An absorbing work of scholarly detection reconstructs an ancient mariner’s transoceanic voyage.
Pytheas, a Greek from the colony of Massalia (now Marseilles), set off sometime around 330 b.c. to explore the Atlantic coast of Europe. Or so other ancient commentators tell us; the explorer’s own memoir, On the Ocean, was lost long ago, so all we know of him comes from footnotes in the works of historians such as Strabo and Pliny the Elder. Cunliffe (European Archaeology/Oxford Univ.) gathers what can be reasonably asserted about the life and accomplishments of Pytheas, concluding that by following the path of migrating birds, his subject could easily have traveled all the way to Iceland, “the place where the sun lies down,” as one ancient calls it. This narrative is fleshed out with a sequence of learned but lightly spun discourses on such matters as ancient navigation and science, trade relations among the Greek colonies of the Mediterranean and the Halstatt culture of west-central Europe, the tin-mining industry in Celtic Britain, Etruscan material culture, and the history of island-hopping. Through these discussions, the author demonstrates that everyone in the ancient world was pretty much aware of everyone else, merrily borrowing and adapting ideas and artifacts. (Cunliffe, for instance, connects a motif in Breton stelae to Greek temple columns.) He also capably defends his assertion that Pytheas was “first and foremost a scientist drawn to the edges of the world in search of firm answers to the uncertainties and doubts raised by earlier writers such as the cautious Herodotus.”
In the absence of solid evidence, firm answers are in short supply here. Still, the shrewd guesswork and engaging story are a pleasure to follow.
