Aperiplus (/ˈpɛrɪplʌs/), orperiplous, 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.[1] In that sense, the periplus was a type of log and served the same purpose as the later Romanitinerarium 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 theperiplus is at least as old as the earliest Greek historian, the IonianHecataeus of Miletus. The works ofHerodotus andThucydides contain passages that appear to have been based onperipli.[2]
Periplus is the Latinization of theGreek word περίπλους (periplous, contracted from περίπλοοςperiploos), which is "a sailing-around." Both segments,peri- and-plous, were independentlyproductive: 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 ofPhoenicians,Greeks, andRomans.
TheEuthymenes 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, byPlutarch.
TheMassaliote Periplus, a description of trade routes along the coasts ofAtlantic Europe, by anonymous Greek navigators of Massalia (now Marseille, France), possibly dates to the sixth century BCE, also preserved in Avienius[6]
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.[7]
The Periplus ofNearchus surveyed the area between the Indus and the Persian Gulf under orders fromAlexander the Great. He was a source for Strabo andArrian, among others.[9]
ThePeriplus of the Erythraean Sea or Red Sea was written by a Greek of the Hellenistic/RomanizedAlexandrian in the first century CE. It provides a shoreline itinerary of theRed (Erythraean) Sea, starting at the port ofBerenice. Beyond the Red Sea, the manuscript describes the coast of India as far as theGanges River and the east coast of Africa (calledAzania). The unknown author of thePeriplus 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.[12] Also according to the manuscript, the Horn of Africa was called, "the Cape of Spices,"[13] and modern day Yemen was known as the "Frankincense Country."[14]
ThePeriplus Ponti Euxini, a description of trade routes along the coasts of theBlack Sea, written byArrian (in Greek Αρριανός) in the early second century CE.
TheStadiasmus Maris Magni, it was written by an anonymous author and is dated to the second half of the third century AD.
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 theIndian Ocean as "a hard sea to get out of" and warned of the "circumambient sea," with all return impossible.[16]
The dictionary definition ofperiplus at Wiktionary