Mind-Benders of Greek & Roman History
A Greek From Marseille Sailed to the Edge of the Arctic
Around 325 BCE Pytheas of Massalia (modern Marseille) sailed out past the Strait of Gibraltar, sailed around much of Britain, and pushed north to a land he called Thule, near a frozen sea. He became the first known Greek to describe polar ice and the midnight sun.
How we know
Pytheas' voyage c.325 BCE, recorded in his lost work On the Ocean and preserved only through later writers (Strabo, Pliny, Diodorus). Credited as the first recorded description of the midnight sun and Arctic pack ice.
One of many fact-checked wonders across eight traditions at The Spring of Wisdom.