Hecateus of Abdera writes that the Oceanus of the Hyperboreans is neither the Arctic Ocean nor Western Ocean, but the sea located to the north of the ancient Greek world, called "the most admirable of all seas" by Herodotus (lib. IV 85), called the "immense sea" by Pomponius Mela (lib. I. c. 19) and by Dionysius Periegetes (Orbis Descriptio, v. 165), and which is named Mare majus on medieval geographic maps.