot have been so far
mistaken as to the latitude of these islands.
(4) That it was six days' sail to Thule from Britain[55] will not suit
Shetland, even if we make allowance for the frequently obscure statements
as to the day's journeys that are attributed to Pytheas (e.g., by Strabo).
(5) That Strabo in one place [ii. 114] calls Thule "the northernmost of
the British Isles" cannot be used, as Müllenhoff uses it, as a proof of
its belonging to these islands and having a Celtic population. There is
not a word to this effect. To Strabo, who also placed Ierne (Ireland) out
in the sea north of Britain, it must have been natural to call all the
islands in that part of the world British. Indeed, he says himself in the
same breath that Thule, according to Pytheas, lay within the Arctic
Circle. How little weight he attached to the expression British is
additionally apparent from another passage [ii. 75], where he says that
"Hipparchus, relying on Pytheas, placed these inhabited regions [Shetland]
farther north than Britain."
(6) Pliny [Nat. Hist. iv. 104] mentions among islands north of Britain as
"the greatest of all, 'Berricen,' which is the starting-place for Thule."
Berricen, which in some MSS. is written "Nerigon," has been taken for
Mainland of Shetland,[56] while others have seen in the form Nerigon the
first appearance in literature of the name of Norway ("Noregr"),[57]
though with doubtful justification, since this name was hardly in
existence at that time. But whether the island be Shetland or Norway, this
passage in Pliny puts Thule outside the Scottish islands. And the
reference to that country makes it probable that the statements, in part
at any rate, are derived from Pytheas.
(7) Finally, it may perhaps be pointed out that Thule is nowhere referred
to as a group of islands; the name rather suggests the idea of a
continuous land or a single island. To this it may be objected that
neither is Orkan referred to as an archipelago in the oldest authorities;
but it is uncertain whether in Pytheas, as in Diodorus, Orkan was not used
of the northern point of Brettanice, and only later transferred to the
islands lying to the north of this. Thule, on the other hand, always
appears as a land far out in the ocean, and it is moreover uncertain
whether Pytheas ever expressly described it as an island.
[Sidenote: Thule is not Iceland]
But if none of the statements about Thule answers to Shetland, it becomes
a question where we are to look for this country.[58] The Irish monk
Dicuil, who wrote about 825 A.D., regarded it as self-evident that
Iceland, which had then been discovered by Irish monks, must be Thule, and
called it so. After him Adam of Bremen and many others have looked upon
Iceland as the Thule of the ancients. The objections to this hypothesis
are: first, that Thule was inhabited (cf. Geminus, Strabo, and others, see
pp. 54-55), while Iceland probably was not at that time. Even in Dicuil's
time only a few monks seem to have lived there (see below on the discovery
of Iceland). Nor is it likely that Pytheas should have continued his
voyage at haphazard across the ocean, unless he had heard that he would
find land in that direction. To this must be added that Iceland lies so
far away that the distance of six days' sail will not suit it at all.
Finally, if Pytheas had sailed northward at haphazard from Scotland or
from Shetland, the least likely thing to happen was for him to be carried
towards Iceland; neither the currents nor the prevailing winds bear in
that direction; but, on the other hand, they would carry him towards
Norway, and it would be natural for him to make the land there, perhaps
just between 63° and 64° N. lat. or thereabouts.
[Sidenote: Thule is Norway]
All the statements about Thule which have been preserved answer to
Norway,[59] but to no other country; and even if it may seem a bold idea
that there should be communication over the North Sea between the Scottish
islands and Norway 300 years before Christ, or 1000 years before the age
of the Vikings, we are compelled to accept it, if we are to rely upon our
authorities as they stand, without arbitrarily altering them; and Pytheas
will then be the first man in history to sail over the North Sea and
arrive on our coasts.[60]
That Thule, according to Strabo, lies six days' sail "north of" Brettanice
is no objection to its being Norway. "North of" can only mean "farther
north than," in the same way that Brittany and places in Britain are
described as being so many stadia north of Massalia. It also looks as
though Eratosthenes, according to the latitudes and distances which he has
taken from Pytheas, actually puts Thule to the north-east of Britain (see
his map, p. 49), or precisely where Norway lies. Besides, Pytheas had no
means of determining his course in overcast weather, or of fixing the
longitude, for which reasons he supposed, for instance, that Cabæum (the
extreme point of Brittany) lay farther west than Cape Finisterre.
