Greece & Rome, Vol. 52, No. 2, # The Classical Association, 2005. All rights reserved
doi:10.1093/gromej/cxi003
 WHERE THE LORD OF THE SEA GRANTS
PASSAGE TO SAILORS THROUGH THE
DEEP-BLUE MERE NO MORE : THE GREEKS
A N D T H E W E S T E R N S E A S
By HEINZ-GÜ NTHER NESSELRATH
The fascination of the ancient Greeks with the vast seas to the west of
their areas of settlement already starts with Homer and lasts deep into
Imperial Roman times. The following remarks will try to highlight
some of the literary products of this fascination, tracing the development
from Okeanos as the home of mythical places (and dangers) to the
western ocean as the scarcely less mysterious abode of both Thule and
Atlantis.
Okeanos and the Atlantic Ocean
In the beginning, there was Okeanos: in the Iliad, Okeanos is twice intro-
duced as the begetter of the gods (14.201, 302, together with his divine
consort Tethys) and even as the origin of all things (14.246). This con-
ception, which reappears in later Orphic texts,1 has recognizable Near
Eastern precedents,2 something which also holds true for the idea of
Okeanos as a stream of water encircling all earth,3 as it is shown on
the famous shield of Achilles in Iliad book 18 and as it becomes import-
ant for Odysseus fantastic journeys in the Odyssey. Okeanos is thus not
only a divine being of the highest importance, but also the absolute limit
beyond which no living human being can travel upon this earth. Earth is
more or less conceived as a well-rounded disc, in the middle of which
there is the Aegean with its adjacent lands (mainland Greece in the
west with the Ionic Isles and some vague hints about Sicily,4 Thrace in
the north, Asia Minor in the east, and Crete  as well as an inkling of
1
See Orphicorum Fragmenta 15. 16. 25. 107 Kern.
2
M. L. West, The east face of Helicon: West Asiatic elements in Greek poetry and myth (Oxford,
1997), 147.
3
West (n. 2), 144 6.
4
Od. 20.383, 24.211, 307 ( Sikanië ), 366, 389.
154 THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS
Egypt  in the south). How soon beyond these lands the unknown
began, may be concluded from the description of the slain suitors last
journey, as they are led by Hermes into Hades at the beginning of
Odyssey book 24 (Od. 24.11-13):  And now they reach d the earth s
remotest ends, / And now the gates where evening Sol descends,
/ And Leucas rock, and Ocean s utmost streams, / And now pervade
the dusky land of dreams, / And rest at last, where souls unbodied
dwell / In ever-flowing meads of asphodel , as Alexander Pope trans-
lates.5 The only familiar-sounding geographical point they pass before
reaching the  Gates of the Sun and the  People of Dreams is the
 Leucadian Rock . Though it has been argued6 that this too must be
taken as a mythical point already far in the West, it is difficult not to
be reminded of the island of Leucas, which lies not very far north of
Odysseus own island, Ithaca.
When, however, we come across Okeanos in later Greek texts, its con-
ception has considerably changed. When Pytheas (of whom more later)
and Posidonius wrote works entitled Peri` touÜ ÒWkeanouÜ , they were talking
about the great body of sea known today as the Atlantic Ocean.7 How
did this change come about? One of the major intermediate stations is
probably the work of Herodotus in the fifth century BC. In Herodotus
time the notion of a circular Okeanos girding all the landmasses of the
earth was still current,8 but Herodotus made it very clear that he
regarded it as an invention by Homer or some other early poet (2.23;
cf. 4.36.2) and that geographical knowledge available by his own time
showed that no continuous bodies of seawater could be proven to exist
to the north and east of known lands (see 4.40.2, 45.1, 4). Herodotus
was also the first to state correctly that the Caspian was a landlocked
sea (1.202.4-203.1) and that to the east of it there stretched a limitless
5
Compared with the original text of Homer, Pope has inverted the geographical sequence some-
what, putting the  Gates of the Sun before the  Leucadian Rock ; still, the close association between
the Leucadian Rock and  Ocean s utmost streams is preserved.
6
See A. Heubeck, A commentary on Homer s Odyssey (Oxford, 1992), 360, and also already Schol.
Hom. Od. 24.11 (where the  Leucadian Rock is situated near the regions of the underworld and its
name   White Rock  is connected with the bloodless paleness of the dead) and Eustathius on Od.
24.11 p. 1951.51 3 (where the rock is located  near Hades or  in the outermost reaches of the
earth ).
7
See T. Braun,  Hecataeus knowledge of the Western Mediterranean , in K. Lomas (ed.), Greek
identity in the Eastern Mediterranean (Leiden, 2004), [287 347] 301:  Ocean and Atlantic were first
fully equated when Pytheas in c. 330 gave the title On the Ocean to his account of his voyage. When
Aristotle talked about the Outer Sea (Meteor. 1.13 p. 350a22; 2.5 p. 362b18 30), he did not yet call
it Ocean.
8
See Braun (n. 7), 300:  Hecataeus evidently retained the concept of Ocean [see Hdt. 2.21,
4.36.1] . . . 5th-century poets saw no incongruity between the ancient concept of Ocean Stream
and the more recently discovered Outer Sea ; see Pind., Pyth. 4.26, 4.251, fr. 30 Snell.
THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS 155
plain (1.204.1); he was the first as well  at least the first known to us 
to call the Atlantic  v qalassa9 and probably deliberately avoided
Atlanti` ´
bringing in the notion of Okeanos (which he, as I have already said,
rejected). Later authors, however, returned to the name Okeanos, but
now applied it mainly to the Atlantic10 (and only much more rarely to
other seas which we today are used to calling Oceans also, as e.g. the
Indian Ocean, which  at least by the geographers  was rather consist-
ently called  Indiko` n pe´ lagov). Thus it was the Atlantic, the great sea to
the west and north of the ancient world, which retained at least some
of the mystery that originally attached to the notion of Okeanos, as a
watery expanse which could never be fully fathomed and which
extended into the unknown, and possibly to the very limits of this earth.
