VIII.] VARYING ESTIMATES OF HIM. 153
have followed, have lain chiefly in the lands to the east of the
Mediterranean; and it is only natural that they should have been
the first investigated, because there civilisation and wealth existed,
and these were the inducements by which conquerors and traders
were attracted. The articles of commerce which were brought
from the far West were few, and together with the knowledge
of the countries from which they came, were in the hands of the
Phoenicians, whose narrow policy prevented them from com-
municating to others the information which they obtained. The
adventurer who first broke through this monopoly, and proclaimed
to the Greeks the wonders of the ocean and the strange sights of
Northern Europe, was Pytheas of Massilia, whose voyage into
those seas took place about the same time as Alexander's expedi-
tion into Asia. His fame has experienced strange varying
vicissitudes of fortune, by reason of the evil report Estimates of
and good report through which it has passed in im"
ancient and modem times. The marvels which he related were
such as not easily to obtain credence, and, in consequence of this,
first Polybius, and afterwards Strabo, made his name a byword
for circulating untrustworthy statements. In our own days he has
received more honorable treatment; and, since that part of his story
which to his contemporaries appeared incredible has now been
found to correspond to the reality, he has come to be regarded as
one of those eminent men whose only fault has been that they
lived before their time. The work in which the
r i • , , , His Work-
narrative of his voyage and the results of his ex-
plorations were embodied is no longer extant, and our acquaintance
with it is mainly derived from excerpts taken from it for contro-
versial purposes, which occur in the writings of his opponents.
In addition to these a number of scattered notices of his statements
are found in various ancient authors j and these have been pieced
together through the diligence of modern scholars, so that we now
possess sufficient material from which to determine the countries
which he visited, if not the exact route which he followed. By
means of them, also, we are able to trace to Pytheas as its source
a large amount of information about the north-west of Europe,
which was current in antiquity from his time onward, though the
authority for it was unknown. The question of Pytheas* voyage