Through the Pillars of Herakles

In this first study of the Greek and Roman exploration for over half a century, Duane W. Roller presents an important examination of the impact of the Greeks and Romans on the world through the Pillars of Herakles and beyond the Mediterranean.Roller chronicles a detailed account of the series of explorers who were to discover the entire Atlantic coast; north to Iceland, Scandinavia and the Baltic, and south into the Africa tropics. His account examines these early pioneers and their discoveries, and contributes a brand new chapter to the history of exploration. Based not only on the literary evidence, but also personal knowledge of the areas from the Arctic to west Africa, the book looks at the people, from the earliest Greeks, through the Carthaginians to the Romans, and examines their exploration of this vast and largely unfamiliar territory.Discussing for the first time the relevance of Iceland and the Arctic to Greco-Roman culture, this groundbreaking work is an enthralling and informative read that will be an invaluable study resource for Greek and Roman history courses

The New Yorker-April 24,2006Briefly Noted section- review by Leo CareyThrough the Pillars of Herakles, by Duane W. Roller (Routledge; $100). There is no word in classical Greek or Latin that exactly matches our sense of "exploring", Roller says, but he thinks that ancient exploration beyond the Mediterranean has been underestimated. By the end of the fourth century B.C., the Greeks had sailed as far south as Zanzibar and as far north as Iceland (Roller's persuasive identification of the land of Thule, discovered by Pytheas). Much of Roller's work involves piecing together the evidence of coastline descriptions known as periplooi. He is wryly aware of the unreliability of many claims, some of which made even the writers of later antiquity incredulous. The explorer Mago said that he had circumnavigated Africa, but, Roller notes, "if this is the same person who claimed to have crossed the Sahara three times without drinking water, his veracity can hardly be presumed."'Roller has performed a useful service in bringing together material that is scattered about in various chapters in the general histories of ancient geography and exploration and in updating it with the results of recent studies.' – International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 'Roller has performed a useful service in bringing together material that is scattered about in various chapters in the general histories of ancient geography and exploration and in updating it with the results of recent studies.' – International Journal of Nautical Archaeology

Duane W. Roller is Professor of Greek and Latin at The Ohio State University. His previous publications include The Building Program of Herod the Great (University of California Press, 1998) and The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene (Routledge, 2003)