Around 325 BC the Greek navigator and geographer Pytheas left the Greek colony of Massalia (Marseille), sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar and along the Atlantic coast to Britain, which he circumnavigated and measured. He then went north to a land he called Thule, six days' sail from Britain, where the summer sun never set and the sea froze: perhaps Iceland or Norway. He reported the tides and their relation to the Moon and calculated the latitude of Massalia with a sundial. His book On the Ocean is lost, known only through hostile quotations by Strabo and Polybius, who thought it fiction. Later writers confirmed much of what he said.
Before and after
- 20 January 330 BCEBattle of the Persian Gate on the Mountain
- 329 BCEConstruction of Panathenaic Stadium
- 327 BCESiege of the Sogdian Rock
- from 327 BCE to 325 BCEIndian campaign of Alexander the Great
- c. 326 BCEPytheas of Massalia sails to Britain and the far north
- from November 326 BCE to February 325 BCEMallian Campaign
- from 323 BCE to 322 BCELamian War
- 323 BCEFarnese Hercules
- from 323 BCE to 30 BCEHellenistic period
More in Exploration & discovery
- 1021Vikings are at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland
- 14 June 1325Ibn Battuta sets out from Tangier
- 6 September 1522Magellan's expedition completes the first circumnavigation
- 14 December 1911Amundsen reaches the South Pole
- from 4 October 1957 to 1 July 1975Space race
- 24 December 1968Apollo 8 orbits the Moon and photographs Earthrise
The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires. You can also browse everything in the 4th century BCE.