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The Greek explorer Pytheas of the Greek city of Massalia (now Marseille, France) is the first to have written of Thule, after his travels between 330 and 320 BC.Pytheas mentioned going to Thule in his now lost work, On The Ocean Τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ὠκεανοῦ (ta peri tou Okeanou).
Pytheas also spoke of the waters around Thule and of those places where land properly speaking no longer exists, nor sea nor air, but a mixture of these things, like a "marine lung", in which it was said that earth and water and all things are in suspension as if this something was a link between all these elements, on which one can neither ...
Greek and Roman exploration of Northern Europe and Thule [ edit ] Pytheas (4th century BC), a Greek explorer from Massalia ( Marseille ), was the first to circumnavigate Great Britain , explore Germany , and reach Thule (most commonly thought to be the Shetland Islands or Iceland ).
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The Greek explorer and merchant Pytheas of Massalia made a voyage to Northern Europe c. 330 BC. Part of his itinerary has survived to this day thanks to the accounts by Polybius, Strabo and Pliny. Pytheas had visited Thule, which lay a six-day voyage north of Britain. There "the barbarians showed us the place where the sun does not go to sleep.
Thule is first mentioned by Pytheas of Massilia when he visited Britain sometime between 322 and 285 BC, but it is unlikely he meant Shetland as he believed it was six days sail north of Britain and one day from the frozen sea (a description that seems to refer, more or less, to Iceland).
The Roman poet Vergilius, in the middle of the first century BC, refers to the North as “Ultima Thule”, i.e. the furthermost North.The Roman author Plinius, who lived during the first century AD, claims that the world's furthermost place at Thule or Tyle is the place described by the Greek Pytheas from Marseille, who travelled from the Mediterranean to the North in 300 BC.
It is derived from the travel writings of Pytheas around 320 BC, which described various islands in the North Atlantic as far north as Thule (probably Norway). The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni or Pretani . [ 16 ]