Sataspes, a Persian nobleman, having committed a crime punishable with death, was condemned by Xerxes to be crucified. One of his friends persuaded the monarch to commute the sentence into a voyage around Africa, which, he said, was much more severe, and might result advantageously to the nation. Sataspes obtained a vessel and recruited a crew in Egypt, and, sailing through the Pillars of Hercules, bent his course southward. He is represented as having beat about for many weeks, and probably reached the shores of the Great Saharan Desert. The aspect of this formidable and tempest-lashed coast might well appall an amateur navigator accustomed to the luxurious indolence of a Persian court. He seems to have preferred crucifixion to circumnavigation, for he at once measured back his course to the Straits. He gave an incoherent account of his adventures to Xerxes, attributing his failure to the interference of an insurmountable obstacle, the nature of which he was unable to explain. Xerxes would listen to no excuse, and ordered the original sentence to be executed forthwith. Authorities differ as to the fate of Sataspes,—one asserting that he suffered the ignominious death to which he was condemned, and another alleging that he made his escape to the island of Samos.
THE SACRED PROMONTORY.
A colony which had been established at Massilia—now Marseilles—about six hundred years before Christ, by the Phocians, was, in the year 340 b.c., at the height of its commercial prosperity. The citizens, being desirous of extending their maritime relations, sent, at this period, upon an expedition to the North of Europe, through the Pillars of Hercules, a learned geographer and astronomer by the name of Pytheas. He started with a single ship, the finances of the city not permitting a larger outlay of means.
He passed the Pillars on the sixteenth day from Massilia; and on the twentieth he arrived at the Sacred Promontory, the extreme western point of Iberia or Spain. A temple to Hercules had been erected at this spot. The inhabitants of the promontory declared, during the time of Pytheas, and, indeed, for two hundred years afterwards, that as the sun plunged at evening into the sea, they heard a hissing like that of a red-hot body suddenly dropped into water.
PLAN OF PYTHEAS' VOYAGE.
Following the coasts of Iberia and of Celtica, he came to the point of land now known as Finisterre, in France, and the promontory Calbium. Turning to the east, he was surprised to find himself in a wide gulf, with Celtica on his right, and an immense island on his left. The gulf was the British Channel, and the island the Al-Bion that Himilcon had vaguely discerned some centuries before. It was at this point that Pytheas may be said to have begun his career; and the discovery of Great Britain may safely be attributed to him.
He described the island as having the form of an isosceles triangle, as may be seen upon the foregoing plan. Three promontories formed the three angles,—Belerium being now Land's End, Cantium Cape Pepperness, and Orcas Duncansby Head. He found the inhabitants of the southern coast industrious and sociable, peaceable, honest, and sober. They raised wheat and worked rich mines of tin. As he sailed northward, along the eastern coast, he noticed that the days grew sensibly longer; and at Point Orcas, nineteen hours elapsed between the rising and the setting of the sun. He sailed still northward, and six days after leaving Orcas he came to an island, or a continent—he knew not which,—which he called Thule. As he found he could go no farther to the north, he spoke of this spot as Ultima Thule, an expression which has passed into the figurative language of all modern nations as one denoting any remote point. Thule is generally considered to have been Shetland, although theories have been ardently advocated making it respectively Iceland, Sweden, and Jutland.
The narrative of Pytheas, which has been thus far clear and reliable, assumes at this point a very fabulous aspect. He declares that north of Thule there was neither earth, nor sea, nor air. A sort of dense concretion of all the elements occupied space and enveloped the world. He compared it to the thick, viscid animal substance called pulmo marinus, a sort of mollusk or medusa. He said that this substance was the basis of the universe, and that in it earth, air, and sky hung, as it were, suspended. This illusion has been explained by the dreary spectacle of fogs, mists, rains, and tempests which at this point of his voyage must have met the gaze of the daring navigator. It would have been difficult for any mind, in those early ages, to have been on its guard against the sinister impressions likely to result from the contemplation of a scene so appalling. It must be remembered that Pytheas was accustomed to the pure and transparent atmosphere, the dazzling sky, and the phosphorescent waters of the Mediterranean. It would have been astonishing if a man educated among the splendors of an almost tropical climate had not been oppressed by influences so gloomy. It was the belief of all early navigators that a point would be found somewhere without the Pillars of Hercules beyond which it would be impossible to penetrate. While timid adventurers declared they had arrived at this point hardly a week's sail from the Straits, and declared that an atmosphere of mist, darkness, and gigantic sea-weed barred their passage, Pytheas did not allow his imagination to be affected or his courage to be shaken till he found himself in presence of the sombre and formidable scenery of what, with true geographical propriety, he denominated "Thule and her utmost isles."