Periegesis

The Periegesis (also known as Periodos gēs) was a groundbreaking work by Hecataeus of Miletus, an early Greek author of history and geography who flourished in the early 5th century BC. The term "periegesis" itself refers to a description of a region.12

Hecataeus's Periegesis was written in two parts, covering Europe and "Asia" (which included Egypt and North Africa). This work described the peoples encountered on voyages around the Mediterranean and Black Seas in a clockwise direction, starting from the Strait of Gibraltar. It was a pioneering effort in the fields of geography and ethnography, with its fragments providing numerous place names and descriptions of various peoples and regions. The historian Herodotus utilized Hecataeus's work, though he sometimes expressed criticism.1