That Thule is often referred to as an island by later authors is of little
weight. In the first place we do not know whether Pytheas himself so
described it; according to all the geographical ideas of the ancients
about the north a land in the ocean farther north than the British Isles
must necessarily have been an island, even if Pytheas did not say so. In
the next place, if a traveller sails northwards, as he did, from one
island to another, and then steers a course over the sea from Shetland and
arrives at a country still farther north, it would be unlikely that he
should believe himself back again on the continent. Besides, Pytheas made
another voyage eastwards along the north coast of Germany, past the mouth
of the Elbe, and then he had the sea always to the north of him in the
direction of his Thule. In order to discover that this land was connected
with the continent, he would have had to sail right up into the Gulf of
Bothnia. It would therefore have been illogical of Pytheas if he had not
conceived Thule as a great island, as in fact it was spoken of later. It
is mentioned indeed as the greatest of all islands. When the Romans first
heard of Sweden or Scandinavia (Skåne) in the Baltic, they likewise called
it an island, and so it was long thought to be.
According to what has been advanced above we must then believe that
Pytheas had already received information in northern Brettanice or in the
Scottish islands about Thule or Norway across the sea. But from this it
follows that in his time, or more than a thousand years before the
beginning of the Viking age, there must have been communication by sea
between North Britain and Norway. It may seem that this is putting back
the Norsemen's navigation of the high seas to a very remote period; but as
we shall see in a later chapter on the voyages of the Norsemen, there are
good reasons for thinking that their seafaring is of very ancient date.
Pytheas may have sailed from Shetland with a south-westerly wind and a
favourable current towards the north-east, and have arrived off the coast
of Norway in the Romsdal or Nordmöre district, where the longest day of
the year was of twenty-one hours, and where there is a free outlook over
the sea to the north, so that the barbarians may well have shown him where
the sun went to rest. From here he may then have sailed northwards along
the coast of Helgeland, perhaps far enough to enable him to see the
midnight sun, somewhere north of Dönna or Bodö; this depends upon how
early in the summer he reached there. On midsummer night he would have
been able to see a little of the midnight sun even at about 65-1/2° N.
lat.; or south of Vega.[61]
It is nowhere expressly stated that Pytheas himself saw the midnight sun;
but a passage in Pomponius Mela [iii. 6, 57] may perhaps point to this. He
says of Thule: "but at the summer solstice there is no night there, since
the sun then no longer shows merely a reflection, but also the greater
part of itself." It is most reasonable to suppose that this statement is
due to actual observation; for if it were only a theoretical conclusion it
seems extraordinary that he should not rather mention that the whole of
the sun is above the horizon in northern regions, which was clearly enough
grasped long before his time (cf. for instance Geminus of Rhodes). Now it
may, of course, be thought that such an observation was made by people who
came from northernmost Europe later than Pytheas's time and before Mela
wrote; but so long as we do not know of any such authority it is doubtless
more reasonable to suppose that like so many other pieces of information
it is derived from Pytheas.
[Sidenote: The inhabitants of the northern regions]
Strabo has a statement about what Pytheas said of the peoples of the
northernmost regions. In a special section wherein he is speaking of
Thule, and, as usual, trying to cast suspicion on Pytheas's veracity, he
says:
"Yet as far as celestial phenomena and mathematical calculations are
concerned, he seems to have handled these subjects fairly well. [Thus
he says not inappropriately that] in the regions near the cold zone
the finer fruits are lacking and there are few animals, and that the
people live on millet [i.e., oats] and other things, especially green
vegetables, wild fruits and roots; but among those that have corn and
honey they make a drink thereof. But because they have no clear
sunshine they thresh the corn in large buildings after the ears have
been brought thither; for it becomes spoilt on the open
threshing-floors by reason of the want of sunshine and the heavy
showers."
