Chapter III: Antiquity, After Pytheas (1)

There was a long interval after the time of Pytheas before the world's knowledge of the North was again added to, so far as we can judge from the literature that has come down to us. The mist in which for a moment he showed a ray of light settled down again. That no other known traveller can have penetrated into these northern regions during the next two or three centuries appears from the unwillingness of Polybius and Strabo to believe in Pytheas, and from the fact that Strabo pronounces him a liar [i. 63], because "all who have seen Britain and Ierne say nothing about Thule, though they mention other small islands near Britain"; furthermore, he says expressly [vii. 294] that "the region along the ocean beyond Albis [the Elbe] is entirely unknown to us. For neither do we know of any one among the ancients who made this voyage along the coast in the eastern regions to the opening of the Caspian Sea, nor have the Romans ever penetrated into the countries beyond Albis, nor has any one yet traversed them by land." If any other traveller had been currently mentioned in literature it is incredible that the well-read Strabo should not have known it. He therefore ascribed all that he found about these regions to Pytheas.

There are nevertheless indications that the Greeks had commercial relations with the coasts of the Baltic and North Sea, and fresh obscure statements, which may be derived from such a connection, appear later in Pliny, and to some extent also in Mela. It may be supposed that enterprising Greek traders and seamen, enticed by Pytheas's accounts of the amber country, attempted to follow in his track, and succeeded in reaching the land of promise whence this costly commodity came. And if they had once found out the way, they would certainly not have relinquished it except upon compulsion. But it must be remembered that the voyage was long, and that they had first to pass through the western Mediterranean and the Pillars of Hercules, where the Carthaginians had regained their power and obtained the command of the sea. The overland route was easier and safer; it ran through the country of tribes which in those distant times may have been comparatively peaceful. The trade communication between the Black Sea and the Baltic countries seems, as mentioned above, to have developed early, and it may be thought that the active Greek traders would try it in order to reach a district where so much profit was to be expected; but no certain indication of this communication can be produced from any older author of note after Pytheas's time, so far as we know them, and even so late an author as Ptolemy has little to tell us of the regions east of the Vistula.

[Sidenote: Eratosthenes, c. 200 B.C.]

The founder of scientific geography, Eratosthenes (275-circa 194 B.C.),[73] librarian of the Museum of Alexandria, based what he says of the North chiefly on Pytheas. He divided the surface of the earth into climates (zones) and constructed the first map of the world, whereon an attempt was made to fix the position of the various places by lines of latitude and meridians. He started with seven known points, along the old meridian of Rhodes. They were: Thule, the Borysthenes, the Hellespont, Rhodes, Alexandria, Syene, and Meroe. Through these points he laid down lines of latitude (see the map). He also made an attempt to calculate the circumference of the globe by measurement, and found it 250,000 stadia (== 25,000 geographical miles), which is 34,000 stadia (== 3400 geographical miles) too much. He placed the island of Thule under the Arctic Circle,[74] far out in the sea to the north of Brettanice. This was to him the uttermost land and the northern limit of the "œcumene," which he calculated to be 38,000 stadia (== 3800 geographical miles) broad,[75] which according to his measurement of the circumference of the earth is about 54° 17', since each of his degrees of latitude will be about 700 stadia. His "œcumene" thus extended from the latitude of the Cinnamon Coast (Somaliland) and Taprobane (Ceylon), 8800 stadia north of the equator, to the Arctic Circle. South of it was uninhabitable on account of the heat, and north of it all was frozen.

Eratosthenes was especially an advocate of the island-form of the "œcumene," and thought that it was entirely surrounded by the ocean, which had been encountered in every quarter where the utmost limits of the world had been reached. By a perversion of the journey of Patrocles to a voyage round India and the east coast of the continent into the Caspian Sea, he again represented the latter as an open bay of the northern ocean, in spite of the fact that Herodotus, and also Aristotle, had asserted that it was closed. The view that the Caspian Sea was a bay remained current until the time of Ptolemy. Eratosthenes also held that the occurrence of tides on all the outer coasts was a proof of the continuity of the ocean. He said that "if the great extent of the Atlantic Ocean did not make it impossible, we should be able to make the voyage from Iberia to India along the same latitude." This was 1700 years before Columbus.

With the scientific investigator's lack of respect for authorities, he had the audacity to doubt Homer's geographical knowledge, and gave offence to many by saying that people would never discover where the islands of Æolus, Circe, and Calypso, described in the Odyssey, really were, until they had found the tailor who had made the bag of the winds for Æolus.

[Sidenote: Hipparchus, 190-125 B.C.]

Hipparchus (circa 190-125 B.C.) also relies upon Pytheas, and has nothing new to tell us of the northern regions. Against Eratosthenes' proof of the continuity of the ocean, to which allusion has just been made, he objected that the tides are by no means uniform on all coasts, and in support of this assertion he referred to the Babylonian Seleucus.[76] But it is not clear whether Hipparchus was an opponent of the doctrine of the island-form of the "œcumene," as has been generally supposed; probably he merely wished to point out that the evidence adduced by Eratosthenes was insufficient. Hipparchus calculated a continuous table of latitude, or climate-table, for the various known localities, as far north as Thule. He introduced the division into degrees. It is also probable that he was the first to use a kind of map-projection with the aid of converging meridians, which he drew in straight lines; but as he was more an astronomer than a geographer it is unlikely that he constructed any complete map of the world.

[Sidenote: Polybius, 204-127 B.C.]

