Aristeas of Proconnesus

Aristeas of Proconnesus was an ancient Greek poet traditionally placed in the seventh century BCE. He was credited with the Arimaspea, a lost poem describing peoples and wonders beyond the Black Sea, including the one-eyed Arimaspians, gold-guarding griffins and the distant Hyperboreans.

Almost everything known about Aristeas comes through later authors, especially Herodotus, and his biography became inseparable from miracle stories in which his soul left his body and he reappeared after death. He is therefore best treated as a semi-legendary historical literary figure rather than as a securely documented traveller.

In Gillian Bradshaw’s Beyond the North Wind, Aristeas of Proconnesus, the semi-legendary Greek poet associated with tales of the far north, is drawn into a journey shaped by Apollo, griffins and the one-eyed Arimaspians.