Mythical journeys into the perilous Outer Sea
For the development outlined above there are a number of reasons. Early
Greek myth already tells of some famous journeys into the far and won-
drous West. The first prominent travellers into these regions were
Perseus and his great-grandson Heracles. Perseus had to fly (with the
help of winged shoes he had luckily acquired beforehand) into the furth-
est West to slay Medusa, the one mortal among the (otherwise immortal)
Gorgons, who dwelt  beyond famous Okeanos on the fringe of the night
(Hes., Theog. 274f.). As for Heracles,11 two of his famous labours
required him to boldly go where no Greek hero had ventured before:
his eleventh labour consisted in fetching the apples of the Hesperides,
who dwelt in the vicinity of the just-mentioned Gorgons (Hes., Theog.
215, 275, 518).12 In one version of this story,13 Heracles even had to
enlist the help of Atlas, the Titan who sustained all heaven on his
9
Compare in Euripides, Hipp. 3 ( this side of the Sea and Atlantic boundaries , termo´ nwn t
Ò Ü Ò Ü
Atlantikwn), 1053 ( beyond the sea and Atlantic regions , to´ pwn Atlantikwn), and Herc. 234f.
( beyond Atlantic limits , Atlantikwn. . .oÓ rwn).
Ò Ü
10
E.g. Polyb. 16.29.6 ( the sea called by some  Okeanos , by others  Atlantic Sea  ); Ps.-Arist.,
De mundo 3, 393a16f. ( The sea on the outside of the Inhabited World is called  Atlantic and
 Okeanos  ); Favorin. fr. 82 Barigazzi ( there the majority of the barbarians call the Outer Sea
 Okeanos , while the inhabitants of Asia call it  Great Sea and the Greeks  Atlantic Sea  ).
11
On Heracles travels in the West, see Braun (n. 7), 296 303.
12
For the far-out position of the Hesperides see also Mimn. fr. 12.8 West; Eur., Hipp. 742 9.
Heracles venture to the Hesperides can also be found in the old epic Titanomachy (fr. 8 9
Bernabé ź fr. 7, 10 Davies) and in Pisander of Camirus (Heracl. fr. 5 Bernabé ź fr. 6 Davies); it
may have been treated by Hesiod as well, in lines now missing in the Theogony (see West on
Theog. 216).
13
Apollod., Bibl. 2.120 (ź2.5.11).
156 THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS
shoulders; apparently no mere mortal could reach the Hesperides
garden. In his tenth labour Heracles had to carry out the most famous
cattle-robbery of Greek myth;14 to do this he was obliged to travel
ever west to the edge of modern southwest Spain and cross a stretch
of the outer sea to get to the island of Erytheia15 where the monstrous
Geryones and his famous cattle could be found. In this era before sea-
travel Heracles even had to enlist the help of the sun-god himself who
 after Heracles had threatened to shoot arrows at him  provided
him with his own vessel to accomplish this sea-journey.16 Taken
together, these myths show that travel into the outlying western
regions of the earth was regarded as something that was dangerous,
required extraordinary means, and could only be braved by the most
accomplished heroes.
The most famous traveller of Greek myth, Odysseus, can also be
found roaming extensively within a mysterious West. On his way
home after the destruction of Troy, a violent storm lasting unabated
for nine days blows him away into unknown waters where he first
reaches the dreamy Lotophagi, moving on to the monstrous Cyclopes
and then to Aeolus, the lord of the winds who dwells on a floating
island and who benignly sends him home by letting a steady west
wind blow  which well shows that Odysseus must by now have
deeply penetrated into the West, since otherwise a west wind could not
have got him home. Just when Ithaca can already be seen, however,
Odysseus companions foolishly unleash the other winds Aeolus had
given to Odysseus sealed up in a bag, and they blow the fleet back to
Aeolus island. Cursed by Aeolus for the stupidity of his companions,
Odysseus must now travel on without divine help. His next station is
the land of the murderous Laestrygonians who destroy all his ships
except one; with that he arrives at Aeaea, the island of the divine sorcer-
ess Circe. This, however, is no more in the West, but in the furthest
East, since the Odyssey explicitly states that Circe s island lies (as
Chapman s translation has it),  where the palace stands / Of th early
riser with the rosy hands / Active Aurora, where she loves to dance, /
And where the Sun doth his prime beams advance .17 Having thus
moved from the extreme West into the extreme East in books 9 and
10, Odysseus accomplishes an even more marvellous feat in book 11.
14
For this venture, see already Hes., Theog. 287 94, 979 83.
15
In the earlier fifth century, Pherecydes (FGrHist 3 F 18a, b) identified Erytheia with Gadir.
16
See Pherecydes FGrHist 3 F 18a.
17
Hom., Od. 12.3 4; compare also 10.507f.
THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS 157
Setting out from this easternmost spot, Odysseus ship reaches earth-
girding Okeanos itself and, driven on by a magical wind, rushes along
Okeanos stream for a whole day, until it reaches the northernmost
point of its circle where the Cimmerians dwell within thick, cloudy
mists never broken by the sun s rays and where there is the entrance
to Hades which Odysseus must reach to meet the seer Tiresias; and,
going back to Circe, Odysseus may even have completed a full circular
journey by following Okeanos around the outermost reaches of the
earth. His further travels after leaving Circe take him once again into
far outlying western parts; for to reach Scheria, the Phaeacians island,
he has to complete a journey of eighteen days from Calypso s isle,
Ogygia, and the Odyssey indicates that this voyage is in a  generally
easterly direction.18 The Phaeacians island itself is to be thought of
as somehow lying to the West or North-West of Ithaca (Hellanicus19
in the fifth century already identified it with Korfu, which early on
became the dominant tradition).
However, Greek myth did not know of adventurous travels into the
West alone (as some of Odysseus just-mentioned voyages already
show): the most famous example of a venture east is surely the
expedition of the Argonauts. There have been speculations that this
journey originally went into the West as well;20 but it has to be recog-
nized that already in the Iliad the Hellespont is an often-mentioned geo-
graphical feature, and this narrow waterway is named, of course, after
Helle, the sister of young Phrixus who flew upon the ram with the
golden fleece to the fabulous land of Aia  while poor Helle during
this flight fell into the part of the sea which even today has kept her
name. The name Hellespont, therefore, already marks an easterly direc-
tion for Phrixus flight from mainland Greece, and thus the Argonauts in
all known versions of the myth had to sail (or row) east in order to bring
the fleece of Phrixus ram back.
