Pytheas however could not then answer for himself, or protect his own work from loss or alteration, so most of the questions concerning his voyage remain unresolved, to be worked over by every generation.

Bacchylides then sings the praises of Pytheas ' home, the island Aegina, and how " her fame excites a dancer ’ s praise.

" But he then doubts this claim, writing that Pytheas has " been found, upon scrutiny, to be an arch falsifier, but the men who have seen Britain and Ierne ( Ireland ) do not mention Thule, though they speak of other islands, small ones, about Britain.

If one presumes that Pytheas would not have written prior to being 20 years old, he would have been a contemporary and competitor of Timaeus and Dicaearchus.

Whether Ptolemy would have had Pytheas ' real latitudes at that time is a much debated issue.

On the surface it would appear that Pytheas was the first to use the name, Britannia.

If Berrice was in the outer Hebrides, the crossing would have brought Pytheas to the vicinity of Trondheim, Norway, explaining how he managed to miss the Skagerrak.

From these few references, which are the only surviving evidence apart from place name analysis, it would seem that the Balts Pytheas would have encountered were past the Common Balto-Slavic stage, but still spoke one language, which would have been Proto-Baltic.

Pytheas must have made frequent overnight stops to use his gnōmōn and talk to the natives, which would have required interpreters, probably acquired along the way.

Citing numerous instances of Pytheas apparently being far off the mark on details concening known regions, he says: " however, any man who has told such great falsehoods about the known regions would hardly, I imagine, be able to tell the truth about places that are not known to anybody.

In discussing the work of Pytheas, Strabo typically uses direct discourse: " Pytheas says ..." In presenting his astronomical observations, he changes to indirect discourse: " Hipparchus says that Pytheas says ..." either because he never read Pytheas ' manuscript ( because it was not available to him ) or in deference to Hipparchus, who appears to have been the first to apply the Babylonian system of representing the sphere of the earth by 360 °.

Fosite has been suggested to be a loan of Greek Poseidon into pre-Proto-Germanic, perhaps via Greeks purchasing amber ( Pytheas is known to have visited the area of Heligoland in search of amber ).

The Carthaginian sailor Himilco is said to have visited the island in the 5th century BC and the Greek explorer Pytheas in the 4th.

Assuming that Ictis, Mictis and Corbulo are the same, Diodorus appears to have read Timaeus, who must have read Pytheas, whom Polybius also read.

Nansen goes on to point out that Pytheas must have stopped to obtain astronomical data ; presumably, the extra time was spent ashore.

This number is in the neighborhood of what a triangular perimeter ought to be but it cannot be verified against anything Pytheas may have said, nor is Diodorus Siculus very precise about the locations of the legs.

Pytheas could have travelled any perimeter between that number and Diodorus '.

Despite Strabo's conviction of a lie, the perimeter said to have been given by Pytheas is not evidence of it.

Many more authors have written about it than remembered Pytheas.

In the geographers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire, such as Ptolemy, Scythia stretches eastward from the mouth of the Vistula ; thus Pytheas must have described the Germanic coast of the Baltic sea ; if the statement is true, there are no other possibilities.

Pytheas claimed to have explored the entire north ; however, he turned back at the mouth of the Vistula, the border with Scythia.

Moderns have Polaris to mark the approximate location of the North celestial pole, which it does nearly exactly, but this position of Polaris was not available in Pytheas ' time, due to changes in the positions of the stars.

In whatever mathematical form Pytheas knew the location, he could only have determined when he was there by taking periodic readings of the elevation of the pole ( eksarma tou polou in Strabo and others ).

Pytheas crossed the waters northward from Berrice, in the north of the British Isles, but whether to starboard, larboard, or straight ahead is not known.

As the parallel through the river-mouth also crossed the coast of " Celtica ", the distance due north from Marseilles to Celtica was 3700 stadia, a baseline from which Pytheas seems to have calculated latitude and distance.

Pytheas says that the Gutones, a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia ; that, at one day's sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus, upon the shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form ; as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbors, the Teutones.

Pliny is presenting an archaic view, as in his time amber was a precious stone brought from the Baltic at great expense, but the Germans, he says, use it for firewood, according to Pytheas.

Earlier Pliny says that a large island of three days ' sail from the Scythian coast called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus is called Basilia by Pytheas.

The first historical mention of the region is from the Massaliote Periplus, a sailing manual for merchants thought to date to the 6th century BCE, and Pytheas of Massilia wrote of his exploratory voyage to the island around 325 BC.

The only surviving pre-Roman account of Scotland originated with the Greek Pytheas of Massalia who circumnavigated the British islands ( which he called Pretaniké ) in 325 BC, but the record of his visit dates from much later.

Pytheas of Massalia, or Latin Massilia ( Ancient Greek Πυθέας ὁ Μασσαλιώτης, 4th century BC ), was a Greek geographer and explorer from the Greek colony, Massalia ( modern day Marseilles ).

The early part of Pytheas ' voyage is outlined by statements of Eratosthenes that Strabo says are false because taken from Pytheas.

Apparently, Pytheas said that tides ended at the " sacred promontory " ( Ieron akrōtērion, or Sagres Point ), and from there to Gades is said to be 5 days ' sail.

The consensus has been that he probably took his information from Pytheas through Timaeaus.

Strabo relates, taking his text from Polybius, " Pytheas asserts that he explored in person the whole northern region of Europe as far as the ends of the world.

The fact that Pytheas returned from the vicinity of the Baltic favors Procopius's view.

Pytheas says that the Gutones, a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia ; that, at one day's sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus, upon the shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form ; as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbours, the Teutones.

Pliny is presenting an archaic view, as in his time amber was a precious stone brought from the Baltic at great expense, but the Germans, he says, use it for firewood, according to Pytheas.

Earlier Pliny says that a large island of three days ' sail from the Scythian coast called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus is called Basilia by Pytheas.

The first Ionian philosopher, Thales, was known for his ability to measure the distance of a ship at sea from a cliff by the very method Pytheas used to determine the latitude of Massalia, the trigonometric ratios.

Based partly on data taken from Pytheas, Hipparchus correlated cubits of the sun's elevation at noon on the winter solstice, latitudes in hours of a day on the summer solstice, and distances between latitudes in stadia for some locations.

" As an example he mentions that Pytheas says Kent is several days ' sail from Celtica when it is visible from Gaul across the channel.