Description
Around 330 B.C., the explorer Pytheas set out from the Greek colony of Massalia (now Marseille) to explore the unknown lands of northern Europe―a mysterious zone that, according to Greek science, was too cold to sustain human life and yet was the source of precious commodities such as tin, gold, and amber.
He was the first literate man to visit the British Isles and the coasts of France and Denmark, and there is evidence that he traveled on to Iceland and the edge of the ice-pack―an astonishing voyage for the time. Pytheas’s own telling of the journey, titled On the Ocean and published in about 320 B.C., has not survived, though it is referenced in the works of ancient historians such as Herodotus and Strabo. Their allusions to his voyage represent the beginnings of European history and underscore how much of a pioneer Pytheas was, for Britain remained without further explorers until Julius Caesar and his legions landed there almost 300 years later.
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