When the poet Mimnermus sang about Jason s difficult and hazar-
dous journey to get at the  mighty fleece (fr. 11.1 West), probably
some time in the later seventh century (or early sixth), he still made
him travel to the easternmost part of the earth-encircling Okeanos
stream, next to the place  where the rays of swift Helios (the Sun) lie
in a golden storeroom (fr. 11a.1f.). Soon after, however, the picture
18
See Od. 5.270 80 and Hainsworth s commentary ad loc.
19
FGrHist 4 F77 ź Hellan. fr. 77 Fowler.
20
See C. Robert, Die griechische Heldensage, Buch 3: Die großen Heldenepen, Abt. 1: Die
Argonauten, der thebanische Kreis (Berlin, fourth edition, 1921), 759f.
158 THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS
must have changed considerably, because during the latter part of the
seventh century and the earlier part of the sixth, new Greek colonies
spread all along the coasts of the Black Sea, and in the course of this
development it naturally became clear that this sea was shut off by
solid land in the East and gave no access to further seas beyond it. It
must have been at some time within this period, too, that an epic with
the title Corinthiaca ascribed to the poet Eumelus21 first came to identify
the Argonauts destination with Colchis, the ancient predecessor of
modern Georgia, which then became the traditional place of residence
for grim king Aeetes and his formidable daughter Medea for all later
Argonautica.
From myth to exploration  and fiction
Thus the Greeks had to discover that in the East Okeanos was no more
to be found. What about the West? During the seventh or sixth centu-
ries, daring Greeks seem indeed to have made remarkable progress in
extending their western horizons. Herodotus tells us (4.152.2f.) that
the Samian seafarer Colaeus (who is variously dated from the middle
of the seventh until the early fifth century, which, however, seems too
late)22 was driven off his course (while trying to sail to Egypt) by a
strong easterly wind and then carried all the way westward through
the Mediterranean, until he even passed through the straits of
Gibraltar23 and landed in the marvellous city of Tartessus where a
benign king named Arganthonius ruled and provided him so lavishly
with goods that his journey turned from dangerous failure into resound-
ing economic success.
Other Greeks followed suit. Again according to Herodotus (1.163),
by the time of Cyrus expansion into Ionia, the energetic inhabitants
of Phocaea (a city then threatened by Persian attack) had for quite
some time already enjoyed good relations with the king of Tartessus,
and he supported them so generously that they could build extensive for-
tifications against the Persians. In the middle decades of the sixth
21
Eumelus fr. 3 Bernabé ź fr. 2A Davies ź fr. 17 West (cf. Paus. 2.3.10). For the author of this
work (presumably not Eumelus) and for its dating (probably mid-sixth century) see now M. L.
West,   Eumelus : A Corinthian Epic Cycle? , JHS 122 (2002), 109 33 at 130f.
22
Braun (n. 7), 298 n. 21 dates Colaeus voyage  to c.638 BC by its connection with the coloniza-
tion of Cyrene (Hdt. 4.151 3) .
23
The first known references to them as  Pillars of Heracles are provided by Hecataeus (FGrHist
1 F 39, 41, 356); see Braun (n. 7), 301.
THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS 159
century the Phocaeans strenuously pushed forward in the western
Mediterranean, but then met with mighty foes who curbed their
further advances. Between 540 and 535 sixty of their ships (setting
out from Alalia on Corsica, where they had established a colony some
years before) were either destroyed or severely damaged by a huge
fleet of 160 Carthaginian and Etruscan ships (Hdt. 1.166); the colony
at Alalia had to be evacuated, and there were serious repercussions of
the sea-battle further west. Greek knowledge of the coasts of Iberia
seems to have gone into decline after this event,24 as the Carthaginians
now effectively controlled the western parts of the Mediterranean and
the Straits of Gibraltar,25 preventing all Greek ships from passing
through for a very long time.26 As a result, the Straits  the  Pillars of
Heracles , as they were called by the Greeks  became a potent
symbol of a limit not to be trespassed by human beings. In the fifth
century Pindar repeatedly used the image of the Pillars to signify the ulti-
mate limit to which human ambition could attain,27 and some decades
later a Euripidean chorus could sing of the lovely strand of the
Hesperides near the place where giant Atlas still upholds heaven, but
which is totally inaccessible, because the Pillars of Heracles were
blocked.28
So the Greeks of the high classical age were unable to leave the
Mediterranean at its western exit; they knew that there were things
24
A case in point: later Greek sources (Ps.-Scymnus 145 9; Strab. 3.4.2 p. 156 C. ź p.
398.31 4 Radt) believed that there once had been a westernmost Phocaean colony named
Mainake (near modern-day Malaga), where in fact there only was a Phoenician colony that had
passed out of existence already in the mid-sixth century and the remains of which were centuries
later taken for Greek; see H. G. Niemeyer,  Auf der Suche nach Mainake , Historia 28 (1980),
165 89, esp. 180 (where the progressive loss of Greek knowledge about the geography of the
Iberian peninsula is plausibly connected with the now unchallenged dominance of the
Carthaginians in the western Mediterranean).
25
Around 500, the Carthaginians seem also to have destroyed Tartessus and taken over its trade;
see Braun (n. 7), 302; for more on Tartessus see again Braun (n. 7), 303 9.
26
T. Braun, in his review of C. F. C. Hawkes, Pytheas: Europe and the Greek explorers (Oxford,
1977), in CR 30 (1980), 127, has contested this by assuming that Massalia, by controlling the over-
land (Aude  Garonne) commercial route through the southwest of modern France, had  leverage
to extract passage rights through the Straits . . . at any time in the late fourth century (see also his
2004 article [n. 7] 302, where he points out that Pindar nowhere says anything explicit  about
Carthage blocking access to Gadir ). Braun s view, however, is only an assumption; the blocking
of the Straits by Carthage in the fifth and fourth centuries remains the best explanation for the
Greeks curious views about the Atlantic during that time (see below with n. 34 and 35).