Polybius (circa 204-127 B.C.), as we have seen, pronounced against the trustworthiness of Pytheas, and declared that all the country north of Narbo, the Alps, and the Tanais was unknown. Like Herodotus, he left the question open whether there was a continuous ocean on the north side; but he appears to have inclined to the old notion of the "œcumene" as circular.

[Sidenote: Crates of Mallus, 150 B.C.]

The Stoic and grammarian Crates of Mallus (about 150 B.C.), who was not a geographer, constructed the first terrestrial globe, in which he made the Atlantic Ocean extend like a belt round the world through both the poles, and with the Stoic's worship of Homer he thought he could follow in this ocean Odysseus's voyage to the regions of the Læstrygons' long day and the Cimmerians' polar night. Since the school of the Stoics considered it necessary that there should be ocean in the torrid zone, so that the sun might easily keep up its warmth by the aid of vapours from the sea--for warmth was supported by moisture--Crates placed a belt of ocean round the earth between the tropics, which formed the limits of the sun's path. These two belts of water left four masses of land of which only one was known to men.

[Sidenote: Posidonius, 135-51 B.C.]

The physical geographer Posidonius of Apamea in Syria (135-51 B.C.), who lived for a long time at Rhodes, took the Rhipæan Mountains for the Alps, and speaks of the Hyperboreans to the north of them. He thought that the Ocean surrounded the "œcumene" continuously:

"for its waves were not confined by any fetters of land, but it
stretched to infinity and nothing made its waters turbid."

A ship sailing with an east wind from the Pillars of Hercules must reach India after traversing 70,000 stadia, which he thought was the half-circumference of the earth along the latitude of Rhodes. The greatest circumference he calculated at 180,000 stadia. These erroneous calculations were adopted by Ptolemy, and were afterwards of great significance to Columbus.

He made a journey as far as Gadir in order to see the outer Ocean for himself, to measure the tides and to examine the correctness of the generally accepted idea that the sun, on its setting in the western ocean, gave out a hissing sound like a red-hot body being dipped into water. He rightly connected the tides with the moon, finding that their monthly period corresponded with the full moon; whereas others had thought, for instance, that they were due to changes in the rivers of Gaul.

[Sidenote: Cæsar, 55-45 B.C.]

Cæsar's Gallic War and his invasion of Britain (55-45 B.C.) contributed fresh information about these portions of Western Europe; but it cannot be seen that they gave anything new about the North. Cæsar describes Britain as a triangle. This is undoubtedly the same idea that we find in his contemporary Diodorus Siculus, and is derived from Pytheas. Cæsar merely gives different proportions between the sides from those of Diodorus. He puts Hibernia to the west of Britain, not to the north like Strabo, and makes its size about two-thirds of the latter, from which it is separated by a strait of about the same breadth as that between Gaul and Britain. Between Ireland (Hibernia) and Britain is an island, "Mona" (Anglesey), and scattered about it many other islands. In some of them there was said to be a month of unbroken night at the winter solstice; but of this Cæsar was unable to obtain certain information. This must be an echo of the tales about Thule, which he had got from older Greek or Roman authors.

Cæsar is a good example of the Romans' views of and sense for geography. In spite of this military nation having extended their empire to the bounds of the unknown in every direction, they never produced a scientific geographer, nor did they send out anything that we should call a voyage of exploration, as the Phœnicians, Carthaginians, and Greeks had done. They were above all a practical people, with more sense for organisation than for research and science, and in addition they lacked commercial interests as compared with those other peoples. But during their long campaigns under the Empire, and by their extensive communications with the most distant regions, they brought together an abundance of geographical information hitherto unknown to the classical world. It is natural that it should have been a Greek who, in one of the most important geographical works that have come down to us from ancient times, endeavoured to collect a part of this information, together with the knowledge already acquired by the Greeks, into a systematic statement.

[Sidenote: Strabo, Christian era]

This man was the famous geographer Strabo, a native of Asia Minor (about 63 B.C.-25 A.D.). But unfortunately this critic has nothing to tell us about the North, and in his anxiety to avoid exaggeration he has, like Polybius, been at great pains to discredit Pytheas, of whose statements he will take no account; nor has he made use of the knowledge of the northernmost regions which we see, from Pliny among others, that other Greek authors possessed. He has not even made use of the geographical knowledge which was gained in his own time during the Roman campaign in Northern Germania under Augustus, if indeed he knew of it. To him the Ister (Danube), the mountainous districts of the Hercynian Forest, and the country as far as the Tyregetæ formed, roughly, the northern boundary of the known world. He thinks it is only ignorance of the more distant regions that has made people believe the fables "of the Rhipæan Mountains and the Hyperboreans, as well as all that Pytheas of Massalia has invented about the coast of the ocean, making use of his astronomical and mathematical knowledge as a cloak." "Ierne" (Ireland) was placed by Strabo out in the ocean to the north of Britain. He took it for the most northern land, and thought that its latitude (which would have to be about 54° N.) formed the boundary of the "œcumene."

"For," he says [ii. 115], "living writers tell us of nothing beyond
Ierne, which lies near to Britain on the north, and is inhabited by
savages who live miserably on account of the cold." He says further
[iv. 201] of this island at the end of the world: "of this we have
nothing certain to relate, except that its inhabitants are even more
savage than the Britons, as they are both cannibals and omnivorous [or
grass-eaters ?], and consider it commendable to devour their deceased
parents,[77] as well as openly to have commerce not only with other
women, but also with their own mothers and sisters. But this we relate
perhaps without sufficient authority; although cannibalism at least is
said to be a Scythian custom, and the Celts, the Iberians, and other
peoples are reported to have practised it under the stress of a
siege."

