Late Hellenistic Exploration

The explorations of Polybios represented the entry of the Romans into the Atlantic. This marks the beginning of a significant change in the ancient view of the world beyond the Pillars of Herakles. Exploration came to be driven by the unified policies of the centralized Roman state rather than the individual needs of a Greek city: Roman attitudes, in many ways, were similar to those of the Carthaginians. Yet even with the collapse of Carthage and the subsequent opening up of the west, there is no evidence of Roman exploration beyond the Pillars for a century after the reconnaissance of Polybios, despite their acquisition of much of the Iberian peninsula in the second century bc and mercantile interest in Mauretania by late in the same century. ¹ The Carthaginians had done their work well: the Romans were convinced by the journey of Polybios that the world beyond the Pillars was not of interest to them. Significant is what Scipio Aemilianus learned from the Massalians: when he inquired about their explorations there was “nothing worth recording.” ² Although this became tangled with the rejection of Pytheas that pervaded the era, it nonetheless demonstrates how the Romans were diverted from the world beyond the Pillars.