27
Pind., Ol. 3.43 5, Nem. 3.20 3, Isthm. 4.11 13; see J. S. Romm, The edges of the earth in
ancient thought: Geography, exploration, and fiction (Princeton, 1992), 17f.
28
Eur. Hipp. 742 7:  Would that I reached the promontory planted with apples of the singing
Hesperides, where the lord of the sea grants passage to sailors through the deep-blue mere no
more, fixing the solemn border-post of heaven held by Atlas  whence the motto of the title of
this article. See also Pind., Nem. 4.69:  The region towards darkness beyond Gadeira cannot be
crossed.
160 THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS
beyond this exit, and they were eager for more knowledge about them,29
but they had to rely on others to provide it. Thus Herodotus records the
travels of the Persian noble Sataspes who in the reign of Xerxes
attempted a circumnavigation of Africa (setting out, in fact, from
Gibraltar). Roughly the same route was tried out  probably some
time in the earlier fifth century or about 50030  by the Carthaginian
admiral (or  king ) Hanno, who even left a written report which was
then translated into Greek (probably already in the fourth century);31
and there were other reports about Carthaginians finding wonderful
islands in the Atlantic which made their way into Greek hands and
minds.32 At about the same time Hanno s fellow countryman Himilco
was sent out (again from the Pillars) to explore the outer coasts of
Europe.33 Himilco s exploits are known to us only from a rather late
Latin text, namely Avienus poem  On the coasts of the sea (De ora mar-
itima), which cites Himilco several times.34 In these quotes, Himilco
enumerates the dangers he encountered during his journey: shallow
waters, tenacious weeds, and dreadful monsters. There are other
sources as well who mention dangerous shoals in the waters beyond
the Pillars. The already-mentioned Sataspes claimed that at one point
he had not been able to sail on because he simply got stuck in the
water, and even for the great Aristotle it was a fact that the sea beyond
Gibraltar was shallow and muddy.35 It may even be that this extraordi-
nary misconception of the nature of the Atlantic was deliberately fos-
tered by the Carthaginians as an additional means to keep the
unwanted Greeks out of these waters.36
29
Thus the Greek seafarer Scylax of Caryanda, who was in the service of the Persian Great King
Darius (see Hdt. 4.44.1), is reputed to have written a  Voyage round the parts outside the Pillars of
Heracles (see the Suda Lexicon, s 710 ź FGrHist 709 T 1); likewise, the historian Charon of
Lampsacus (Suda, c 136 ź FGrHist 262 T 1) some time in the fifth century (for Charon s
dating, see R. Fowler,  Herodotus and his contemporaries , JHS 116 (1996), 67).
30
Various dates for Hanno have been proposed, ranging from about 570 to about 450. If the
town Melitta founded by Hanno (Peripl. 5; see now Braun [n. 7], 336) is the same as the one men-
tioned by Hecataeus (FGrHist 1 F 357), this should prove that Hanno is to be dated around 500.
31
It is mentioned in Ps.-Arist., Mirab. ausc. 37 p. 833a9 12. The main parts of this work can be
dated to the third century BC; see H. Flashar, Aristoteles, Mirabilia [Aristoteles. Werke in deutscher
Übersetzung, Teil II-III] (Darmstadt, 1972), 52.
32
Ps.-Arist., Mirab. Ausc. 84 p. 836b30 37a7; Diod. 5.19 20; a possible echo of these reports is
to be found in Plut., Sert. 8. 2 5.
33
Plin., NH 2.169:  When the power of Carthage was at its height, Hanno travelled round from
Gades to the border of Arabia and left a written report of this voyage, just as Himilco was sent out at
the same time to acquire knowledge of the outer parts of Europe.
34
Lines 114 29, 380 9, 404 15.
35
Arist., Meteor. 2.1 p. 354a22:  The waters outside of the Pillars are shallow because of the mud.
36
See already H. Herter,  Platons Atlantis , Bonner Jahrbücher 133 (1928), 35f.
THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS 161
This misconception in turn probably gave rise to one of the most
remarkable pieces of fantasy ever invented with regard to the Atlantic
Ocean. When Plato wanted to demonstrate that the ideal state conceived
in his Republic would admirably hold out against a much stronger foe, he
used the lore about the shallow and muddy waters outside the Pillars of
Heracles to claim that once  or, to be more exact, nine thousand years
before the time of Solon  a huge island called Atlantis had existed there,
whose mighty kings at one point set out east to conquer all lands around
the Mediterranean and in fact succeeded in doing so until they met the
valiant force of primeval Athens (which, or so Plato s speaker Critias
claimed, was at that time organized just like the Republic s ideal state).
To paint this fantastic (though unfortunately unfinished) picture, Plato
drew upon various phenomena with which his own time and experience
provided him (for instance to describe the tremendous forces that
Atlantis would unleash against the brave Athenians, he simply combined
the terrestrial power of the Persian Empire and the naval power of
Carthage); but his starting-point must nevertheless be seen in the
strange conception which Greeks of his time held about a widely
shallow and muddy Atlantic.
Atlantis, Thule, and their literary offspring in Later Antiquity
Plato s Atlantis soon proved to be a very potent (and persuasive) feat of
human imagination; already in the second generation of his pupils there
were people, like Crantor, who earnestly wanted to believe that Atlantis
had been a real place and its attack on Athens a real war and who there-
fore set out to find further proof for this. I have followed the trail of that
discussion (which was lively already in Antiquity) elsewhere,37 and thus
will not do so now, but rather concentrate upon the remarkable traces
Plato s Atlantis left in more imaginative pieces of Greek literature.
Probably the first attempt to make use of elements of the Atlantis story
within a fictional context was made by  of all people  a historian,
Theopompus of Chios, who wrote in the second half of the fourth
century, that is, only a few decades after Plato had conceived Atlantis.
Being no friend of Plato and his Academy, Theopompus apparently ven-
tured to make fun of Plato s myths in one of the numerous digressions
37
See H.-G. Nesselrath,  Atlantes und Atlantioi: Von Platon zu Dionysios Skytobrachion ,
Philologus 145 (2001), 34 8; id.,  Atlantis auf ägyptischen Stelen? Der Philosoph Krantor als
Epigraphiker , ZPE 135 (2001), 33 5.
