10 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
Sixth Century 
RC. 
Ionian School. 
ITecatxus. 
Straits of Gades, and, landing at Tartessus, brought home from tlicnce an invaluable cargo. 
This great Tyrian establishment, as well as the whole western portion of the Mediter- 
..nean. had. according to Herodotus, up to that time remained wholly unknown to the 
Greeks.' Che Phocseans made frequent voyages to the Western Mediterranean towards 
die close of the seventh century, and in GOO b.c. the city of Massilia was founded by a 
colony from Phocasa . 2 
Earl) r in the sixth century b.c. the Greeks commenced to form new views with regard 
to the stream of ocean, and the Cimmerian darkness of the ancient poets. The old 
legends of the Homeric age were still reproduced at times among the poets of the sixth 
nd fifth centuries b.c., for example, by iEsehylus and Pindar, but they are archaic 
vmlnisccnces, assuredly not confounded with the reality. The navigation of the Straits 
>f Gibraltar was well known to be both dangerous and difficult; this is expressed by an 
adage found in Pindar 3 : — “Neither wise man nor fool gets beyond the Pillars of 
Hercules.” 
Let us now cast a glance at the conceptions held by the philosophers of the sixth and 
seventh centuries b.c., and their speculations concerning the physical structure of the world 
and the phenomena of the sea. Thales of Miletus, 4 chief of the Ionian school, and recog- 
nised as the founder of physical science among the Greeks, is distinctly stated by Plutarch 5 
to have been acquainted with the spherical form of the earth. This is evidently an error, 
for Aristotle represents him as teaching that the earth was supported on water, upon which 
it floated like a log or ship ; earthquakes were said to have been caused by the agitation 
of the water. The speculations of his followers were even more singular than those of 
the master. Thus, Anaximander, 6 who is credited with the invention of the gnomon, 
md who was the first to represent the surface of the globe on a map, is said to have 
held that the earth wa3 of cylindrical form, the inhabited part being the upper end of 
the cylinder. 7 Anaximenes, 8 a successor of Anaximander; held that the earth was of 
rr. gular, quadrangular form — a flat trapezium which was supported by the air beneath 
it as a consequence of its pressing down on it like the lid of a vase. 9 IIecata3us of 
Mih-tus, 10 the most celebrated geographer of the Ionian school, constructed a new map of 
the world, and surveyed the geographical notions of the Greeks towards the end of the 
-ixth century b.c. He gives some indications of the morphology of the sea, but, like 
all his predecessors, he admits the existence of the stream of ocean, and considers the 
1 Herodotus, iv. 152. 
T! l’)i " > a - employed penteconters in these voyages instead of the “ round ships,” a name applied to ordinary 
n - r- h.-in • ves • Is, p< sibly in view of hostile encounters with the Phoenicians (see H. Berger, Gesckichte der Wissen- 
•. h.Jtl • ’ Knlkundc der Griechen, p. 17 ; Vivien de St. Martin, Ilistoire de la Geographic, Paris, 1873, p. 73. 
* Olytnp., iii. 80. 4 Flourished in the first half of the sixth century B.c. 
* Plutarch, Plac. Phil., iii. 10. 8 610 to 547 B.C. 
" Plutarch, Plac. PhiL, iii. 10. 8 Flourished in the latter half of the sixth century B.c. 
* Aristotle, De Coelo, ii. 13, see. 10 ; Plutarch, Plac. Phil., iii. 10. 
** Flourished in the sixth century B.C. 
