42 PHCENICIAN COLONIES 



returning from his great northern voyage, in which he first 

 obtained accounts of the remote island of Thule, he had 

 sailed along the entire coast of the Ocean between Gadeira 

 and the Tanais ; that is from Cadiz round Spain, Gaul, 

 Germany, and Scythia, to the river Don, which was con- 

 sidered by the ancients as the boundary of Europe and Asia. 

 This statement furnishes an additional proof of the mendacity 

 of Pytheas, because it is founded on the belief, received in 

 his time, that Europe did not project far to the North, and 

 that the Ocean swept along its shores to the north of Scythia 

 and India." Pytheas, however, did not, in reality, lay him- 

 self open to any such accusation ; the "passage on which Sir 

 C. Lewis relies only affirms that after his return from the 

 north (e7rave\0a)v evOevSe) he travelled along the whole coast 

 of Europe from Cadiz to the Don. This, which evidently 

 refers to a second journey, is a very different statement, and 

 one which I see no reason to doubt. 



According to Geminus, Pytheas went so far north that 

 the nights were only two or three hours long, and he adds 

 that the Barbarians took him to see the place where the sun 

 slept. These two statements seem to point to Donnas as 

 the northernmost point of his voyage. Here the shortest 

 night is two hours long, but behind the town is a mountain, 

 the top of which is the southernmost point from which the 

 midnight sun can be seen. The inhabitants took Professor 

 Nilsson here in the year 1816, to show him the place where 

 the sun rested, just as they seem to have conducted Pytheas 

 to the same spot, for the same purpose, more than 2000 years 

 before. On this subject I will only add that Pytheas was no 

 mere traveller, but a distinguished astronomer, who, with 

 the help of the gnomon only, seems to have estimated the 

 latitude of Marseille^ at 43 17 / 8 /; , a calculation which only 

 differs by a few seconds from the result given by modern 

 astronomers namely, 43 17' 52". 



