Ora maritima ("The Sea Coast") is a poem written by Avienius claimed to contain borrowings from the 6th-century BC Massiliote Periplus.

Berthelot remarked of some names on the Hispanic coast "The omission of Emporium, contrasting strangely with the names of Tarragon and Barcelona, may characterize the method of Avienius, who searches archaic documents and mingles his searches of them with his impressions as an official of the fourth century A.D."[3] Ora maritima was a work for the reader rather than the traveller, where the fourth century present intrudes largely in the mention of cities at the time abandoned, like the legendary Ophiussa.

[4] More recent scholars have emended the too credulous reliance on Avienius' accuracy of his editor, the historian-archaeologist Adolf Schulten.

[5] Another ancient chief text cited by Avienius is the Periplus of Himilco, the description of a Punic expedition through the Atlantic coasts of Europe which took place at the same time of the circumnavigation of Africa by Hanno (c. 500 BC).

[6] Ora maritima includes reference to the islands of Ierne and Albion, Ireland and Britain,[7] whose inhabitants reputedly traded with the Oestrymnides of Brittany.