Ancient texts, translated by Gaston E. Broche, associate professor at the University of Paris for the state doctorate in 1935 (1)
(1) Expect M44, 45, 47 and N58.1
* Poor Man and Gratitude
A1: This is what Pytheas relates… But Polybius replies that there is something incredible in this itself: that a simple individual, and poor, could have found the means to navigate and travel over such vast spaces. Eratosthenes, after having hesitated to give credit to his account, nevertheless believed it for Great Britain, the region of the Pillars of Hercules, and Iberia. It would be much better, says Polybius, to believe the Messenian than that man! And yet the Messenian claims to have navigated only as far as a single country, Panchaea, while Pytheas claims to have gone to the ends of the world and to have contemplated all of northern Europe, which no one would want to believe even if Hermes told him so. And yet Eratosthenes, who calls Euhemerus a braggart, trusted Pytheas, while Dicaearchus himself had not. (Strabo, II, IV, 2)
A2: However, in astronomy and mathematics, Pytheas seems to have shown ability. (Strabo, IV, V, 5)
A3: Using his knowledge of astronomy and mathematics as a cover. (Strabo, VII, III, 1)
A4: But there are people who have written casually about journeys, their lies seem to me to outweigh those of Antiphanes the Bergaean; others, on the other hand, indeed, seem to me to have done so in a serious manner, among them Pytheas the Massaliote… (Marcian of Heraclea, summary of the journey in the inland sea, I, I, 2).
* North polel
B2: Concerning the North Pole, Euxodus is mistaken when he says: "There is a star that always remains in the same place: this star is "the pole of the world"" And it is only at the pole that there is no star, but an empty place, near which there are three stars, with which the sign that one would put at the pole constitutes approximately a quadrilateral, as Pytheas the Massaliote also says. (Hipparchus, Commentaries on Aratus and Euxodus, I, IV.)
- Latitude of Marseille
C3: The parallel of Byzantium being in short that of Marseilles, as Hipparchus says on the faith of Pytheas (Hipparchus says, in fact, that in Byzantium the ratio of the gnomon to its shadow is precisely that which Pytheas gave for Marseilles)… (Strabo, I, IV, 8)
C4: For the ratio of the gnomon to its shadow that Pytheas indicated for Marseilles is the same one that Hipparchus, for the same time of year, declares to have found in Byzantium. (Strabo, I, IV, 4)
C5: Hipparchus, in fact, as he himself says, described the differences that the aspect of the sky offers for each place on earth… In the region of Byzantium… the gnomon, at the summer solstice, presents with its shadow the following ratio: one hundred came to forty-two, minus one-fifth. (Strabo, II, V, 34)
C6: It is enough… to state… that the size of the circle of the earth is two hundred and fifty-two thousand stades, as Eratosthenes also indicates (he has just spoken of Hipparchus); if therefore we divide the great circle of the earth into 360 divisions, there will be 700 stades for each of these divisions (Strabo, II, V, 8)
C7: As a continuation of text 5 and consequently referring, according to Hipparchus, to the places located on the Marseille-Byzantium parallel: the distance of these places, relative to the equatorial line, is therefore thirty thousand three hundred stades (Strabo, II, V, 41)
* tides
D10: This is why straits also have currents, and this is especially the case of the Strait of Sicily which, according to Eratosthenes, presents the same phenomenon as the ebb and flow of the Ocean: twice, in fact, it changes the direction of its current and every day and every night, just as the Ocean sees its tide twice rise and twice fall. The current of the ocean corresponds, on the one hand, to the current which flows from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Sicilian Sea as if it were flowing from a higher surface, so that it is called the descending current, and it must be recognized, in fact, that it begins and ceases at the same moment as the rising ocean tides: it begins, in fact, at the moment when the moon rises and at the moment when it sets, and it ends on the other hand when the moon reaches the middle of the sky on both sides, that is to say, above the earth and below the earth. And to the ebb of the ocean, on the other hand, corresponds the contrary current which must be called the outgoing current, and which begins at each and the other passage of the moon across the meridian, as do the falling ocean tides, and which ceases when the moon reaches the points where it rises and sets. (Strabo, I, III, 11).