Strabo evidently attributes to a cold climate a remarkable capacity for brutalising people, and he considers that the reports of the still more distant Thule must be even more uncertain.

The breadth of the "œcumene," from north to south, he made only 30,000 stadia, and thought that Eratosthenes, deceived by the fables of Pytheas, had put the limit 8000 stadia (== 11° 26') too far north. Of the countries beyond the Albis (Elbe), he says, nothing is known. Nevertheless he mentions the Cimbri as dwelling on a peninsula by the northern ocean; but he has no very clear idea of where this peninsula is.

No one can believe, he thinks [vii. 292], that the reason for their
wandering and piratical life was that they were driven out of their
peninsula [which must be Jutland] by a great inundation, for they
still have the same country as before, and it is ridiculous to suppose
that they left it in anger at a natural and constant phenomenon, which
occurs twice daily [i.e., the tides], etc. But it appears from
Strabo's statements that there had been many reports of a great
storm-flood in Denmark, which the Cimbri escaped from with difficulty.

Of the customs of these people Strabo relates among other things that
they were accompanied on their expeditions by priestesses with gray
hair, white clothes, and bare feet. "They went with drawn swords to
meet the captives in the camp, crowned them with garlands and led them
to a sacrificial vessel of metal, holding twenty amphoræ [Roman cubic
feet]. Here they had a ladder, upon which one of them mounted and,
bent over the vessel, they cut the throat of the prisoner, who was
held up. They made auguries from the blood running into the vessel;
while others opened the corpse and inspected the entrails, prophesying
victory for their army. And in battle they beat skins stretched upon
the wicker-work of their chariots, making a hideous noise." This is
one of the first descriptions of the customs of the warrior-hordes
roving about Europe, who came in contact with the classical world from
the unknown north, and who in later centuries were to come more
frequently. But the description is certainly influenced by Greek
ideas.

Strabo thought that besides the world known to the Greeks and Romans, other continents or worlds, where other races of men dwelt, might be discovered.

[Sidenote: Albinovanus Pedo]

In a work called "Suasoriæ" (circa 37 A.D.) of the Spanish-born rhetorician Seneca there are preserved fragments of a poem, written by Albinovanus Pedo (in the time of Augustus), which described an expedition of Germanicus in the North Sea. It has been thought that this may have been the younger Germanicus's unfortunate campaign in 16 A.D., when he sailed out from the Ems with a fleet of a thousand ships. This supposition is strengthened by the fact that Tacitus mentions a cavalry leader, Albinovanus Pedo, under the same commander in 15 A.D., and it is easy to believe that he was the poet.[78] But as this unhappy fleet did not get far from the coast, and the poem describes a voyage into unknown regions, others have thought that it might be an expedition undertaken by Drusus, the elder Germanicus, in some year between 12 and 9 B.C.[79] How this may be is of less importance to us, as the poem does not mention any fresh discoveries. It is interesting because it gives us a picture of the ideas current at that time about the northern limits of the world. Where the fragments commence, the travellers have long ago left daylight and the sun behind them, and, having passed beyond the limits of the known world, plunge boldly into the forbidden darkness towards the end of the western world. There they believe that the sea, which beneath its sluggish ("pigris") waves is full of hideous monsters, savage whales ("pistris"), and sea-hounds ("æquoreosque canes" == seals ?), rises and takes hold of the ship--the noise itself increases the horror--and now they think the ships will stick in the mud, and the fleet will remain there, deserted by the winds[80] of the ocean--now that they themselves will be left there helpless and be torn to pieces by the monsters of the deep. And the man who stands high in the prow strives with his eyes to break through the impenetrable air, but can see nothing, and relieves his oppression in the following words: "Whither are we being carried? The day itself flees from us, and uttermost nature closes in the deserted world with continual darkness. Or are we sailing towards people on the other side, who dwell under another heaven, and towards another unknown world?[81] The gods call us back and forbid the eyes of mortals to see the boundary of things. Why do we violate strange seas and sacred waters with our oars, disturbing the peaceful habitations of the gods?"

This last conception is clearly derived from the "Isles of the Blest" of the Greeks (originally of the Phœnicians), which were situated in the deep currents of Oceanus and are already referred to in Hesiod.

Seneca, on the other hand, says of the outer limits of the world: "Thus is nature, beyond all things is the ocean, beyond the ocean nothing" ("ita est rerum natura, post omnia oceanus, post oceanum nihil"), and Pliny speaks of the empty space ("inane") that puts an end to the voyage beyond the ocean.

[Sidenote: Augustus, 5 A.D.]

In the year 5 A.D. the emperor Augustus, in connection with Tiberius's expedition to the Elbe, sent a Roman fleet from the Rhine along the coast of Germania; it sailed northward by the land of the Cimbri (Jutland), past its northern extremity (the Skaw), probably into the Cattegat, and perhaps to the Danish islands. Augustus himself, in the Ancyra inscription, tells us of the voyage of this fleet, and says that it came "even to the people of the Cimbri, whither before that time no Roman had penetrated either by land or sea,[82] and the Cimbri and the Charydes (Harudes, Horder), and the Semnones, and other Germanic peoples in those districts sent ambassadors to ask for my friendship and that of the Roman people."[83] Velleius [ii. 106] also gives an account of this voyage, and Pliny [ii. 167] gives the following description of it: "The Northern Ocean has also been in great part traversed; by the orders of the divine Augustus a fleet sailed round Germania to the Cimbrian Cape, and saw therefrom a sea that was immeasurable, or heard that it was so, and came to the Scythian region and to places that were stiff [with cold] from too much moisture. It is therefore very improbable that the seas can run short where there is such superfluity of moisture." Müllenhoff thinks [iv., 1900, p. 45] that on this voyage they saw the Norwegian mountains, the immense "Mons Sævo" (see later under Pliny), rising out of the sea. This is not impossible, but we read nothing about it; nor indeed is it very probable. On the other hand, it is likely that the voyage resulted in fresh knowledge about the North, and that at any rate some of the statements in Mela and Pliny may be derived from this source.

