Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/28

 16 lERNE. povtant than these scanty notices, and, indeed, more important than all the notices of Ireland put together, is the text of Ptolemy. In this author the details for Ireland (' lov pv la) a.re fuller, rather than scantier, than those for Great Britain. Yet, as Ireland was never reduced, or even explored by the Romans, his authorities must have been other than Latin. Along with this feet must be taken another, viz., that of the earliest notice of Ireland {'Upfv) being full as early as the earliest of Britain; earlier, if we attribute the Argonaiitic poem to Onomacritus ; earher, too, if we suppose that Hanno was the authority of Avienus. If not Roman, the authorities for lerne must have been Greek, or Phoenician, — Greek from Marseilles, Phoenician from either the mother-country or Car- thage. The probabilities are in favour of the latter. On the other hand, early as we may make the first voyage from Carthage (via Spain) to Ireland, we find no traces of any permanent occupancy, or of any intermixture of blood. The name leivie was native; though it need not necessarily have been taken from the lemians themselves. It may been Iberian (Spanish) as well. Some of the names in Ptolemy — a large proportion — are still current, e.g. Li- boius, Senus, Oboca, Birgus, Eblana, Nagnatae, &c., = Liffy, Shannon, Avoca, Barrow, Dublin, Con- naught. &c. Ptolemy gives us chiefly the names of the Irish rivers and promontories, which, although along a sea-board so deeply indented as that of Ire- land not always susceptible of accurate identification, are .still remarkably true in the general outline. What is of more importance, inasmuch as it shows that his authorities had gone inland, is the fact of seven towns being mentioned : — " The inland towns are these, Rhigia, Rhaeba, Laverus, Macolicum, Dunum, another Rhigia, Turnis." The populations are the Vennicnii and Rhobogdii, in Ulster; the Nagnatae, in Connaiujht; the Krdini and Erpeditani, between the Nagnatae and - nicnii; the Utcrni and Vodiae, mMunster; and the Auteri, Gangani, the Veliborae (or Ellebri), between the Uterni and Nagnatae. This leaves Leinster for the Brigantes. Coriondi, Menapii, Cauci, Blanii, Voluntii, and Darnii. the latter of whom may have heen in Ulster. Besides the inland towns, there was a Menapia (v6Kis) and an Eblana (irJAjs) on the coast. Tacitus merely states that Agrieola meditated the conquest of Ireland, and that the Irish were not very different from the Britons : — " Ingenia, cultusque ho- minum hand multuni a Britannia diS'erunt." (^Af/ric. 24.) It is remarkable that on the eastern coast one British and two German names occur, — Brigantes, Cauci, and Jlenapii. It is more remarkable that two of these names are more or less associated on the continent. The Chauci lie north of the Me- napii in Germany, though not directly. The inference from this is by no means easy. Accident is the last resource to the ethnographical philologist; so that more than one writer has assumed a colonisation. Such a fact is by no means improbable. It is not much more difficult for Germans to have been in Wexford in the second century than it was for Northmen to have been so in the eighth, ninth, and tenth. On the other hand, the root vi-n-p seems to have been Celtic, and to have been a common, rather than a pi-oper, name ; since Pliny gives us the island Monapia = A nr/lesea. No opinion is given as to the nature of these coincidences. Of none of the Irish tribes mentioned by Ptolemy JERUSALEM. do we meet any separate substantive notice, a notice of their playing any part in history, or a notice of their having come in contact with any other nation. They appear only as details in the list of the popu- lations of lerne. Neither do the /e7'ni apfwar col- lectively in history. They lay beyond the pale of the classical (Roman or Greek) nations, just as did the tribes of Northern Germany and Scandinavia; and we know them only in their geography, not in their history. But they may have been tribes unmentioned by Ptolemy, which do appear in history ; or the names of Ptolemy may have been changed. Ptolemy says nothing about any Scoti ; but Glaudian does. He also connects them with Ireland : — " maducrunt Saxone fuso Orcades ; incaluit Pictorum sanguine Tliule Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis lerne" (^De Tert. Consul. Ilonorii, 72 — 74.) Again : — " totum quum Scotus lemen Movit." (/« Prim. Consid. StiUch. ii. 232.) The extent to which the current opinions as to the early history of the Gaels of Scotland confinn the ideas suggested by the text of Claudian is considered under Scoti. At present it may be said that Scoti may easily have been either a generic name for some of the tribes mentioned in detail by Ptolemy, or else a British instead of a Gaelic name. At any rate, the Scoti may ea-^ily have been, in the time of Ptolemy, an Irish population. Two other names suggest a similar question, — Bdgac, and Attacotti. The claim of the latter to have been Irish is better than that of the former. The Attacotti occur in more than one Latin writer; the Belgae (Fir-bolgs) in the Irish annals only. [See Attacotti, and Belgae of Buitannlv.] The ethnology of the ancient lerne is ascertained by that of modem Ireland. The present population belongs to the Gaelic branch of the Celtic stock; a population which cannot be shown to have been introduced within the historical period, whilst the stock of the time of Ptolemy cannot be shown to have been ejected. Hence, the inference that the population of lerne consisted of the ancestors of the present Irish, is eminently reasonable, — so reason- able that no objections lie against it. That English and Scandinavian elements have been introduced since, is well known. That Spanish (Iberic) and Phoenician elements may have been introduced in the ante-historical period, is likely; the extent to which it took place being doubtful. The most cautious investigators of Irish archaeology have hesitated to pronounce any existing remains either Phoenician or Iberian. Neither are there any remains referable to pagan Rome. [R. G. L.] lERNUS, in Ireland, mentioned by Ptolemy (ii. 2. § 4) as the most southern of two rivers (the Durus being the other) lying between the Senus (Shannon) and the Southern Promontory (Mizen Head) = either the Kenmare or the Ban try Bay River. [R. G.L.] JERUSALEM, the ancient capit.al of Palaesliue, and the seat of the Hebrew kingdom. I. Najies. The name by which this ancient capital is most commonly known was not its original appellation, but apparently compounded of two earlier names.