Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/155

Rh P Y T H E A S 143 statements cited from it being confined to detached points, which may easily have been derived at second or even third hand. We are hence left almost wholly in the dark as to the form and character of the work itself, but the various titles under which it is cited by later writers poinl rather to a geographical treatise, in which he had embodied the results of his observations, than to a continuous narra- tive of his voyage like that of a modern navigator. Some modern writers have supposed Pytheas to have been sent out at the public expense, in command of an expedition organized by the republic of Massilia; bul there is no ancient authority for this, and the statement of Polybius, who had unquestionably seen the origina work, is express, that he had undertaken the voyage in a private capacity and with limited means. All that we know concerning the voyage of Pytheas (apart from such detached notices as those already referred to) is contained in a brief passage of Polybius, cited by Strabo, in which he tells us that Pytheas, according to his own statement, had not only visited Britain but had personally explored a large part of it, and stated its circumference at more than 40,000 stadia (4000 geographical miles). To this he added the account of Thule (which he placed six days voyage to the north of Britain) and the adjoining regions, in which there was no longer any distinction between the air and earth and sea, but a kind of mixture of all three, forming a substance resembling the gelatinous mollusc known as the Pulmo marinus, which rendered all naviga- tion and progress in any other mode alike impossible. This substance he had himself seen, but the other state- ments he derived from hearsay. Returning from thence he visited the whole of the coasts of Europe bordering on the ocean as far as the Tanais (Polyb. ap. Strab., ii. p. 104). This last sentence has led some modern writers to suppose that he made two different voyages ; but this is highly improbable, and the expressions of Polybius certainly imply that his explorations in both directions, first towards the north and afterwards towards the east, formed part of one and the same voyage. The circumstance that the countries visited, and to a certain extent explored, by Pytheas were not only pre- viously unknown to the Greeks except perhaps by vague hearsay accounts received through the Phoenicians but were not visited by any subsequent authority during a period of more than two centuries led some of the later Greek geographers altogether to disregard his statements, and even to treat the whole story of his voyage as a fiction. Eratosthenes, indeed, who wrote about a century after his time, was disposed to attach great value to his authority, though doubting some of his statements ; but Polybius, about half a century later, involved the whole in one sweeping condemnation, treating the work of Pytheas as a mere tissue of fables, like that of Euhemerus concerning Panchtea ; and even Strabo, in whose time the western regions of Europe were comparatively well known, adopted to a great extent the same view with Polybius. In modern times a more critical examination has arrived at a more favourable judgment, and, though Gossellin in his JRecherckes sur la Geographic des Anciens (vol. iv. pp. 168-180) and Sir G. C. Lewis in his History of Ancient Astronomy (pp. 466-481) revived the sceptical view, the tendency of modern critics has been rather to exaggerate than to depreciate the value of what was really added by Pytheas to geographical knowledge. The fact is that our information concerning him is so imperfect, and the scanty notices preserved to us from his work at once so meagre and discordant, that it is very difficult to arrive at anything like a sound conclusion. It may, however, be considered as fairly established that Pytheas really made a voyage round the western coasts of Europe, proceeding from Gades, the great Phoenician emporium, and probably the farthest point familiar to the Greeks, round Spain and Gaul to the British Islands, and that he followed the eastern coast of Britain for a considerable distance to the north, obtain- ing information as to its farther extension in that direction which led him greatly to exaggerate its size. At the same time he heard vaguely of the existence of a large island to the north of it probably derived from the fact of the groups of the Orkneys and Shetlands being really found in that position to which he gave the name of Thule. No ancient writer (except a late astronomer, who merely refers to it in a passing notice and obviously at second hand) asserts that Pytheas had himself visited Thule ; his account of the Sluggish Sea beyond it was, as stated by Polybius himself in the passage already cited, derived merely from hearsay. But the most important statement made by Pytheas in regard to this unknown land of Thule, and which has given rise to most controversy in modern times, was that connected with the astronomical phenomena affecting the duration of day and night in these remote arctic regions. Un- fortunately the reports transmitted to us at second hand in our existing authorities differ so widely that it is almost impossible to determine what Pytheas himself really stated. It is, however, probable that the version given in one passage by Pliny (H.N., iv. 16, 104) correctly represents his authority. According to this he reported as a fact that at the summer solstice the days were twenty-four hours in length, and conversely at the winter solstice the nights were of equal duration. Of course this would be strictly true had Thule really been situated under the arctic circle, which Pytheas evidently considered it to be, and his skill as an astronomer would thus lead him to accept readily as a fact what he knew (as a voyager proceeded onwards towards the north) must be true at some point. But this statement certainly affords no evidence that he had himself actually visited the mysterious land to which it refers. (See THULE.) Still more difficult is it to determine the extent and character of Pytheas's explorations towards the east. The statement of Polybius that he proceeded along the whole of the northern coasts of Europe as far as the Tanais is evidently based upon the supposition that this would be a simple and direct course along the coast of Germany and Scythia, Polybius himself, in common with theother Greek geographers till a much later period, being wholly ignorant of the vast projection of the Cimbric peninsula, and the long circumnavigation that it involved, of all which no trace is found in the extant notices of Pytheas. Notwith- standing this, some modern writers have supposed him to have entered the Baltic and penetrated as far as the mouth of the Vistula, which he erroneously supposed to be the Tanais. The only foundation for this highly improbable as- sumption is to be found in the fact that in a passage cited by Pliny (H.N., xxxvii. 2, 35) Pytheas is represented as stating that amber was brought from an island called Abalus, distant a day's voyage from the land of the Guttones, a German nation who dwelt on an estuary of the ocean called Mentonomus, 6000 stadia in extent. It was a production thrown up by the waves of the sea, and was used by the inhabitants to burn instead of wood. It is not improbable that the " estuary " here mentioned really refers to the Baltic, the existence of which as a separate sea was un- known to all ancient geographers ; but the obscure manner in Avhich it is indicated, as well as the inaccuracy of the statements concerning the place from whence the amber was actually derived, both point to the sort of hearsay accounts which Pytheas might readily have picked up on the shores of the German Ocean, without proceeding farther than the mouth of the Elbe, Avhich is supposed by Ukert