[Sidenote: Mela, c. 43 A.D.]

The oldest known Latin geography, "De Chorographia," was written about 43 A.D. by an otherwise unknown Pomponius Mela, of Tingentera, in Spain. With the strange mental poverty of Roman literature, Mela bases his work chiefly on older Greek sources (e.g., Herodotus and Eratosthenes) which are several centuries before his time; but in addition he gives much information not found elsewhere. Whether this is also for the most part taken from older writers it is impossible to say, as he nowhere gives his authorities. His descriptions, especially those of more distant regions, are sometimes made obscure and contradictory by his evidently having drawn upon different sources without combining them into a whole.

He begins with these words of wisdom: "All this, whatever it is, to which we give the name of universe and heaven, is one and includes itself and everything in a circle ('ambitu'). In the middle of the universe floats the earth, which is surrounded on all sides by sea, and is divided by it from west to east [that is, by the equatorial sea, as in Crates of Mallus] into two parts, which are called hemispheres." Whether one is to conclude from this that the earth in his opinion was a sphere or a round disc, he seems to leave the reader to determine. He divides the earth into the five zones of Parmenides. The two temperate or habitable zones seem, according to Mela, to coincide with the two masses of land, while the uninhabitable ones, the torrid and the two frigid zones, are continuous sea. On the southern continent dwell the Antichthons, who are unknown, on account of the heat of the intervening region. On the northern one we dwell, and this is what he proposes to describe.

Europe is bounded on the west by the Atlantic, and on the north by the British Ocean. Asia has on the north the Scythian Ocean.

[iii. c. 5.] In proof of the continuity of these oceans he appeals not
only to the physicists and Homer, but also to Cornelius Nepos, "who is
more modern and trustworthy," and who confirms it and "cites Quintus
Metellus Celer as witness thereto, and says that he has narrated the
following: When he was governing Gaul as proconsul the king of the
Boti[84] gave him some Indians," who "by stress of storm had been
carried away from Indian waters, and after having traversed all the
space between, had finally reached the shores of Germania."

Mela has many ancient fables to tell of the peoples in the northern districts of Germania, Sarmatia and Scythia, which last was his name for what is now Russia and for the north of Asia. It appears that he too was of the opinion that a cold climate develops savagery and cruelty.

He says of Germania [iii. c. 3]: "The inhabitants are immense in soul
and body; and besides their natural savagery they exercise both, their
souls in warfare, their bodies by accustoming them to constant
hardship, especially cold." "Might is right to such an extent that
they are not even ashamed of robbery; only to their guests are they
kind, and merciful towards suppliants." The people of Sarmatia were
nomads. [iii. c. 4.] "They are alike warlike, free, unconstrained, and
so savage and cruel that the women go to war together with the men. In
order that they may be fitted thereto the right breast is burned off
immediately after birth, whereby the hand which is drawn out [in
drawing a bow] becomes adapted for shooting [by the breast not coming
in the way or because the arm grew stronger] and the breast becomes
manly.[85] To draw the bow, to ride and to hunt are employments for
the young girls; when grown up it is their duty to fight the foe, so
that it is held to be a shame not to have killed some one, and the
punishment is that they are not allowed to marry."[86] It would appear
that the northern countries, according to the view of Mela, had a
tendency to "emancipate" women, even though he always regards it as a
severe punishment for them to have to live as virgins.[86] Among the
Xamati in his western Asia, at the mouth of the Tanais [i. c. 19],
"the women engage in the same occupations as the men." "The men fight
on foot and with arrows, the women on horseback, not using swords, but
catching men in snares and killing them by dragging them along." Those
who have not killed an enemy must live unmarried. Amongst other
peoples the women do not confine themselves to this snaring of men;
the Mæotides who dwell in the country of the Amazons are governed by
women; and farthest north live the Amazons; but he does not tell us
whether the latter could dispense with men altogether, and reproduce
themselves like the women he tells us of on an island off the coast of
Africa, who were hairy all over the body. "This is related by Hanno,
and it seems worthy of credit, because he brought back the skin of
some he had killed." [iii. c. 9.]

But this increasing savagery towards the north had a limit, as in the early Greek idea, after which things became better again; for beyond the country of the Amazons [i. c. 19] and other wild races, like the Thyssagetæ and Turcæ who inhabited immense forests and lived by hunting,[87] there extended, apparently towards the north-east (?), a "great desert and rugged tract, full of mountains, as far as the Aremphæans, who had very just customs and were looked upon as holy."[88] "Beyond them rise the Rhipæan Mountains and behind them lies the region that borders on the Ocean." In addition, the happy "Hyperboreans" dwelt in the north. In his description of Scythia he says of them [iii. c. 5]: "Then [i.e., after Sarmatia] come the neighbouring parts of Asia [or the parts bordering on Asia ?]. Except where continual winter and unbearable cold reigns, the Scythian people dwell there, almost all known by the name of 'Belcæ' (?). On the shore of Asia come first the Hyperboreans, beyond the north wind and the Rhipæan Mountains under the very pivot of the stars" [i.e., the pole]. In their country the sun rose at the vernal equinox and set at the autumnal equinox, so that they had six months day and six months night. "This narrow [or holy ?] sunny land is in itself fertile." He goes on to give a description of the happy life of the Hyperboreans, taken from Greek sources.

