The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek: The Man Who Discovered Britain [Hardcover]

Barry Cunliffe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2002

Around 330 B.C., a remarkable man named Pytheas set out from the Greek colony of Massalia (now Marseille) to explore the fabled, terrifying lands of northern Europe—a mysterious, largely conjectural zone that, according to Greek science, was too cold to sustain human life and yet was somehow, they knew, the source of precious commodities such as tin, amber, and gold.

Whether Pytheas headed an expedition or traveled alone, he was the first literate man to visit the British Isles and the coasts of France and Denmark, and there is convincing evidence that he traveled on to Iceland and the edge of the ice-pack—an astonishing voyage at the time. Pytheas’s own account of the journey, titled On the Ocean and published in about 320 B.C., has not survived, though it echoes in the works of ancient historians like 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.

Archaeologist Barry Cunliffe knows perhaps more than anyone about the world through which Pytheas traveled, and he has sifted the archaeological and written records to re-create this staggering journey. Beginning with an invaluable pocket history of early Mediterranean civilization, Cunliffe illuminates what Pytheas would have seen and experienced—the route he likely took to reach first Brittany and then England; the tin-mining and, even then, evidence of ancient cultures he would have witnessed onshore; the challenge of sailing in a skin boat; the magic of amber and the trade routes by which it reached the Mediterranean. In telling this story, Cunliffe has chronicled an essential chapter in the history of civilization.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Over 2,300 years ago, Pytheas of Massalia (now Marseille) embarked on an unprecedented journey to lands beyond the known boundaries of his world: the wilds of northern Europe. He was the first Greek to do so, and upon his return, he chronicled his adventures in On the Ocean alas, no longer extant. Many ancient writers put little stock in its revelations. The Roman geographer Strabo and the Roman historian Polybius, for instance, questioned whether Pytheas even made the voyage at all. But Oxford archeologist Cunliffe (The Ancient Celts) argues that there is enough evidence to prove that Pytheas discovered tin fields in Brittany, amber forests in the Baltic region and Ultima Thule, or Iceland. In this dramatic piece of historical detective work, Cunliffe employs archeology, literary studies, geography and imagination to recreate Pytheas's possible routes from the Mediterranean to Iceland and back home again. Cunliffe also draws on the writings of Pliny the Elder and the geographer Dicaearchus to demonstrate that several of Pytheas's near contemporaries welcomed his discoveries about the nature of the solstice and the influence of the moon on the tides. Although Cunliffe often has to speculate in the absence of Pytheas's own words, he nevertheless amasses strong evidence that Pytheas did indeed make his voyage. What Cunliffe neglects to do, however, is make Pytheas the convincing, three-dimensional hero of his own tale. 15 b&w illus., 6 maps.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Although now lost, Pytheas' On the Ocean, an account of his 350 B.C. voyage to Britain, was excerpted by ancient authors. From these snippets, Cunliffe has reconstructed Pytheas' exploit. He also includes modern archaeological findings to highly readable effect. The symbiosis of the two sorts of evidence makes for a captivating journey. Cunliffe describes the economic world of Pytheas' hometown, Massalia, now Marseilles. To the south lay the Carthaginians; to the east, the Romans; and to the north, the Celtic barbarians. From the Celtic lands came tin and amber, and Pytheas was likely an emissary of Massalia's merchants, perhaps to confirm an overland trade route to evade Carthage's control of the Pillars of Hercules. Maps helpfully trace Pytheas' route, as best Cunliffe can infer it from ancient place-names cited by hostile geographers like Strabo, who thought Pytheas concocted his tales. But archaeology proves Greco-Celtic commerce existed, sealing Pytheas' place --albeit an elusive one--in discovery annals. An enjoyable, compact excursion of imagined adventure and ancient history. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company; Revised edition (April 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802713939
• ISBN-13: 978-0802713933
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,616,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compensates for unmet expectations.........., September 20, 2002

By 

nto62 (Corona, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek: The Man Who Discovered Britain (Hardcover)

Perhaps, Barry Cunliffe didn't name this book "What Little is Known About the Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek" because then the title might compete for length with the content. Granted, Pytheas' journey occured some 2,300 years ago so source material is spotty. However, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed in the lack of narrative one expects given the title Cunliffe did bestow on his effort.

To Cunliffe's credit, he admits as much and attempts to draw the reader in through an archaeological perspective of the people and places Pytheas might have encountered. And, since Pytheas' own writings are long since lost, Cunliffe spends much time on the works of his near contemporaries; portions of which are still surviving.

A lack of source material is something with which all books of ancient history must contend. Nevertheless, Cunliffe's enthusiasm for his subject is palpable and this brings it's own level of enjoyment to the reader. Cunliffe is careful to separate theory from fact and though this is, in itself, the prime reason that a narrative never really appears, one has to admire his integrity.

