Note 924 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

Plutarch (De placitis philosophorum, iii, 17, § 2), who evidently knew nothing about the tides, ascribed to Pytheas the absurd statement that high tide occurs at full moon, and low tide at new moon (Πυθέας ὁ Μασσαλιώτης τῇ πληρώσει τῆς σελήνης τὰς πλημμύρας γίνεσθαι, τῇ δὲ μειώσει τὰς ἀμπώτιδας), a blunder which, as Müllenhoff (Deutsche Altertumskunde, i, 1890, p. 365) remarks, nobody could have made who had spent twenty-four hours on the Atlantic coast. I agree with him that Pytheas had anticipated the discovery of Posidonius (Strabo, iii, 5, § 8), which, needless to say, must have been made long before by Phoenician mariners, but that he was unfortunate in his reporter. Cf. H. F. Tozer, Hist. of Anc. Geogr., p. 155.