Earth & SkyGreek → English
Periplus
/ˈpɛrɪpləs/noun
A voyage along a coast, or the written sailing directions describing one.
The Greek roots
περί
perí
around, about
πλοῦς
ploûs
voyage, sailing
Literally: “a sailing around”
The story of the word
A periplus is both the voyage and the book, written as a list of what you pass and how long each leg takes, with no map involved. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, put together by a Greek-speaking merchant in Roman Egypt in the first century AD, remains the best account we have of the monsoon trade between the Red Sea and India, down to the prices. Naval commanders used the same word for the manoeuvre of rowing round the end of an enemy line to take it in the flank.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
perimeterperiscopeperipateticperiod
In a sentence
Hanno's periplus describes gorillas, or something the Carthaginians took for men covered in hair.
He wrote the crossing up as a periplus, harbour by harbour.