D11: As for waters, many things have been said, but the ebb and flow of the sea is certainly the strangest thing; the modes are many, but the cause is in the sun and the moon. Twice between two moonrises there is ebb and flow, always in twenty-four hours: first, when the moon begins to rise in the sky, the sea swells, then as the star descends from the meridian line to set, the sea sinks; again as the star goes from its setting to the depths of the sky under the earth, and in the opposite direction approaches the opposite meridian line, the waves overflow their bed, then from that moment, until the new moonrise, they are absorbed, but it is never at the same time as the day before that they flow back, enslaved to the greedy star and which by multiple absorption attracts the seas to itself, rising moreover always in a different place than the day before, but always however the interval is the same between ebb and flow, and it is six equinoctial hours. Multiple more are the differences that determine the lunar phases, and at first from seven days to seven days. For the tides which diminish from the new moon to the first quarter increase from this first quarter and reach their maximum with the full moon, then decrease until they become similar, on the seventh day, to those of the first quarter, to increase again from the last quarter so as to be, at the time of the conjunction with the sun, similar to those of the full moon… If we consider the annual causes due to the solar revolution, at the two equinoxes the tides reach their maximum amplitude, and even more so at the autumn equinox than at the spring equinox; on the contrary, they are at the winter solstice and especially at the summer solstice. It is not, however, that the phenomena occur exactly at the times I have mentioned but approximately; so it is not at the precise moment of the full or new moon but after, nor that the moon appears or hides itself, or leaves the meridian, but about two equinoctial hours later, the effect on the earth, for all that happens in the sky, always falling behind the sight, as it happens with lightning, thunder and lightning. But the tides of the ocean cover with their waves larger spaces than do the tides of other seas, either because the motion has more force in the whole than in the part, or because the open expanse of the ocean feels more keenly the force of the star advancing without obstacle while the narrow spaces repel it. This is why neither lakes nor rivers know such motion. Up to eighty cubits, on the contrary, at the extremity of Great Britain the tides swell, as Pytheas the Massaliote assures us. (Pliny, Natural History, II, XCVII, 99)
D12: Such, says Posidonius, is the diurnal movement of the Ocean… On the other hand, as for the annual variations, he says he inquired with the people of Cadiz and learned from them that at the summer solstice the tides in both directions, both the descending and the rising, have their maximum amplitude. He himself presumes that they decrease from this solstice to the equinox and increase from the equinox to this winter solstice; that then they decrease until the spring equinox and increase until the winter equinox (Strabo, II, V, 8)
D12.1: That the tides to the north of Great Britain rise to eighty cubits, this is what Pytheas the Massaliote assures us. (Pliny, H., N., II, l.c)
* Join the ocean
E13: From Marseilles to the Pillars of Hercules, Eratosthenes gives seven thousand stades, but starting from the Pyrenees six thousand… (Strabo, II, IV, 4).
E14: Replying to Eratosthenes, Artemidorus says that he speaks falsely here again in giving the distance which separates Cadiz from the Sacred Cape as five days of navigation, when it is not more than one thousand seven hundred stades, and in saying also that the tides end there, when they take place in a circle, all around the inhabited earth, and again in saying that the northern parts of Iberia are easier to sail along, going towards Celtica, than it is easy to sail down (in the Mediterranean) towards the Ocean – and so many other things that he said in reliance on Pytheas. (Strabo, III, II, 11).
E15: … As mathematicians say, this (temperate) zone joins at its extremities so as to form a circle, so that if the extent of the Atlantic did not prevent it, it would be possible for us to sail from Iberia to India following the same parallel, which remains to be covered, relative to the extent which has been said, constituting more than a third of the entire circle, if however the parallel of Athens, on which we have calculated the distances said above from India to Iberia, is less than two hundred thousand stades. (Strabo, I, IV, 6)
* Armorica
F16: These are the Osismians, whom Pytheas calls the Ostimians, and who live on a peninsula quite advanced on the Ocean, however not as advanced as Pytheas and those who have given credence to what he said say. (Strabo, I, IV,1).
