Graham Shipley

Skylax of Karyanda was a ca 500 BC Greek or Carian explorer in the service of Darius the Great of Persia. He appears to have been an important source of early Greek knowledge of the eastern reaches of the Persian Empire, but of his genuine writings only scattered quotations remain.

Sometime already in Antiquity, however, his name became attached to this work, an otherwise anonymous periplous, or description of a (in this case fictitious) coastal voyage. On internal evidence it was probably written in Athens in the 330s.

Our imaginary journey begins in the neighbourhood of Cádiz, enters the Mediterranean, follows its coasts and those of the Black Sea clockwise, and continues down some of way along the Atlantic coast of Morocco. The level of detail varies considerably, apparently due to the account being cobbled together from a variety of different sources. Unsurprisingly, detail is richest and accuracy best along the coasts of Greece and western Asia Minor.

A big chunk of the book is taken up by Shipley's commentary, which largely tries to identify the various places mentioned on a modern map.

I'm interested in ancient geography, but this was decidely dry, with little of the ethnographical detail that enlivens for example the otherwise similar work of Pomponius Mela.… (altro)