ANTIQUITY, AFTER PYTHEAS
There was a long interval after the time of Pytheas before the world's
knowledge of the North was again added to, so far as we can judge from the
literature that has come down to us. The mist in which for a moment he
showed a ray of light settled down again. That no other known traveller
can have penetrated into these northern regions during the next two or
three centuries appears from the unwillingness of Polybius and Strabo to
believe in Pytheas, and from the fact that Strabo pronounces him a liar
[i. 63], because "all who have seen Britain and Ierne say nothing about
Thule, though they mention other small islands near Britain"; furthermore,
he says expressly [vii. 294] that "the region along the ocean beyond Albis
[the Elbe] is entirely unknown to us. For neither do we know of any one
among the ancients who made this voyage along the coast in the eastern
regions to the opening of the Caspian Sea, nor have the Romans ever
penetrated into the countries beyond Albis, nor has any one yet traversed
them by land." If any other traveller had been currently mentioned in
literature it is incredible that the well-read Strabo should not have
known it. He therefore ascribed all that he found about these regions to
Pytheas.
There are nevertheless indications that the Greeks had commercial
relations with the coasts of the Baltic and North Sea, and fresh obscure
statements, which may be derived from such a connection, appear later in
Pliny, and to some extent also in Mela. It may be supposed that
enterprising Greek traders and seamen, enticed by Pytheas's accounts of
the amber country, attempted to follow in his track, and succeeded in
reaching the land of promise whence this costly commodity came. And if
they had once found out the way, they would certainly not have
relinquished it except upon compulsion. But it must be remembered that the
voyage was long, and that they had first to pass through the western
Mediterranean and the Pillars of Hercules, where the Carthaginians had
regained their power and obtained the command of the sea. The overland
route was easier and safer; it ran through the country of tribes which in
those distant times may have been comparatively peaceful. The trade
communication between the Black Sea and the Baltic countries seems, as
mentioned above, to have developed early, and it may be thought that the
active Greek traders would try it in order to reach a district where so
much profit was to be expected; but no certain indication of this
communication can be produced from any older author of note after
Pytheas's time, so far as we know them, and even so late an author as
Ptolemy has little to tell us of the regions east of the Vistula.
[Sidenote: Eratosthenes, c. 200 B.C.]
The founder of scientific geography, Eratosthenes (275-circa 194
B.C.),[73] librarian of the Museum of Alexandria, based what he says of
the North chiefly on Pytheas. He divided the surface of the earth into
climates (zones) and constructed the first map of the world, whereon an
attempt was made to fix the position of the various places by lines of
latitude and meridians. He started with seven known points, along the old
meridian of Rhodes. They were: Thule, the Borysthenes, the Hellespont,
Rhodes, Alexandria, Syene, and Meroe. Through these points he laid down
lines of latitude (see the map). He also made an attempt to calculate the
circumference of the globe by measurement, and found it 250,000 stadia (==
25,000 geographical miles), which is 34,000 stadia (== 3400 geographical
miles) too much. He placed the island of Thule under the Arctic
Circle,[74] far out in the sea to the north of Brettanice. This was to him
the uttermost land and the northern limit of the "œcumene," which he
calculated to be 38,000 stadia (== 3800 geographical miles) broad,[75]
which according to his measurement of the circumference of the earth is
about 54° 17', since each of his degrees of latitude will be about 700
stadia. His "œcumene" thus extended from the latitude of the Cinnamon
Coast (Somaliland) and Taprobane (Ceylon), 8800 stadia north of the
equator, to the Arctic Circle. South of it was uninhabitable on account of
the heat, and north of it all was frozen.
Eratosthenes was especially an advocate of the island-form of the
"œcumene," and thought that it was entirely surrounded by the ocean, which
had been encountered in every quarter where the utmost limits of the world
had been reached. By a perversion of the journey of Patrocles to a voyage
round India and the east coast of the continent into the Caspian Sea, he
again represented the latter as an open bay of the northern ocean, in
spite of the fact that Herodotus, and also Aristotle, had asserted that it
was closed. The view that the Caspian Sea was a bay remained current until
the time of Ptolemy. Eratosthenes also held that the occurrence of tides
on all the outer coasts was a proof of the continuity of the ocean. He
said that "if the great extent of the Atlantic Ocean did not make it
impossible, we should be able to make the voyage from Iberia to India
along the same latitude." This was 1700 years before Columbus.
[Illustration: Reconstruction of Eratosthenes' map of the world (K.
Miller, 1898)]
With the scientific investigator's lack of respect for authorities, he had
the audacity to doubt Homer's geographical knowledge, and gave offence to
many by saying that people would never discover where the islands of
Æolus, Circe, and Calypso, described in the Odyssey, really were, until
they had found the tailor who had made the bag of the winds for Æolus.
[Sidenote: Hipparchus, 190-125 B.C.]
Hipparchus (circa 190-125 B.C.) also relies upon Pytheas, and has nothing
new to tell us of the northern regions. Against Eratosthenes' proof of the
continuity of the ocean, to which allusion has just been made, he objected
that the tides are by no means uniform on all coasts, and in support of
this assertion he referred to the Babylonian Seleucus.[76] But it is not
clear whether Hipparchus was an opponent of the doctrine of the
island-form of the "œcumene," as has been generally supposed; probably he
merely wished to point out that the evidence adduced by Eratosthenes was
insufficient. Hipparchus calculated a continuous table of latitude, or
climate-table, for the various known localities, as far north as Thule. He
introduced the division into degrees. It is also probable that he was the
first to use a kind of map-projection with the aid of converging
meridians, which he drew in straight lines; but as he was more an
astronomer than a geographer it is unlikely that he constructed any
complete map of the world.
[Illustration: Terrestrial globe, according to Crates of Mallus (K.
Kretschmer)]
[Sidenote: Polybius, 204-127 B.C.]
Polybius (circa 204-127 B.C.), as we have seen, pronounced against the
trustworthiness of Pytheas, and declared that all the country north of
Narbo, the Alps, and the Tanais was unknown. Like Herodotus, he left the
question open whether there was a continuous ocean on the north side; but
he appears to have inclined to the old notion of the "œcumene" as
circular.
[Sidenote: Crates of Mallus, 150 B.C.]
The Stoic and grammarian Crates of Mallus (about 150 B.C.), who was not a
geographer, constructed the first terrestrial globe, in which he made the
Atlantic Ocean extend like a belt round the world through both the poles,
and with the Stoic's worship of Homer he thought he could follow in this
ocean Odysseus's voyage to the regions of the Læstrygons' long day and
the Cimmerians' polar night. Since the school of the Stoics considered it
necessary that there should be ocean in the torrid zone, so that the sun
might easily keep up its warmth by the aid of vapours from the sea--for
warmth was supported by moisture--Crates placed a belt of ocean round the
earth between the tropics, which formed the limits of the sun's path.
These two belts of water left four masses of land of which only one was
known to men.
[Sidenote: Posidonius, 135-51 B.C.]
The physical geographer Posidonius of Apamea in Syria (135-51 B.C.), who
lived for a long time at Rhodes, took the Rhipæan Mountains for the Alps,
and speaks of the Hyperboreans to the north of them. He thought that the
Ocean surrounded the "œcumene" continuously:
"for its waves were not confined by any fetters of land, but it
stretched to infinity and nothing made its waters turbid."
A ship sailing with an east wind from the Pillars of Hercules must reach
India after traversing 70,000 stadia, which he thought was the
half-circumference of the earth along the latitude of Rhodes. The greatest
circumference he calculated at 180,000 stadia. These erroneous
calculations were adopted by Ptolemy, and were afterwards of great
significance to Columbus.
He made a journey as far as Gadir in order to see the outer Ocean for
himself, to measure the tides and to examine the correctness of the
generally accepted idea that the sun, on its setting in the western ocean,
gave out a hissing sound like a red-hot body being dipped into water. He
rightly connected the tides with the moon, finding that their monthly
period corresponded with the full moon; whereas others had thought, for
instance, that they were due to changes in the rivers of Gaul.
[Sidenote: Cæsar, 55-45 B.C.]
Cæsar's Gallic War and his invasion of Britain (55-45 B.C.) contributed
fresh information about these portions of Western Europe; but it cannot be
seen that they gave anything new about the North. Cæsar describes Britain
as a triangle. This is undoubtedly the same idea that we find in his
contemporary Diodorus Siculus, and is derived from Pytheas. Cæsar merely
gives different proportions between the sides from those of Diodorus. He
puts Hibernia to the west of Britain, not to the north like Strabo, and
makes its size about two-thirds of the latter, from which it is separated
by a strait of about the same breadth as that between Gaul and Britain.
Between Ireland (Hibernia) and Britain is an island, "Mona" (Anglesey),
and scattered about it many other islands. In some of them there was said
to be a month of unbroken night at the winter solstice; but of this Cæsar
was unable to obtain certain information. This must be an echo of the
tales about Thule, which he had got from older Greek or Roman authors.
Cæsar is a good example of the Romans' views of and sense for geography.
