In Search of the Ancient North

"When the sun has traversed to the arctic pole, an ever-appearing fire is poured out through days and nights alike . . .". This tantalizing description of the northern lights by the Greek poet Dionysius Periegetes, writing in the early second century, is part of the evidence adduced by Betty Younis to prove that the Arctic was better known to the ancient Greeks and Romans than is commonly understood. They not only discovered it – they are the ones who named it (from the constellation Arktos). Younis chronicles the ancient attempts to pierce the frozen mists of the forbidding northlands, and demonstrates in so doing that the lust for exploration and discovery has an ancient origin as well.