F17: It is also necessary to add (according to Eratosthenes and according to Pytheas in the sense of longitude) that curvature of Europe which is beyond the Pillars of Hercules and which facing the Iberians is projected towards the west, for a distance which is not less than three thousand stades, and also the other capes, and that of the Ostimians which bears the name of Kabaion, and the islands which are near it, of which the last, Ouxisama, according to Pytheas, is three days' sail, but in saying this, and with regard to these last things, he adds elements which contribute nothing to the longitude, I mean the distances of these capes, and of those of the Ostimians, and of the island of Ouxisama and of these other islands of which he speaks: All these things, in fact, are in the direction of the north, and Celtic, not Iberian, if they are not rather inventions of Pytheas. (Strabo I, IV, 5).
* Tin
G18: Opposite the land of the Celtiberians, there are many islands called by the Greeks the Cassiterides because of their wealth in tin. (Pliny, Hist. Nat. IV, XXXVI).
G19: The other cape, that which is called Belerion, is said to be four days' sailing from the continent. (Diodorus Siculus, V, 21).
G20: On this British promontory which is called Belerion, the inhabitants are extremely well disposed towards foreigners, and as a result of their relations with foreign merchants their manners have become quite softened. These people exploit tin by skillfully treating the ore which contains it. This ore consists of rocky quarters containing earthy growths. It is from these earthy growths that by careful work of sorting and fusion they obtain pure tin. Having shaped their tin into small bones, they transported it to an island which was right next to the British shore and which was called Ictis: At low tide, in fact, the passage being dry, they transported to this island, on carts, large quantities of tin. There is something particular in what happens to these islands very close to the British coast and Europe: At high tide, in fact, the passage filling up, they have the effect of being islands, but at low tide, the sea having withdrawn and having left the ground largely dry, they appear like peninsulas. It is therefore there that foreign merchants come to make their purchases from the natives, and it is from there that they have this tin transported to Gaul. Finally, traveling by land through Gaul, they transport their cargo on horseback, in about thirty days, to the mouth of the Rhone. (Diodorus Siculus, V,22).
G21: The historian Timaeus says that on this side of Great Britain, six days' sail, there is an island, called Mictis, from which tin comes. The British go there in wicker boats sewn with leather. (Pliny, Hist. Nat., IV, XXX).
* Corbilon
H22: There was once a market town called Corbilon near the mouth of the Loire. Polybius speaks of it in connection with the stories told by Pytheas. For Scipio, says Polybius, having summoned the people of Marseilles, none of those he questioned about (Great) Britain could give him an answer worthy of being remembered, and no more could the people of Narbonne or Corbilon, which were nevertheless the most important cities there, answer him. But Pytheas had gone so far as to invent all this. (Strabo, IV, II, 1)
* Great Britain
I23: And for the Kantion, it is a few days' sailing from Celtica, according to Pytheas. (Strabo, I, IV, 3).
I23.1: … That of the (British) promontories which is the least distant from the continent, and which is called Kantion, is said to be about a hundred stades distant from it… (Diodorus Siculus, V, 21).
I24: Many islands present themselves to us in the Ocean: The largest is called Britain… this island, in fact, of a triangular shape almost like Sicily, does not have its sides equal. It extends obliquely next to Europe; that of its capes which is at the least distance from the continent, and which is called Kantion, is distant, as it is said, about a hundred stades, and it is there that the sea has its flow; The other cape, that which is called Belerion, is said to be four days' sail from the continent. As for the remaining one, it is reported that it extends very far into the sea and is called Orcas. On the sides, the smaller one is seven thousand five hundred stades long, this is the one which extends along Europe; as for the second, that which rises from the strait to the summit, it is fifteen thousand stades, and the last twenty thousand, so that the whole perimeter of the island is forty-two thousand five hundred stades. (Diodorus Siculus, V, 21).
I25: Of those who have written old fabulous stories, Hecataeus and some others say that in the waters of the Ocean which are opposite Celtica there is an island which is not less large than Sicily. This island extends towards the north and has for its inhabitants those people who are called the Hyperboreans, because their country is beyond the limit where the north winds are formed. (Diodorus Siculus, II, 47).
