How Did Ancient Greeks Travel Without Maps?

It is spring, around 440 BC, and a merchant stands on the beach at Piraeus with a loaded ship and a course to Syracuse. There is no chart on board, no compass, and no forecast. This film asks how the Greeks found their way. The honest answer comes first. Maps did exist. Anaximander drew one of the world in the 500s BC, and in 499 BC Aristagoras of Miletus carried a bronze map to Sparta to persuade King Cleomenes to join the Ionian Revolt. But those were pictures of the world for thinkers and rulers. Almost no ordinary traveller carried one. Then we follow how people really travelled. Sailors moved from headland to headland and beached the ship at night. They read the coast, the season and the weather. They used written sailing guides, and they relied on the people they met. On land they used stone pillars, roads, sanctuaries and the custom of hospitality. The story also asks who paid for all this with their feet, backs, sleep and safety. It ends with a choice for you at Piraeus in late autumn, with one purse of silver and a sick child waiting in Syracuse.