That Pythias Visited The Baltic, Though Perhaps The Thule He Mentions Did
Not Lie In This Sea, Is Evident From The Following Extract From His
Journal, Given By Pliny:
- "On the shores of a certain bay called
Mentonomon, live a people called Guttoni:
And at the distance of a day's
voyage from them, is the island Abalus (called by Timaeus, Baltea). Upon
this the waves threw the amber, which is a coagulated matter cast up by the
sea: they use it for firing, instead of wood, and also sell it to the
neighbouring Teutones." The inhabitants on the coast of the Baltic, near
the Frish or Curish Sea (which is probably the bay Pytheas describes) are
called in the Lithuanian language, Guddai: and so late as the period of the
Crusades, the spot where amber is found was called Wittland, or Whiteland;
in Lithuanian, Baltika. From these circumstances, as well as from the name
_Baltea_ given by Timaeus to the island mentioned by Pytheas, as the place
where amber is cast up by the waves, there appears no doubt that Pytheas
was in the Baltic Sea, though his island of Thule might not be there. As
amber was in great repute, even so early as the time of Homer, who
describes it as being used to adorn the golden collars, it is highly
probable that Pytheas was induced to enter the Baltic for the purpose of
obtaining it: in what manner, or through whose means, the Greeks obtained
it in Homer's time, is not known.
After all, the question is involved in very great obscurity; and the
circumstance not the most probable, or reconcileable with a country even
not further north than Jutland is, that, in the age of Pytheas, the
inhabitants should have been so far advanced in knowledge and civilization,
as to have cultivated any species of grain.
Till the age of Herodotus the light of history is comparatively feeble and
broken; and where it does shine with more steadiness and brilliancy, its
rays are directed almost exclusively on the warlike operations of mankind.
Occasionally, indeed, we incidentally learn some new particulars respecting
the knowledge of the ancients in geography: but these particulars, as must
be obvious from the preceding part of this volume, are ascertained only
after considerable difficulty; and when ascertained, are for the most part
meagre, if not obscure. In the history of Herodotus, we, for the first
time, are able to trace the exact state and progress of geographical
knowledge; and from his time, our means of tracing it become more
accessible, as well as productive of more satisfactory results. Within one
hundred years after this historian flourished, geography derived great
advantages and improvement from a circumstance which, at first view, would
have been deemed adverse to the extension of any branch of science: we
allude to the conquests of Alexander the Great. This monarch seems to have
been actuated by a desire to be honoured as the patron of science, nearly
as strong as the desire to be known to posterity as the conquerer of the
world:
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