On north-western Europe Mela has much information which is not met with in earlier authors. The tin-islands, the Cassiterides, lay off the north-west of Spain, where the "Celtici" lived [iii. c. 6]. "Beyond ('super') Britain is Juverna [Ireland], nearly as large, with a climate unfavourable to the ripening of corn, but with such excellent pastures that if the cattle are allowed to graze for more than a small part of the day, they burst in pieces. The inhabitants are rude and more ignorant than other peoples of all kinds of virtue. Religion is altogether unknown to them."

"The Orcades are thirty in number, divided from each other by narrow straits; the Hæmodæ seven, drawn towards Germany" ("septem Hæmodæ contra Germaniam vectæ"). This is the first time, so far as is known, that these two groups of islands are mentioned in literature. Diodorus, it is true, had already spoken of "Orkan" or "Orkas," but not as a group of islands. As this name is probably derived from Pytheas, it is likely that the other, "Hæmodæ," is also his. Possibly the groups were re-discovered under the emperor Claudius (about 43 A.D.) or more definite information may have been received about them; but on the other hand, Mela says that the knowledge of Britain that was acquired during this campaign would be brought back by Claudius himself in his triumph. It will be most reasonable to suppose that Mela's thirty Orcades are the Orkneys--the number is approximately correct--and not the Orkneys and Shetlands together. The seven Hæmodæ, on the other hand, must be the latter, and can hardly be the Hebrides, as many would believe, since Mela mentions the islands off the west coast of Europe in a definite order, and he names first "Juverna," then the "Orcades," and next the "Hæmodæ," which are "carried ('vectæ') towards Germany"[89] (cf. also Pliny later).

In his description of Germania [iii. c. 3] Mela says:

"Beyond ('super') Albis is an immense bay, Codanus, full of many great
and small islands. Here the sea which is received in the bosom of the
shore is nowhere broad and nowhere like a sea, but as the waters
everywhere flow between and often go over [i.e., over the tongues of
land or shallows which connect the islands] it is split up into the
appearance of rivers, which are undefined and widely separated; where
the sea touches the shores [of the mainland], since it is held in by
the shores of the islands which are not far from each other, and since
nearly everywhere it is not large [i.e., broad], it runs in a narrow
channel and like a strait ('fretum'), and turning with the shore it is
curved like a long eyebrow. In this [sea] dwell the Cimbri and the
Teutons, and beyond [the sea, or the Cimbri and Teutons ?] the extreme
people of Germania, namely the Hermiones."

The meaning of this description, which seems to be as involved as the many sounds he is talking about, must probably be that in the immense bay of Codanus there are a number of islands with many narrow straits between them, like rivers. Along the shore of the mainland there is formed, by the almost continuous line of islands lying outside, a long curving strait, which is nearly everywhere of the same narrowness. In this sea--that is to say, on the peninsulas and islands in this bay--dwell the Cimbri and Teutons, and farther away in Germania the Hermiones.

In his account of the islands along the coast of Europe, Mela says further [iii. c. 6]:

[Sidenote: Codanus]

"In the bay which we have called Codanus is amongst the islands
Codanovia, which is still inhabited by the Teutons, and it surpasses
the others both in size and in fertility. The part which lies towards
the Sarmatians seems sometimes to be islands and sometimes connected
land, on account of the backward and forward flow of the sea, and
because the interval which separates them is now covered by the waves,
now bare. Upon these it is asserted that the Œneans dwell, who live
entirely on the eggs of fen-fowl and on oats, the Hippopods with
horses' feet, and the Sanalians, who have such long ears that they
cover the whole body with them instead of clothes, since they
otherwise go naked. For these things, besides what is told in fables,
I find also authorities whom I think I may follow. Towards the coast
of the Belgæ[90] lies Thule, famous in Greek poems and in our own;
there the nights in any case are short, since the sun, when it has
long been about to set, rises up; but in the winter the nights are
dark as elsewhere.... But at the summer solstice there is no night at
all, because the sun then is already clearer, and not only shows its
reflection, but also the greater part of itself."

Thus we see here, as in so many of the classical authors, and later in Pliny, old legends and more trustworthy information hopelessly mixed together. The legends, whose Greek origin is disclosed by the form of the names, may be old skippers' tales, or the romances of merchants who went northward from the Black Sea, but they may also in part be derived from Pytheas. A fable like that of the long-eared Sanali (otherwise called Panoti) originally came from India and is later than his time. The statement about the Œneæ, or, doubtless more correctly, Œonæ (i.e., egg-eaters), who live on eggs and oats, may, on the other hand, have reached him from the north, where the eggs both of fen-fowl (plovers' eggs, for example) and of sea-birds were eaten from time immemorial. Cæsar had heard or read of people who lived on birds' eggs and fish on the islands at the mouth of the Rhine, but he may indeed have derived his knowledge from Greek sources [cf. Müllenhoff, i., 1870, p. 492].

What Mela says about Thule probably comes from Pytheas, as already mentioned (p. 90), and it is very possible that the remarkable statements about the immense bay of Codanus are likewise derived from him, although they may also be ascribed to the circumnavigation of the Skaw under Augustus, or to other voyages in these waters of which we have no knowledge.