In spite of this military nation having extended their empire to the
bounds of the unknown in every direction, they never produced a scientific
geographer, nor did they send out anything that we should call a voyage of
exploration, as the Phœnicians, Carthaginians, and Greeks had done. They
were above all a practical people, with more sense for organisation than
for research and science, and in addition they lacked commercial interests
as compared with those other peoples. But during their long campaigns
under the Empire, and by their extensive communications with the most
distant regions, they brought together an abundance of geographical
information hitherto unknown to the classical world. It is natural that it
should have been a Greek who, in one of the most important geographical
works that have come down to us from ancient times, endeavoured to collect
a part of this information, together with the knowledge already acquired
by the Greeks, into a systematic statement.
[Sidenote: Strabo, Christian era]
This man was the famous geographer Strabo, a native of Asia Minor (about
63 B.C.-25 A.D.). But unfortunately this critic has nothing to tell us
about the North, and in his anxiety to avoid exaggeration he has, like
Polybius, been at great pains to discredit Pytheas, of whose statements he
will take no account; nor has he made use of the knowledge of the
northernmost regions which we see, from Pliny among others, that other
Greek authors possessed. He has not even made use of the geographical
knowledge which was gained in his own time during the Roman campaign in
Northern Germania under Augustus, if indeed he knew of it. To him the
Ister (Danube), the mountainous districts of the Hercynian Forest, and the
country as far as the Tyregetæ formed, roughly, the northern boundary of
the known world. He thinks it is only ignorance of the more distant
regions that has made people believe the fables "of the Rhipæan Mountains
and the Hyperboreans, as well as all that Pytheas of Massalia has invented
about the coast of the ocean, making use of his astronomical and
mathematical knowledge as a cloak." "Ierne" (Ireland) was placed by Strabo
out in the ocean to the north of Britain. He took it for the most northern
land, and thought that its latitude (which would have to be about 54° N.)
formed the boundary of the "œcumene."
"For," he says [ii. 115], "living writers tell us of nothing beyond
Ierne, which lies near to Britain on the north, and is inhabited by
savages who live miserably on account of the cold." He says further
[iv. 201] of this island at the end of the world: "of this we have
nothing certain to relate, except that its inhabitants are even more
savage than the Britons, as they are both cannibals and omnivorous [or
grass-eaters ?], and consider it commendable to devour their deceased
parents,[77] as well as openly to have commerce not only with other
women, but also with their own mothers and sisters. But this we relate
perhaps without sufficient authority; although cannibalism at least is
said to be a Scythian custom, and the Celts, the Iberians, and other
peoples are reported to have practised it under the stress of a
siege."
Strabo evidently attributes to a cold climate a remarkable capacity for
brutalising people, and he considers that the reports of the still more
distant Thule must be even more uncertain.
The breadth of the "œcumene," from north to south, he made only 30,000
stadia, and thought that Eratosthenes, deceived by the fables of Pytheas,
had put the limit 8000 stadia (== 11° 26') too far north. Of the countries
beyond the Albis (Elbe), he says, nothing is known. Nevertheless he
mentions the Cimbri as dwelling on a peninsula by the northern ocean; but
he has no very clear idea of where this peninsula is.
No one can believe, he thinks [vii. 292], that the reason for their
wandering and piratical life was that they were driven out of their
peninsula [which must be Jutland] by a great inundation, for they
still have the same country as before, and it is ridiculous to suppose
that they left it in anger at a natural and constant phenomenon, which
occurs twice daily [i.e., the tides], etc. But it appears from
Strabo's statements that there had been many reports of a great
storm-flood in Denmark, which the Cimbri escaped from with difficulty.
Of the customs of these people Strabo relates among other things that
they were accompanied on their expeditions by priestesses with gray
hair, white clothes, and bare feet. "They went with drawn swords to
meet the captives in the camp, crowned them with garlands and led them
to a sacrificial vessel of metal, holding twenty amphoræ [Roman cubic
feet]. Here they had a ladder, upon which one of them mounted and,
bent over the vessel, they cut the throat of the prisoner, who was
held up. They made auguries from the blood running into the vessel;
while others opened the corpse and inspected the entrails, prophesying
victory for their army. And in battle they beat skins stretched upon
the wicker-work of their chariots, making a hideous noise." This is
one of the first descriptions of the customs of the warrior-hordes
roving about Europe, who came in contact with the classical world from
the unknown north, and who in later centuries were to come more
frequently. But the description is certainly influenced by Greek
ideas.
Strabo thought that besides the world known to the Greeks and Romans,
other continents or worlds, where other races of men dwelt, might be
discovered.
[Sidenote: Albinovanus Pedo]
In a work called "Suasoriæ" (circa 37 A.D.) of the Spanish-born
rhetorician Seneca there are preserved fragments of a poem, written by
Albinovanus Pedo (in the time of Augustus), which described an expedition
of Germanicus in the North Sea. It has been thought that this may have
been the younger Germanicus's unfortunate campaign in 16 A.D., when he
sailed out from the Ems with a fleet of a thousand ships. This supposition
is strengthened by the fact that Tacitus mentions a cavalry leader,
Albinovanus Pedo, under the same commander in 15 A.D., and it is easy to
believe that he was the poet.[78] But as this unhappy fleet did not get
far from the coast, and the poem describes a voyage into unknown regions,
others have thought that it might be an expedition undertaken by Drusus,
the elder Germanicus, in some year between 12 and 9 B.C.[79] How this may
be is of less importance to us, as the poem does not mention any fresh
discoveries. It is interesting because it gives us a picture of the ideas
current at that time about the northern limits of the world. Where the
fragments commence, the travellers have long ago left daylight and the sun
behind them, and, having passed beyond the limits of the known world,
plunge boldly into the forbidden darkness towards the end of the western
world. There they believe that the sea, which beneath its sluggish
("pigris") waves is full of hideous monsters, savage whales ("pistris"),
and sea-hounds ("æquoreosque canes" == seals ?), rises and takes hold of
the ship--the noise itself increases the horror--and now they think the
ships will stick in the mud, and the fleet will remain there, deserted by
the winds[80] of the ocean--now that they themselves will be left there
helpless and be torn to pieces by the monsters of the deep. And the man
who stands high in the prow strives with his eyes to break through the
impenetrable air, but can see nothing, and relieves his oppression in the
following words: "Whither are we being carried? The day itself flees from
us, and uttermost nature closes in the deserted world with continual
darkness. Or are we sailing towards people on the other side, who dwell
under another heaven, and towards another unknown world?[81] The gods call
us back and forbid the eyes of mortals to see the boundary of things. Why
do we violate strange seas and sacred waters with our oars, disturbing the
peaceful habitations of the gods?"
This last conception is clearly derived from the "Isles of the Blest" of
the Greeks (originally of the Phœnicians), which were situated in the deep
currents of Oceanus and are already referred to in Hesiod.
Seneca, on the other hand, says of the outer limits of the world: "Thus is
nature, beyond all things is the ocean, beyond the ocean nothing" ("ita
est rerum natura, post omnia oceanus, post oceanum nihil"), and Pliny
speaks of the empty space ("inane") that puts an end to the voyage beyond
the ocean.
[Sidenote: Augustus, 5 A.D.]
In the year 5 A.D. the emperor Augustus, in connection with Tiberius's
expedition to the Elbe, sent a Roman fleet from the Rhine along the coast
of Germania; it sailed northward by the land of the Cimbri (Jutland), past
its northern extremity (the Skaw), probably into the Cattegat, and perhaps
to the Danish islands. Augustus himself, in the Ancyra inscription, tells
us of the voyage of this fleet, and says that it came "even to the people
of the Cimbri, whither before that time no Roman had penetrated either by
land or sea,[82] and the Cimbri and the Charydes (Harudes, Horder), and
the Semnones, and other Germanic peoples in those districts sent
ambassadors to ask for my friendship and that of the Roman people."[83]
Velleius [ii. 106] also gives an account of this voyage, and Pliny [ii.
167] gives the following description of it: "The Northern Ocean has also
been in great part traversed; by the orders of the divine Augustus a fleet
sailed round Germania to the Cimbrian Cape, and saw therefrom a sea that
was immeasurable, or heard that it was so, and came to the Scythian region
and to places that were stiff [with cold] from too much moisture. It is
therefore very improbable that the seas can run short where there is such
superfluity of moisture." Müllenhoff thinks [iv., 1900, p. 45] that on
this voyage they saw the Norwegian mountains, the immense "Mons Sævo" (see
later under Pliny), rising out of the sea. This is not impossible, but we
read nothing about it; nor indeed is it very probable. On the other hand,
it is likely that the voyage resulted in fresh knowledge about the North,
and that at any rate some of the statements in Mela and Pliny may be
derived from this source.
[Sidenote: Mela, c. 43 A.D.]
The oldest known Latin geography, "De Chorographia," was written about 43
A.D. by an otherwise unknown Pomponius Mela, of Tingentera, in Spain.
With the strange mental poverty of Roman literature, Mela bases his work
chiefly on older Greek sources (e.g., Herodotus and Eratosthenes) which
are several centuries before his time; but in addition he gives much
information not found elsewhere. Whether this is also for the most part
taken from older writers it is impossible to say, as he nowhere gives his
authorities. His descriptions, especially those of more distant regions,
are sometimes made obscure and contradictory by his evidently having drawn
upon different sources without combining them into a whole.