I26: This island has a triangular shape: one of its sides faces Gaul; it has a length of about five hundred thousand paces. The second side is turned towards Spain and the setting sun… Its length, according to these authors, is seven hundred thousand paces. The third faces north: there is no other land in front of it, but the angle made by this side mainly regards Germany. This side is estimated at eight hundred thousand paces. Thus, the entire island has a perimeter of two million paces. (Caesar, Gallic Wars, V, XIII).
I27: But he (Pytheas) gives more than twenty thousand stades for the length of the island. (Strabo, II, IV, 1). I28: On all this British island, wherever it was accessible, Pytheas claims that he descended and he gives more than forty thousand stades to the perimeter of the island. (Strabo, II, IV, 1).
I28 1: Moreover, as we have seen up to now, this island (Britain) projects itself between the north and the west, facing by a large angle the mouths of the Rhine, then withdrawing back and obliquely its sides, by one it looks at Gaul, by the other at Germany; then again, by a return on the reverse made of a long straight line it constitutes new angles, thus becoming triangular and very similar to Sicily. (Pomponius Mela, Description of the Earth, III, VI).
I29: Very large rivers, which alternately sometimes flow into the sea, sometimes rise towards their source. (Pomponius Mela Description of the Earth, III, IV).
I30 Opposite the British island, famous for what the Greeks and our Romans wrote about it: it is between the north and the west, facing Germany, Gaul and Spain, by far the largest countries in Europe, and separated from them by a great distance. It was called Albion while calling all the islands of which we will speak shortly after Britannia. From the coast of Gesoriacum (Boulogne) country of the Morini, and by the shortest route, this island is at a distance of fifty miles. Its perimeter is 3825 miles according to Pytheas and Isodorus… (Pliny, H. N., IV, 16 (30)).
* The people of Britain
J31: It is said that they are an indigenous race that inhabits the great British island and that their customs are those of old. On the one hand, in fact, in their wars they use chariots as we have learned from tradition that the Greek heroes did in the Trojan War, and on the other hand, they have very poor dwellings made most often of reeds and wood. They make their provision of wheat by cutting the ears and keeping them in covered shelters. From these reserves, they draw out the old ears every day, which they shell and work in such a way as to find food in them. As for their character, they are very simple people and far removed from that lively and wicked spirit which is that of the people of today. Their way of life is rudimentary and has nothing to do with that soft and voluptuous life which is born of wealth. It is also said that the island is populated, and that the air is quite cold, as is natural for a country that lies under the Bear itself. They have many kings and chiefs, and generally live in peace with one another. (Diodorus Siculus, V, 21).
J32: … flat, immense, fertile, but in truth rather in those products which feed the herds than the men. It has woods cut for pastures, forests, very large rivers. (Pomponius Mela, Chorography, III, VI).
J33 But as for what Pytheas said about it and about those regions which are neighboring with it, that it is pure invention appears well… However, as regards the science of astronomy and mathematical theory, he seems to have treated these things with justice… by saying that for the regions which are neighboring the glacial zone there is a complete absence of cultivated fruits and scarcity of domestic animals, that they feed on millet, vegetables and wild fruits and roots; that those who have cereals and honey also draw their drink from them. As for their cereals, as they have no period of clear sunshine, they carry the ears of corn in large buildings, and do their threshing there, because the open areas are useless there, owing to the insufficiency of the sun and the abundance of rain. (Strabo, IV, V, 5)
* Ireland
K34: To the west (of Great Britain) is Ireland, half as small, as is estimated, as Great Britain, from which it is separated by a distance equal to that which separates the latter from Gaul. (Caesar, Gallic Wars, V, XIII).
K35: Agrippa estimates the length of Great Britain at 800 miles, its width at 300; he gives the same width to Ireland, but 200 miles less in length. (Pliny, Hist. Nat., IV, 16 (30))
K36: Above Great Britain is Ireland, of almost equal area, but oblong in shape between the two equal curves of its shores; its sky is not suitable for the maturation of seeds. (Pomponius Mela, Chorography, III, VI).
