Edward Herbert Bunbury and Charles Raymond Beazley

“ PYTHEAS, of Marseilles (Massilia) , a celebrated Greek navigator and geographer, from whom the Greeks apparently derived their earliest definite information concerning western Europe, and especially the British Islands. ”

“ It may, however, be considered as fairly established that Pytheas made a voyage round the western coasts of Europe, proceeding from Gades, the great Phoenician emporium, and probably the farthest point familiar to the Greeks, round Spain and Gaul to the British Islands, and that he followed the eastern coast of Britain for a considerable, distance to the north, obtaining information as to its farther extension in that direction which led him greatly to exaggerate its size. ”

“ As usual, he places the Rhipaean Mountains and the Hyperboreans near the Scythian Ocean. In western Europe his knowledge (as was natural in a Spanish subject of Imperial Rome) was somewhat in advance of the Greek geographers. He defines the western coast-line of Spain and Gaul and its indentation by the Bay of Biscay more accurately than Eratosthenes or Strabo, his ideas of the British Isles and their position are also clearer than his predecessors'. ”