[Illustration: The world according to Mela]
He begins with these words of wisdom: "All this, whatever it is, to which
we give the name of universe and heaven, is one and includes itself and
everything in a circle ('ambitu'). In the middle of the universe floats
the earth, which is surrounded on all sides by sea, and is divided by it
from west to east [that is, by the equatorial sea, as in Crates of Mallus]
into two parts, which are called hemispheres." Whether one is to conclude
from this that the earth in his opinion was a sphere or a round disc, he
seems to leave the reader to determine. He divides the earth into the five
zones of Parmenides. The two temperate or habitable zones seem, according
to Mela, to coincide with the two masses of land, while the uninhabitable
ones, the torrid and the two frigid zones, are continuous sea. On the
southern continent dwell the Antichthons, who are unknown, on account of
the heat of the intervening region. On the northern one we dwell, and this
is what he proposes to describe.
Europe is bounded on the west by the Atlantic, and on the north by the
British Ocean. Asia has on the north the Scythian Ocean.
[iii. c. 5.] In proof of the continuity of these oceans he appeals not
only to the physicists and Homer, but also to Cornelius Nepos, "who is
more modern and trustworthy," and who confirms it and "cites Quintus
Metellus Celer as witness thereto, and says that he has narrated the
following: When he was governing Gaul as proconsul the king of the
Boti[84] gave him some Indians," who "by stress of storm had been
carried away from Indian waters, and after having traversed all the
space between, had finally reached the shores of Germania."
Mela has many ancient fables to tell of the peoples in the northern
districts of Germania, Sarmatia and Scythia, which last was his name for
what is now Russia and for the north of Asia. It appears that he too was
of the opinion that a cold climate develops savagery and cruelty.
He says of Germania [iii. c. 3]: "The inhabitants are immense in soul
and body; and besides their natural savagery they exercise both, their
souls in warfare, their bodies by accustoming them to constant
hardship, especially cold." "Might is right to such an extent that
they are not even ashamed of robbery; only to their guests are they
kind, and merciful towards suppliants." The people of Sarmatia were
nomads. [iii. c. 4.] "They are alike warlike, free, unconstrained, and
so savage and cruel that the women go to war together with the men. In
order that they may be fitted thereto the right breast is burned off
immediately after birth, whereby the hand which is drawn out [in
drawing a bow] becomes adapted for shooting [by the breast not coming
in the way or because the arm grew stronger] and the breast becomes
manly.[85] To draw the bow, to ride and to hunt are employments for
the young girls; when grown up it is their duty to fight the foe, so
that it is held to be a shame not to have killed some one, and the
punishment is that they are not allowed to marry."[86] It would appear
that the northern countries, according to the view of Mela, had a
tendency to "emancipate" women, even though he always regards it as a
severe punishment for them to have to live as virgins.[86] Among the
Xamati in his western Asia, at the mouth of the Tanais [i. c. 19],
"the women engage in the same occupations as the men." "The men fight
on foot and with arrows, the women on horseback, not using swords, but
catching men in snares and killing them by dragging them along." Those
who have not killed an enemy must live unmarried. Amongst other
peoples the women do not confine themselves to this snaring of men;
the Mæotides who dwell in the country of the Amazons are governed by
women; and farthest north live the Amazons; but he does not tell us
whether the latter could dispense with men altogether, and reproduce
themselves like the women he tells us of on an island off the coast of
Africa, who were hairy all over the body. "This is related by Hanno,
and it seems worthy of credit, because he brought back the skin of
some he had killed." [iii. c. 9.]
But this increasing savagery towards the north had a limit, as in the
early Greek idea, after which things became better again; for beyond the
country of the Amazons [i. c. 19] and other wild races, like the
Thyssagetæ and Turcæ who inhabited immense forests and lived by
hunting,[87] there extended, apparently towards the north-east (?), a
"great desert and rugged tract, full of mountains, as far as the
Aremphæans, who had very just customs and were looked upon as holy."[88]
"Beyond them rise the Rhipæan Mountains and behind them lies the region
that borders on the Ocean." In addition, the happy "Hyperboreans" dwelt in
the north. In his description of Scythia he says of them [iii. c. 5]:
"Then [i.e., after Sarmatia] come the neighbouring parts of Asia [or the
parts bordering on Asia ?]. Except where continual winter and unbearable
cold reigns, the Scythian people dwell there, almost all known by the name
of 'Belcæ' (?). On the shore of Asia come first the Hyperboreans, beyond
the north wind and the Rhipæan Mountains under the very pivot of the
stars" [i.e., the pole]. In their country the sun rose at the vernal
equinox and set at the autumnal equinox, so that they had six months day
and six months night. "This narrow [or holy ?] sunny land is in itself
fertile." He goes on to give a description of the happy life of the
Hyperboreans, taken from Greek sources.
[Illustration: Europe according to the description of Mela]
On north-western Europe Mela has much information which is not met with in
earlier authors. The tin-islands, the Cassiterides, lay off the north-west
of Spain, where the "Celtici" lived [iii. c. 6]. "Beyond ('super')
Britain is Juverna [Ireland], nearly as large, with a climate unfavourable
to the ripening of corn, but with such excellent pastures that if the
cattle are allowed to graze for more than a small part of the day, they
burst in pieces. The inhabitants are rude and more ignorant than other
peoples of all kinds of virtue. Religion is altogether unknown to them."
"The Orcades are thirty in number, divided from each other by narrow
straits; the Hæmodæ seven, drawn towards Germany" ("septem Hæmodæ contra
Germaniam vectæ"). This is the first time, so far as is known, that these
two groups of islands are mentioned in literature. Diodorus, it is true,
had already spoken of "Orkan" or "Orkas," but not as a group of islands.
As this name is probably derived from Pytheas, it is likely that the
other, "Hæmodæ," is also his. Possibly the groups were re-discovered under
the emperor Claudius (about 43 A.D.) or more definite information may have
been received about them; but on the other hand, Mela says that the
knowledge of Britain that was acquired during this campaign would be
brought back by Claudius himself in his triumph. It will be most
reasonable to suppose that Mela's thirty Orcades are the Orkneys--the
number is approximately correct--and not the Orkneys and Shetlands
together. The seven Hæmodæ, on the other hand, must be the latter, and can
hardly be the Hebrides, as many would believe, since Mela mentions the
islands off the west coast of Europe in a definite order, and he names
first "Juverna," then the "Orcades," and next the "Hæmodæ," which are
"carried ('vectæ') towards Germany"[89] (cf. also Pliny later).
In his description of Germania [iii. c. 3] Mela says:
"Beyond ('super') Albis is an immense bay, Codanus, full of many great
and small islands. Here the sea which is received in the bosom of the
shore is nowhere broad and nowhere like a sea, but as the waters
everywhere flow between and often go over [i.e., over the tongues of
land or shallows which connect the islands] it is split up into the
appearance of rivers, which are undefined and widely separated; where
the sea touches the shores [of the mainland], since it is held in by
the shores of the islands which are not far from each other, and since
nearly everywhere it is not large [i.e., broad], it runs in a narrow
channel and like a strait ('fretum'), and turning with the shore it is
curved like a long eyebrow. In this [sea] dwell the Cimbri and the
Teutons, and beyond [the sea, or the Cimbri and Teutons ?] the extreme
people of Germania, namely the Hermiones."
The meaning of this description, which seems to be as involved as the many
sounds he is talking about, must probably be that in the immense bay of
Codanus there are a number of islands with many narrow straits between
them, like rivers. Along the shore of the mainland there is formed, by the
almost continuous line of islands lying outside, a long curving strait,
which is nearly everywhere of the same narrowness. In this sea--that is to
say, on the peninsulas and islands in this bay--dwell the Cimbri and
Teutons, and farther away in Germania the Hermiones.
[Illustration: Island with Hippopod or horse-footed man (from the Hereford
map)]
In his account of the islands along the coast of Europe, Mela says further
[iii. c. 6]:
[Sidenote: Codanus]
"In the bay which we have called Codanus is amongst the islands
Codanovia, which is still inhabited by the Teutons, and it surpasses
the others both in size and in fertility. The part which lies towards
the Sarmatians seems sometimes to be islands and sometimes connected
land, on account of the backward and forward flow of the sea, and
because the interval which separates them is now covered by the waves,
now bare. Upon these it is asserted that the Œneans dwell, who live
entirely on the eggs of fen-fowl and on oats, the Hippopods with
horses' feet, and the Sanalians, who have such long ears that they
cover the whole body with them instead of clothes, since they
otherwise go naked. For these things, besides what is told in fables,
I find also authorities whom I think I may follow. Towards the coast
of the Belgæ[90] lies Thule, famous in Greek poems and in our own;
there the nights in any case are short, since the sun, when it has
long been about to set, rises up; but in the winter the nights are
dark as elsewhere.... But at the summer solstice there is no night at
all, because the sun then is already clearer, and not only shows its
reflection, but also the greater part of itself."
Thus we see here, as in so many of the classical authors, and later in
Pliny, old legends and more trustworthy information hopelessly mixed
together. The legends, whose Greek origin is disclosed by the form of the
names, may be old skippers' tales, or the romances of merchants who went
northward from the Black Sea, but they may also in part be derived from
Pytheas. A fable like that of the long-eared Sanali (otherwise called
Panoti) originally came from India and is later than his time. The
statement about the Œneæ, or, doubtless more correctly, Œonæ (i.e.,
egg-eaters), who live on eggs and oats, may, on the other hand, have
reached him from the north, where the eggs both of fen-fowl (plovers'
eggs, for example) and of sea-birds were eaten from time immemorial. Cæsar
had heard or read of people who lived on birds' eggs and fish on the
islands at the mouth of the Rhine, but he may indeed have derived his
knowledge from Greek sources [cf. Müllenhoff, i., 1870, p. 492].
