An Ancient Explorer
I was reading a bit about marine archaeology (I have this bizarre habit, to read peculiar things), when I encountered the name Pytheas of Masillia, and the thrilling story of this person’s life.
Pytheas was a greek explorer, who lived in Masillia (the greek colony that later became Marseilles, or Marsey) some 2400 years ago, at the early 4th century b.c. . It is a generation before Alexander the Great, and greece of the time was nowhere close to the great empire it would soon become. In fact, it was a land of farmers, hard-day agricultural workers, which - and this is crucial to the story - had not yet discovered the sea.
This pretty much surprised me, but yes: ancient Greece concentrated in the land (and maybe some off-coast fishermen, which don’t count), and was yet to become a maritime power. The seas at the time were ruled by the Pheonicians, who would later turn into North-Africa’s Carthagians (at present day’s Lybia) and the mediterenean Lebanese (residents of modern Lebanon). At the time, the 4th century b.c., Pheonicia was, without any competitors, the supreme ruler of the mediterenean sea. All commerce ran through Pheonicia’s ships, and for centuries they were keeping in great secret their trade routes, navigational methods, and other things that gave them this huge power.
This presents Pytheas as a most brave, probably foolish, person. The guy was a merchant. According to the book I read, he disguised his ship as a Pheonician boat, and tailed one Pheonician voyage. This led him out of the mediterenean - probably the first greek to ever do this. He reached Britain, the canal islands, and continued to a place he calls Tule - which is believed to be present-days Iceland. Looking for Amber and Tin, he continued to the northern ocean, and reached farther than the Pheonicians ever did. Some say he reached the Baltic sea - which is at the very other side of Europe; I don’t know if this is true, but in his long lost book, On the Ocean, Pytheas certainly describes German tribes, along with phenomena such as the northern lights, a frozen ocean, and many legendary monsters.
Pytheas had a great influence on later development of Greece and through it - Western Europe. It surprises me that I didn’t know more about him before. It makes me wander more about the ancient explorers - not the Europeans that discovered the rest of the world, but those who discovered Europe. When, some two thousands years ago, the historical arena moved from the mediterenean to the Euro-atlantic, it must have been accompanied by great deeds of very interersting persons. Pytheas, though almost anonymous today, was one of the pioneers who eventually led to this great change.