Bottom line, The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek is an analytical, clinical, dissection of what little is known of a Greek wanderer who stretched the envelope of the known world. It is short, informative, and, in the end, worthy of the reader's time.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars
Periplus
, October 27, 2002

By 

Holy Olio "holy_olio" (Grand Rapids, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek: The Man Who Discovered Britain (Hardcover)

Barry Cunliffe has made other contributions, but this one pertains to ancient navigation and was therefore of great interest to me. Other takes on Pytheas' voyage include the rather uninformed view that his trip was entirely mythical (I've seen the same said of Marco Polo's sojourn).

Like the much briefer _Periplus of Hanno_, accounts based on those of Pytheas have survived to reveal a much different picture of navigation in ancient times. The prejudice that no one sailed out of sight of ancient coastlines accounts for the rejection such accounts often get.

Try a web search for _Periplus of Hanno_ along with "Livio Stecchini" for more information. Stecchini was neither a nationalist, nor a nut, as one alleged scholar on the web claimed.

Related reading:

-:- Pytheas of Massalia: On the Ocean: Text, Translation and Commentary by by Christina Horst Roseman (0890055459)

-:- North to Thule: An Imagined Narrative of the Famous Lost Sea Voyage of Pytheas of Massalia in the 4th Century B.C. by John Frye and Harriet Frye (0802713939)

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction but apt to wander, September 3, 2002

By 

ilmk "ilmk" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek: The Man Who Discovered Britain (Hardcover)

It is extraordinary that as accomplished a historian as Barry Cunliffe should choose to embark on a historical trail where the evidence is minimal, given the usual rigidity of historians to rely on hard evidence to construct their histories. It is also quite refreshing and the opening preface has an almost amused tone in its admission. In fact, the author makes it clear that much of our evidence for Pytheas can be seen in attributes of his commentating style and quotations by Diodorus or Strabo can thus be deduced as originally his. A little tenuous, but plausible.
Cunliffe begins his deconstruction of the Pytheas myth by clearly explaining the origins and timouchoi government of Massilia (Marseille) as a Greek colony of Phocaea. Explanations of the seafaring wealth of the city give way to an expounding of the use of amphorae in archaeological works to understand trading patterns of the ancient world.
One comment is a little debatable, as Cunliffe implies that the elite Hallstatt of Western Europe had a prestige goods economy created (or at the least, exacerbated) for them by the trade flowing out of the Mediterranean, which, perhaps too neatly, fits the historian's view of the ancient Greek world model of civiliser and barbarian.
There is a good precis of the effects of the Celtic migrations of the 5th - 3rd centuries B.C. and a chronological set of mini-biographies on the Greek philsophers of Miletus, - Anaximander and Thales being prominent - Herodotus, Pythagoras, Aristotle et al, which serves to place the current Greek view of the world, both geographical and sociological. These, and additional references to Avienus and the periplus document used by mariners, all build to a world where the unsailed Ocean gives rise to both myth and philsophical imaginings.
A world that Pytheas was born into.
The book then digresses somewhat. Having admitted at the start of this work that there was very little sources to discuss, Cunliffe feels he has license to talk about the British experience. On the evidence of the aforementioned stylistic comparability, Cunliffe launches into a discouse on trade routes to Cornwall (justified as a potential route taken by Pytheas as it mentions tidal flow which Pytheas was interested in - though we aren't really given evidence to prove that). Nevertheless, the author is now pernitted to debate the location of various ancient sites in order to predict the Pythean route. Once he tenously advances his theory Cunliffe digresses into the origins of tin, from a geological explanation to the finished traded article. He cycles through industrialization, marketing infrastructures and a more general discussion on the social structure of the time. There is an effort to remember the title of the book, with the odd `If Pytheas had visited here, then he'd've found such and such'. But, given the admission at the start that this was liable to happen, one cannot complain too much. As a result we get a long detour on the history of Cornwall with an interesting side discussion on the origins of the name Britain.
Yet, by page 100, Cunliffe is back on the book title's implied content as we route westwards towards Ireland (there is a lengthy chapter on Ultima Thule - Iceland?), dragging further astronomical musing in, - given sailing and astronomy are inextricably linked in the ancient world, not unexpected - boat construction and other items as we route around Scotland down the Amber coasts until the final leg back to Massilia.
The final chapter deals with various ancient sources such as Dicaearchus, Avienus, Timeaus, Eratosthenes, Strabo and Polybius. Cunliffe discusses the press (most of it critical) that Pytheas gets and this is an excellent discussion. In some respects, it might have been better if it came at the beginning rather than the end.
So, an intriguing book that unbashedly states it's liable to wander off the subject matter (and does) yet introduces us to an explorer who has come down to use through tantalising excerpts from later commentators, yet, by the very end, we get a sense of affinity with a man who set off to discover the world was more the the Mediterranean.