[Illustration: Island with long-eared man (from the Hereford map)]
What Mela says about Thule probably comes from Pytheas, as already
mentioned (p. 90), and it is very possible that the remarkable statements
about the immense bay of Codanus are likewise derived from him, although
they may also be ascribed to the circumnavigation of the Skaw under
Augustus, or to other voyages in these waters of which we have no
knowledge.
[Sidenote: Codanovia]
Whether Codanovia (which is not found in any other known author) is the
same name as the later Scadinavia in Pliny, must be regarded as uncertain.
It is the first time that such an island or that the bay of Codanus is
mentioned in literature. This "immense bay" must certainly be the Cattegat
with the southern part of the Baltic; and the numerous islands which close
it in to a curved strait or sound must be for the most part the Danish
islands and perhaps southern Sweden. Whence the name is derived we do not
know for certain.[91]
Ptolemy mentions three peoples in southern Jutland, and calls the
easternmost of them "Kobandoi." It is not likely that three peoples
can have lived side by side in this narrowest part of the peninsula,
and we must believe that some of them lived among the Danish islands,
where Ptolemy does not give the name of any people. The "Kobandoi"
would then be on the easternmost island, Sealand [cf. Much, 1893, pp.
198 f.]. Now it will easily be supposed that "Codanus" and "Kobandoi"
have some connection or other; the latter might be a corruption of the
name of a people, "Kodanoi" or "Kodanioi." But as precisely these
islands and the south of Sweden were inhabited by tribes of the
Danes--of whom several are mentioned in literature: South Danes, North
Danes, Sea Danes, Island Danes, etc.--it may be further supposed that
"Kodanioi" is composed of "ko" or cow[92] and "Daner" (that is,
Cow-Danes), and means a tribe of the latter who were remarkable for
the number of their cows, which would be probable enough for a people
in fertile Sealand (or in Skåne).[93] In this case "Codanus" must be
derived from the name of this people, just as most of the names of
seas and bays in these regions were taken from the names of peoples
(e.g., "Oceanus Germanicus," "Mare Suebicum," "Sinus Venedicum,"
"Quænsæ"). The name "Daner" is one of those names of peoples that are
so ancient that their derivation must be obscure.[94] Procopius uses
it as a common name for many nations ("ethne"), in the same way as he
names the "ethne" of the Slavs (see later, p. 146). It is also used in
the early Middle Ages as a common name for the people of the North,
like Eruli, and later Normans. It is therefore natural that there
should have been special names for the tribes, like Sea-Danes,
Cow-Danes, etc. "Kodan-ovia" ("ovia," equivalent to Old High German
"ouwa" or "ouwia") for island, Gothic "avi," Old Norse "ey" [cf.
Grimm, 1888, p. 505], must be the island on which this tribe lived,
and this might then be Sealand (though Skåne is also possible).
That the Cimbri lived in Codanus suits very well, as their home was
Jutland;[95] on the other hand, we know less about the country inhabited
by the Teutons. They must have been called in Germanic "*þeodonez" (Gothic
"*þiudans" means properly kings), and the name has been connected with
Old Norse "þiód," now Thy (Old Danish "Thythesyssel") with its capital
Thisted, and the island Thyholm, in north-western Jutland [cf. Much, 1893,
pp. 7 ff.; 1905, p. 100].
Whether the Vistula had its outlet into Codanus or farther east Mela does
not say, nor does he tell us whether Sarmatia was bounded by this gulf;
but this is not impossible, although Codanus is described at the end of
the chapter on Germania. Strangely enough, he says, according to the MSS.
[iii. c. 4], that "Sarmatia is separated from the following [i.e.,
Scythia] by the Vistula"; it would thus lie on the western side of the
river, which seems curious. It might be possible that the islands off the
coast of Sarmatia are among the many which lay in Codanus (?). As Sarmatia
lay to the east of Germania, these islands would in any case be as far
east as the Baltic, if not farther; but there is no ebb and flood there by
which the connecting land between them might be alternately covered and
left dry; on the other hand, the description suits the German North Sea
coast. Either Mela's authority has heard of the low-lying lands--the
Frische Nehrung and the Kurische Nehrung, for instance--off the coast of
the amber country, and has added the tidal phenomena from the North Sea
coast, or, what is more probable, the Frisian islands, for example, may by
a misunderstanding have been moved eastwards into Sarmatia, since older
writers, who as yet made no distinction between Germania, Sarmatia and
Scythia, described them as lying far east, off the Scythian coast (perhaps
taken from the voyage of Pytheas).[96]
[Sidenote: Voyage to Samland, circa 60 A.D.]
The emperor Nero's (54-68 A.D.) love of show led, according to Pliny [Nat.
Hist., xxxvii. 45], to the amber coast of the Baltic becoming "first known
through a Roman knight, whom Julianus sent to purchase amber, when he was
to arrange a gladiatorial combat for the emperor Nero. This knight visited
the markets and the coasts and brought thence such a quantity that the
nets which were hung up to keep the wild beasts away from the imperial
tribune had a piece of amber in every mesh; indeed the weapons, the biers,
and the whole apparatus of a day's festival were heavy with amber. The
largest piece weighed thirteen pounds." This journey must have followed an
undoubtedly ancient trade-route from the Adriatic to Carnuntum (in
Pannonia), the modern Petronell on the Danube, where the latter is joined
by the March, and from whence Pliny expressly says that the distance was
600,000 paces to the amber coast, which agrees almost exactly with the
distance in a straight line to Samland. From Carnuntum the route lay along
the river March, thence overland to the upper Vistula, and so down this
river to Samland. It may easily be understood that much fresh knowledge
reached Rome as a result of this journey.
[Sidenote: Pliny 23-79 A.D.]
The elder Pliny's (23-79 A.D.) statements about the North, in his great
work "Naturalis Historia" (in thirty-seven books), are somewhat obscure
and confused, and so far are no advance upon Mela; but we remark
nevertheless that fresh knowledge has been acquired, and it is as though
we get a clearer vision of the new countries and seas through the northern
mists. He himself says, moreover, that he "has received information of
immense islands which have recently been discovered from Germania." His
work is in great part the fruit of an unusually extensive acquaintance
with older writers, mostly Greek, but also Latin. He repeats a good deal
of what Mela says, or draws from the same sources, probably Greek.
His information about the North must have been obtained, so far as I can
see, mainly in three different ways: (1) Directly through the Romans'
connection with Germania and through their expeditions to its northern
coasts (under Augustus and Nero, for example). Pliny himself lived in
Germania for several years (45-52 A.D.) as a Roman cavalry commander, and
may then have collected much information. (2) He has drawn extensively
from Greek sources, whose statements about the North may have come partly
by sea, chiefly through Pytheas (perhaps also through later trading
voyages); partly also by land, especially through commercial intercourse
between the Black Sea and the Baltic.[97] (3) Finally he received
information from Britain about the regions to the north. This may be
derived partly from Greek sources, partly also from later Roman connection
with Britain. Mela expressly says of this country that new facts will soon
be known about it, "for the greatest prince [the Emperor Claudius] is now
opening up this country, which has so long been closed ... he has striven
by war to obtain personal knowledge of these things, and will spread this
knowledge at his triumph." The information obtained by Pliny through these
different channels is often used by him uncritically, without remarking
that different statements apply to the same countries and seas.
His theory of the universe was the usual one, that the universe was a
hollow sphere which revolved in twenty-four hours with indescribable
rapidity. "Whether by the continual revolution of such a great mass there
is produced an immense noise, exceeding all powers of hearing, I am no
more able to assert than that the sound produced by the stars circulating
about one another and revolving in their orbits, is a lovely and
incredibly graceful harmony." The earth stood in the centre of the
universe and had the form of a sphere. The land was everywhere surrounded
by sea, which covers the greater part of the globe.
In his description of the North [iv. 12, 88 f.] Pliny begins at the east,
and relies here entirely on Greek authorities.
Far north in Scythia, beyond the Arimaspians, "we come to the 'Ripæan'
Mountains and to the district which on account of the ever-falling
snow, resembling feathers, is called Pterophorus. This part of the
world is accursed by nature and shrouded in thick darkness; it
produces nothing else but frost and is the chilly hiding-place of the
north wind. By these mountains and beyond the north wind dwells, if we
are willing to believe it, a happy people, the Hyperboreans, who have
long life and are famous for many marvels which border on the
fabulous. There, it is said, are the pivots of the world, and the
uttermost revolution of the constellations." The sun shines there for
six months; but strangely enough it rises at the summer solstice and
sets at the winter solstice, which shows Pliny's ignorance of
astronomy. The climate is magnificent and without cold winds. As the
sun shines for half the year, "the Hyperboreans sow in the morning,
harvest at midday, gather the fruit from the trees at evening, and
spend the night in caves. The existence of this people is not to be
doubted, since so many authors tell us about them."