K37: This being given, that those who live under the Bears are more savage, and those who are neighbors of the Scythians, some are said to be cannibals, as are those of the British who inhabit the island called Erin. (Diodorus Siculus, V, 32).
K38: There are still other small islands around Great Britain; but Ierne is a large island, which is juxtaposed to it towards the north, rather elongated than wide. Concerning it, we have nothing well established to say, except that its inhabitants are more savage than the British, being cannibals and omnivores, judging it beautiful to eat their dead fathers, and to mix publicly, to say nothing of other women, with their mothers and sisters. But in truth we say these things, warning that we do not have witnesses offering all guarantees. On this point, however, of cannibalism, it is said that it is also a feature of the Scythian customs, and, when they are besieged, it is said that the Celts and the Iberians practiced it. (Strabo, IV, V, 4).
K38.1: … for those who have now made inquiries have nothing to report beyond Ireland, which lies to the north of Great Britain, at a short distance, and whose inhabitants are quite savages and live a miserable life on account of the humidity, so that I think that it is there that we must place the limit of the inhabited earth. (Strabo, II, V, 8).
K39: the inhabitants of this island are extremely rude and ignorant of all virtues more than are other peoples, having no kind of religion. (Pomponius Mela, Chorography, III, VI).
* Other islands
L40: There are also, it seems, a very large number of smaller islands facing Great Britain; about these islands some have written that around the winter solstice there was a night that lasted thirty days… (Caesar, Gallic Wars, V, 13).
L41: There are thirty Orkneys separated from each other by narrow intervals, and seven Haemodes that advance opposite Germany. (Pomponius Mela, Chorography, III, VI).
L42: There are more than forty Orkneys separated from each other by small intervals, and thirty Hebudae, and again between Ireland and Great Britain, Mona, Monapia, Rigina, Vectis, Limnos, Andros. Further south, Siambis and Ouessant. (Pliny, H., N., IV, XXX).
L43: For those who set out from a Caledonian promontory, and go to Thule: Then the Hebud Islands, five in number, welcome them, whose inhabitants are ignorant of grain harvests, and live only on fish and milk. There is only one king for all these islands, for they are all separated from each other by a narrow channel. The king owns nothing of his own, everything belongs to all. He is constrained to equity by fixed laws, and for fear that greed should lead him astray he learns justice through poverty, since he has no family patrimony, but is supported at public expense. No wife is given to him of his own, but, in turn, according to his fancy, he can use any one, so that he has neither desire nor hope of having children… …The second stopping place for those who go to Thule is provided by the Orkneys. But the Orkneys are seven days and seven nights' sail from the Ebudes. They are three in number, uninhabited, without trees, bristling with grass that looks like rushes. All the rest of their surface is occupied by sand and rocks. (C Julii Solini, collection of memorable things)
* Thule
M44: Pytheas tells us that Thule is six days' sailing from Britain in a northerly direction and that it is close to the frozen sea. (Strabo, I, IV, 9).
M45: Thule, writes Pytheas the Massaliote, six days' sailing in the north of distant Britannia. (Pliny, IV, 16).
M47: Thule is an island in the Ocean, between the north and the west in the sea beyond Britannia not far from the Orkneys and Ireland. (Servius, Virg, Geog., I, 30).
M48: For those who live even further north of the Propontis (Sea of Marmara), the longest day is sixteen equinoctial hours, for those who live further north still, this day is seventeen and eighteen hours. In these parts it seems that Pytheas the Massaliote also went. He says in fact in the account of his oceanic voyage: "the barbarians showed us where the sun sets". For in these places it happened that the night was quite short, for some two hours, for others three, so that the sun having set, after a short interval it rose again immediately. (Geminus of Rhodes, Elements of Astronomy, C, VI).
M48.1: Pytheas the Massaliote says in his book of the Ocean, that having arrived in these parts of the extreme north, the natives showed him the setting of the sun, that is to say the place which was for them always the point of origin of the nights. (Cosmas Indicopleutes. Topography).
