The work of Ctesias here referred to is little known: Thule would hardly enter into Persica and Indica (B.C. 400). Of Diogenes presently. Samnonicus Sorenus was a writer put to death by command of Caracalla (Notes and Queries, t. ii., v. 119, p. 301).
L. Annæus Seneca (ob. A.D. 65) first re-echoes Virgil in the celebrated “prophetic verses,” whose sense has been extended to the New World:
“Venient annis secula seris,
Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum
Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus,
Tethysque novos detegat orbes,
Nec sit terris ultima Thule.”
—Medea, 375, et seq.
Ammianus Marcellinus (ob. circ. A.D. 390) uses (History, lib. xviii., 6, 31) the adage, “Etiamsi apud Thulen moraretur Ursicinus.”
Claudius Claudianus (flor. A.D. 395-408) sings:
“Et nostro procul axe remotam
Insolito belli tremeficit murmure Thulen!”
—De Bell. Getic., 203, et seq.
And—
“Te vel Hyperboreo damnatam sidere Thulen,
Te vel ad incensas Libyæ comitatur arenas.”
—In Rufin., ii. 240.
Finally, we find in Aurelius Prudentius (nat. A.D. 348):
“Ultima littora Thules
Transadigit.”