| The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek: The Man Who Discovered Britain | 
 enlarge | Author: Barry Cunliffe
Publisher: Walker & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 739494
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Revised
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0802713939
Dewey Decimal Number: 913
EAN: 9780802713933
ASIN: 0802713939
Publication Date: April 1, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: A used ex-library copy. Library markings. Pages are somewhat worn. Cover worn with some creases. Edges and corners worn. Binding solid and tight.
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
Readable, holds interest March 14, 2008
There seems to be a subgenre of history and biography for which the objective is to raise a personage, event or culture out of the deep obscurity of few extant facts and construct a sensible non-fictional narrative. Barry Cunliffe chose a particularly difficult subject. All that is known about a 4th century B.C. Greek named Pytheas is that he was the first literate traveler to leave the Mediterranean region and head north to the British Isles, northern Europe and possibly Iceland. This is known because he wrote a long-lost book, an expanded periplus (navigational tool), "On The Ocean," that is only known today because subsequent generations of writers referenced him and it. His work enjoyed high respect for a few centuries before later writers began dismissing him and he disappeared from the conversation as the Dark Ages set in. As the science of archeology came into its own in the 19th century, collateral evidence began to accumulate, verifying the information in the fragments of his work that survived through others. Today, his contribution to the world continues to be endorsed by science.
Cunliffe sorts through the path of the journey, what Pytheas must have found, the contributions he made to later scientists and historians and how eventually he disappeared from view. Fortunately, Pytheas left enough clues that could be aligned with presentday astronomical, geographical, geological and anthropological studies that Cunliffe can make reasonable assumptions, which are continuing to be born out by archeological activity. So, he unearths a lot about the amber and tin trade that Pytheas traced northward, and he takes a look at the Celts as the Greek would have found them. What Cunliffe does not attempt is a closer look at Pytheas himself. We know he was from the Greek port Massilia, which is today's Marseilles, France, and that, obviously, he was literate. Other than that, there is no speculation on what kind of class he would have belonged to or any of his life circumstances.
A traveling Greek February 12, 2008
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
 a very dry piece about ancient seafaring January 4, 2005
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I couldn't help feeling, as the book progressed, that Barry Cunliffe was filling-out, what little is known about Pytheas, with anything that would fill the space. "...and if Pytheas had landed at this spot he may have been impressed by the view, and might have taken tea and scones at the local tea-shop (if one were nearby, and had he arrived a couple of millenia later)This is the kind of stuff that, although he didn't write these exact words, he may as well have. A long digression would then follow on some local custom or trade (sometimes pre-dating Pytheas by centuries).
The worst thing about this book was that a modern author could give such a dry account that, I am certain, would have been far more enjoyable in Pytheas' own words, as all the translations of the ancients I have ever read flow more easily (including Thucydides).
 Fun, but a bit loose on the history. September 11, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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 Discovery of Britain June 13, 2004
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Native Americans and Pacific Islanders who get annoyed by stories of their countries being "discovered" might feel vindicated by this account of the first civilized explorer of the British Isles, where he encountered cannibals who "openly have intercourse not only with other women but with their mothers and sisters"which Cunliffe thinks may be "accurate anthropological observation."
No full copy of Pytheas's book survives so his voyage has to be reconstructed from quotations in other writers. These seem consistent enough and to contain enough valid observations about tides and sun movements to indicate that there was some truth in his story. The material is so sparse that in order to fill his book Cunliffe fleshes it out with a lot of speculation and archeological data. He is evidently an authority in many fields. For example he is able to detect that Polybius's attack on Pytheas "has all the hallmarks of intense academic jealousy." (Cunfiffe is a professor of European archeology at Oxford). An interesting speculation is whether Pytheas reached Iceland. Cunliffe thinks he did, and presents interesting evidence. It does appear likely that Iceland was inhabited before the Vikings got there.
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