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PYTHEAS was a native of Massilia (Marseilles). He left an important work descriptive of his own travels in Western Europe, of which, however, we know little but what is contained in sht systematic work of Strabo. He is also mentioned by Polybius and Pliny.
He greatly enlarged the knowledge of his time as to the Atlantic sea-board, tracing with considerable accuracy the west coast-line of Spain, and Gaul as far as the mouth of a river called by him the Tanais, but which probably was the Elbe. From his descriptions of amber, it has been supposed that he entered the Baltic; but as amber was found in large quantities through the Middle Ages on the Schleswig-Holstein coast, the proof that the Baltic was known is insufficient. Of Britain he was one of the earliest explorers. He exaggerated its size, giving its coast-line as 40,000 stadia (4000 miles): but he had a more accurate view of its extension from south to north than Strabo, who placed it lengthwise along the English coast, and imagined Ireland to be north of it rather than, as stated by Pytheas, to the west. Six days' voyage farther to the north Pytheas places the island of Thule; but this he does not assert that he visited himself.
Strabo criticizes Pytheas severely: but in some important points is inferior to him in accuracy: as, for instance, in denying the projecting outline of the land of the Ostimii (Britanny), which Pytheas had indicated. Many other points testify to Pytheas having written from personal observation. He describes the gradual disappearance of certain kinds of grain as the traveller moves northwards; the use of fermented liquors made from corn and honey; the thrashing of corn in barns instead of open floors, as usual in drier and warmer climates.
But Pytheas is also known for having led the way in the application of the new science of Astronomy to the accurate determination of the earth's surface, which we call Geography. By an observation of the sun's altitude at Massilia, at noon of the summer solstice, he fixed the latitude of that place--i.e. its distance from the equator--at very nearly the true amount. He compared it with that of Byzantium; and here, at least, was the first step taken to accurate geography, the institution of a parallel of latitude. He observed the increasing difference between day and night at the solstices as the traveller went northwards; and speaks of Thule as situate in a region where the day in summer, or the night in winter, was of twenty-four hours. He noted also the Atlantic tides, and saw, though he did not accurately state, their dependence on the moon's phases. Pytheas, in fine, opened the path into the field which Eratosthenes after him cultivated with such success.
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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