View source for Periplus

{{short description|Manuscript listing ports and coastal landmarks}}
{{about|a type of historic document|the modern ''Periplus Publishing Group''|Tuttle Publishing|the drug with trade name Periplum|Nimodipine}}
[[File:Arrian, Periplus.jpg|thumb|Beginning of the ''[[Periplus of the Euxine Sea|Periplous tou Euxeinou Pontou]]'' by [[Arrian|Arrian of Nicomedia]], [[Johann Froben]] and Nicolaus Episcopius, Basel 1533]]
A '''periplus''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|p|ɛr|ɪ|p|l|ʌ|s}}), or '''periplous''', is a manuscript document that lists the ports and coastal landmarks, in order and with approximate intervening distances, that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore.<ref>{{cite book|title=A Source Book in Geography|first=George|last=Kish|page=21|publisher=Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge|year=1978|isbn=0-674-82270-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_6qF4vjZvhYC}}</ref> In that sense, the periplus was a type of log, the nautical counterpart of the later Roman [[itinerarium]] of road stops. However, the Greek navigators added various notes, which, if they were professional geographers, as many were, became part of their own additions to Greek geography.

The form of the ''periplus'' is at least as old as the earliest Greek historian, the Ionian [[Hecataeus of Miletus]]. The works of [[Herodotus]] and [[Thucydides]] contain passages that appear to have been based on ''peripli''.<ref>{{cite book|page=40|title=Josephus Geographicus: The Classical Context of Geography in Josephus|first=Yuval|last=Shahar|publisher=Mohr Siebeck|year=2004|isbn=3-16-148256-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pIJLJSYFogUC&pg=PA40}}</ref>

== Variant ==
A word equivalent in meaning to "periplus" is "periplum", defined in the [[Oxford English Dictionary]] as being "[o]riginally and chiefly in the poetry of [[Ezra Pound]]"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Liebregts |first=P. Th M. G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3FGZ_gOJIRwC&dq=%22Periplum%22&pg=PA225 |title=Ezra Pound and Neoplatonism |date=2004 |publisher=Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press |isbn=978-0-8386-4011-1 |pages=225 |language=en}}</ref> As a noun, Pound uses "periplum" simply to refer to a voyage or journey, as in canto 74, line 3: "The great periplum brings in the stars to our shore." Here the "great periplum" refers to the daily journey made by the Sun God, [[Helios]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Terrell |first=Carroll |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=muH4iS2MndQC&dq=%22Periplum%22&pg=PA363 |title=A Companion to the Cantos of Ezra Pound |publisher=U California P |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-520-04731-0 |pages=362–63}}</ref> "Periplum" is also used in ''The Cantos'' adverbially, as seen in this example from canto 59:<blockquote>Periplum, not as land looks on a map 

But as sea bord seen by men sailing.  (Line 82-4)</blockquote>In his book [[ABC of Reading|''ABC of Reading'']], Pound describes the geography of Homer's Odyssey as "correct geography; not as you would find it if you had a geography book and a map, but as it would be in 'periplum,' that is, as a coasting sailor would find it."<ref>{{cite book |last=Pound |first=Ezra |title=The ABC of Reading |pages=43–44}}</ref> [[Gabriel Levin]]: "One more night crossing, one more periplum..."<ref>Gabriel Levin, To These Dark Steps, Anvil Press, 2012, p. 69</ref> Poet [[Denise Levertov]] compared Pound's use of the term to the slow panning of a movie camera or looking out a car or train window, while also noting that this would not fully give the reader a full sense of the term's literal meaning as the speed "does not allow for the kind of changes in the beholder that contribute to new perceptions".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Levertov |first=Denise |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hsUGhNOeSakC&dq=%22Periplum%22&pg=PA104 |title=New & Selected Essays |date=1992 |publisher=New Directions Publishing |isbn=978-0-8112-1218-2 |pages=104–106 |language=en}}</ref>

== Etymology ==
''Periplus'' is the Latinization of the [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] word περίπλους (''periplous'', contracted from περίπλοος ''periploos''), which is "a sailing-around" (περι is a prefix meaning around or about, while πλοῦς means "voyage"). Both segments, ''peri-'' and ''-plous'', were independently [[Productivity (linguistics)|productive]]: the ancient Greek speaker understood the word in its literal sense; however, it developed a few specialized meanings, one of which became a standard term in the ancient navigation of [[Phoenicians]], [[Greeks]], and [[Ancient Rome|Romans]].

==Known ''peripli''==
Several examples of ''peripli'' that are known to scholars:

=== Carthaginian ===

*The Periplus of [[Himilco the Navigator]], parts which are preserved in [[Pliny the Elder]] and [[Avienius]].<ref>[[Nicholas Purcell (classicist)|Nicholas Purcell]] "Himilco" in ''[[Oxford Classical Dictionary]]'' 3rd. ed. [[Oxford]]; [[Oxford University Press]] 1999 p.&nbsp;707</ref>
*The [[Hanno the Navigator#Periplus account|Periplus]] of [[Hanno the Navigator]], [[Carthage|Carthaginian]] colonist and explorer who explored the coast of [[Africa]] from present-day [[Morocco]] southward at least as far as [[Senegal]] in the sixth or fifth century BCE.<ref>{{cite book |translator-first=H. |translator-last=Schoff |title=The Periplus of Hanno a voyage of discovery down the west African coast |year=1912 |ol=6541953M }}</ref>