162 THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS
which his enormous History of Philip (in 58 books) contained:38 in the
eighth book of this Philippica, he let the drunken Silenus (a divine, but
usually inebriated companion of Dionysus) tell an extraordinary tale
about a large continent (called Meropis)39 beyond the ocean, where
human beings grow to double size compared with our world and
where, among other things, two remarkable cities of completely anti-
thetic nature can be found. One of them is called  Eusebęs
( Piouston ), whose inhabitants live in close communion with the gods
and in hedonistic bliss at the same time; the other s name is
 Machimos ( Fightington ), the innumerous people of which  they
can only be counted by the millions  are already born in arms; they
do nothing their whole life through but fight, attack their neighbours,
and conquer, and they cannot be killed by iron, but only by wood and
stone. It can be shown (and I have tried to do so elsewhere)40 that
such details were meant as parodic imitation and exaggeration of
famous elements of the Atlantis story.41
Thus Theopompus was the first to use Atlantis  though in a delib-
erately garbled form  in a purely fictional context. Already in
Antiquity, others would follow him; but before we turn to them, we
must first have a look at a second important person, still within the
fourth century BC who after Plato enriched Greek  and with that, all
later European  imagination with another place he claimed to have dis-
covered in the faraway waters of the northern or north-western Atlantic
(and this time we should probably be much less inclined to disbelieve
him than in the case of Plato): Pytheas of Massalia.
Pytheas may in fact have been the first Greek to see an Atlantic sea-
shore since the time when the Straits had been blocked by the
Carthaginians. There is still some uncertainty how he managed to do
this when he set out on his far-ranging journey into the seas to the
north and west of Europe some time between 350 and 320; but Barry
Cunliffe42 has built a plausible case that he first crossed southwestern
France by land and reached the sea somewhere around modern-day
Bordeaux, whence he went north along the coast (probably using local
vessels) up to Brittany, from where it was only a short way to the tin
mines of Cornwall. From here he still went on north, along the west
38
See H.-G. Nesselrath,  Theopomps Meropis und Platon: Nachahmung und Parodie , Göttinger
Forum für Altertumswissenschaft 1 (1998), 1 8.
39
FGrHist 115 F 75, the main body of which is found in Aelian, VH 3.18.
40
See Nesselrath (n. 38), 4 8.
41
See already E. Rohde,  Zum griechischen Roman , RhM 48 (1894), 9 ź Kleine Schriften ii.9.
42
B. W. Cunliffe, The extraordinary voyage of Pytheas the Greek (London, 2001), 57 60.
THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS 163
coast of Britain (possibly stopping in-between on the Isle of Man), until
he reached the northern coast of Scotland. He claims still to have carried
on and to have reached after six days of sea journey a land called  Thule
which thus makes its first entry into the knowledge (and even more into
the imagination) of Classical Antiquity. It is not necessary here to try to
identify exactly which location might square with what Pytheas tells us
about Thule, though it seems reasonably certain that Pytheas got at
least as far as the Shetlands (and I am again inclined to agree with
Cunliffe that Thule for Pytheas may in fact have been Iceland).43 In
any case, no Greek before had ventured so far into the unknown
North and come back with tales about a place that would henceforth
stay fixed within the imagination of Europeans. Pytheas reports met
with sneering disbelief by Polybius and Strabo,44 but other, more scien-
tifically-minded Hellenistic scholars like Eratosthenes and Hipparchus
were prepared to believe him (not least because of the plausible-
looking scientific data he brought back with him); and, Polybius and
Strabo s doubts notwithstanding, Thule was there to stay.
At the beginning of the Christian Era, when Rome already ruled over
a large part of the western and northwestern shores of continental
Europe and was about to cross over to Britain (thus annexing the first
part of a world that was actually separated by a narrow stretch of the
Outer Ocean from the rest of its dominions), classical imagination
about the western seas was fully developed. One now  knew (or
thought one knew) that these wide waters, still stretching out to
unknown limits, contained further chunks of land and that there was
 something out there though one could not easily reach it. This intri-
guing interplay of knowledge and mystery, of scientific-looking reports
and abiding wonder now provided a welcome background for some mar-
vellous tales (sometimes written with philosophic intentions, sometimes
just for entertainment) that at least in some cases still make for some of
the most interesting Greek literature of Imperial times. I shall briefly
survey the most famous of these and finally at least hint at some
which once existed but which can now be glimpsed only in small and
tantalizing fragments. All of them, in any case, are proof of what a
fertile ground for Greek imagination those western seas remained,
down into Later Antiquity.
That serious philosophers can be attracted by the mysterious atmos-
phere in which the Outer Ocean remained enshrouded was already
43
Cunliffe (n. 42), 125 33.
44
Polybius 34.5.2 ź Strabo 2.4.2 p. 104 C. ź p. 254.19 21 Radt.
164 THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS
shown by Plato and is shown again by Plutarch towards the end of the
first century AD. The final part of his long dialogue entitled
 Concerning the face which appears in the orb of the moon contains a
mythical disquisition about the gods and spirits, by a man who actually
comes from beyond the northern ocean, namely from the shores of the
large and  real continent that Plato had already postulated in the first
part of his Timaeus (where he introduced Atlantis). To come into our
world, Plutarch s stranger had to pass along a whole string of mysterious
islands in the ocean, where on one of them he had first served as priest of
the forever sleeping god Cronus and where  while staying the required
time of thirty years  he had learned much lore concerning astronomy,
cosmology, and other such things.45
In this work of Plutarch, then, the northern Atlantic serves as conduit
for someone out of another world to convey higher knowledge into ours.
Some decades later, the same wide body of water and Pytheas Thule
within it became the mainstay of one of the most ambitious tales of
adventures probably ever written: the  Unbelievable tales of the
0
regions beyond Thule (Ò Apista uÖ pe` r Qou´ lhn) in 24 books by
Antonius Diogenes. To get an idea of this once huge (but no longer
extant) work, we have to rely on the summary given by Photius in his
Bibliotheca, which in fact provides a rather detailed sketch of its contents.
