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The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek

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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.

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)

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.

Anyone interested in archaeology would enjoy this book because it ties the more well known classical greco-roman world with its "barbarian" neighbors. Though people may read the title expecting to find some sort of firsthand account that would be to miss the point. What you get is a colorful interpretation (sometimes based on archaeological finds) of the life of ancient Celts and Britons and the ways in which their trade with the Mediterranean may have functioned.
However, towards the end of the book the reader might start to notice that Professor Cunliffe's understanding of Roman history in particular is a bit loose. He has Pompey outliving his own murder by a year and engaging Caesar in the Alexandrian interlude to the Civil War. Later, he makes the same mistake again and further errs that Pompey was occupying the Palace in Alexandria against the siege of Caesar (in reality it was Caesar who was besieged by the Egyptian general Achillas). Anyone interested in the more accurate firsthand version ought to give Caesar's own words a chance in his "Civil War."
The above was not meant to be pedantic. It was simply to point out that if the author doesn't possess an understanding of some of the sources he so often quotes, then the rest of his arguments pertaining to the sources that quote Pytheas seem a little less stable. Still, this book is sure to spark the reader to learn more about ancient history!

The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek is a wonderful examination of life along the Atlantic seaboard of Europe during the Greco-Roman period. Essentially it's a much more readable version of Cunliffe's book Facing the Ocean, and the reader of the latter will find familiar passages throughout the volume. While the focus and time period of Facing the Ocean is much broader than that of The ExtraordinaryVoyage, the narrower time period of the latter makes the ancient world come more alive for the reader.

On the Ocean, written by the fourth century B.C. explorer Pytheas of Massalia (modern day Marseille in France) is itself lost to modern day scholarship, but it does exist in short excerpts found in the works of later authors. Professor Cunliffe is both an archaeologist as well as an historian of the period and is able to use his understanding of the cultural remains of the period and of the region in which Pytheas traveled to verify many of the traditions surrounding the great adventurer's voyage. In essence, he uses both Pytheas and his travels to create the structure and theme of his own work on life and trade along the Atlantic coasts during the fourth century.

For those with a general knowledge of Greco-Roman history, this book adds detail to the image of the ancient world. Many of the more general texts of the period, while discussing the colonization period of ancient Greece, fail to really give more than a gloss-over of the cultural phenomenon that restructured the Mediterranean world and led to the more widely known events of the Roman Republic and Imperial periods, with its cast of characters made popular in literary form from Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar to Ridley Scott's Gladiator. The book takes the reader to the ends of the earth from the point of view of the contemporary Mediterranean world and provides a personality whose adventures match those of the great explorers of the fourteenth and fifteenth century A.D.

The book is brief and concise, and would be understandable to most readers from junior high level and beyond with an interest in history. The bibliography contains a number of references that would provide further reading sources. Most of these are a little old, 1893-1994, and some are in French or German, but several of the general sources are more recent and in English.

I liked this book so much that I bought a copy for my Dad and one for my brother. Cunliffe does a splendid job of giving us a narrative that makes sense of Pytheas, a figure who has hitherto been quite mysterious. The idea of England being "discovered" is entertaining, and Cunliffe neatly presents Pytheas' journey from an ancient Greek world view.
Buy this book!

Pytheas was a native of the Greek colony of Massalia (Marseilles), who may have made a remarkable journey around the Atlantic coast of Europe 2,300 years ago. His book has been lost, no fragments survive, and he is known to us only through commentators. He apparently visited Britain -- the "man who discovered Britain" according to the subtitle -- and traveled to Iceland and Denmark.

Others had traveled outside the Mediterranean in that era. The Pharaoh Necho II in about 600 BC arranged for some Phoenician ships to circumnavigate Africa. Several hundred years later Carthaginians sailed as far as the the Sargasso Sea.

The Greeks were concerned about their supplies of tin and amber. The Carthaginians threatened the closure of the straits of Gibraltar as the Greeks expanded westward. Cunliffe seeks to recreate Pytheas' book "On the Ocean" from fragments quoted by other writers in later centuries, and arguments between his supporters and those who considered him a fraud. (Shades of Marco Polo's reception many centuries later!)

Cunliff posits that Pytheas went north-west by land across southern France and down the Garonne valley. Then he took to the sea to Brittany and then around England and Scotland, visiting the Isle of Man, the Orkneys and Iceland. He may also have explored the estuaries of Holland and Flanders, the mouth of the Baltic and the Jutland peninsula.

From references to Pytheas by later geographers, we know that his book described tin mines of Cornwall and the amber beaches of the north. He also described local craft - hide boats with 16 oarsmen that crossed across the Irish Sea - and the midnight sun. "The barbarians pointed out... places where the sun lies down... the night is extremely short: two hours in some places, three in others."

Polybius read the book a hundred years later and was incredulous at Pytheas's description of the "congealed sea", those parts "where neither earth was in existence by itself nor sea nor vapor, but instead a sort of mixture of these rather like a marine lung in which... the earth and the sea and all things are together suspended". Others found him an outright liar. But Geminus of Rhodes (around 50 C. E.) quoted from him extensively, and Pliny the Elder, who died in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C. E., accepted him "as an entirely reliable observer".

Some of the most fascinating parts of the book are Cunliff's descriptions of sites that he himself has excavated in Jutland, Cornwall, Brittany and the south of France. And, there is one tantalizing hint that Pytheas was real; Alexander the Great is quoted during his final illness in Babylonia as planning an invasion of Britain. Could he have heard of Pytheas' journey?

I enjoyed the history, but really enjoyed the sense of curiosity and fun that Cunliffe displays.

Robert C. Ross 2008

The topic itself intriguing, Pytheas a remarkable man (the Explorer of the explorers), the relationship between Ancient Greeks and Celts and not only highly interesting and... Hyperborea, whether a legend or not, fascinating to say the least!

Despite the limited available information the author skillfully manages to recreate Pytheas' journey both from the historical and anthropological point of view.

Having read this book it stimulated my interest of reading more about Pytheas and his findings.

Worth reading!

Prof. Cunliffe uses the travels of Pytheas to Britain and beyond as a framework for a lively discussion of the general state of geographic knowledge and above all trade in Western Europe in the 3rd century b.c. He explains how there was a continual flow of manufactured goods from the South being exchanged for prized tin and amber from the North. Some of this was probably through long chains of intermediaries, but Pytheas reported that tin traders took their pack horses from the Channel to the Rhone in only thirty days, so it is not too surprising that occasional brave individuals were able to make the same journey. Pytheas himself seems to have traveled almost like a modern back-packer, tagging along with traveling merchants rather than leading an expedition of his own.

Cunliffe is Professor of European Archaeology at Oxford, so he knows the archeological record well and he discusses various sites that are representative of the areas Pytheas visited. He also carefully evaluates and explains the potential biases and distortions in the surviving commentaries on Pytheas's travels. For example, some later scholars refused point-blank to accept that humans could survive in such cold climates.

I was initially surprised by the claimed extent of Pytheas's travels, but by the end I was convinced that Pytheas did indeed reach the far North (almost certainly Iceland) and record its short summer nights and high latitude for future geographers.

An amazing tale, well told. Despite being scholarly, Cunliffe's account is consistently well written, entertaining and enlightening.

As an avid reader of ancient history I could not wait to read this book. It is full of interesting information about ancient communities in Gaul, Iberia, etc. However, do not expect to read much about the actual voyage. Pytheas's writings are now lost to the world. The author pieces together what he can from other sources but he is left to use speculation and surmise. We are left with him wondering if he went to such and such a place he would have seen the following... Still, it is a short and enjoyable read.