Scylax of Caryanda

Skylax was an ancient Greek geographer Karyanda in Caria.

Life

About Skylax only limited information is available. His name is possibly Carian origin. Skylax undertook an expedition on behalf of the Persian king Darius I. The timing of this trip is not exactly known. In research, a period 519-516 BC will be considered; in any event, she found 514 instead of BC when Darius made ​​his Scythian campaign.

The trip should probably serve the Enlightenment for possible future military operations of the Persians in this room. How many people took part in the expedition, and the role played Skylax exactly, is unknown; he probably acted as a navigator. Skylax traveled from the mouth of the Indus, where apparently the ships were also built to the Arabian Gulf. He then sailed around the Arabian Peninsula, and then drove on to the Red Sea and Egypt to the Isthmus of Suez. The trip included a period of 30 months.

The results of his trip took Skylax together in a Periplus. The work is now lost, but it was used by Herodotus and Hecataeus. A Treatise on the Skylax Heraclides of Mylasa is also lost.

Pseudo - Skylax

The obtained under Skylax ' name ' Periplus of the Mediterranean " is not from him, but was only written in the period 400-360 BC.

Expenditure

• Felix Jacoby: The fragments of Greek historians (No. 709). Brill, Leiden 2005, ISBN 978-90-04-14392-0 (1 CD -ROM, Nachdr d Ed Berlin 1923 et seq.)
• Brill 's New Jacoby, No. 709 ( with English translation and commentary by Philip Kaplan )