M49: Concerning the island called Thule, to which the philosopher Pytheas of Marseilles is said to have gone, it seems that the entire circle described by the sun at the summer solstice is above the horizon, so that it coincides for these places with the Arctic Circle. In these parts, when the sun is in the sign of Cancer, the day lasts a month, if indeed all the parts of this sign are visible. (Cleomedes. On the Circular Motion of the Heavenly Bodies, 1, 7).
M50: On the one hand, then, Pytheas the Massaliote says that the parts of Thule, which is the most northerly of the British Isles, constitute the last (of the habitable regions), and that there the circle described by the sun at the summer solstice is identical to the Arctic Circle. (Strabo, II, V, 8).
M51: Thule… there… the nights, in summer, are illuminated, because, at that time of the year, the sun, standing higher (closer above the horizon) without being itself visible, nevertheless with its neighboring splendor illuminates the places that are closer to it. But at the time of the solstice there is no more night because the more apparent sun shows not only its brightness but even the greater part of its orb. (Pomponius Mela, III, 6, 57).
M52: On the days of the solstice, the sun approaching more to the pole of the world, and describing a tighter circle illuminates with a continuous day, for six months, the lands that are under it, and there is conversely continuous night when the sun, at the winter solstice, passes to the other side of the earth, and this is what happens on the island of Thule, as Pytheas the Massaliote writes. (Pliny, H., N., II, 75).
M53: Thule, where, at the summer solstice we have indicated that there is no night, while the sun crosses the sign of Cancer, and where, conversely, there are no more days at the winter solstice. And this, it seems, for six continuous months. (Pliny, H., N., IV, 30).
M53.1: For Thule therefore it has its longest day of twenty-four equinoctial hours. (Ptolemy, Geogr., VIII, 2).
M53.2: On this segment, that is to say on the parallel of Thule (the longest day is) of twenty-four hours. (Agathemere, Geography, I, VII, or from an anonymous).
M53.3: Thule: large island of the Ocean, in the hyperborean regions; where the sun, at the summer solstice, makes a day of twenty equinoctial hours and a night of four hours; in winter the opposite. (Stephen of Byzantium, Thule).
M53.4: There are many other islands around (Great) Britain, among which Thule is the most remote, and where, at the summer solstice, the sun crossing the Tropic of Cancer, there is no more night; likewise, at the winter solstice, no day. (Solin, Collection of astonishing things).
M53.5: But at the time of the solstice, the sun moving towards the pole of the sky, illuminates in its movement towards the left the lands which are under it, with a continuous day, and likewise, in its movement of descent towards the winter solstice, it creates the horror of a night of six months; as Pytheas the Massaliote claims to have discovered on the island of Thule. (Marcian, VI).
M54 Prodigious things are told about this island (Servius Virg., Géograp., I, 30)
M55 Then, he who wants to run across the vast sea mounted on a fast ship, and very far, towards the bears close to the herdsman, will push his course, will see Thule emerge, in its imposing mass. (Rufus Festus Avenius. Description of the Earth, V,755-757).
* The sea lung
N56: Pytheas says that Thule… is near the icy sea. (Strabo, I, IV, 2).
N57: Only one day’s sailing away is the frozen sea, called by some the Cronian. (Pliny, IV, 30).
N58: Pytheas also speaks of those parts of Thule and of those places in which there is no longer any land properly speaking, nor sea, nor air, but a mixture made of all these things, similar to the sea lung, in which he says that the land and the sea and all these things are as if in suspension, as if this something were a link between all these elements, making it impossible to walk or sail. That what was similar to the sea lung, he says he saw with his own eyes, but that for other things he speaks of them by hearsay. This is what Pytheas relates. (Strabo, Ii, IV, 1).
N58.1 … of those places where neither land had any existence, nor sea, nor air, but a sort of mixture of these things like a marine lung in which the land and the sea and all these things are together in suspension, and as if it were a link between all, these things existing in a form in which one can neither walk nor sail. (Polybius…)
* Thule, Strabon and Pythéas
O59: But this Pytheas, indeed, who told us stories about Thule has well proved that he is the biggest liar of men, for those who have seen the great British island and Ireland say nothing about Thule while speaking of other small islands around Great Britain. (Strabo, I, IV, 3).