As Diodorus [v. 21] says something similar about the harvest in Britain,
it seems possible that Strabo is here thinking rather of what Pytheas had
said in a more general way about the peoples near the cold regions, than
of his observations on the actual inhabitants of Thule, though, as already
remarked, the passage occurs in a section devoted to the latter. The
mention of honey may strengthen this view; for even though bee-keeping is
now practised in Norway as far north as Hedemarken, and also on the west
coast, it is doubtful whether such was the case at that time, though it is
not impossible. That wild honey is alluded to, or honey imported from
abroad, is improbable.
In the MSS. of Solinus there is a statement about the people of Thule
which will be referred to later. Even if the passage were genuine it could
hardly, as some have thought, be derived from Pytheas; in any case it does
not agree with what he is said by Strabo to have related of the people of
the North. In particular it may be pointed out that while the inhabitants
of Thule according to the Solinus MSS. lived principally as herdsmen, and
are not spoken of as agriculturists, Strabo says nothing about cattle, but
on the contrary calls them tillers of the soil. In both accounts they also
live on herbs and wild fruits; but, in spite of that, these two passages
cannot be derived from the same description. It is true that Strabo was
not acquainted with Pytheas's original work, in which other northern
peoples may have been referred to; but this is not very likely.
[Sidenote: Length of the voyage]
Most writers have thought that Pytheas completed his voyage in
comparatively few months, and that he was only some few days in Thule;
while others have considered that he spent many years over it.[62] There
is no cogent reason for assuming this. As regards the first hypothesis, it
is by no means impossible that he should have sailed from Spain to
Helgeland in Norway and back again in one summer. But as the greater part
of the voyage lay through unknown regions, and as he frequently stopped to
investigate the country and the people, he cannot have proceeded very
rapidly. To this must probably be added that he often had to barter with
the natives to obtain the necessary provisions, since he certainly cannot
have carried stores for so long a time. It therefore seems doubtful
whether he was ready to return the same summer or autumn, and it is more
reasonable to suppose that he wintered at some place on the way.
Whether it be Thule or Britain that is referred to in the passage quoted
above from Strabo, it seems to imply that he was in one of these countries
at the harvest, and saw there the gathering in of the corn; but, of
course, there is also the possibility that the people may have told him
about it (through interpreters): and more than that we can scarcely say.
It might be objected that if Pytheas had spent a winter in Norway it is
probable that he would have furnished many details, remarkable at that
time, about the northern winter, of which we hear nothing in any of our
authors. But it must always be remembered how utterly casual and defective
are the quotations from him which have been preserved, and how little we
know of what he really related.
[Sidenote: The sea beyond Thule]
Pytheas also furnished information about the sea on the other side of
Thule. This may be concluded from the following passages in particular:
Strabo says [i. 63]: "Thule, which Pytheas says lies six days' sail north
of Brettanice, and is near to the congealed sea (πεπηγοια θαλαττα, i.e.,
the Polar Sea)."
Pliny [iv. 16 (30)]: "After one day's sail from Thule the frozen sea
('mare concretum') is reached, called by some 'Cronium.'"[63]
Solinus [22, 11]: "Beyond[64] Thule we meet with the sluggish and
congealed sea ('pigrum et concretum mare')."
Finally we have a well-known passage in Strabo [ii. 104] which says that
Pytheas asserted that in addition to having visited the whole of Britain
...
"He had also undertaken investigations concerning Thule and those
regions, in which there was no longer any distinction of land or sea
or air, but a mixture of the three like sea-lung, in which he says
that land and sea and everything floats, and this [i.e., the mixture]
binds all together, and can neither be traversed on foot nor by boat.
The substance resembling lung he has seen himself, as he says; the
rest he relates according to what he has heard. This is Pytheas's
tale, and he adds that when he returned here, he visited the whole
ocean coast of Europe from Gadeira to Tanais."
