Editing Pytheas (section)

== Discovery of the Baltic ==
[[File:Amber hg.jpg|thumb|[[Amber]]]]
Strabo said that Pytheas gave an account of "what is beyond the [[Rhine]] as far as Scythia", which he, Strabo, thought was false.<ref name=straboI-4-3>''Geographica'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/1D*.html I.4.3].</ref> In the geographers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire, such as [[Ptolemy]], Scythia stretched eastward from the mouth of the river [[Vistula]]; thus Pytheas must have described the Germanic coast of the [[Baltic Sea]]; if the statement is true, there are no other possibilities. As to whether he explored it in person, he said that he explored the entire north in person (see under Thule above). As the periplus was a sort of ship's log, he probably did reach the Vistula.

According to ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|The Natural History]]'' by Pliny the Elder:<ref name=pliny37-11 /><blockquote>Pytheas* speaks of an estuary of the Ocean named Metuonis and extending for 750 miles, the shores of which are inhabited by a German tribe, the Guiones. From here it is a day's sail to the Isle of Abalus, to which, he states, [[amber]] is carried in spring by currents, being an excretion consisting of solidified brine. He adds that the inhabitants of the region use it as fuel instead of wood and sell it to the neighbouring [[Teutones]]. His belief is shared by Timaeus, who, [c. 356-260] however, calls the island Basilia. Philemon denies the suggestion that amber gives off a flame.</blockquote>

The "Guiones" who Pliny places in [[Germania]] (and not [[Scythia]]), are sometimes reinterpreted by modern editors to be [[Gutones]], who are in turn generally seen as predecessors of the later [[Goths]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Winfred P.|last=Lehmann|author-link=Winfred P. Lehmann|author2=Helen-Jo J. Hewitt |title=A Gothic Etymological Dictionary|publisher=E.J. Brill|date=1986|location=Leiden|isbn=9789004081765|page=164}}</ref> An alternative interpretation is that Pliny was referring to the [[Inguaeones]], as he does in a related geographical passage about the Germanic part of the northern Oceanic coasts.<ref>{{harvtxt|Christensen|2002|pp=25-31}} citing Pliny, [https://archive.org/details/natural-history-in-ten-volumes.-vol.-2-libri-ii-vii-loeb-352/page/195/mode/2up Book 4]</ref> "Mentonomon" is unambiguously stated to be an ''aestuarium'' or "estuary" of 6000 stadia, which using the Herodotean standard of {{convert|600|feet}} per stadium is {{convert|681|miles}}. Although it is most often considered to be on the Baltic coast, it has also been argued that Pliny is referring to the North Sea coast, west of present day Denmark.{{sfn|Christensen|2002|pp=25-31}} 
[[File:Olive Carleton Smyth - e8syymayx4.jpg|thumb|"Pytheas Buys Amber", by [[Olive Carleton Smyth]]]]

In the passage about the northern Ocean coasts Pliny also mentioned that [[Xenophon of Lampsacus]] and Pytheas described a very large island which lay three days' sail from the Scythian coast called [[Baltia|Balcia]] by Xenophon and Basilia by Pytheas.<ref name=P4.27.13>''Natural History'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+4.27.13&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137 IV.27.13] or IV.13.95 in the Loeb edition.</ref> Modern scholars note that Pytheas gives this Scythian island the same name that Timaeus later gave to Pytheas's Abalus which Pliny placed in Germania. This raises doubts about the reliability of Pliny's interpretation of older geographers of this region, but it also makes it clear that Pytheas distinguished two large islands.{{sfn|Christensen|2002|p=30}}