O60: But on the one hand, it is true, Pytheas the Massaliote claims that it is the region of Thule, the most northerly of the British islands, which is the last of the habitable lands, for which the circle described by the sun at the summer solstice coincides with the Arctic circle: but in other writers I find nothing on this subject, neither that there is an island by the name of Thule, nor that the regions which extend as far as there are habitable, where the summer tropic becomes the Arctic circle. For my part, on the contrary, I think that this northern limit of the inhabited earth should be placed much further south; for those who have now made inquiries have nothing to report beyond Ireland, which lies to the north of Great Britain, at a short distance, and whose inhabitants are quite savages and live a miserable life because of the humidity, so that I think that it is there that the limit of the inhabited earth should be placed. (Strabo, II, V, 8).
O61: But concerning Thule our knowledge is still more uncertain because it would be outside all known paths. For of all the lands that are named, it is the one that is placed furthest north. But for what Pytheas said of it, of it and of the regions that are neighboring it; That this is pure invention is clear from what he said about known countries: for about these he lied most often as has already been said; so that it is evident that he lied much more about countries that are far from everything. (Strabo, IV, V, 5).
O62: This is what Pytheas relates, and that afterwards, having returned from Thule, he would have continued his exploration of all the ocean coasts of Europe, from Gadir (the Pillars of Hercules) to the Tanais. (Strabo, II, IV, 1)
* The Baltic
P63: But as for what is beyond the Elbe, the countries which are on the edge of the Ocean are completely unknown to us. Until our days, in fact, no one, as far as we know, has sailed along this coast towards the eastern regions, those which are near the outlet of the Caspian Sea, and the Romans in their advance did not, it seems to me, go beyond the Elbe, so that thus there was no one to make, even on foot, this route. (Strabo, VII, II, 4)
P64: Because of our ignorance of these regions (beyond the Elbe), those who told us stories about the Rhipaean Mountains and the Hyperboreans have been deemed worthy of serious discussion, including also all the lies of Pytheas the Massaliote about the countries bordering the Ocean, lies which he was able to cover with his knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. (Strabo, VII, IV, 3).
P65: And as for the countries beyond the Rhine as far as the Scythians, about all these regions Pytheas lied. (Strabo, I, IV, 3).
P66: We must now leave these interior regions to describe the outer border of Europe, and, past the Rhipian Mountains, enumerate what is found on the left as we sail along the shore of the Northern Ocean until we arrive at Gadir. Very many nameless islands are reported to us there, among which, opposite Scythia called Raunomiya, there is one a day's sail away, on the coasts of which in spring, the waves are said to throw amber, according to what Timaeus says. On the rest of these shores we have only vague information. (Pliny, H., N., IV, 13).
P67: There are writers who report still other islands: the Scandinavians, Dumna, the Bergues, and the largest of all Norway from where one can go by sea to Thule. (Pliny, IV, 16, 30).
P68: Pytheas says that the Gutons, a Germanic nation, inhabit an "estuary" of the Ocean, called Metuonidis (Mentonomon? Meconomon?) and which extends over six thousand stades; a day's navigation from the shore of this estuary is an island called Abalus, on which in spring the waves throw amber which is a sort of solid marine excretion: the inhabitants use it as wood for fire and sell it to their neighbors the Teutons. Timaeus also believed this story of Pytheas, but he gives the island the name of Royal Island. (Pliny, H., N., XXXVII, 11).
P69: Xenophon of Lampsacus, three days' navigation from the coast of the Scythians, reports an island of immense size under the name of Baltia; to this same island, Pytheas gives the name of Royal (Pliny, IV, 13 (27)).
P70: Thule, opposite the coast of the Bergues, and which the Greeks and our own poets have celebrated in their songs. (Pomponius Mela, III, 6).
P71: Scythian peoples called the Bergues. (Pomponius Mela, III, V).