[Sidenote: Codanovia]

Whether Codanovia (which is not found in any other known author) is the same name as the later Scadinavia in Pliny, must be regarded as uncertain. It is the first time that such an island or that the bay of Codanus is mentioned in literature. This "immense bay" must certainly be the Cattegat with the southern part of the Baltic; and the numerous islands which close it in to a curved strait or sound must be for the most part the Danish islands and perhaps southern Sweden. Whence the name is derived we do not know for certain.[91]

Ptolemy mentions three peoples in southern Jutland, and calls the
easternmost of them "Kobandoi." It is not likely that three peoples
can have lived side by side in this narrowest part of the peninsula,
and we must believe that some of them lived among the Danish islands,
where Ptolemy does not give the name of any people. The "Kobandoi"
would then be on the easternmost island, Sealand [cf. Much, 1893, pp.
198 f.]. Now it will easily be supposed that "Codanus" and "Kobandoi"
have some connection or other; the latter might be a corruption of the
name of a people, "Kodanoi" or "Kodanioi." But as precisely these
islands and the south of Sweden were inhabited by tribes of the
Danes--of whom several are mentioned in literature: South Danes, North
Danes, Sea Danes, Island Danes, etc.--it may be further supposed that
"Kodanioi" is composed of "ko" or cow[92] and "Daner" (that is,
Cow-Danes), and means a tribe of the latter who were remarkable for
the number of their cows, which would be probable enough for a people
in fertile Sealand (or in Skåne).[93] In this case "Codanus" must be
derived from the name of this people, just as most of the names of
seas and bays in these regions were taken from the names of peoples
(e.g., "Oceanus Germanicus," "Mare Suebicum," "Sinus Venedicum,"
"Quænsæ"). The name "Daner" is one of those names of peoples that are
so ancient that their derivation must be obscure.[94] Procopius uses
it as a common name for many nations ("ethne"), in the same way as he
names the "ethne" of the Slavs (see later, p. 146). It is also used in
the early Middle Ages as a common name for the people of the North,
like Eruli, and later Normans. It is therefore natural that there
should have been special names for the tribes, like Sea-Danes,
Cow-Danes, etc. "Kodan-ovia" ("ovia," equivalent to Old High German
"ouwa" or "ouwia") for island, Gothic "avi," Old Norse "ey" [cf.
Grimm, 1888, p. 505], must be the island on which this tribe lived,
and this might then be Sealand (though Skåne is also possible).

That the Cimbri lived in Codanus suits very well, as their home was Jutland;[95] on the other hand, we know less about the country inhabited by the Teutons. They must have been called in Germanic "*þeodonez" (Gothic "*þiudans" means properly kings), and the name has been connected with Old Norse "þiód," now Thy (Old Danish "Thythesyssel") with its capital Thisted, and the island Thyholm, in north-western Jutland [cf. Much, 1893, pp. 7 ff.; 1905, p. 100].

Whether the Vistula had its outlet into Codanus or farther east Mela does not say, nor does he tell us whether Sarmatia was bounded by this gulf; but this is not impossible, although Codanus is described at the end of the chapter on Germania. Strangely enough, he says, according to the MSS. [iii. c. 4], that "Sarmatia is separated from the following [i.e., Scythia] by the Vistula"; it would thus lie on the western side of the river, which seems curious. It might be possible that the islands off the coast of Sarmatia are among the many which lay in Codanus (?). As Sarmatia lay to the east of Germania, these islands would in any case be as far east as the Baltic, if not farther; but there is no ebb and flood there by which the connecting land between them might be alternately covered and left dry; on the other hand, the description suits the German North Sea coast. Either Mela's authority has heard of the low-lying lands--the Frische Nehrung and the Kurische Nehrung, for instance--off the coast of the amber country, and has added the tidal phenomena from the North Sea coast, or, what is more probable, the Frisian islands, for example, may by a misunderstanding have been moved eastwards into Sarmatia, since older writers, who as yet made no distinction between Germania, Sarmatia and Scythia, described them as lying far east, off the Scythian coast (perhaps taken from the voyage of Pytheas).[96]

[Sidenote: Voyage to Samland, circa 60 A.D.]

The emperor Nero's (54-68 A.D.) love of show led, according to Pliny [Nat. Hist., xxxvii. 45], to the amber coast of the Baltic becoming "first known through a Roman knight, whom Julianus sent to purchase amber, when he was to arrange a gladiatorial combat for the emperor Nero. This knight visited the markets and the coasts and brought thence such a quantity that the nets which were hung up to keep the wild beasts away from the imperial tribune had a piece of amber in every mesh; indeed the weapons, the biers, and the whole apparatus of a day's festival were heavy with amber. The largest piece weighed thirteen pounds." This journey must have followed an undoubtedly ancient trade-route from the Adriatic to Carnuntum (in Pannonia), the modern Petronell on the Danube, where the latter is joined by the March, and from whence Pliny expressly says that the distance was 600,000 paces to the amber coast, which agrees almost exactly with the distance in a straight line to Samland. From Carnuntum the route lay along the river March, thence overland to the upper Vistula, and so down this river to Samland. It may easily be understood that much fresh knowledge reached Rome as a result of this journey.

[Sidenote: Pliny 23-79 A.D.]

