442 exploration: Greece The Scandinavians were restless people, exploring along the coasts of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea It is probable that they sailed south along the coast of continental Europe or out to Britain as well Their motives were probably similar to those of the Vikings centuries later: They looked for new places to live and prosper, they looked for rich lands to loot, and they wanted the glory of discovering new lands Sailing all the way to the Mediterranean would have taken great daring, but if they did as the Phoenicians usually did and stayed close to the coastline, they would have eventually discovered places to land and trade as well as the source of Mycenaean commerce They may have also reached the Aegean by an overland route There are only hints of what the ancient Scandinavians achieved because they were an illiterate people; however, they may have traveled as the Vikings did during medieval times, who would row or sail along a river until it became too shallow, then haul their longboats overland to another river and continue their journey Aggression was another motive for exploration The Germanic and Celtic peoples of Europe were warrior cultures, and warriors were the elite social class For the Celts, war was a matter of earning honor The taking of booty was often a secondary consideration On the other hand, war was sometimes viewed as a necessity, as one tribe needed to move from bad lands and dangerous circumstances to good lands and safety Sometimes they seemed to explore alone or in small groups into territories where there might be a military weakness on which they could capitalize The Greek-Syrian explorer Posidonius (ca 135–ca 51 b.c.e.) lived among the Celts and noted that he was treated fairly well as an outsider He had no merchandise to trade, which made him less interesting to his hosts than he might have been, but he was made a guest at meals given by chiefs and served as a curiosity for other visitors He was not expected to behave like the Celts Other explorers did not necessarily fare so well By Posidonius’s era, Germanic people were regarded with suspicion by Celts because the Germanic peoples often made war on the Celts On the other hand, Celtic explorers from other tribes could find themselves guests and would be expected to give accounts of the lands they had visited Such Celtic explorers were frequently restless young men sent abroad by their elders before they could make trouble for the rulers of their tribes Singly or in small groups, these young men might kill, loot, or steal, or they might find a chief who wanted them to join his or her retainers Among the Germanic peoples, this process was common as well, with chiefs taking in newcomers who pledged themselves to their service This practice would later be part of the premise for the epic Beowulf While at times welcomed, a Celtic explorer could expect to be looked upon with suspicion, especially if it was plain that he was not a trader When caught, spies would often be challenged to combat, with their severed heads being adding to the collections of those who killed them Often young explorers were very unwelcome because the local tribal leaders already had too many hot-blooded young warriors to worry about, and the young explorers would be chased away Still, for these voyagers, their journeys offered adventure, new and exciting experiences, and the chance to win honor in the service of the chiefs they met GREECE BY CHRISTOPHER BLACKWELL The earliest Greek explorers were the anonymous men and women who sailed off the coast of the European mainland and settled the islands of the Aegean Sea, eventually building the Bronze Age civilizations that archaeologists have found on Crete and neighboring islands From there, early explorers made contact with the vastly more ancient civilization of Egypt as well as the empires of Asia Minor The earliest literary evidence for exploration is the Homeric Odyssey, a work of fiction and fantasy but one that reflects a resurgence of travel by sea at the end of the Greek dark ages around 800 b.c.e Odysseus, on his 10-year journey home from the Trojan War, finds his way to Sicily, the Aeoliae Insulae (modern-day Lipari Islands), and other more obviously mythological locations Through incidental details in this poem, it is possible to see past the fiction to a historical reality that involved adventurous Greeks going abroad to new places for trade and war When Odysseus meets people on his journeys they invariably ask him, “Are you here for trade, or are you a pirate?” as if these were the two most likely professions of a stranger met on the beach During the eighth and seventh centuries b.c.e trade between Greek cities and the rest of the world expanded greatly Greek pottery is found throughout the Mediterranean and as far north in Europe as Sweden, although who brought it there is unknown What is known of ancient Greek exploration has to be sifted from fragmentary accounts of voyages, some perhaps historical and some almost certainly fictional, that appear in works of authors who may have lived centuries after the events they describe But accounts of journeys were common enough to be a named genre, periplous, meaning “voyage of discovery.” The earliest is a narrative known to the Greeks of a voyage by Hanno, a Greek-speaking Carthaginian navigator from North Africa (in modern Tunisia) Around 480 b.c.e., when the Greek world was involved in its great war with Persia, Hanno journeyed past the Straits of Gibraltar (which the ancients called the “Pillars of Hercules”) and into the Atlantic This journey took him down the western coast of what is now Morocco He records founding settlements of Carthaginians at Essaouira (formerly Mogador) and Agadir, and traveling south past Lixus He also mentions seeing volcanoes and describes gorillas Another “voyage of discovery,” known to the Greeks of the fift h century b.c.e was that of Scylax, who was satrap, or governor, of the Caryanda, part of the Persian Empire of Darius the Great (r 522–486 b.c.e.) Scylax is said to have sailed down the Indus River from near the Karakoram Range