Rating: 
Summary: Fun, but a bit loose on the history.
Review: Anyone interested in archaeology would enjoy this book because it ties the more well known classical greco-roman world with its "barbarian" neighbors. Though people may read the title expecting to find some sort of firsthand account that would be to miss the point. What you get is a colorful interpretation (sometimes based on archaeological finds) of the life of ancient Celts and Britons and the ways in which their trade with the Mediterranean may have functioned.
However, towards the end of the book the reader might start to notice that Professor Cunliffe's understanding of Roman history in particular is a bit loose. He has Pompey outliving his own murder by a year and engaging Caesar in the Alexandrian interlude to the Civil War. Later, he makes the same mistake again and further errs that Pompey was occupying the Palace in Alexandria against the siege of Caesar (in reality it was Caesar who was besieged by the Egyptian general Achillas). Anyone interested in the more accurate firsthand version ought to give Caesar's own words a chance in his "Civil War."
The above was not meant to be pedantic. It was simply to point out that if the author doesn't possess an understanding of some of the sources he so often quotes, then the rest of his arguments pertaining to the sources that quote Pytheas seem a little less stable. Still, this book is sure to spark the reader to learn more about ancient history!
Rating: 
Summary:
Periplus
Review:
Barry Cunliffe has made other contributions, but this one pertains to ancient navigation and was therefore of great interest to me. Other takes on Pytheas' voyage include the rather uninformed view that his trip was entirely mythical (I've seen the same said of Marco Polo's sojourn).
Like the much briefer _Periplus of Hanno_, accounts based on those of Pytheas have survived to reveal a much different picture of navigation in ancient times. The prejudice that no one sailed out of sight of ancient coastlines accounts for the rejection such accounts often get.
Try a web search for _Periplus of Hanno_ along with "Livio Stecchini" for more information. Stecchini was neither a nationalist, nor a nut, as one alleged scholar on the web claimed.
Related reading:
-:- Pytheas of Massalia: On the Ocean: Text, Translation and Commentary by by Christina Horst Roseman (0890055459)
-:- North to Thule: An Imagined Narrative of the Famous Lost Sea Voyage of Pytheas of Massalia in the 4th Century B.C. by John Frye and Harriet Frye (0802713939)
Rating:
Summary:
Periplus
Review:
Barry Cunliffe has made other contributions, but this one pertains to ancient navigation and was therefore of great interest to me. Other takes on Pytheas' voyage include the rather uninformed view that his trip was entirely mythical (I've seen the same said of Marco Polo's sojourn).
Like the much briefer _Periplus of Hanno_, accounts based on those of Pytheas have survived to reveal a much different picture of navigation in ancient times. The prejudice that no one sailed out of sight of ancient coastlines accounts for the rejection such accounts often get.
Try a web search for _Periplus of Hanno_ along with "Livio Stecchini" for more information. Stecchini was neither a nationalist, nor a nut, as one alleged scholar on the web claimed.
Related reading:
-:- Pytheas of Massalia: On the Ocean: Text, Translation and Commentary by by Christina Horst Roseman (0890055459)
-:- North to Thule: An Imagined Narrative of the Famous Lost Sea Voyage of Pytheas of Massalia in the 4th Century B.C. by John Frye and Harriet Frye (0802713939)
Rating:
Summary: Use your imagination...
Review: As an avid reader of ancient history I could not wait to read this book. It is full of interesting information about ancient communities in Gaul, Iberia, etc. However, do not expect to read much about the actual voyage. Pytheas's writings are now lost to the world. The author pieces together what he can from other sources but he is left to use speculation and surmise. We are left with him wondering if he went to such and such a place he would have seen the following... Still, it is a short and enjoyable read.
Rating: 
Summary: a very dry piece about ancient seafaring
Review: I couldn't help feeling, as the book progressed, that Barry Cunliffe was filling-out, what little is known about Pytheas, with anything that would fill the space. "...and if Pytheas had landed at this spot he may have been impressed by the view, and might have taken tea and scones at the local tea-shop (if one were nearby, and had he arrived a couple of millenia later)This is the kind of stuff that, although he didn't write these exact words, he may as well have. A long digression would then follow on some local custom or trade (sometimes pre-dating Pytheas by centuries).
The worst thing about this book was that a modern author could give such a dry account that, I am certain, would have been far more enjoyable in Pytheas' own words, as all the translations of the ancients I have ever read flow more easily (including Thucydides).
Rating: 
Summary: Great!
Review: I liked this book so much that I bought a copy for my Dad and one for my brother. Cunliffe does a splendid job of giving us a narrative that makes sense of Pytheas, a figure who has hitherto been quite mysterious. The idea of England being "discovered" is entertaining, and Cunliffe neatly presents Pytheas' journey from an ancient Greek world view.
Buy this book!
Rating:
Summary: Good introduction but apt to wander
Review: It is extraordinary that as accomplished a historian as Barry Cunliffe should choose to embark on a historical trail where the evidence is minimal, given the usual rigidity of historians to rely on hard evidence to construct their histories. It is also quite refreshing and the opening preface has an almost amused tone in its admission. In fact, the author makes it clear that much of our evidence for Pytheas can be seen in attributes of his commentating style and quotations by Diodorus or Strabo can thus be deduced as originally his. A little tenuous, but plausible.
Cunliffe begins his deconstruction of the Pytheas myth by clearly explaining the origins and timouchoi government of Massilia (Marseille) as a Greek colony of Phocaea. Explanations of the seafaring wealth of the city give way to an expounding of the use of amphorae in archaeological works to understand trading patterns of the ancient world.