The elder Pliny's (23-79 A.D.) statements about the North, in his great work "Naturalis Historia" (in thirty-seven books), are somewhat obscure and confused, and so far are no advance upon Mela; but we remark nevertheless that fresh knowledge has been acquired, and it is as though we get a clearer vision of the new countries and seas through the northern mists. He himself says, moreover, that he "has received information of immense islands which have recently been discovered from Germania." His work is in great part the fruit of an unusually extensive acquaintance with older writers, mostly Greek, but also Latin. He repeats a good deal of what Mela says, or draws from the same sources, probably Greek.

His information about the North must have been obtained, so far as I can see, mainly in three different ways: (1) Directly through the Romans' connection with Germania and through their expeditions to its northern coasts (under Augustus and Nero, for example). Pliny himself lived in Germania for several years (45-52 A.D.) as a Roman cavalry commander, and may then have collected much information. (2) He has drawn extensively from Greek sources, whose statements about the North may have come partly by sea, chiefly through Pytheas (perhaps also through later trading voyages); partly also by land, especially through commercial intercourse between the Black Sea and the Baltic.[97] (3) Finally he received information from Britain about the regions to the north. This may be derived partly from Greek sources, partly also from later Roman connection with Britain. Mela expressly says of this country that new facts will soon be known about it, "for the greatest prince [the Emperor Claudius] is now opening up this country, which has so long been closed ... he has striven by war to obtain personal knowledge of these things, and will spread this knowledge at his triumph." The information obtained by Pliny through these different channels is often used by him uncritically, without remarking that different statements apply to the same countries and seas.

His theory of the universe was the usual one, that the universe was a hollow sphere which revolved in twenty-four hours with indescribable rapidity. "Whether by the continual revolution of such a great mass there is produced an immense noise, exceeding all powers of hearing, I am no more able to assert than that the sound produced by the stars circulating about one another and revolving in their orbits, is a lovely and incredibly graceful harmony." The earth stood in the centre of the universe and had the form of a sphere. The land was everywhere surrounded by sea, which covers the greater part of the globe.

In his description of the North [iv. 12, 88 f.] Pliny begins at the east, and relies here entirely on Greek authorities.

Far north in Scythia, beyond the Arimaspians, "we come to the 'Ripæan'
Mountains and to the district which on account of the ever-falling
snow, resembling feathers, is called Pterophorus. This part of the
world is accursed by nature and shrouded in thick darkness; it
produces nothing else but frost and is the chilly hiding-place of the
north wind. By these mountains and beyond the north wind dwells, if we
are willing to believe it, a happy people, the Hyperboreans, who have
long life and are famous for many marvels which border on the
fabulous. There, it is said, are the pivots of the world, and the
uttermost revolution of the constellations." The sun shines there for
six months; but strangely enough it rises at the summer solstice and
sets at the winter solstice, which shows Pliny's ignorance of
astronomy. The climate is magnificent and without cold winds. As the
sun shines for half the year, "the Hyperboreans sow in the morning,
harvest at midday, gather the fruit from the trees at evening, and
spend the night in caves. The existence of this people is not to be
doubted, since so many authors tell us about them."

Having then mentioned several districts bordering on the Black Sea, Pliny continues [iv. 13, 94 f.]:

"We will now acquaint ourselves with the outer parts of Europe, and
turn, after having gone over the Ripæan Mountains, towards the left to
the coast of the northern ocean, until we arrive again at Gades. Along
this line many nameless islands are recorded. Timæus mentions that
among them there is one off Scythia called Baunonia, a day's sail
distant, upon which the waves cast up amber in the spring. The
remaining coasts are only known from doubtful rumours. Here is the
northern ocean. Hecatæus calls it Amalcium, from the river
Parapanisus[98] onwards and as far as it washes the coast of Scythia,
which name [i.e., Amalcium] in the language of the natives means
frozen.[99] Philemon[100] says that it was called by the Cimbri
Morimarusa, that is, the dead sea; from thence and as far as the
promontory Rusbeas, farther out, it is called Cronium. Xenophon of
Lampsacus says that three days' sail from the Scythian coast is an
island, Balcia, of enormous size; Pytheas calls it Basilia." He goes
on to mention the Œonæ, Hippopods, and Long-eared men in almost the
same terms as Mela.

This mention of lands and seas in the North is of great interest. But in attempting to identify any of them in Pliny's description we must always remember that to him and his Greek authorities, and to all writers even in much later times, all land north of the coasts of Scythia, Sarmatia and Germania was nothing but islands in the northern ocean. Further, it must be remembered that the ancient Greeks did not know the name Germania, which was not introduced until about 80 B.C. To them Scythia and Celtica (Gaul) were conterminous, and their Scythian coast might therefore lie either on the Baltic or the North Sea.

It has not been possible to decide where the name "Rusbeas" (called by Solinus "Rubeas") comes from;[101] but it is best understood if we take it to be southern Norway or Lindesnes. As the description begins at the east on the Scythian coast, it follows that "Amalcium" is the Baltic as far as the Danish islands and the land of the Cimbri. "Morimarusa,"[102] which extends from Amalcium to Lindesnes, will be the Cattegat (in part, at any rate) and the Skagerak. Cronium will be the North Sea and the Northern Ocean beyond Lindesnes.[103] We must believe that Philemon has obtained his information about the Cimbri (at the Skaw), about Morimarusa, and about Rusbeas either from Pytheas--whose mention thereof we must then suppose to have been accidentally omitted by other authors--or else from later Greek merchants. In the same way Xenophon must have got his Balcia, which is here named for the first time in literature. As these two Greek authors (probably of about 100 B.C.) are expressly mentioned as authorities, the statements cannot be derived from the circumnavigation of the Skaw in the time of Augustus, nor from any other Roman expedition. It is clear enough that Pliny himself did not know where Rusbeas and Balcia were, but simply repeated uncritically what he had read. On the other hand, he knew from another source that the sea he calls Cronium lay far north of Britain, and must therefore be sought for to the north-west of the Scythian coast.