These have a cardinal point in Thule itself where the male hero of the
story, Dinias, meets the woman Dercyllis, who is to become his lover,
and her brother Mantinias, and the three tell each other of the many
wanderings and adventures they had already had all over the world
before meeting at this northerly junction. To quote some passages
from Photius summary (Bibl. Cod. 166):  Dinias . . . is introduced nar-
rating what he himself had seen during his wanderings or what he had
heard from others who saw it, and what he learned from Dercyllis,
when she told her tales in Thule, I mean her wanderings mentioned
before . . . [p. 109b3-15]; (Dercyllis) found an unexpected solace in
her brother Mantinias, who, after many wanderings and after having
explained to her many most incredible sights regarding human and
other beings and sun and moon itself and plants and islands, provided
her with rich material for tales to relate to Dinias later on . . . [p.
110a8-16]; all this and yet many more similar things, their burial and
their coming back from the grave, and the love-affairs of Mantinias . . .
and other things of similar kind on the island of Thule, all this Dinias
45
Plut., De facie 26. 941A  942 C.
THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS 165
is presented as weaving into a tale, having learned it from Dercyllis
story-telling . . . And (with all that) Antonius Diogenes has already com-
pleted the twenty-third book of his  Tales about the incredible things
beyond Thule , although his work has as yet provided nothing or only
very little about Thule at all . . . [p. 110b11-23]; Dinias, together with
Carmanes and Meniscus, extended their wanderings into the regions
beyond Thule, after Azulis had left them . . . [p. 110b35].
The third major text, which again only a few decades later has as its
background the Atlantic Ocean, is the most famous one. Lucian s
 True Stories have as their main story-line a daring voyage (seeking
knowledge about strange things) which started at the Pillars of
Heracles and then for the most part moved within the vast expanse of
the western ocean (with some excursions to the moon, the sun, even
the otherworldly Isle of the Blessed). The  True Stories clearly drew
upon Antonius Diogenes tale and other similar romances (possibly on
Plutarch s  On the Face of the Moon as well)46 with the clear intention
of poking hilarious fun at them. How well Lucian succeeded is proven by
the numerous literary offspring the  True Stories had during and since
the Renaissance. Suffice it here to say that Lucian with marvellous dex-
terity employs the typical features which had by now become firmly con-
nected with the Atlantic Ocean in the Greek imagination: the various
strange islands located in it (and in several cases inhabited by miraculous
or monstrous peoples), the sea-monsters roaming its depths, and even
the mysterious other continent which looms on the other side of the
wide watery expanse and which the first-person narrator actually
reaches at the end of the second book.
In the proem of the  True Stories Lucian claimed that he had in fact
targeted many works with his parody. That there were indeed more than
we today know of can be demonstrated by looking at a number of mostly
short hints which take us back once more to Atlantis in both philosophi-
cal and merely entertaining contexts.
It is well-known that in the latter part of the third century AD a
remarkable revival of Plato s philosophy took place under the auspices
of Neo-Platonism. Not only did its founder, Plotinus himself, apparently
make an earnest attempt to bring a city called Platonopolis and ruled by
Plato s laws and institutions into real life in Campania,47 but one of
46
See now P. Wälchli, Studien zu den literarischen Beziehungen zwischen Plutarch und Lukian
(München/Leipzig, 2003), 159 216.
47
Porphyrius, Vita Plotini 12 ź 65f.:  The emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonina honoured
and revered Plotinus to a high degree, and making use of their friendship he asked them to
rebuild [here the name seems to have fallen out], a city which was supposed to have existed
166 THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS
Plotinus disciples, Zoticus, actually tried to do what the great Athenian
lawgiver and poet Solon (according to Plato) had wanted but failed to
do: to convert the  Story of Atlantis into a poem.48 Unfortunately,
this statement itself is just about the only information we have about
this work; it would surely have been of interest  if only for curiosity s
sake  to see how a Neo-Platonist of the later third century AD tried
to convert Plato s unfinished tale into epic (?) verse. Did he, by the
way, supply the missing parts of the story? Alas, we shall probably
never know.
Aelian s  sea-rams and the kings and queens of Atlantis
Already some decades before Zoticus, we are provided with a piece of
information concerning Atlantis which at first sight might seem to be
an astonishing discovery. This really tantalizing piece of lore concerning
that once mighty place just in the location and general situation as Plato
describes it  namely, as a big island kingdom far out in the western
ocean  is preserved by another Greek writer of Imperial times. Late
in the second century AD, Aelian (who actually was an Italian writing
Greek) produced a work called  On the nature of animals , an ample col-
lection of entertaining and sometimes even fascinating stories about a
wide range of animals which are found to be just as intelligent or sensi-
tive as human beings. In chapter 2 of book 15 Aelian relates some
remarkable tales about the qalattiov krio´ v, the  sea-ram (or  ram-
´
fish ), which  if we add some information given by other sources,
most notably Pliny the Elder49  is probably to be identified with Orca
gladiator, the Grampus or Killer Whale. Aelian starts with indications
in Campania, but had long since gone to ruin, and to donate the surrounding countryside when it
was settled; those who would settle there were to live according to Plato s laws, and the settlement
was to be called Platonopolis, and he [Plotinus] promised to move there himself together with his
followers. And the philosopher would have accomplished his intention very easily, if some people
of the emperor s staff had not prevented it out of envy or resentment or some other bad motive.
48
Porphyrius, Vita Plotini 7 ź 35:  One of his pupils was Zoticus, a critic and poet, who wrote
 Emendations of Antimachus and who very skilfully converted the  Tale of Atlantis into a
poem . . .
49
In NH 9.10, Pliny records, among other sea-animals stranded on the ocean shore,  (sea-)ele-
phants and  (sea-)rams ; in 9.145 he describes the hunting habits of the sea-ram as those of a
devious robber, who, lurking in the shadows of big ships, waits for incautious swimmers, or who
stealthily creeps up to small fishing-boats to upset them and get at the humans in them. In
another chapter of Aelian s  On the nature of animals (9.49), the sea-ram is included among the
 biggest sea-creatures and described as a  mighty and dangerous beast even from a distance,
because of the turbulence it creates in the sea. See also O. Keller, Die antike Tierwelt Bd. I
(Leipzig, 1909), 412 14; D A. W. Thompson, A Glossary of Greek Fishes (London, 1947), 132f.
THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS 167
of where these creatures live (namely in the waters around Corsica and
Sardinia) and then gives some characteristic detail of their outward
appearance:  the male sea-ram has a white band running round its fore-
head (you might describe it as the tiara of a Lysimachus or an Antigonus
or of some other king of Macedon), but the female has curls, just as
cocks have wattles, attached below its neck (transl. by A. F.
Scholfield). After this introductory information, we are presented with
a thrilling (and at the same time, chilling) story how such a sea-ram
with its malice and cunning may actually snare and kill a human
being; and after that comes the really interesting part, as far as our
subject is concerned:  Those who live on the shores of the Oceanus
tell a tale of how the ancient kings of Atlantis, sprung from the seed of
Poseidon, wore upon their head the band from the male sea-ram, as a
sign of their authority, while their wives, the queens, wore the curls of
the females as a proof of theirs (transl. by A. F. Scholfield, slightly
modified).
This is most interesting information (if  information it is), and one
may well wonder why modern Atlantologists  who are, after all, so
keen to find corroborating material to prove the historicity of their
beloved Atlantis  apparently have not yet pounced on this; for the
quite extraordinary feature of this (at first sight more or less innocent-
looking) detail is, of course, that it can not be found in Plato s two
accounts in Timaeus and Critias, but ostensibly presents additional
material about Atlantis. Add to this Aelian s remarkable source-
indication   those who live on the shores of the Oceanus tell a tale
. . .  and you might actually be tempted to draw the following con-
clusion: it looks as if there is here in Aelian a piece of information
about Atlantis not found in Plato and ascribed to an apparently straight-
forward source different from Plato  wow, this could actually be the
first independent confirmation of Plato s tale which has been sought
for so long! So, Atlantis was historical, after all!?
Before our eager Atlantologists, however, start to rejoice too trium-
phantly, I am afraid I have to spoil their feast and propose another
and (in my opinion) much more simple and probable solution.
Aelian s detail about the head-bands of the kings and queens of
Atlantis is not really the remnant of an old and independent tradition
confirming Critias tale in Plato, but rather a nicely elaborated detail
coming from a romance or novel after Plato which in some way
touched on Atlantis and its pseudo-history as it had earlier been
conceived by Plato; we would thus gain more evidence for Greek
168 THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS
imaginative literary tinkering with the motif of strange things lurking in
the mysterious western seas. There are the following reasons for thinking
so.
First, let us consider the source-indication. Establishing the sources of
Aelian s extensive collection of animal stories is a notoriously tricky
business;50 but if we know one thing about him, it is that Aelian certainly
did not travel around (as Herodotus is at least reputed to have done) and
consult inhabitants of the westernmost shores of the Roman Empire
about the royal insignia of Atlantean kings; in fact he himself tells us
that he is most of all a widely-read collector of what other people have
written down in their books.51 Moreover, we seem to have reliable infor-
mation that he did not even once venture outside his native country,
Italy.52 This makes it quite certain that between those  inhabitants of
the shores round the ocean and Aelian himself has got to stand at
least one other book; and it may be worthwhile finding out what the
nature of that book may have been.
To find an answer to this question (or at least a plausible suggestion) I
would like to direct attention to another interesting passage in a rather
late author, which touches on our subject. In his massive commentary
on the Timaeus of Plato, the fifth-century Neo-Platonist Proclus,
while discussing the historicity of Atlantis, introduces an author who
at first glance seems to be very knowledgeable indeed about some
rather large islands out in the Atlantic Ocean. The passage runs like
this:  That an island of such nature and size once existed is evident
from what is said by certain authors who investigated the things
around the outer sea. For according to them, there were seven islands
in that sea in their time, sacred to Persephone, and also three others
of enormous size, one of which was sacred to Pluto, another to
Ammon, and another one between them to Poseidon, the extent of
50
On the sources of Aelian s De natura animalium, see M. Wellmann, Hermes 26 (1891), 321 50
and 481 566; 27 (1892), 389 406; 30 (1895), 161 76; 31 (1896), 235 53; 51 (1916), 1 64; 52
(1917), 130 5; J. F. Kindstrand,  Claudius Aelianus und sein Werk , in ANRW 2.34.4 (Berlin/
New York, 1998), 2954 96, at 2971 7. Now in NA 15.4.9 and 19 (also 13.21) Aelian cites a
certain Demostratus (who wrote  books on fisherman s lore ). Demostratus (or Damostratus, as
he is called in the Suda and in modern lexica) was a Roman and his work apparently teemed
with descriptions of marvellous and paradoxical phenomena. Wellmann (1895), 176 ascribes also
NA 15.2 (on our  sea-ram ) to him, but this seems not much more than guess-work.
51
In his prologue, he remarks:  I know very well that others before me have taken pains with these
matters; but I am convinced that  by gathering these things as far as it was possible and by present-
ing them in a familiar style  I have produced a carefully worked-out gem of a book.
52
See Philostratus, VS 2.31.3 p. 625:  This man used to say that he had never travelled to any
part of the world beyond the confines of Italy, and had never set foot on a ship, or become
acquainted with the sea (transl. W. C. Wright); cf. Kindstrand (n. 50), 2960.
THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS 169
which was a thousand stadia; and the inhabitants of it  they add  pre-
served the remembrance from their ancestors of the immeasurably large
island of Atlantis which had really existed there and which for many ages
had reigned over all islands in the Atlantic sea and which itself had like-
wise been sacred to Poseidon. Now these things Marcellus has written in
his Aethiopica (eÒ n toiv AiÒ qiopikoiv) (transl. by Thomas Taylor,
Ü Ü
modified).53
Who was this Marcellus who apparently knew so much about big
islands in the Atlantic? He is, in fact, so obscure to us that he has not
even got an article of his own in the famous Realenzyklopädie, where
he is erroneously included under the heading  Marcellinus .54 He has,
however, got a number in Jacoby s Fragmente der Griechischen
Historiker (namely 671), but you will find there only two fragments
which are in fact the two quotations preserved in Proclus commentary
(see n. 53). Jacoby tentatively dated Marcellus to Imperial times,
without, however, having any positive evidence.
