Editing Hyperborea (section)

==Early sources==

===Herodotus===
The earliest extant source that mentions Hyperborea in detail, [[Herodotus]]' ''Histories'' (Book IV, Chapters 32–36),<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hh/hh4030.htm |title=The History of Herodotus, parallel English/Greek: Book 4: Melpomene: 30 |access-date=14 March 2011 |archive-date=28 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628183558/http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hh/hh4030.htm |url-status=live |via=[[Internet Sacred Text Archive]] }}</ref> dates from {{circa|450 BC}}.{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|pp=27–31}} Herodotus recorded three earlier sources that supposedly mentioned the Hyperboreans, including [[Hesiod]] and [[Homer]], the latter purportedly having written of Hyperborea in his lost work ''[[Epigoni (epic)|Epigoni]]''. Herodotus voices doubts as to the attribution of the work to Homer.<ref>{{Cite book |author=Herodotus |title=[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]] |at=[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+4.32&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126 4.32]}}</ref>

Herodotus wrote that the 7th-century BC poet [[Aristeas]] wrote of the Hyperboreans in a poem (now lost) called ''Arimaspea'' about a journey to the [[Issedones]], who are estimated to have lived in the [[Kazakh Steppe]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Phillips |first=E. D. |title=The Legend of Aristeas: Fact and Fancy in Early Greek Notions of East Russia, Siberia, and Inner Asia |journal= [[Artibus Asiae]] |volume=18 |issue=2 |year=1955 |pages=161–77 [p. 166] |jstor=3248792 |doi=10.2307/3248792}}</ref> Beyond these lived the one-eyed [[Arimaspi]]ans, further on the gold-guarding [[griffin]]s, and beyond these the Hyperboreans.{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|p=31}} Herodotus assumed that Hyperborea lay somewhere in [[Northeast Asia]].

[[Pindar]], lyric poet from [[Thebes, Greece|Thebes]] and a contemporary of Herodotus in the tenth Pythian Ode described the Hyperboreans and tells of [[Perseus]]' journey to them.

Other 5th-century BC Greek authors, like [[Simonides of Ceos]] and [[Hellanicus of Lesbos]], described or referenced the Hyperboreans in their works.{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|p=61}}

===Location===
The Hyperboreans were believed to live beyond the snowy [[Riphean Mountains]], with [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] describing the location as "The land of the Hyperboreans, men living beyond the home of Boreas."<ref>{{Cite book |author=[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] |title=Description of Greece |at=5. 7. 8}}</ref> [[Homer]] placed [[Boreas (god)|Boreas]] in [[Thrace]], and therefore Hyperborea was in his opinion north of Thrace, in [[Dacia]].<ref name="Proconnesus, Bolton 1962, p. 111">{{Cite book |title=Aristeas of Proconnesus |first=James David Pennington |last=Bolton |location=Oxford |publisher=Clarendon Press |date=1962 |page=111 |oclc=1907787}}</ref> [[Sophocles]] (''Antigone'', 980–987), Aeschylus (''Agamemnon'', 193; 651), [[Simonides of Ceos]] (Schol. on Apollonius Rhodius, 1. 121) and [[Callimachus]] (''Delian'', [IV] 65) also placed Boreas in [[Thrace]].{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|pp=35, 72}}

Other ancient writers believed the home of Boreas or the Riphean Mountains were in a different location. For example, [[Hecataeus of Miletus]] believed that the Riphean Mountains were adjacent to the Black Sea.<ref name="Proconnesus, Bolton 1962, p. 111"/> Alternatively, [[Pindar]] placed the home of Boreas, the Riphean Mountains and Hyperborea all near the [[Danube]].{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|p=45}}

[[Heraclides Ponticus]] and [[Antimachus]] in contrast identified the Riphean Mountains with the [[Alps]], and the Hyperboreans as a Celtic tribe (perhaps the [[Helvetii]]) who lived just beyond them.{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|pp=60–69}} Aristotle placed the Riphean mountains on the borders of Scythia, and Hyperborea further north.<ref>{{Cite book |author=[[Aristotle]] |title=[[Meteorologica]] |at=1. 13. 350b}}</ref> [[Hecataeus of Abdera]] and others believed Hyperborea was Britain.

Later Roman and Greek sources continued to change the location of the Riphean mountains, the home of Boreas, as well as Hyperborea, supposedly located beyond them. However, all these sources agreed these were all in the far north of Greece or southern Europe.{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|pp=75–80}} The ancient grammarian [[Simmias of Rhodes]] in the 3rd century BC connected the Hyperboreans to the [[Massagetae]]<ref>{{Cite journal |editor1-first=Hugh |editor1-last=Lloyd-Jones |editor2-first=Peter J. |editor2-last=Parsons |title=Simius Rhodius |journal=Supplementum Hellenistcum |location=Berlin |publisher=De Gruyter |date=1983 |at=No. 906, 411 |doi=10.1515/9783110837766|isbn=978-3-11-008171-8 }}</ref> and Posidonius in the 1st century BC to the Western Celts, but [[Pomponius Mela]] placed them even further north in the vicinity of the Arctic.{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|p=79}}

