But it is mentioned by Dion, Appian and Plutarch ("Caesar", 38).

Dean Merivale thinks the story may have been invented to introduce the apophthegm used by Caesar to the sailor, "Fear nothing: you carry Caesar and his fortunes" (lines 662-665).
Mommsen accepts the story, as of an attempt which was only abandoned because no mariner could be induced to undertake it.

Lucan colours it with his wildest and most exaggerated hyperbole.
(30) See Book I., 463.
(31) The ocean current, which, according to Hecataeus, surrounded the world.

But Herodotus of this theory says, "For my part I know of no river called Ocean, and I think that Homer or one of the earlier poets invented the name and introduced it into his poetry." (Book II., 23, and Book IV., 36.) In "Oceanus" Aeschylus seems to have intended to personify the great surrounding stream.

("Prom.