VIII.] HIS SCIENTIFIC ATTAINMENTS. 155

of Massilia1, on which point it has been established by modern
observations that his conclusion was almost exactly correct.
Indeed, no stronger proof of his eminence in this direction is
needed, than the confidence with which he was regarded by
Hipparchus, the greatest master of that subject in antiquity, who
adopted this as a well ascertained point with a view to comparing
the latitude of other places2. He was also the first among the
Greeks to note the influence of the moon on the tides, and the
correspondence between the movements of the one and those of
the other. No doubt, the Phoenicians of Gades, to whom the
concurrence of these phenomena must have been a matter of
constant observation, could not have failed to infer the connexion
of the two, but Pytheas was at least the first to report it to his
fellow-countrymen8. In the following pages we shall have occasion
to notice other contributions of his to scientific and physical
geography.

Setting out from Massilia, Pytheas and his companions passed
the Straits and visited Gades, after which they
continued their voyage round the Sacrum Promon-
torium (Cape St Vincent) and Cape Finisterre, and
then followed the northern coast of Spain and the western coast
of Gaul as far as the Armorican promontory*. In the latter part
of this route they became aware of the depth to which the Bay of
Biscay recedes, and of the marked angle that is formed by the
projection of Brittany — an observation which Strabo discredited
in his distrust of Pytheas' veracity, and consequently fell into the
error of making the coast of Gaul follow an almost straight line
from the mouth of the Rhine to the Pyrenees0. The tribe who

1 Strabo, 2. 5. 8, 41.

8 See the reff. in Berger, Diegeogr. Fragments des Nipparch, p. 58.

8 Plutarch, De Placitis PMosophorum, 3. 17; ILvBtas 6 Mcwo-aXi&rfs rf?

4 Strabo, 3. 2. n ; rb r& Trpoo-ap/crt/vcl ^ptj 7*375 ^Ifiyptas cinrapod&Tepa, etpcu
irp&s rV KeXrtfffy' y Kara rbv &Keavbv irKtova, Kcd &ra ft) &XXa ctpqicc HuQtq.
irurretfo-as. This passage has heen interpreted in various ways, but the right
translation of it is this — "the statement [of Eratosthenes] that the northern
regions (i.c. coasts) of Spain offer an easier route to Celtica than if men cross
the open sea, &c."
• Strabo, i. 4.5; 4. 4. i ; 4.5. i.