Balcia must be looked for most probably in the Baltic. As already mentioned (p. 72) it may be Jutland; but as it is described as an island of immense size and three days' sail from the Scythian coast, it suits southern Sweden better, although Pliny has also the name Scadinavia for this from another source.

After these doubtful statements about the north coast of Scythia, taken from Greek sources and interwoven with fables, Pliny reaches firmer ground in Germania, when he continues [iv. 13, 96]:

"We have more certain information concerning the Ingævones people who
are the first [that is, the most north-eastern] in Germania. There is
the immense mountain Sævo, not less than the Riphæan range, and it
forms a vast bay which goes to the Cimbrian Promontory [i.e.,
Jutland], which bay is called Codanus and is full of islands, amongst
which the most celebrated is Scatinavia, of unknown size; a part of it
is inhabited, as far as is known by the Hilleviones, in 500 cantons
('pagis'), who call it [i.e., the island] the second earth. Æningia is
supposed to be not less in size. Some say that these regions extend as
far as the Vistula and are inhabited by Sarmatians [i.e., probably
Slavs], Venedi [Wends], Scirri, and Hirri; the bay is called
Cylipenus, and at its mouth lies the island Latris. Not far from
thence is another bay, Lagnus, which borders on the Cimbri. The
Cimbrian Promontory runs far out into the sea and forms a peninsula
called Tastris." Then follows a list of twenty-three islands which are
clearly off the North Sea coast of Sleswick and Germany. Among them is
one called by the soldiers "Glæsaria" on account of the amber
("glesum"),[104] but by the barbarians "Austeravia" [i.e., the eastern
island], or "Actania."

Here are a number of new names and pieces of information. The form of some of the names shows that here too Pliny has borrowed to some extent from Greek authors; but his information must also partly be derived from Roman sources, and from Germany itself. His "Codanus" must be the same as that of Mela, and is the sea adjacent to the country of the Cimbri, which is here for the first time clearly referred to as a promontory (promunturium). It is the Cattegat, and, in part at any rate, the Skagerak. The enormous mountain "Sævo" will then be most probably the mountains of Scandinavia, especially southern Norway, which forms the bay of Codanus in such a way that the latter is bounded on the other side by the Cimbrian Promontory.[105] It will then be in the same mountainous country that we should look for the promontory of Rusbeas (see above).

[Sidenote: Scandinavia]

The name "Scatinavia" or "Scadinavia" (both spellings occur in the MSS. of Pliny) is found here certainly for the first time; but, curiously enough, we also find the name "Scandia" in Pliny; it is used of an island which is mentioned as near Britain (see below, p. 106). "Scandia" has often been taken for a shortened form of "Scadinavia"; but if we consider the occurrence of both names in Pliny in conjunction with the fact that Mela has not yet heard either, but has, on the other hand, a large island, "Codanovia," in the bay of Codanus, then it may seem possible that originally there were two entirely different names: "Codanovia," for Sealand (and perhaps for south Sweden), and "*Skânovia" ("Skáney," latinised into "Scandia") for Skåne. By a confusion of these two the form "Scadinavia" for south Sweden may have resulted in Pliny, instead of Mela's "Codanovia," while at the same time he got the name "Scandia" from another source. The latter is the only one used by Ptolemy both for south Sweden and the Danish islands; he has four "Scandiæ," three smaller ones and one very large one farther east, "Scandia" proper (see below, p. 119). By further confusion of the two names, "Scadinavia" has become "Scandinavia" in later copyists and authors.[106]

In conflict with this is the hitherto accepted opinion among
philologists that the name "Skåne" must be derived from "Scadinavia,"
which would regularly become by contraction "*Skadney," and this by
losing the "d" would become "Skáney." But this similarity may after
all be accidental, and it is difficult to reconcile the hypothesis
with the fact that the form "Scandia" (and not "*Skadnia") already
appears in Pliny and later in Ptolemy. To this must be added that the
form "*Skadney," or a similar one, is not known; the first time we
find the word Skåne in literature is in the story of Wulfstan the Dane
to King Alfred (about 890, see later), where it takes the form "Scôn
eg," which is the same as "Skáney." "Skania," which is a latinised
form of "Skáney," is found in a Papal letter of 950, and a Swedish
runic inscription of about 1020 reads "ą Skąnu," which also is the
same as "Skáney." It therefore appears probable that this is the
original form, the same as the Norwegian name "Skáney," and that it
has not resulted from a contraction of "Skadinavia." Professor Torp
agrees that a form "*Skânovia" might possibly be the original.

What may be the meaning of the name "Hilleviones" in Scadinavia is difficult to make out; it does not occur in any other writer, but is in all likelihood a common term for all Scandinavians. One is reminded of the "Hermiones" who occur in Mela in the same connection, but a little later Pliny mentions these also. "Æningia," which is said to be no smaller than Scadinavia, is a riddle. Could it be a corruption of a Halsingia or Alsingia (the land of the Helsingers), a name for northern Sweden, which thus lay farther off and was less known than Scadinavia?[107] When we read that these regions were supposed to extend as far as the Vistula, this might indicate a vague idea that Scadinavia and Æningia were connected with the mainland, whereby a bay of the sea was formed, called "Cylipenus,"[108] which will thus be yet another name for the Baltic, taken from a new source; but the whole may be nothing more than an obscure statement.