Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/451

 BRITANNICAE INSULAE. writes as Caesar the penooal observer; jet in the tmtfa, perhaps oftener, he writes as CSaeaar the scholar. This is better shown in Gaol tlian in Britain. His spe- cific details are his own. His generalities are taken from the Alexandrian geographers. Strabo*s authority, in respect to the similarity of the Briti:ih rites to those of Ceres, was also an Alex- andrian, Artemidcrus (iv. p. 277). Ptolemy's notices are important* He specially quotes Marinas Tyrins, and, generally, seems to speak on the strength of Phoenician authorities. Uis account of Great Britain, both in respect to what it contains and what it omits, stands in contrast to those of all the Roman author; and, besides this, he is as minute in the geography of JTt&enua, as in that of Britannia and Caledonia. Now Ireland was a country that, so iar as it was known at all, was known through the Greeks, the Iberians, and the Phoenicians (Punic or Proper Phoenidan, as the case might be), rather than through the Britons, Gauls, and Romans. How Jar toere t^s Oetirynmid eM and CaatUerideA eacdtuively Britannic/ — a question has-been sug- gested which now claims farther notice. Jast as a statement that applies to Brittia may not apply to Britain, a statement that applies to the Cassiterides may not always apply to the Tin Country. The true tin country was Cornwall, rather than the Sdlly Isles ; the Cassiterides, " (en in number, lying near each other in the ocean, towards the north from the haven of the it, ^ Artabri" (Strab. iu. p. 239), are the SciUy Isles rather J[«* ^than Cornwall. Again, "one of them is a desert, f, .7 hut the others are inliabited by men in black cloaks, the breast, walking with staves, and bearded like goats. They subsist by their cattle, leading for the most part a wandering life." This may or may not be Cornish ; it may or may not be British. The following is both: viz., that " they have metals of tin and lead." Hence, some part of Strabo's account is undoubtedly, some part probably, British. In the next writer, however, we find, side by side with some- thing that mutt be British, something that cannot be so^ That writer is Festus Avienus. The ishuids he notices are the Oestiymnides; his authority, Phoenician. His language requires notice in detaU. Sinus dehiscit incolis Oestrt/mnicua In quo Insulae sese exserunt OestrymnideSy Laxe jacentes, et metallo divites Stanni atque plumbi." Thus far the Oestiymnides are Britannic. Then follows a sketch of their occupants, equally Britannic So is the geographical notice as to their relations to Ireland: '* Ast hinc duobus in Sacram (sic Insulam Dixere prisci) solibus cursus rati est. Uaec inter undas multa cespitem jaoet, Eamque late gens Hibemorum colit Pn>]anqua mrsns insula Albionum pateL** The term Sacra Jntida shows two things: — 1st, that the name Eri is of great antiquity; 2nd, that it passed from the Phoenician language to the Greek, wherein Eri became *Upa (Nljcrof). What follows is any but British: — Megotiandi mos erat; Carthaginis £Uam coloni, et vulgus, inter Herculis Agitans columuas haec adibat aoquora: BBITANNICAE INSULAE; 433 Quae Eimilco Poentu mensibus vix quatuor, Ut ipse semet re probfisse retuUt Enavigantem, posse transmits adserit, Adjicit et illud plurimum mter guxgites Exstare ./uctim, et saepe virgulti vice Retinere pappim; didt hie nihilominus Non in proftmdum teiga demitti maris Parvoque aquarum vix supertexi solum.'' Orae Maritim. DetcripU L 94, et seq. This, as already stated, is not Britannic; yet isr not a fiction. The fucut that checked the hardy mariners of Himilco was the floating Sargauum of the well-known Sargasso Sea. In tiie eyes of the naturalist this floating fucus fixes the line of Hi* milco*s voyage as definitely as the amber-country fixes the Aestui of Tacitus. Yet the Cassiterides are not simply and absolutely the Azores, nor yet are the Oestr3nnnide8 simply and absolutely the Scilly Isles. As in the supposed case of the isles of Bugen and Heligoland, there is a confusion of at- tributes — a concision of which the possibility must be recognised, even by those who hesitate to admit the absolute fact, — a confusion which should engender caution in our criticism, and induce us to weigh each statement as much on its own merits as on the context That there were orgies in Britain, and that there was tin, stand upon the same testimony, sinco Strabo mentions both. Yet the certainty of the two facts is veiy different. The orgies — and even the black tumcs and long beards — may, possibly, be as little British as the/uccis of the Saigasso Sea. The fucus of the Sargasso Sea belongs to the Azores. Its notice is a great fiict in the history of early navigation. The orgies and the bearded men may go with it, or go wi^ the tin. Upon the whole, the notices of certain isles of tho west, as often as they occur in authors writing from Phoenician sources, are only unimpeachably Bri- tannic when they specially and definitely speak to the tin-country and the tin-trade, and when they contain British names, or other fiicts equally un- equivocal The Britannic locality of the Demetrian orgies (in the later writers they become Bacchic) is only AprobabUiiy. The Roman authorities will be considered when the hisconcai sxeicn ot ilomian Britain is attempted. The point that at present requires further notice is the extent to which the two sources difier. As a general rule, the Greek authorities difier from the Roman in being second-hand («'. e. de- rived fix>m Phoenicia), in dealing with the western parts of tho ishmd, in grouping their facts around the leading phenomena of the tin trade, in recog- nising the existence of certun orgies, and in being, to a certain extent, liable to the charge of having confused Britain with tbe Azores, or ^e true Cas- siterides with the Oestiymnides : the Roman authori- ties, so fiir as they are based upon Greek <xies, being in Uie same categtnry. Josephus, who alludei ind- dentaliy to Britain, is it fortiori Phoenician in respect to his sources. The Phoenician origin of the Greek evidence is the general rule; but it is only up to a certain date that the Greek authorities are of the kind in ques- tion; i e. Phoenician in their immediate origin. It is only up to the date of the foundation of the colony of Massilia (^Marseilles), when commerce had de- veloped itself, and when there were two routes of traffic — one vid the Spanish ports and in the hands of the Phoenicians, the other overland, FF
 * 7 ^ / clad in tunics reaching to the feet, and girt about
 * Sub hnjus autem prominentis vertice
 * Tartesnisque in terminos Oestrymnidum