Composed by the Scylax mentioned in Herodotus?

This little work was supposed by Lucas Holstenius, Fabricius, Sainte-Croix, and others, to have been written by the Scylax mentioned by Herodotus.

Composed by someone in the fourth century B.C.

Other writers, on the contrary, such as G. I. Vossius, Is. Vossius, and Dodwell, regarded the author as the contemporary of Panaetius and Polybius; but most modern scholars are disposed to follow the opinion of Niebuhr, who supposes the writer to have lived in the first half of the reign of Philip of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great (Philip began to reign B. C. 360). Niebuhr shows from internal evidence that the Periplus must have been composed long after the time of Herodotus; whilst, from its omitting to mention any of the cities founded by Alexander, such as Alexandria in Egypt, as well as from other circumstances, we may conclude that it was drawn up before the reign of Alexander. It is probable, however, that the author, whoever he was, may not have borne the name of Scylax himself, but prefixed to his work that of Scylax of Caryanda, on account of the celebrity of the navigator in the time of Dareius Hystaspis. Aristotle is the first writer who refers to Scylax (Pol. 3.14).

Only an abridgement survives

It is evident, from his reference, as well as from the quotations from Scylax in other ancient writers (Philostr. Apollon. 3.47; Harpocrat. p. 174, ed. Gronov.; Tzetz. Chil. 7.144), which refer to matters not contained in the come down to us, that we possess only an abridgment of the original work.

Editions

The of Scylax was first published by Hoeschel, with other minor Greek geographers, Augsburg, 1600, 8vo.; next by Is. Vossius, Amsterdam, 1639, 4to.; subsequently by Hudson, in his " Geographi Graeci Minores," and in the reprint of the same work by Gail, Paris, 1826; and last of all by R. H. Klausen, attached to his fragments of Hecataeus, Berlin, 1831.