This much-disputed description of the sea beyond Thule has first passed
through Polybius, who did not believe in Pytheas and tried to throw
ridicule upon him. Whether Polybius obtained it directly, or at second
hand through some older writer, we do not know. From him it came down to
Strabo, who had as little belief in it, and was, moreover, liable to
misunderstand and to be hasty in his quotations. The passage is evidently
torn from its context and has been much abbreviated in order to accentuate
its improbability. It is, therefore, impossible to decide what Pytheas
himself said. As it has come down to us the passage is extremely obscure,
and it does not even appear clearly how much Pytheas asserted that he had
himself seen, and how much he had heard; whether he had only heard of the
stiffened and congealed sea (the Polar Sea), while he had really seen the
condition that he compared to a lung. As to the meaning of this word there
have been many and very different guesses. Some have thought that a common
jelly-fish may have been called a sea-lung in the Mediterranean countries
at that time, in analogy to its German designation, "Meerlunge." It may
also be thought that Pytheas merely wished to describe a spongy, soft
mass, like an ordinary lung.[65] In both cases the description may mean a
gelatinous or pulpy mass, and what Pytheas himself saw may have been the
ice sludge in the sea which is formed over a great extent along the edge
of the drift ice, when this has been ground to a pulp by the action of
waves. The expression "can neither be traversed on foot nor by boat" is
exactly applicable to this ice-sludge. If we add to this the thick fog,
which is often found near drift ice, then the description that the air is
also involved in the mixture, and that land and sea and everything is
merged in it, will appear very graphic. But that Pytheas should have been
far enough out in the sea north of Norway to have met with drift ice is
scarcely credible.[66] If, on the other hand, he wintered in Norway, he
may well have seen something similar on a small scale. Along the Norwegian
coast, in the Skagerak, there may be ice and ice-sludge enough in the late
winter, and in the fjords as well; but in that case it is probable that he
would also have seen solid ice in the fjords, and would have been able to
give a clearer description of the whole, which would have left no room for
such misunderstandings on the part of Polybius and Strabo. It may also
appear unlikely that Pytheas should not have known ice before; he must,
one would think, have seen it on pools of water in the winter even in
Massalia, and from the Black Sea ice was, of course, well known to the
Greeks. But then it is strange that he should have given such an obscure
description of such a condition, and have said that the land was also
involved in the mixture; unless we are to regard the whole passage as
figurative, in which case the word land may be taken as an expression for
the solid as opposed to the liquid form (the sea) and the gaseous (the
air).
It appears most probable that Pytheas himself never saw the Polar Sea, but
heard something about it from the natives,[67] and his description of the
outer ocean has then been coloured by older Greek, or even Phœnician,
ideas.[68] It may suggest the old conception, which we find even in Homer,
that at the extreme limits of the world heaven, earth, ocean, and Tartarus
meet. To this may possibly have been added Platonic ideas of an
amalgamation of the elements, earth, sea, and air; and this may have led
to a general supposition that in the outer ocean everything was merged in
a primeval chaos which was neither solid, liquid, nor gaseous. It is
further legitimate to suppose that Pytheas in the course of his voyage in
northern waters may have thought in some way or other that he had found
indications of such a state of things as pointed out by Kähler [1903], for
example, when he arrived at the flat coasts of Holland and North Germany
(die Wattenzone), where the sea at high water pours in over the swampy
land through a network of innumerable channels, which might suggest the
idea of a lung, and where the peat bogs are sometimes impossible to
traverse, being neither land nor sea. If Pytheas said that this was like a
lung, he can only have used the word as a figure of speech, for it is
incredible that he should have really regarded this as the lung of the
sea, whose breathing was the ebb and flood, as he had discovered the
connection between the tides and the moon.
