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Also have I praise for Pytheas, for that he guided aright the course of Phylakidas' blows in the struggle of hands that bring limbs low, an adversary he of cunning soul. Take for him a crown, and bring the fleecy fillet, and speed him on his way with this new winged hymn. This ode seems to be of earlier date than the last, though placed after it in our order. The occasion is similar.

As amber was in great repute, even so early as the time of Homer, who describes it as being used to adorn the golden collars, it is highly probable that Pytheas was induced to enter the Baltic for the purpose of obtaining it: in what manner, or through whose means, the Greeks obtained it in Homer's time, is not known.

Pytheas, of Marseilles, lived a short time before Alexander the Great: he is celebrated for his knowledge in astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and geography, and for the ardour and perseverance with which either a strong desire for information, or the characteristic commercial spirit of his townspeople, or both united, carried him forward in the path of maritime discovery.

But for me it were long to tell all those valiant deeds. For for Phylakidas am I come, O Muse, a dispenser of thy triumphal songs, and for Pytheas, and for Euthymenes ; therefore in Argive fashion my tale shall be of fewest words.

There seems no good reason to believe, what all the hypothesis we have examined assume, that Pytheas sailed along the whole of the east coast of Britain: on the other hand, it seems more likely, that having passed over from the coast of France to the coast of Britain, he traced the latter to its most eastern point, that is, the coast of Norfolk near Yarmouth; from which place, the coast taking a sudden and great bend to the west, it is probable that Pytheas, whose object evidently was to sail as far north as he could, would leave the coast and stretch out into the open sea.

So that many of the popular pleaders used to make it a jest against him; and Pytheas once, scoffing at him, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp. To which Demosthenes gave the sharp answer, "It is true, indeed, Pytheas, that your lamp and mine are not conscious of the same things."

At the same time, other parts of his description agree with this country; particularly when he says, that there the sea, the earth, and the air, seem to be confounded in one element. In the south of Greenland the longest day is two months which does not coincide with Pytheas' account; though this, as we have already pointed out, is contradictory with itself.

A strong proof of this seemed to be that he was seldom heard to speak anything extempore, and though the people often called upon him by name, as he sat in the assembly, to speak to the point debated, he would not do it unless he came prepared. For this many of the orators ridiculed him; and Pytheas, in particular, told him, "That all his arguments smelled of the lamp."

Beyond question, Pytheas, the first WRITING or civilized creature that ever saw Germany, gazed with his Greek eyes, and occasionally landed, striving to speak and inquire, upon those old Baltic Coasts, north border of the now Prussian Kingdom; and reported of it to mankind we know not what.

Aristotle and Heraclides say, they proceed from the sun, which moves and whirls about the winds; and these falling with a violence upon the Atlantic, it is pressed and swells by them, by which means the sea flows; and their impression ceasing, the sea retracts, hence they ebb. Pytheas the Massilian, that the fulness of the moon gives the flow, the wane the ebb.