Having then mentioned several districts bordering on the Black Sea, Pliny
continues [iv. 13, 94 f.]:
"We will now acquaint ourselves with the outer parts of Europe, and
turn, after having gone over the Ripæan Mountains, towards the left to
the coast of the northern ocean, until we arrive again at Gades. Along
this line many nameless islands are recorded. Timæus mentions that
among them there is one off Scythia called Baunonia, a day's sail
distant, upon which the waves cast up amber in the spring. The
remaining coasts are only known from doubtful rumours. Here is the
northern ocean. Hecatæus calls it Amalcium, from the river
Parapanisus[98] onwards and as far as it washes the coast of Scythia,
which name [i.e., Amalcium] in the language of the natives means
frozen.[99] Philemon[100] says that it was called by the Cimbri
Morimarusa, that is, the dead sea; from thence and as far as the
promontory Rusbeas, farther out, it is called Cronium. Xenophon of
Lampsacus says that three days' sail from the Scythian coast is an
island, Balcia, of enormous size; Pytheas calls it Basilia." He goes
on to mention the Œonæ, Hippopods, and Long-eared men in almost the
same terms as Mela.
This mention of lands and seas in the North is of great interest. But in
attempting to identify any of them in Pliny's description we must always
remember that to him and his Greek authorities, and to all writers even in
much later times, all land north of the coasts of Scythia, Sarmatia and
Germania was nothing but islands in the northern ocean. Further, it must
be remembered that the ancient Greeks did not know the name Germania,
which was not introduced until about 80 B.C. To them Scythia and Celtica
(Gaul) were conterminous, and their Scythian coast might therefore lie
either on the Baltic or the North Sea.
It has not been possible to decide where the name "Rusbeas" (called by
Solinus "Rubeas") comes from;[101] but it is best understood if we take it
to be southern Norway or Lindesnes. As the description begins at the east
on the Scythian coast, it follows that "Amalcium" is the Baltic as far as
the Danish islands and the land of the Cimbri. "Morimarusa,"[102] which
extends from Amalcium to Lindesnes, will be the Cattegat (in part, at any
rate) and the Skagerak. Cronium will be the North Sea and the Northern
Ocean beyond Lindesnes.[103] We must believe that Philemon has obtained
his information about the Cimbri (at the Skaw), about Morimarusa, and
about Rusbeas either from Pytheas--whose mention thereof we must then
suppose to have been accidentally omitted by other authors--or else from
later Greek merchants. In the same way Xenophon must have got his Balcia,
which is here named for the first time in literature. As these two Greek
authors (probably of about 100 B.C.) are expressly mentioned as
authorities, the statements cannot be derived from the circumnavigation of
the Skaw in the time of Augustus, nor from any other Roman expedition. It
is clear enough that Pliny himself did not know where Rusbeas and Balcia
were, but simply repeated uncritically what he had read. On the other
hand, he knew from another source that the sea he calls Cronium lay far
north of Britain, and must therefore be sought for to the north-west of
the Scythian coast.
Balcia must be looked for most probably in the Baltic. As already
mentioned (p. 72) it may be Jutland; but as it is described as an island
of immense size and three days' sail from the Scythian coast, it suits
southern Sweden better, although Pliny has also the name Scadinavia for
this from another source.
After these doubtful statements about the north coast of Scythia, taken
from Greek sources and interwoven with fables, Pliny reaches firmer ground
in Germania, when he continues [iv. 13, 96]:
"We have more certain information concerning the Ingævones people who
are the first [that is, the most north-eastern] in Germania. There is
the immense mountain Sævo, not less than the Riphæan range, and it
forms a vast bay which goes to the Cimbrian Promontory [i.e.,
Jutland], which bay is called Codanus and is full of islands, amongst
which the most celebrated is Scatinavia, of unknown size; a part of it
is inhabited, as far as is known by the Hilleviones, in 500 cantons
('pagis'), who call it [i.e., the island] the second earth. Æningia is
supposed to be not less in size. Some say that these regions extend as
far as the Vistula and are inhabited by Sarmatians [i.e., probably
Slavs], Venedi [Wends], Scirri, and Hirri; the bay is called
Cylipenus, and at its mouth lies the island Latris. Not far from
thence is another bay, Lagnus, which borders on the Cimbri. The
Cimbrian Promontory runs far out into the sea and forms a peninsula
called Tastris." Then follows a list of twenty-three islands which are
clearly off the North Sea coast of Sleswick and Germany. Among them is
one called by the soldiers "Glæsaria" on account of the amber
("glesum"),[104] but by the barbarians "Austeravia" [i.e., the eastern
island], or "Actania."
Here are a number of new names and pieces of information. The form of some
of the names shows that here too Pliny has borrowed to some extent from
Greek authors; but his information must also partly be derived from Roman
sources, and from Germany itself. His "Codanus" must be the same as that
of Mela, and is the sea adjacent to the country of the Cimbri, which is
here for the first time clearly referred to as a promontory
(promunturium). It is the Cattegat, and, in part at any rate, the
Skagerak. The enormous mountain "Sævo" will then be most probably the
mountains of Scandinavia, especially southern Norway, which forms the bay
of Codanus in such a way that the latter is bounded on the other side by
the Cimbrian Promontory.[105] It will then be in the same mountainous
country that we should look for the promontory of Rusbeas (see above).
[Sidenote: Scandinavia]
The name "Scatinavia" or "Scadinavia" (both spellings occur in the MSS. of
Pliny) is found here certainly for the first time; but, curiously enough,
we also find the name "Scandia" in Pliny; it is used of an island which is
mentioned as near Britain (see below, p. 106). "Scandia" has often been
taken for a shortened form of "Scadinavia"; but if we consider the
occurrence of both names in Pliny in conjunction with the fact that Mela
has not yet heard either, but has, on the other hand, a large island,
"Codanovia," in the bay of Codanus, then it may seem possible that
originally there were two entirely different names: "Codanovia," for
Sealand (and perhaps for south Sweden), and "*Skânovia" ("Skáney,"
latinised into "Scandia") for Skåne. By a confusion of these two the form
"Scadinavia" for south Sweden may have resulted in Pliny, instead of
Mela's "Codanovia," while at the same time he got the name "Scandia" from
another source. The latter is the only one used by Ptolemy both for south
Sweden and the Danish islands; he has four "Scandiæ," three smaller ones
and one very large one farther east, "Scandia" proper (see below, p. 119).
By further confusion of the two names, "Scadinavia" has become
"Scandinavia" in later copyists and authors.[106]
In conflict with this is the hitherto accepted opinion among
philologists that the name "Skåne" must be derived from "Scadinavia,"
which would regularly become by contraction "*Skadney," and this by
losing the "d" would become "Skáney." But this similarity may after
all be accidental, and it is difficult to reconcile the hypothesis
with the fact that the form "Scandia" (and not "*Skadnia") already
appears in Pliny and later in Ptolemy. To this must be added that the
form "*Skadney," or a similar one, is not known; the first time we
find the word Skåne in literature is in the story of Wulfstan the Dane
to King Alfred (about 890, see later), where it takes the form "Scôn
eg," which is the same as "Skáney." "Skania," which is a latinised
form of "Skáney," is found in a Papal letter of 950, and a Swedish
runic inscription of about 1020 reads "ą Skąnu," which also is the
same as "Skáney." It therefore appears probable that this is the
original form, the same as the Norwegian name "Skáney," and that it
has not resulted from a contraction of "Skadinavia." Professor Torp
agrees that a form "*Skânovia" might possibly be the original.
What may be the meaning of the name "Hilleviones" in Scadinavia is
difficult to make out; it does not occur in any other writer, but is in
all likelihood a common term for all Scandinavians. One is reminded of the
"Hermiones" who occur in Mela in the same connection, but a little later
Pliny mentions these also. "Æningia," which is said to be no smaller than
Scadinavia, is a riddle. Could it be a corruption of a Halsingia or
Alsingia (the land of the Helsingers), a name for northern Sweden, which
thus lay farther off and was less known than Scadinavia?[107] When we read
that these regions were supposed to extend as far as the Vistula, this
might indicate a vague idea that Scadinavia and Æningia were connected
with the mainland, whereby a bay of the sea was formed, called
"Cylipenus,"[108] which will thus be yet another name for the Baltic,
taken from a new source; but the whole may be nothing more than an obscure
statement.
"Latris," which lay at the mouth of Cylipenus, may be one of the Danish
islands, and one may perhaps be reminded of Sealand with the ancient royal
stronghold of "Lethra" or Leire, Old Norse "Hleidrar." The bay of
"Lagnus,"[109] which borders on the Cimbri, must then be taken as a new
name for the Cattegat, while "Tastris" may be Skagen. According to the
sources Pliny has borrowed from, we thus get the following names for the
same parts: for the Baltic or parts thereof, "Amalcium" and "Cylipenus,"
and perhaps in part "Codanus"; for the Cattegat, "Lagnus" and "Codanus";
for the Skagerak, "Morimarusa," in part also "Codanus"; for south Sweden,
"Scadinavia" and "Balcia"; for Jutland or Skagen, "Promunturium Cimbrorum"
and "Tastris." At any rate, this superfluity of names discloses increased
communication, through many channels, with the North. Communication with
the North is also to be deduced from Pliny's mention [viii. c. 15, 39] of
an animal called "achlis," as a native of those countries.