One comment is a little debatable, as Cunliffe implies that the elite Hallstatt of Western Europe had a prestige goods economy created (or at the least, exacerbated) for them by the trade flowing out of the Mediterranean, which, perhaps too neatly, fits the historian's view of the ancient Greek world model of civiliser and barbarian.
There is a good precis of the effects of the Celtic migrations of the 5th - 3rd centuries B.C. and a chronological set of mini-biographies on the Greek philsophers of Miletus, - Anaximander and Thales being prominent - Herodotus, Pythagoras, Aristotle et al, which serves to place the current Greek view of the world, both geographical and sociological. These, and additional references to Avienus and the periplus document used by mariners, all build to a world where the unsailed Ocean gives rise to both myth and philsophical imaginings.
A world that Pytheas was born into.
The book then digresses somewhat. Having admitted at the start of this work that there was very little sources to discuss, Cunliffe feels he has license to talk about the British experience. On the evidence of the aforementioned stylistic comparability, Cunliffe launches into a discouse on trade routes to Cornwall (justified as a potential route taken by Pytheas as it mentions tidal flow which Pytheas was interested in - though we aren't really given evidence to prove that). Nevertheless, the author is now pernitted to debate the location of various ancient sites in order to predict the Pythean route. Once he tenously advances his theory Cunliffe digresses into the origins of tin, from a geological explanation to the finished traded article. He cycles through industrialization, marketing infrastructures and a more general discussion on the social structure of the time. There is an effort to remember the title of the book, with the odd 'If Pytheas had visited here, then he'd've found such and such'. But, given the admission at the start that this was liable to happen, one cannot complain too much. As a result we get a long detour on the history of Cornwall with an interesting side discussion on the origins of the name Britain.
Yet, by page 100, Cunliffe is back on the book title's implied content as we route westwards towards Ireland (there is a lengthy chapter on Ultima Thule - Iceland?), dragging further astronomical musing in, - given sailing and astronomy are inextricably linked in the ancient world, not unexpected - boat construction and other items as we route around Scotland down the Amber coasts until the final leg back to Massilia.
The final chapter deals with various ancient sources such as Dicaearchus, Avienus, Timeaus, Eratosthenes, Strabo and Polybius. Cunliffe discusses the press (most of it critical) that Pytheas gets and this is an excellent discussion. In some respects, it might have been better if it came at the beginning rather than the end.
So, an intriguing book that unbashedly states it's liable to wander off the subject matter (and does) yet introduces us to an explorer who has come down to use through tantalising excerpts from later commentators, yet, by the very end, we get a sense of affinity with a man who set off to discover the world was more the the Mediterranean.
Rating:
Summary: The Discovery of Britain
Review: Native Americans and Pacific Islanders who get annoyed by stories of their countries being "discovered" might feel vindicated by this account of the first civilized explorer of the British Isles, where he encountered cannibals who "openly have intercourse not only with other women but with their mothers and sisters"which Cunliffe thinks may be "accurate anthropological observation."
No full copy of Pytheas's book survives so his voyage has to be reconstructed from quotations in other writers. These seem consistent enough and to contain enough valid observations about tides and sun movements to indicate that there was some truth in his story. The material is so sparse that in order to fill his book Cunliffe fleshes it out with a lot of speculation and archeological data. He is evidently an authority in many fields. For example he is able to detect that Polybius's attack on Pytheas "has all the hallmarks of intense academic jealousy." (Cunfiffe is a professor of European archeology at Oxford). An interesting speculation is whether Pytheas reached Iceland. Cunliffe thinks he did, and presents interesting evidence. It does appear likely that Iceland was inhabited before the Vikings got there.
Rating:
Summary: The Discovery of Britain
Review: Native Americans and Pacific Islanders who get annoyed by stories of their countries being "discovered" might feel vindicated by this account of the first civilized explorer of the British Isles, where he encountered cannibals who "openly have intercourse not only with other women but with their mothers and sisters"which Cunliffe thinks may be "accurate anthropological observation."
No full copy of Pytheas's book survives so his voyage has to be reconstructed from quotations in other writers. These seem consistent enough and to contain enough valid observations about tides and sun movements to indicate that there was some truth in his story. The material is so sparse that in order to fill his book Cunliffe fleshes it out with a lot of speculation and archeological data. He is evidently an authority in many fields. For example he is able to detect that Polybius's attack on Pytheas "has all the hallmarks of intense academic jealousy." (Cunfiffe is a professor of European archeology at Oxford). An interesting speculation is whether Pytheas reached Iceland. Cunliffe thinks he did, and presents interesting evidence. It does appear likely that Iceland was inhabited before the Vikings got there.
Rating:
Summary: Compensates for unmet expectations..........
Review: Perhaps, Barry Cunliffe didn't name this book "What Little is Known About the Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek" because then the title might compete for length with the content. Granted, Pytheas' journey occured some 2,300 years ago so source material is spotty. However, I couldn't help but be a little disappointed in the lack of narrative one expects given the title Cunliffe did bestow on his effort.To Cunliffe's credit, he admits as much and attempts to draw the reader in through an archaeological perspective of the people and places Pytheas might have encountered. And, since Pytheas' own writings are long since lost, Cunliffe spends much time on the works of his near contemporaries; portions of which are still surviving. A lack of source material is something with which all books of ancient history must contend. Nevertheless, Cunliffe's enthusiasm for his subject is palpable and this brings it's own level of enjoyment to the reader. Cunliffe is careful to separate theory from fact and though this is, in itself, the prime reason that a narrative never really appears, one has to admire his integrity. Bottom line, The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek is an analytical, clinical, dissection of what little is known of a Greek wanderer who stretched the envelope of the known world. It is short, informative, and, in the end, worthy of the reader's time.
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