Pytheas of Massalia (
/ˈpɪθiəs/;
Ancient Greek: Πυθέας ὁ Μασσαλιώτης
Pythéas ho Massaliōtēs;
Latin:
Pytheas Massiliensis; fl. 4th century BC), was a
Greek geographer and explorer from the
Greek colony of Massalia (modern-day
Marseille). He made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe in about 325 BC, but his account of it, widely known in
Antiquity, has not survived and is now known only through the writings of others.
On this voyage, he circumnavigated and visited a considerable part of
Great Britain. He was the first known scientific visitor to see and describe the Arctic,
polar ice, and the
Germanic tribes. He is also the first person on record to describe the
Midnight Sun. The theoretical existence of some Northern phenomena he described, such as a frigid zone, and temperate zones where the nights are very short in summer and the sun does not set at the summer solstice, was already known. Similarly, reports of a country of perpetual snow and darkness (the country of the
Hyperboreans) had reached the Mediterranean some centuries before.
Pytheas introduced the idea of distant
Thule to the geographic imagination, and his account of the
tides is the earliest one known that suggests the moon as their cause. He also may have reached Iceland.
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