It had "never been seen among us in Rome, though it had been described
by many." It resembles the elk [alcis], "but has no knee-joint, for
which reason also it does not sleep lying down, but leaned against a
tree, and if the tree be partly cut through as a trap, the animal,
which otherwise is remarkably fleet, is caught. Its upper lip is very
large, for which reason it goes backwards when grazing, so as not to
get caught in it if it went forward." It might be thought that this
elk-like animal was a reindeer; but the mention of the long upper lip
and the trees suits the elk better, and it may have been related of
this animal that it was caught by means of traps in the forest. The
fable that it slept leaning against a tree may be due to the
similarity between the name "achlis" (which may be some corruption or
other, perhaps of "alces") and "acclinis" (== leaning on).
Finally, Pliny had a third source of knowledge about the North through
Britain, which to him was a common name for all the islands in that
ocean. Some of the statements from this quarter originated with Pytheas;
but later information was added; Pliny himself mentions Agrippa as an
authority. Among the British Isles he mentions [iv. 16, 103]: "40
'Orcades' separated from each other by moderate distances, 7 'Acmodæ,' and
30 'Hebudes.'" His 7 "Acmodæ" (which in some MSS. are also called
"Hæcmodæ") are, clearly enough, Mela's 7 Hæmodæ, and probably the Shetland
Islands, while the 30 "Hebudes" are the Hebrides, which are thus mentioned
here for the first time in any known author.
After referring to a number of other British islands "and the 'Glæsiæ,'
scattered in the Germanic Ocean, which the later Greeks call the
'Electrides,' because amber (electrum) is found in them,"[110] Pliny
continues [iv. 16, 104]: "The most distant of all known islands is 'Tyle'
(Thule), where at the summer solstice there is no night, and
correspondingly no day at the winter solstice."[111]... "Some authors
mention yet more islands, 'Scandia,' 'Dumna,' 'Bergos,' and the largest of
all, 'Berricen,' from which the voyage is made to Tyle. From Tyle it is
one day's sail to the curdled sea which some call 'Cronium.'" We do not
know from what authors Pliny can have taken these names, nor where the
islands are to be looked for; but as Thule is mentioned, we must suppose
that in any case some of them come originally from Pytheas. As Scandia
comes first among these islands, one is led to think that Dumna and the
two other enigmatical names are of Germanic origin. "Dumna" might then
remind us of Scandinavian names such as Duney, Dönna (in Nordland), or
the like; but it is more probable that it comes from the Celtic "dubno" or
"dumno" (== deep), and may be the name of an island off Scotland. "Bergos"
may remind us of the Old Norse word "bjarg" or "berg."[112] It is not so
easy with the strange name "Berricen," which in some MSS. has the form
"Verigon" or "Nerigon" (cf. above, p. 58). If the first reading is the
correct one, it suggests an origin in an Old Norse "ber-ig" ("ber" ==
bear; the meaning would therefore be "bear-y," full of bears), not an
unsuitable name for southern Norway, whence the journey was made to Thule
or northern Norway; but this is doubtful. If "Nerigon" is the correct
reading, it will not be impossible, in the opinion of Professor Torp, that
this, as Keyser supposed, may be the name Norway, which in Old Norse was
called, by Danes for example, "*NorþravegaR" (like "AustravegaR" and
"VestravegaR"). If any of the names of these islands are really Germanic,
like Scandia, then they cannot, as some have thought, refer to islands off
Scotland or to the Shetlands, as these were not yet inhabited by Norsemen.
The islands in question must therefore be looked for in Norway. It is
important that Scandia is mentioned first among them in connection with
Britain, and that at the same time another is described as the largest of
them all, and as lying on the way to Thule. This again points to
communication by sea between the British Isles and Scandinavia, of which
we found indications four hundred years earlier.
[Sidenote: Agricola, 84 A.D.]
In 84 A.D. Agricola, after his campaign against the Caledonians, sent his
fleet round the northern point of Scotland, "whereby," Tacitus[113] tells
us, "it was proved that Britain is an island. At the same time the
hitherto unknown islands which are called 'Orcadas' (the Orkneys) were
discovered and subdued. Thule also could be descried in the distance; but
the fleet had orders not to go farther, and winter was coming on. Moreover
the water is thick and heavy to row in; it is said that even wind cannot
stir it to much motion. The reason for this may be the absence of land and
mountains, which otherwise would give the storms increased power, and that
the enormous mass of continuous ocean is not easy to set in motion." This
Thule must have been Fair Island or the Shetland Isles, and this is the
most northern point reached by the Romans, so far as is known. The idea of
the heavy sea, which is not moved by the winds, is the same that we met
with in early antiquity (see pp. 40, 69).
In the preceding summer some of Agricola's soldiers--a cohort of
Usippii, enlisted in Germania and brought to Britain--had mutinied,
killed their centurion and seized three ships, whose captains they
forced into obedience. "Two of them aroused their suspicions and were
therefore killed; the third undertook the navigation," and they
circumnavigated Britain. "They were soon obliged to land to provide
themselves with water and to plunder what they required; thereby they
came into frequent conflict with the Britons, who defended their
possessions; they were often victorious, but sometimes were worsted,
and finally their need became so great that they took to eating the
weakest; then they drew lots as to which should serve the others as
food. Thus they came round Britain [i.e. round the north], were driven
out of their course through incompetent navigation, and were made
prisoners, some by the Frisians and some by the Suevi, who took them
for pirates. Some of them came to the slave-markets and passed through
various hands until they reached Roman Germania, becoming quite
remarkable persons by being able to relate such marvellous
adventures."[114] It is possible that certain inaccurate statements
may have found their way to Rome as the result of this voyage.
[Sidenote: Tacitus, 98 A.D.]
Cornelius Tacitus, who wrote his "Germania" in the year 98 A.D., was a
historian and ethnographer, not a geographer. His celebrated work has not,
therefore, much to say of the northern lands; he has not even a single
name for them. On the other hand, he has some remarkable statements about
the peoples, especially in Sweden, which show that since the time of Pliny
fresh information about that part of the world must have reached Rome.
[Illustration: The nations of Tacitus (after K. Miller)]
Tacitus makes the "Suebi," or "Suevi," inhabit the greater part of Germany
as far as the frontier of the Slavs (Sarmatians) and Finns on the east
(and north ?). The name, which possibly means the "hovering" people and is
due to their roving existence, is perhaps rather to be regarded as a
common designation for various Germanic tribes. After them he called the
sea on the eastern coast of Germany, i.e., the Baltic, the Suebian Sea
("Suebicum mare"). On its right-hand (eastern) shore dwelt the "Æstii"
(i.e., Esthonians; perhaps from "aistan" == to honour, that is, the
honourable people [?]). "Their customs and dress are like those of the
Suevi, but their language more nearly resembles the British" (!). "The use
of iron is rare there, that of sticks [i.e., clubs, fustium] common. They
also explore the sea and collect amber in shallow places and on the shore
itself. But they do not understand its nature and origin, and it long lay
disregarded among things cast up by the sea, "until our luxury made it
esteemed." "They have no use for it,[115] they gather it in the rough,
bring it unwrought, and are surprised at the price they receive" [c. 45].
From this it may be concluded that there was constant trading
communication between the Mediterranean and the Baltic, and that Roman
merchants had probably penetrated thither.
[Illustration: Boat found at Nydam, near Flensburg. Third century A.D. 70
feet long (after C. Engelhardt)]
"In the Ocean itself (ipso in Oceano) lie the communities of the Suiones,
a mighty people not only in men and arms, but also in ships." The Suiones,
who are first mentioned by Tacitus, are evidently of the same name as the
Svear (Old Norse "svíar," Anglo-Saxon "sveon") or Swedes.[116] Their ships
were remarkable for having a prow, "prora," at each end (i.e., they were
the same fore and aft); they had no sail, and the oars were not made fast
in a row, but were loose, so that they could row with them now on one
side, now on the other, "as on some rivers."[117] In other words, they had
open rowlocks, as in some of the river boats of that time, and as is
common in modern boats; the oars were not put out through holes as in the
Roman ships, and as in the Viking ships (the Gokstad and Oseberg ships).
The boat of the Iron Age which was dug up at Nydam had just such open
rowlocks.
The Suiones (unlike the other Germanic peoples) esteemed wealth, and
therefore they had only one lord; this lord governed with unlimited power,
so much so that arms were not distributed among the people, but were kept
locked up, and moreover in charge of a thrall,[118] because the sea
prevented sudden attacks of enemies, and armed idle hands (i.e., armed men
unemployed) are apt to commit rash deeds [c. 44].
The neighbours of the Suiones, probably on the north, are the "Sitones"
[c. 45], whom Tacitus also regards as Germanic. "They are like the Suiones
with one exception, that a woman reigns over them; so far have they
degenerated not only from liberty, but also from slavery. Here Suebia ends
(Hic Suebiæ finis)." Suebia was that part of Germany inhabited by the
Suevi. It looks as though Tacitus considered that courage and manliness
decreased the farther north one went. The Suiones allow themselves to be
bullied by an absolute king, who sets a thrall to guard their weapons, and
the Sitones are in a still worse plight, in allowing themselves to be
governed by a woman. The Sitones are not mentioned before or after this in
literature, and it seems as though the name must be due to some
misunderstanding.[119] It has been supposed that they were Finns
("Kvæns")[120] in northern Sweden, and their name may then have been taken
as the word for woman ("kvæn," or "kván," mostly in the sense of wife [cf.
