Periplus

A periplus (/ˈpɛrɪplʌs/), 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.^[1] 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.^[2]

Etymology

Periplus is the Latinization of the

• The Periplus of
  Himilco the Navigator, parts which are preserved in Pliny the Elder and Avienius.^[3]
• The Periplus of Hanno the Navigator, Carthaginian colonist and explorer who explored the coast of Africa from present-day Morocco southward at least as far as Senegal in the sixth or fifth century BCE.^[4]

Greek

• The Periplus of the Greek
  Darius I. This voyage is mentioned by Herodotus, and his periplus is quoted by Hecataeus of Miletus, Aristotle, Strabo and Avienius.^[5]
• The Massaliote Periplus, a description of trade routes along the coasts of Atlantic Europe, by anonymous Greek navigators of Massalia (now Marseille, France), possibly dates to the sixth century BCE, also preserved in Avienius^[6]
• Pytheas of Massilia, (fourth century BCE) On the Ocean (Περί του Ωκεανού), has not survived; only excerpts remain, quoted or paraphrased by later authors, including Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny the Elder and in Avienius' Ora maritima.^[7]
• The Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, generally is thought to date to the fourth or third century BCE.^[8]
• The Periplus of Nearchus surveyed the area between the Indus and the Persian Gulf under orders from Alexander the Great. He was a source for Strabo and Arrian, among others.^[9]
• On the Red Sea by
  Photius.^[10]
• The Periplus of Scymnus of Chios is dated to around 110 BCE.^[11]
• The
  Ganges River and the east coast of Africa (called Azania). The unknown author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea claims that Hippalus, a mariner, was knowledgeable about the "monsoon winds" that shorten the round-trip from India to the Red Sea.^[12] Also according to the manuscript, the Horn of Africa was called, "the Cape of Spices,"^[13] and modern day Yemen was known as the "Frankincense Country."^[14]
• The
  Periplus Ponti Euxini, a description of trade routes along the coasts of the Black Sea, written by Arrian
  (in Greek Αρριανός) in the early second century CE.
• The Stadiasmus Maris Magni, it was written by an anonymous author and is dated to the second half of the third century AD.