Editing Periplus (section)

{{short description|Manuscript listing ports and coastal landmarks}}
{{about|a type of historic document|the modern ''Periplus Publishing Group''|Tuttle Publishing}}
[[File:Arrian, Periplus.jpg|thumb|Beginning of the ''[[Periplus of the Euxine Sea|Periplous tou Euxeinou Pontou]]'' by [[Arrian|Arrian of Nicomedia]], [[Johann Froben]] and Nicolaus Episcopius, Basel 1533]]
A '''periplus''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|p|ɛr|ɪ|p|l|ʌ|s}}), or '''periplous''', is a manuscript document that lists the ports and coastal landmarks, in order and with approximate intervening distances, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore.<ref>{{cite book|title=A Source Book in Geography|first=George|last=Kish|page=21|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge|year=1978|isbn=0-674-82270-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_6qF4vjZvhYC}}</ref> In that sense, the periplus was a type of log and served the same purpose as the later Roman [[itinerarium]] of road stops. However, the Greek navigators added various notes, which, if they were professional geographers, as many were, became part of their own additions to Greek geography.

The form of the ''periplus'' is at least as old as the earliest Greek historian, the Ionian [[Hecataeus of Miletus]]. The works of [[Herodotus]] and [[Thucydides]] contain passages that appear to have been based on ''peripli''.<ref>{{cite book|page=40|title=Josephus Geographicus: The Classical Context of Geography in Josephus|first=Yuval|last=Shahar|publisher=Mohr Siebeck|year=2004|isbn=3-16-148256-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pIJLJSYFogUC&pg=PA40}}</ref>