English queen]), and from this the legend of womanly government may have
been formed[121] in the same way as Adam of Bremen later translates the
name Cvenland (Kvænland) by "Terra feminarum," and thus forms the myth of
the country of the Amazons. But this explanation of the statement of
Tacitus may be doubtful.[122] We have already seen that Mela mentions a
people in Scythia, the "Mæotides," who were governed by women, and, as we
have said, it would not have seemed unreasonable to him that the
government of women increased farther north.
Of the regions on the north Tacitus says: "North of the Suiones lies
another sluggish and almost motionless sea (mare pigrum ac prope
immotum); that this encircles and confines the earth's disc is rendered
probable by the fact that the last light of the setting sun continues
until the sun rises again, so clearly that the stars are paled thereby.
Popular belief also supposes that the sound of the sun emerging from the
ocean can be heard, and that the forms of the gods are seen and the rays
beaming from his head. There report rightly places the boundaries of
nature." As mentioned above (see p. 108), he thought that even to the
north of the Orkneys the sea was thick and sluggish.
Tacitus is the first author who mentions the Finns (Fenni), but whether
they are Lapps, Kvæns or another race cannot be determined. He says
himself: "I am in doubt whether to reckon the Peucini, Venedi and Fenni
among the Germans or Sarmatians (Slavs)." He speaks of the Fenni
apparently as dwelling far to the north-east, beyond the Peucini, or
Bastarnæ, from whom they are separated by forests and mountains, which the
latter overrun as robbers.
"Among the Fenni amazing savagery and revolting poverty prevail. They
have no weapons, no horses, no houses ['non penates,' perhaps rather,
no homes];[123] their food is herbs, their clothing skins, their bed
the ground. Their only hope is in their arrows, which from lack of
iron they provide with heads of bone. Hunting supports both men and
women; for the women usually accompany the men everywhere and take
their share of the spoils. Their infants have no other protection from
wild beasts and from the rain than a hiding-place of branches twisted
together; thither the men return, it is the habitation of the aged.
Nevertheless this seems to them a happier life than groaning over
tilled fields, toiling in houses and being subject to hope and fear
for their own and others' possessions. Without a care for men or gods
they have attained the most difficult end, that of not even feeling
the need of a wish. Beyond them all is fabulous, as that the
'Hellusii' and 'Oxionæ' have human heads and faces, but the bodies and
limbs of wild beasts, which I leave on one side as undecided."
These Fenni of Tacitus consequently live near the outer limits of the
world, where all begins to be fable. The name itself carries us to
northern Europe, or rather Scandinavia, for it was certainly only the
North Germans, especially the Scandinavians, who used the word as a name
for their non-Aryan neighbours. No doubt it appears from the description
that they lived in northern Russia, and were only separated from the
Peucini by forests and mountains; but, as was said above, Tacitus had
neither sense for nor interest in geography. If he heard of a savage and
barbarous Finn-people far in the North, and if it suited him on other
grounds to bring them in beyond the Peucini or Bastarnæ, but before the
Hellusii and Oxiones, who not only led the life of beasts, but even had
their bodies and limbs, then certainly no geographical difficulties would
stop him. It is of interest that these Fenni are described as a typical
race of hunters, using the bow as their special weapon. As Tacitus only
states that they had no horses, he had doubtless heard of no other
domestic animals amongst them. Consequently it is not likely that they
were reindeer-nomads. The interweaving of branches that the children were
hidden in, to which the men returned, and which was the dwelling of the
old men, must be the tent of the Finns, which was raised upon branches or
stakes. As early as Herodotus [iv. 23] we read of the Argippæans, who were
also Mongols, that "every man lived under a tree, over which in winter he
spread a white, thick covering of felt." It is clearly a tent that is
intended here also [cf. Müllenhoff, ii., 1887, pp. 40, 352]. The idea that
among the barbarians men and women frequently did the same work does not
seem to have been uncommon in antiquity, and it can scarcely have been
regarded as something peculiar to the Finns; in this connection it is no
doubt derived from the legends of the Amazons. Herodotus, and after him
Mela (see above, pp. 87 f.), describes such a similarity between men and
women among the Scythian people and the Sauromatians; and Diodorus [iv.
20, v. 39] says of the Ligurians that men and women shared the same hard
labour.
[Sidenote: Dionysius Periegetes, 117-138 A.D.]
The so-called Dionysius Periegetes wrote in the time of the emperor
Hadrian (117-138 A.D.) a description of the earth in 1187 verses, which
perhaps on account of its simple brevity and metrical form was used in
schools and widely circulated [cf. K. Miller, vi., 1898, p. 95]. But
unfortunately the author has merely drawn from obsolete Greek sources,
such as Homer, Hecatæus, Eratosthenes and others, and has nothing new to
tell us. The whole continent was surrounded by ocean like an immense
island; it was not quite circular, but somewhat prolonged in the direction
of the sun's course (i.e., towards the east and west).
After Greek scientific geography had had its most fruitful life in the
period ending with Eratosthenes and Hipparchus it still sent out such
powerful shoots as the physical-mathematical geographer Posidonius and the
descriptive geographer Strabo; but after them a century and a half elapses
until we hear of its final brilliant revival in Marinus of Tyre and
Claudius Ptolemy, whose work was to exercise a decisive influence upon
geography thirteen centuries later.
[Sidenote: Marinus of Tyre]
Marinus's writings are lost, and we know nothing more of him than is told
us by his younger contemporary Ptolemy, who has relied upon him to a
considerable extent, and whose great forerunner he was. He must have lived
in the first half of the second century A.D. He made an exhaustive attempt
to describe every place on the earth according to its latitude and
longitude, and drew a map of the world on this principle. He also adopted
Posidonius's insufficient estimate of the earth's circumference (instead
of that of Eratosthenes), and his exaggerated extension of the "œcumene"
towards the east; and as this was passed on from him to Ptolemy he
exercised great influence upon Columbus, amongst others, who thus came to
estimate the distance around the globe to India at only half its real
length. In this way Marinus and Ptolemy are of importance in the discovery
not only of the West Indies, but also of North America by Cabot, and in
the earliest attempts to find a north-west passage to China. Thus
"accidental" mistakes may have far-reaching influence in history.
[Sidenote: Ptolemy, circa 150 A.D.]
Claudius Ptolemæus marks to a certain extent the highest point of
classical geographical knowledge. He was perhaps born in Egypt about 100
A.D. He must have lived as an astronomer at Alexandria during the years
126 to 141, and perhaps longer; and he probably outlived the emperor
Antoninus Pius, who died in 161 A.D., but we do not know much more of him.
In his celebrated astronomical work, most generally known by its Arabic
title of "Almagest" (because it first reached mediæval western Europe in
an Arabic translation), he gave his well-known account of the universe and
of the movements of the heavenly bodies, which had such great influence in
the later Middle Ages, and on Columbus and the great discoveries. His
celebrated "Geography" in eight books (written about 150 A.D.) is, as he
himself tells us, for the most part founded upon the now lost work of
Marinus, and shows a great advance in geographical comprehension upon the
practical but unscientific Romans. With the scientific method of the
Greeks an attempt is here made to collect and co-ordinate the geographical
knowledge of the time into a tabulated survey, for the most part dry, of
countries, places and peoples, with a number of latitudes and longitudes,
mostly given by estimate. His information and names are in great part
taken from the so-called "Itineraries," which were tabular and consisted
chiefly of graphic routes for travellers with stopping-places and
distances, and which were due for the most part to military sources
(especially the Roman campaigns), and in a less degree to merchants and
sailors.
Cartographical representation was by him radically improved by the
introduction of correct projections, with converging meridians, of which a
commencement had already been made by Hipparchus. His atlas, which may
originally have been drawn by himself, or by another from the detailed
statements in his geography, gives us the only maps that have been
preserved from antiquity, and thus has a special interest.
As to the North, we find remarkably little that is new in Ptolemy, and on
many points he shows a retrogression even, as it seems, from Pytheas; but
the northern coast of Europe begins to take definite shape past the
Cimbrian Peninsula to the Baltic. His representation of Britain and
Ireland (Ivernia), which is based upon much new information,[124] was
certainly a great improvement on his predecessors, even though he gives
the northern part of Scotland (Caledonia) a strange deflection far to the
east, which was retained on later maps (in the fifteenth century). He
mentions five Ebudes (Hebrides) above Ivernia, and says further [ii. 3]:
"The following islands lie near Albion off the Orcadian Cape; the
island of Ocitis (32° 40' E. long., 60° 45' N. lat.), the island of
Dumna (30° E. long., 61° N. lat.), north of them the Orcades, about
thirty in number, of which the most central lies in 30° E. long., 61°
40' N. lat. And far to the north of them Thule, the most western part
of which lies in 29° E. long., 63° N. lat., the most eastern part in
31° 40' E. long., 63° N. lat., the most northern in 30° 20' E. long.,
63° 15' N. lat., the most southern in 30° 20' E. long., 62° 40' N.
lat., and the central part in 30° 20' E. long., 63° N. lat."