One might perhaps even question whether we are dealing here with a
historian at all.55 Of course, in the earlier of the two passages Proclus
reckons Marcellus among  authors who investigated the things around
the outer sea (twn iÖ storou´ ntwn ta` peri` thÜ v eØ xw qalatthv), and in the
Ü ´
latter he calls his work AiÒ qiopikh iÖ stori´ a. But how much did he really
`
know of Marcellus? Interestingly, Marcellus work in the earlier
passage is not called AiÒ qiopikh iÖ stori´ a, but simply AiÒ qiopika, and this
` ´
might in fact be the title of a novel, as is easily shown by the famous
homonymous novel by Heliodorus (one might also compare the
Babulwniaka of Iamblichus, the Foinikika of Lollianus, and others).
´ ´
As, in fact, historical works use just the same kind of title (we may
compare, e.g., Ktesias Persika), this very circumstance might have
´
led Proclus (or already a predecessor from whom he took over the
Marcellus reference) astray to interpret AiÒ qiopika as AiÒ qiopikh iÖ stori´ a.
´ `
It is, moreover, well-known that novels narrating adventure stories in
far-out places sometimes like to give themselves an aura of historical
or scientific foundation; a case in point is the already-mentioned work,
53
Procl., in Plat. Tim. comm. p. 177.10 30 ( ź FGrHist 671 F 1); see also p. 181.15 ( ź FGrHist
671 F 2):  Marcellus, the author of the Aethiopian Story/History (Markellov oÖ thnAiÒ qiopikhn grayav
´ ` ` ´
iÖ stori´ an).
54
W. Kroll,  Marcellinus (52) , RE 14.2 (1930), 1489.43 53. See H. Gärtner,  Marcellus (13) ,
Der kleine Pauly 3 (1969), 993.
55
In fact, this question is already asked by Kroll (above, n. 54):  Ob es sich wirklich um ein
Geschichtswerk handelt? ;  Fabelhafte Geographie, Roman? is the assumption of Wilamowitz,
 Marcellus von Side , SB Ak Berlin, 1928, 8 ź Kleine Schriften ii.199 n. 2.
170 THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS
 Unbelievable tales of the regions beyond Thule by Antonius Diogenes,
whose author (probably in a kind of proem, clad in the form of a dedi-
catory letter) claimed to provide factual sources for each and every out-
landish phenomenon he depicted.56 And there is a third point, which
may be relevant in our case: it is a fact that such authors  presenting
an exciting story in the guise of apparent fact  often actually succeeded
in getting their works accepted as serious contributions to historical lore.
A number of examples can be found in Diodorus, who not only accepted
the mythological romances of Dionysius Scytobrachion,57 but also the
utopian travel narratives of Euhemerus and Iambulus58 as serious histor-
iographic literature and included them in his sources.
If we keep all this in mind, we might argue that it is at the very least
possible (and I would say, even plausible and probable) that
Marcellus AiÒ qiopika was not really a work of serious historiographical
´
purpose, but a novel or romance filled with long-distance travel and
perhaps breath-taking adventures in marvellous far-off regions in the
southern and western parts of the world. Again a comparison with
Antonius Diogenes  Unbelievable tales of the regions beyond Thule
may be instructive. I have already referred to Photius summary which
abundantly shows how Antonius Diogenes included a great wealth of
marvellous material that in some parts seems to have been only tenu-
ously connected with the  at times rather complicated and twisted 
story-lines of his novel, and Marcellus might have proceeeded similarly.
Just as Antonius had his heroes relate their manifold adventures while
stranded in a far-outlying place like Thule, Marcellus might have intro-
duced tales about the long-lost Atlantis, as told to one of his heroes by
the inhabitants of the large island of Poseidon far out in the Atlantic
Ocean to which this hero (or heroine) during his travels might
somehow have come.59
There is even the possibility that Aelian s surprising tale about the
Atlantean kings and queens wearing head-bands made from the hide
of the dreaded sea-rams actually originated in no other work than
56
Photios (Bibl., cod. 166) p. 111a30-b31:  Now, Antonius Diogenes . . . writes to Faustinus . . .
He claims that even though he invents incredible and false things he has evidence about most of the
fables told by him from older authors, from whom he collected these things with much effort; he
even places the men who earlier documented such things in front of every of his books so that
his incredible tales should not lack testimony.
57
Diod. 3.52.3; 3.66.5f.
58
Euhemerus: Diod. 6.1.1, 3, 4; Iambulus: Diod. 2.55.2, 60.1, 2, 4.
59
In the latter part his long dialogue  On the face of the moon , Plutarch tells a similar tale about
someone venturing into the Ocean to the west of Britain and finding large islands there: ch. 26,
941AB.
THE GREEKS AND THE WESTERN SEAS 171
Marcellus Aethiopica. This, of course, cannot be proved; but that it
came at least out of a work similar in character to these Aethiopica
seems rather probable to me. This is, in any case, a much more plausible
assumption than to think that Aelian had laid his hands upon material
from an old and independent tradition about Atlantis. If my reconstruc-
tion of the probable character and partial content of Marcellus
Aethiopica is not totally absurd, we may have lost with this work
another ancient predecessor of the likes of Marion Zimmer Bradley
and her  Mists of Avalon .
These Aethiopica, then, and Aelian s hints about the exotic headbands
of once-mighty Atlantean kings conclude this collection of material indi-
cating how Greek imagination was abidingly intrigued by the western
seas, which it had tried to penetrate since the hoary days of Greek
myths, and which it came to explore more deeply only after Pytheas
travels, but which even then never ceased to arouse interest and
wonder to the end of Antiquity.60
60
This text is a slightly modified version of the 2003 Gaisford Lecture in the University of
Oxford. I am grateful to Peter Parsons, (now Emeritus) Regius Professor of Greek, for inviting
me to present this lecture to an illustrious audience. Many thanks, too, to Dr. Martin West for check-
ing and improving my English.