Pytheas, Greek merchant, geographer and explorer from the Greek colony Massilia (today Marseille) (b. c. 380 BC)
Pytheas, Greek explorer, who will explore northwestern Europe, including the British Isles (d. c. 310 BC) (approximate date)
Pytheas - A young lyre-playing merchant from Mycenae.
The species name is derived from the Greek geographic location thule which refers to a northern land first described by Pytheas and is to signify the geographic location of this species within the
Pytheas |
Pytheas of Massilia recorded an account of a journey northward in 325 BC, to a land he called "Eschate Thule," where the Sun only set for three hours each day and the water was replaced by a congealed substance "on which one can neither walk nor sail."
He also wrote on the trade of Carthage, on the geographer Pytheas of Marseille, and two important works on numismatics (La Numismatique du moyen âge, 2 vols., 1835; Etudes numismatiques, 1840).
According to Pytheas in the 4th century BC as reported by Strabo in the 1st century AD they occupied the area that was Tartessos which was the Baetis River valley (Guadalquivir River Andalusia Spain).
The Roman author Plinius, who lived during the first century AD, claims that the world's furthermost place at Thule or Tyle is the place described by the Greek Pytheas from Marseille, who travelled from the Mediterranean to the North in 300 BC.