Other interpretations are also possible; but as we do not know what
Pytheas really said, a true solution of the riddle is unattainable, and it
is vain to speculate further upon it. In any case one thing is certain:
his description of the outer ocean gave rise to an idea in the minds of
others that it was sluggish and stiffened, or congealed, a conception
which is current with most later authors who have written on it, far down
into the Middle Ages. It is the same idea which we recognise as the
congealed ("geliberôt") sea in the "Meregarto" and under the name of
"Lebermeer" in German mediæval poetry, "la mar betée" in French, and "la
mar betada" in Provençal poetry. Seafaring peoples between the Red and the
Yellow Seas have similar tales,[69] but whether they are due to Greek
influence or the reverse is not easy to decide.
[Sidenote: The voyage along the coast of Germany]
Since Pytheas, as mentioned above, was probably acquainted with both the
east and west coasts of Britain, we must assume either that on his way
back from Norway he sailed southwards along the side which he had not seen
on his voyage northwards, or else that he made more than one voyage to
Britain. From Strabo (see above, p. 66) we know that Pytheas also asserted
that he had visited "the whole ocean coast of Europe from Gadeira to
Tanais," and that he had furnished information "about the Ostiæi[70] and
the countries beyond the Rhine as far as the Scythians," all of which
Strabo looks upon as imaginary. As Thule is never alluded to as lying
north of these regions, but always as north of Britain, we cannot believe
that he went straight from Norway south or south-eastwards to Jutland or
the north coast of Germany. The meaning of Strabo's words must be that he
claimed to have sailed along the west and north-west coast of Europe
(which looks towards the ocean) as far as the borders of Asia, since
Tanais (the Don) was generally used as defining the frontier of the two
continents.
We do not know when Pytheas undertook this voyage; but the passage quoted
from Strabo [ii. 104] points to some time after the journey to Thule.
There is no sufficient reason for believing that it was all accomplished
at one time, or even in one year, as some will have it. It is more
probable that a discoverer and explorer like Pytheas made several voyages,
according as he had opportunity; and the rich commercial city of Massalia
was greatly interested in the communications with the tin and amber
countries, and in hearing about them.
[Sidenote: Abalus and Balcia]
On his voyage along the coast beyond the Rhine, Pytheas must have come to
an island where there was amber, for according to Pliny [Nat. Hist.,
xxxvii. 2, 11]: "Pytheas relates that the 'Gutones,' a Germanic people,
dwelt on a bay of the sea ('æstuarium') called 'Metuonidis,'[71] the
extent of which was 6000 stadia. From thence it was one day's sail to the
island of 'Abalus.' Here in the spring the waves cast up amber, which is
washed out of the congealed sea ['mare concretum,' the Polar Sea]. The
natives use it instead of wood for fire, and sell it to the neighbouring
Teutons. This was also believed by Timæus, but he calls the island
'Basilia.'"
It is possible that this island, Abalus, is the same as the amber island
mentioned in another passage of Pliny [iv. 13, 27], where he says of the
Scythian coast that there are reports of "many islands without a name, and
Timæus relates that among them is one off Scythia, a day's sail away,
which is called 'Baunonia,' and on which the waves cast up amber in the
springtime." In any case they are both mentioned in very similar terms
[cf. Hergt, 1893, pp. 31 f.]. In the same place we read that "Xenophon, of
Lampsacus [about 100 B.C.], mentions that three days' sail from the
Scythian coast there is an island called 'Balcia,' of immense size.
Pythias calls it 'Basilia.'" This conflicts with the passage quoted above
from Pliny, and here there must be a misunderstanding or confusion of some
kind, either on the part of Pliny or of his authority. A possible
explanation may be that Pytheas referred to his island of Abalus as a
βασιλεια νησος, i.e., an island with a king [cf. Detlefsen, 1904, p. 18].
This would agree with the statement of Diodorus Siculus (1st century B.C.)
[v. 23], which he gives without quoting any authority: "Just opposite
Scythia, above Galatia [Gaul], an island lies in the ocean called
'Basilia'; upon it amber is cast up by the waves, which is otherwise not
found in any place on the earth." It is probable that this is taken from
Timæus and originally derived from Pytheas, and that the island is the
same as Abalus. It is to be noticed that in Pytheas's time the name
Germania was not yet used; northern Europe, east of the Rhine, was counted
as Scythia, whereas the name Germania was well known in the time of
Diodorus.