P72: Opposite Scythia, that which is beyond Galatia, there is a marine island, in the Ocean, called the Royal Island. On its shore the tide throws in abundance what is called amber which is found nowhere else in the extent of the inhabited earth… for amber is thrown on the island that I have just named, but on the other hand it is carried by the natives to the continent opposite, through which it is transported to our regions as has been said. (Diodorus Siculus, V, 23).
P73: … The Codanus… full of islands, the most famous of which is Scandinavia, whose dimensions are so large that they could not be determined… And Finland is considered not to be inferior to it… We also note the islands of the Ovones whose inhabitants feed on eggs and oats, other islands in which men, called Hippopodes, are born with horses’ feet; still others called Panodes, in which the inhabitants wrap their perfectly naked bodies in immense ears. (Pliny, H., N., IV, 27).
P74: Beyond the Elbe, the Codanus immense gulf, is full of large and small islands. Because of this the sea which is received in the bosom of the shores nowhere being far away and nowhere resembling the sea… On this gulf live the Cimbri and the Teutons, beyond the last Germanic tribes the Hermiones. The Sarmatian country, larger inland than it is on the seashore, is separated from the following countries by the river Vistula… In this gulf called, as we have said, the Codanus, we must first of all point out Scandinavia, which the Teutons still occupy and which surpasses the other islands, not only in fertility, but just as much in size. (Pomponius Mela, Chorography, II, III).
P75: Ostiones, a people on the shore of the Western Ocean, called Cossini by Artemidorus, but Ostians by Pytheas. (Stephen of Byzantium)
P76: So, from there on the coast which is on the right hand side of the Suevi Sea, we find the Esti tribes, whose customs and way of life are similar to the customs and way of life of the Suevi but who, in language, are closer to the British. They devote themselves to the cultivation of cereals and other agricultural products with more patient application than the ordinary inertia of the Germans implies, but in addition they search the sea and alone of all peoples they collect amber which they call "glesum", looking for it in the waves and on the very shore. It is not, as barbarians that they are, that they have been concerned with seeking or finding what nature or the work of man can create of value. Moreover, this amber, among all that the sea threw up, remained abandoned for a long time until the day when our luxury gave it a name. They themselves make no use of it. They collect it in its shell, transport it in its raw state and receive the price with astonishment. (Tacitus, Germania, XLV).
* Earth Observations
Q77: Now, Hipparchus tells us that in the latitude of Borysthenes and Celtica, during all summer nights, the light of twilight continues to shine, maintaining itself from sunrise to sunset; and that, on the other hand, at the winter solstice, the sun rises there at most nine cubits above the horizon; but rising towards the north to a distance of six thousand three hundred stades from Marseilles (at which height he estimates that one is still in Celtica, while I believe, myself, that one is in Great Britain and two thousand five hundred stades from Celtica), these characteristics are still more marked: in winter days the sun rises there six cubits; on the other hand, it rises to four cubits in places which are nine thousand one hundred stades from Marseilles, and to less than three cubits in places which are beyond, and which according to our calculation would be much further north than Ireland; But Hipparchus, relying on Pytheas, places this position only in the most northern parts of the great British island, adding that the longest day is nineteen equatorial hours, while it is eighteen hours where the sun rises four cubits, a region, he says, which is nine thousand one hundred stades from Marseilles. (Strabo, II, I, 18).
Q78: … From Marseilles to the middle of the great British island, there are no more than five thousand stades; but if from the middle of this great British island one advances to four thousand stades, one finds a region difficult to inhabit and it would be in the vicinity of Ireland. (Strabo, I, IV, 4).
Q79: Where Vulcan's anvils are in the islands of Lipari and Stromboli, which are part of the Aeolian archipelago, it seems that Vulcan himself is working. That is why one hears both the crackling of fire and a resounding noise. And it was formerly said that whoever wanted to bring raw iron and return the next day could bring back either a sword or something else of his choice, throwing the price of this work into the abyss. This is what Pytheas relates in his description of the earth, saying moreover that the sea is in turmoil. (Schol. Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonauts, IV,761).