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It has long been the view of the ancient world that the population was fairly immobile, especially when it comes to maritime movement. Small ships hugged the shallows of the coast to fish or trade but long distance journeys through deep waters were the possession of a much later age. It has also long been the assumption that the ancient empires of the Mediterranean, whilst being familiar with the geography of their encircled sea, didn't venture much outside their sphere of control. As a general statement that may be true but Barry Cunliffe's book challenges those ideas, albeit in a small way. Sometimes exceptions provide the necessary proof to establish new ideas and that may be the case here, though the author limits himself to smaller speculations. He is not attempting to over through any general theory or established understanding of the past, he leaves that to the reader. Instead he presents us with the story of one ancient mariner who travelled to lands that buy Greek understanding was "too cold to sustain life".

Around 2300 years ago an expedition headed out of the port of the Greek colony of Massalia (modern Marseilles) led by a man called Pytheas, this is the story of his journey. Although his records have been lost to history, there are many indirect references through other writings and Cunliffe uses these as well as knowledge of history and archaeology to act as a detective to re-discover his footsteps. No one just sails off into the sunset without some idea of where they are going, not even Columbus did that, but that's another story, so on what did he base his projected journey on? The initial part of the voyage seems to be a well-established trade route that brought Greek traders to Cornwall; one of the few sources of tin for the ancient smiths of the Mediterranean and tin was the magic ingredient that made soft copper into harder bronze. It is after we trace his journey to the raged coasts of southern Britain though that the journey begins to get really exciting. Continuing north he seems to have come into contact with many unusual tribal cultures and beyond Britain he came to the Amber Coast and eventually Ultima Thule. The Amber Coast is identifiable by the fact that amber is found along only one coast in northern Europe and if you want to know where Ultima Thule lies, then you need to read the book, I'm not going to give away the conclusion.

What is fascinating about the journey is that it seems to remain an isolated incident, even though at

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