Pytheas may also have heard of, or visited, a country or a large island
(Jutland ?), which lay three days' sail from the coast he was sailing
along, and he may likewise have referred to it as a king's island
(βασιλεια). Timæus, or others, may have taken this for a name, both for
Abalus and for this larger and more distant island, which has later been
assumed to be the same as Balcia, a name that may be derived either from
Pytheas or from some later writer.
As the Gutones resemble the Gytoni (Goths) of Tacitus, who lived on the
Vistula, and as further Basilia and Balcia were the same country, the name
of which was connected with that of the Baltic Sea, and as this country
was identified with the south of Sweden, it was thought that Pytheas must
have been in the amber country on the south coast of the Baltic, and even
in Skåne. This view may appear to be supported by the fact that Strabo
says he lied about the "Ostiæi," who might then be the Esthonians. But as
already remarked this word may be an error for "Ostimians"; and Gutones
may further be an error for Teutones, since a carelessly written Τευ may
easily be read as Γου [cf. Hergt, 1893, p. 33], and immediately afterwards
it is stated that the Teutones (not Gutones) lived near Abalus. Whether
Pytheas really mentioned "Balcia" or "Baltia" is, as already remarked,
extremely doubtful; but even if he did so, and even if it lay in the
Baltic, it is not certain that he was there, and he may only have been
told about it. We need not therefore believe that he went farther than the
coast of the North Sea. "Abalus" may have been Heligoland [cf. Hergt], or
perhaps rather one of the islands of Sleswick,[72] where beach-washed
amber is common, as along the whole west coast of Jutland. The statement
that the natives used amber as fuel is a misunderstanding, which may be
due to a discovery of Pytheas that amber was combustible. If he had really
sailed past the Skaw and through the Belts into the Baltic, it is unlikely
that he should only have mentioned one amber island Abalus, and another
immense island farther off. We should expect him to have changed the ideas
of his time about these regions to a greater extent than this. It is true
that he might have travelled overland to the south coast of the Baltic;
but neither is this very probable. It must nevertheless be borne in mind,
as will be pointed out later, that until Strabo's time no other voyages in
these regions were known in literature, and it is, therefore, possible
that much of what we find in Mela and Pliny on the subject was originally
derived from Pytheas. If we did not possess this one chance passage in
Pliny about Abalus and the amber, we should not know that Pytheas had said
anything about it. But of how much more are we ignorant for want of
similar casual quotations?
[Sidenote: Importance of Pytheas]
Little as we know of Pytheas himself, he yet appears to us as one of the
most capable and undaunted explorers the world has seen. Besides being the
first, of whom we have certain record, to sail along the coasts of
northern Gaul and Germany, he was the discoverer of Great Britain, of the
Scottish isles and Shetland, and last, but not least, of Thule or Norway,
as far north as to the Arctic Circle. No other single traveller known to
history has made such far-reaching and important discoveries.
But Pytheas was too far in advance of his time; his description of the new
lands in the North was so pronouncedly antagonistic to current ideas that
it won little acceptance throughout the whole succeeding period of
antiquity. His younger contemporary, Dicæarchus, doubted him, and Polybius
and Strabo, who came two hundred and three hundred years later,
endeavoured, as we have seen, to throw suspicion upon Pytheas and to stamp
him as an impostor. The two eminent geographers and astronomers,
Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, seem to have valued him more according to his
deserts. Polybius's desire to lessen the fame of Pytheas may perhaps be
explained by the fact that the former, a friend of Scipio, had taken part
in many Roman campaigns, and claimed to be more widely travelled than any
other geographer. But as his farthest north was the south of Gaul, he did
not like the idea that an earlier traveller, who enjoyed great renown,
should have penetrated so much farther into regions which were entirely
unknown to himself. Men are not always above such littleness.
[Illustration: The World according to Strabo (K. Kretschmer, 1892)]