Ptolemy calculates his degrees of longitude eastwards from a meridian 0
which he draws west of the Fortunate Isles (the Canaries), the most
western part of the earth. It will be seen that he gives Thule no very
great extent. His removing it from the Arctic Circle south to 63° is
doubtless due to the men of Agricola's fleet having thought they had
sighted Thule north of the Orkneys. In his eighth book [c. 3] he says:
Thule has a longest day of twenty hours, and it is distant west from
Alexandria two hours. Dumna has a longest day of nineteen hours, and
is distant westward two hours.
It is evident that these "hours" are found by calculation, and are merely
a way of expressing degrees of latitude and longitude; they cannot
therefore be referred to any local observation of the length of the
longest day, etc. It is curious that Ptolemy only mentions Ebudes and
Orcades, and not the Shetland Isles; perhaps they are included among his
thirty Orcades.
[Illustration: The northern part of Ptolemy's map of the world, Europe and
Asia. From the Rome edition of Ptolemy of 1490 (Nordenskiöld, 1889)]
He represents the Cimbrian Peninsula (Jutland) with remarkable
correctness, though making it lean too much towards the east, like
Scotland. Upon it "dwelt on the west the Sigulones, then the Sabalingii,
then the Cobandi, above them the Chali, and above these again and farther
west the Phundusii, and more to the east the Charudes [Harudes or Horder;
cf. p. 85], and to the north of all the Cimbri." It was suggested above
(p. 94) that possibly the name Cobandi might be connected with the Codanus
of Mela and Pliny. The Sabalingii, according to Much [1905, p. 11], may be
the same name as Pytheas's Abalos (cf. p. 70), which may have been written
Sabalos or Sabalia, and may have been inhabited by Aviones. To the north
of the Cimbrian Chersonese Ptolemy places three islands, the "Alociæ,"
which may be taken from the Halligen islands, properly "Hallagh" [cf.
Detlefsen, 1904, p. 61], off the coast of Sleswick.[125]
To the east of the peninsula are the four so-called "Scandiæ," three
small [the Danish islands], of which the central one lies in 41° 30'
E. long., 58° N. lat.; but the largest and most eastern lies off the
mouths of the Vistula; the westernmost part of this island lies in
43° E. long., 58° N. lat., the easternmost in 46° E. long., 58° N.
lat., the northernmost in 44° 30' E. long., 58° 30' N. lat., the
southernmost in 45° E. long., 57° 40' N. lat. But this one [i.e.,
south Scandinavia] is called in particular Scandia, and the western
part of it is inhabited by the Chædini, the eastern by the Phavonæ and
Phiresii, the northern by the Phinni, the southern by the Gutæ and
Dauciones, and the central by the Levoni.
It will be seen that Scandia would not be much larger than Thule: 20'
longer from west to east, and only 10' longer from north to south.
[Illustration: The Scandinavian North according to Ptolemy. The most
northern people in Scandinavia, the Phinni, are omitted in this map, as in
most MSS.]
The "Chædini" must be the Norwegian "Heiðnir" or "Heinir," whose name is
preserved in Heiðmǫrk, Hedemarken [cf. Zeuss, 1837, p. 159; Much, 1893, p.
188; Müllenhoff, 1900, p. 497]. This is the first time that an undoubtedly
Norwegian tribe is mentioned in known literature. "Phinni" (Finns) is only
found in one MS.; but as Jordanes (Cassiodorus) says that Ptolemy mentions
seven tribes in Scandia, it must have been found in ancient MSS. of his
work, and it occurs here for the first time as the name of a people in
Scandinavia. Ptolemy also mentions "Phinni" in another place as a people
in Sarmatia near the Vistula (together with Gythones or Goths); but these
must be connected with the "Fenni" of Tacitus, and doubtless also belong
originally to Scandinavia. The "Gutæ" must be the Gauter or Göter, unless
they are the Guter of Gotland (?). The "Dauciones," it has been supposed,
may possibly be the Danes, and the "Levoni" might perhaps be the
Hilleviones mentioned by Pliny, whose name does not otherwise occur. Thus
a knowledge of Scandinavia slowly dawns in history.
[Illustration: Ptolemy's map of Europe, etc., compared with the true
conditions (in dotted line)]
To the north of the known coasts and islands of Europe there lay,
according to Ptolemy and Marinus, a great continuous ocean, which was a
continuation of the Atlantic. On the extreme north-west was "the
Hyperborean Ocean, which was also called the Congealed (πεπηγος) or
'Cronius' or the Dead (νεκρος) Sea." North of Britain was the
Deucaledonian Ocean, and east of Britain the Germanic Ocean as far as the
eastern side of the Cimbrian Chersonese, that is, the North Sea and a part
of the Baltic. This was joined by the Sarmatian Ocean, with the Venedian
(i.e., Wendish) Gulf, from the mouths of the Vistula north-eastwards. The
Baltic was still merely an open bay of the great Northern Ocean. But
whether the latter extended farther to the east, round the north of the
œcumene, making it into an island, was unknown. Ptolemy and Marinus
therefore put the northern boundary of the known continent at the latitude
of Thule, and made this continent extend into the unknown on the
north-east and east; they thus furnish the latest development of the
doctrine that the œcumene was not an island in the universal ocean, since
they considered that guesses about the regions beyond the limits of the
really known were inadmissible, and no one had reached any coast in those
directions; for the Caspian Sea was closed and not connected with the
Northern Ocean. In the same way the extent of Africa towards the south was
uncertain, and they connected it possibly with south-eastern Asia, to the
south of the Indian Ocean, which thus also became enclosed.
[Illustration: Ptolemy's tribes in Denmark and South Sweden]
Ptolemy wrote at a time when the Roman Empire was at its height, and he
had the advantage of being able, as a Greek, to combine the scientific
lore of the older Greek literature with the mass of information which must
inevitably have been collected from all parts of the world by the
extensive administration of this gigantic empire. His work, like that of
Marinus, was therefore a natural fruit which grew by the stream of time.
But the stream had just then reached a backwater; he belonged to a
languishing civilisation, and represents the last powerful shoot which
Greek science put forth. Some thirteen centuries were to elapse before, by
the changes of fate, his works at last made their mark in the development
of the world's civilisation. In the centuries that succeeded him the Roman
Empire went steadily backwards to its downfall, and literature degenerated
rapidly; it sank into compilation and repetition of older writers, without
spirit or originality. It is therefore not surprising that the literature
of later antiquity gives us nothing new about the North, although
communication therewith must certainly have increased.
[Sidenote: Solinus, 3rd century A.D.]
The geographical author of antiquity most widely read in the Middle Ages
was C. Julius Solinus (third century A.D.), who for the most part repeated
passages from Pliny, with a marked predilection for the fabulous. All that
is to be found in the MSS. of his works about Thule, the Orcades and the
Hebudes, beyond what we read in Pliny, consists, in the opinion of Mommsen
[1895, p. 219], of later additions by a copyist (perhaps an Irish monk) of
between the seventh and ninth centuries, and as this has a certain
interest for our country it will be dealt with later under this period.
[Sidenote: Avienus, circa 370 A.D.]
Rufus Festus Avienus lived in the latter half of the fourth century A.D.
and was proconsul in Africa in 366 and in Achæa in 372. His poem "Ora
Maritima" is mainly a translation of older Greek authors and, as mentioned
above (p. 37), is of interest from his having used an otherwise unknown
authority of very early origin. His second descriptive poem is a free
translation of Dionysius Periegetes.
[Sidenote: Macrobius, Orosius, Capella, etc.]
Amongst other authors who in this period of literary degeneration compiled
geographical descriptions may be named: Ammianus Marcellinus (second half
of the fourth century) in his historical works, Macrobius[126] (circa 400
A.D.), the Spaniard Paulus Orosius, whose widely read historical work
(circa 418 A.D.) has a geographical chapter, Marcianus of Heraclea
(beginning of the fifth century), Julius Honorius (beginning of the fifth
century), Marcianus Capella (about 470 A.D.), Priscianus Cæsariensis
(about 500 A.D.) and others.
Their statements about the northern regions are repetitions of older
authors and contain nothing new.
[Sidenote: Itineraries]
Much of the geographical knowledge of that time was included in the
already mentioned (p. 116) "Itineraries," which were probably illustrated
with maps of the routes. Partial copies of one of them are preserved in
the so-called "Tabula Peutingeriana" [cf. K. Miller, vi. 1898, pp. 90
ff.], which came to be of importance in the Middle Ages.
Thus at the close of antiquity the lands and seas of the North still lie
in the mists of the unknown. Many indications point to constant
communication with the North, and now and again vague pieces of
information have reached the learned world. Occasionally, indeed, the
clouds lift a little, and we get a glimpse of great countries, a whole new
world in the North, but then they sink again and the vision fades like a
dream of fairyland. It seems as though no one felt scientifically impelled
to make an effort to clear up these obscure questions.
Then followed restless times, with roving warlike tribes in Central
Europe. The peaceful trading communication between the Mediterranean and
the northern coasts was broken off, and with it the fresh stream of
information which had begun to flow in from the North. And for a long time
men chewed the cud of the knowledge that had been collected in remote
antiquity. But Greek literature was more and more forgotten, and it was
especially the later Roman authors they lived on.
[Illustration: Map of the World from a ninth-century MS. (in the Strasburg
Library)]