=== Greek ===

*The ''Periplus'' of the Greek [[Scylax of Caryanda]], in Caria, who allegedly sailed down the [[Indus River]] and then to [[Suez]] on the initiative of [[Darius I]]. This voyage is mentioned by [[Herodotus]], and his periplus is quoted by Hecataeus of Miletus, [[Aristotle]], [[Strabo]] and Avienius.<ref>"Scylax" in ''OCD''<sup>3</sup> p.&nbsp;1374</ref>
* The ''[[Euthymenes]]'' description of West Africa (around third quarter of the sixth century). His published accounts have not survived, but seem to have been known, at least at secondhand, by ''[[Plutarch]]''.
*The ''[[Massaliote Periplus]]'', a description of trade routes along the coasts of [[Atlantic Europe]], by anonymous Greek navigators of Massalia (now Marseille, France), possibly dates to the sixth century BCE, also preserved in Avienius<ref>"Periploi" in ''OCD''<sup>3</sup> p.&nbsp;1141</ref>
*[[Pytheas of Massilia]], (fourth century BCE) ''On the Ocean'' (Περί του Ωκεανού), has not survived; only excerpts remain, quoted or paraphrased by later authors, including Strabo, [[Diodorus Siculus]], Pliny the Elder  and in Avienius' ''Ora maritima''.<ref>"Pytheas" in ''OCD''<sup>3</sup> p.&nbsp;1285</ref>
*The ''[[Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax]]'', generally is thought to date to the fourth or third century BCE.<ref>"Scylax" in ''OCD''<sup>3</sup> p.&nbsp;1374</ref>
*The Periplus of [[Nearchus]] surveyed the area between the Indus and the Persian Gulf under orders from [[Alexander the Great]]. He was a source for Strabo and [[Arrian]], among others.<ref>"Periploi" in ''OCD''<sup>3</sup> p.&nbsp;1141</ref>
*''On the Red Sea'' by [[Agatharchides]]. Fragments preserved in Diodorus Siculus and [[Photius]].<ref>"Agatharchides" in ''OCD''<sup>3</sup> p.&nbsp;36</ref>
* The Periplus of [[Scymnus]] of [[Chios]] is dated to around 110&nbsp;BCE.<ref>"Scymnus" in ''OCD''<sup>3</sup> p.&nbsp;137436</ref>
*The ''[[Periplus of the Erythraean Sea]]'' or Red Sea was written by a Greek of the Hellenistic/Romanized [[Alexandria]]n in the first century CE. It provides a shoreline itinerary of the [[Red Sea|Red (Erythraean) Sea]], starting at the port of [[Berenice Troglodytica|Berenice]]. Beyond the Red Sea, the manuscript describes the coast of India as far as the [[Ganges River]] and the east coast of Africa (called [[Azania]]). The unknown author of the ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea'' claims that Hippalus, a mariner, was knowledgeable about the "monsoon winds" that shorten the round-trip from India to the Red Sea.{{sfn|Liu|2010|p=34}} Also according to the manuscript, the Horn of Africa was called, "[[Aromata|the Cape of Spices]],"{{sfn|Liu|2010|p=36}} and modern day Yemen was known as the "Frankincense Country."{{sfn|Liu|2010|p=37}}
*The ''[[Periplus Ponti Euxini]]'', a description of trade routes along the coasts of the [[Black Sea]], written by [[Arrian]] (in Greek Αρριανός) in the early second century CE.
*The ''[[Stadiasmus Maris Magni]]'', it was written by an anonymous author and is dated to the second half of the third century AD.

==''Rahnāmag''==
[[Persia]]n sailors had long had their own sailing guide books, called ''Rahnāmag'' in [[Middle Persian]] (''Rahnāmeh'' رهنامه in [[Modern Persian]]).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dehkhoda |first1=Ali Akbar |first2=Mohammad |last2=Moʻin |year=1958 |title=Loghat-namehʻi Dehkhoda |location=Tehran |publisher=Tehran University Press: Rahnāma }}</ref>

They listed the ports and coastal landmarks and distances along the shores.

The lost but much-cited sailing directions go back at least to the 12th century. Some described the [[Indian Ocean]] as "a hard sea to get out of" and warned of the "circumambient sea," with all return impossible.<ref>{{cite book |title=Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature |first=Felipe |last=Fernandez-Armesto |location=New York |publisher=Free Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-7432-0248-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/civilizationscul0000fern |url-access=registration }}</ref>

==Tactic of naval combat==
A ''periplus'' was also an ancient naval maneuver in which attacking ''[[triremes]]'' would outflank or encircle the defenders to attack them in the rear.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Briant|first1=Pierre|title=Persian Wars: the Persian viewpoint|date=2015-07-06|encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-938113-5|last2=Kuhrt|first2=Amélie|doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.4890}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of Graeco-Roman geographers]]

==References==
{{Reflist|2}}

==Bibliography==
* {{cite book |first=Xinru |last=Liu |author-link=Xinru Liu |title=The Silk Road in World History |location=New York |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-195-33810-2}}

==External links==
* {{wiktionary-inline|periplus}}

[[Category:History of navigation]]
[[Category:Peripluses| ]]
[[Category:Classical literature]]
[[Category:Roman itineraries]]
[[Category:Maps]]
[[Category:Nautical reference works]]
[[Category:Ezra Pound]]