Later, after the Greek dark ages (1000-800 BC), the Greeks were the main contenders of the Phoenician (see Phoenicia and Carthage) supremacy of the Mediterranean, while the Greeks themselves controlled most of the Black Sea trade. They established colonies in Asia Minor (Turkey), along the coasts of the Black Sea, in southern Italy and Sicily, and several other places along the Mediterranean. One name is still known from this period: Colaeus, a Greek trader of around 630 BC, got in a storm on a voyage to Egypt, and was blown all across the Mediterranean to the Pillars of Hercules (the Greek name for the Straits of Gibraltar). He was the first Greek to reach the Atlantic, and made a profitable trade in Tartessos.
Greek explorers also travelled east, to the great kingdom of Persia. King Cyrus of Persia fought a civil war against his brother ...?.... and among his army was a number of Greek mercenaries. When Cyrus was beaten, the Greeks had to find their way back home again, through mostly unknown country. Xenophon, who was among these Greek troops, describes this voyage in his book Anapest.
An important source about the voyages and geographical knowledge of this period was Herodotus. He writes that one Greek, Scylax, travelled from the Indus, around Arabia, to Egypt, in service of the Persian king Darius, who wanted to know these regions. Darius also led other expeditions, for example his military campaign against the Scyths, in which his armies crossed the Danube River.
200 years later, the Persian empire was conquered by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great. During his military campaigns, he got to the farthest reaches of the Persian empire, and even beyond, reaching Egypt, Central Asia and the Indus River. With his troops he crossed the Khyber Pass which connects Afghanistan to India. One of his captains, Nearchos, who commanded the fleet returning most of Alexander's men back from India to Persia and Mesopotamia, was the first to realize the importance of the monsoon winds for sailing in this region of the world. After his conquest, Alexander sent out voyages of exploration to Arabia and the Caspian Sea, but he died soon thereafter. His empire was split apart after his death, but the mixture of Greek and eastern influences that is now called 'Hellenism' was to remain the main cultural force in the region for centuries to come.
Around the same time, but on the other end of the Greek world, a geographer called Pytheas also did much to extend the edges of the known world. Pytheas travelled from his native Massilia (a Greek colony, now Marseille) to the Atlantic and reached England. He probably completely circumnavigated Great Britain, and heared of a island called Thule. Historians still debate whether this country was Iceland, the Shetland Islands or Norway, as well as whether Pytheas visited it or only heared of it. Pytheas may also have visited the North Sea coast, and some even believe he went as far as the Baltic.
The Greek explorers after ca. 300 BC are discussed under the Roman period