A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Πυθέας), of Massilia, in Gaul, a celebrated Greek navigator, who sailed to the western and northern parts of Europe, and wrote a work containing the results of his discoveries. We know nothing of his personal history, with the exception of the statement of Polybius that he was a poor man (apud Strab. ii. p. 104). The time at which he lived cannot be determined with accuracy. Bougainville (Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscr. vol. xix p. 143) maintained that he lived before Aristotle, but the passage on which he relied (Arist. Met. 2.5.) is not sufficient to warrant this conclusion. Vossius (de Historicis Graecis, p. 125, ed. Westermann) places him in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, but this is certainly too late a date. As he is quoted by Dicaearchus, a pupil of Aristotle (Strab. ii. p.104) and by Timaeus (Plin. Nat. 37.11), he probably lived in the time of Alexander the Great, or shortly afterwards.