In maps based on reference points and descriptions given by [[Strabo]],<ref>{{Cite book |author=[[Strabo]] |title=[[Geographica]] |at=11.4.3}}</ref> Hyperborea, shown variously as a [[peninsula]] or island, is located beyond what is now France, and stretches further north–south than east–west.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nansen |first=Fridtjof |author-link=Fridtjof Nansen |title=In Northern Mists: Arctic Exploration in Early Times, Vol. II |location=New York |publisher=Frederick A. Stokes Co. |date=1911 |page=188 |translator-first=Arthur G. |translator-last=Chater |oclc=1402860994}}</ref> Other descriptions put it in the general area of the [[Ural Mountains]].

===Later classical sources===
Plutarch, writing in the 1st century AD, mentions Heraclides of Ponticus, who connected the Hyperboreans with the [[Gauls]] who had sacked Rome in the 4th century BC (see [[Battle of the Allia]]).<ref>{{Cite book |chapter-url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Camillus*.html |author=[[Plutarch]] |title=[[Parallel Lives]] |chapter=Life of Camillus |access-date=19 February 2021 |archive-date=13 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210713102247/https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Camillus%2A.html |url-status=live |via=Bill Thayer's Web Site}}</ref>

[[Claudius Aelianus|Aelian]], [[Diodorus Siculus]] and [[Stephen of Byzantium]] all recorded important ancient Greek sources on Hyperborea, but added no new descriptions.{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|pp=63–173}}

The 2nd-century AD Stoic philosopher [[Hierocles (Stoic)|Hierocles]] equated the Hyperboreans with the Scythians, and the Riphean Mountains with the [[Ural Mountains]].{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|p=86}} [[Clement of Alexandria]] and other early Christian writers also made this same Scythian equation.<ref>{{Cite book |author=[[Clement of Alexandria]] |title=[[Stromata]] |at=iv. xxi}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |author=[[Clement of Alexandria]] |title=[[Protrepticus (Clement)|Protrepticus]]. |at=II}}</ref>

===Ancient identification with Britain===
Hyperborea was identified with Britain first by [[Hecataeus of Abdera]] in the 4th century BC, as in a preserved fragment by [[Diodorus Siculus]]:

<blockquote>In the regions beyond the land of the Celts there lies in the ocean an island no smaller than [[Sicily]]. This island, the account continues, is situated in the north and is inhabited by the Hyperboreans, who are called by that name because their home is beyond the point whence the north wind (Boreas) blows; and the island is both fertile and productive of every crop, and has an unusually temperate climate.{{Sfn|''Bibliotheca historica''|loc=§§47–48}}</blockquote>

Hecateaus of Abdera also wrote that the Hyperboreans had on their island "a magnificent sacred precinct of Apollo and a notable temple which is adorned with many votive offerings and is spherical in shape". Some scholars have identified this temple with [[Stonehenge]].{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|pp=63–173}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Squire |first=Charles |title=Celtic Myth & Legend : Poetry & Romance |date=1910 |location=London |publisher=The Gresham Publishing Company |pages=42ff}}</ref>{{efn|Squire's claim that Diodorus locates this temple "in the centre of Britain" is unfounded.}}{{Sfn|''Bibliotheca historica''|loc=§47}} Diodorus, however, does not identify Hyperborea with Britain, and his description of Britain (5.21–23) makes no mention of the Hyperboreans or their spherical temple.

[[Pseudo-Scymnus]], around 90 BC, wrote that Boreas dwelled at the extremity of Gaulish territory, and that he had a pillar erected in his name on the edge of the sea (''Periegesis'', 183). Some have claimed this is a geographical reference to northern France, and Hyperborea as the British Isles which lay just beyond the [[English Channel]].<ref>{{Cite book |first=Lewis |last=Spence |author-link=Lewis Spence |title=The Mysteries of Britain |date=1905}}</ref>

[[Ptolemy]] (''Geographia'', 2. 21) and [[Marcian of Heraclea]] (''Periplus'', 2. 42) both placed Hyperborea in the [[North Sea]] which they called the "Hyperborean Ocean".{{Sfn|Bridgman|2005|p=91}}

In his 1726 work on the [[druid]]s, [[John Toland]] specifically identified Diodorus' Hyperborea with the [[Isle of Lewis]], and the spherical temple with the [[Callanish Stones]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Haycock |first=David Boyd |author-link=David Boyd Haycock |title=William Stukeley: Science, Religion and Archaeology in Eighteenth-Century England |date=2002 |publisher=[[Boydell & Brewer]] |isbn=978-0-85115864-8 |location=Woodbridge, UK |chapter=Chapter 7: Much Greater, Than Commonly Imagined. |access-date=12 March 2016 |chapter-url=http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/OTHE00024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160312123711/http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/OTHE00024 |archive-date=12 March 2016 |url-status=live |via=The [[Newton Project]]}}</ref>