Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/452

 434 BBITANNICAE INSULAE. »3*'d^ Of the latter Diodonis gives an aocoant. It was 'probably the i^assilian Greeks that converted Icp-yi} into *l4pa N^cror. See Hiberhia. The Byzantine historians will be noticed in the seqnel. IV. ObIOIN of THIC WORD BBITAimiA. Snpporing the Phoenicians to have been the first who informed the Greeks of a coantxy named Britain, who informed the Phoenicians? in other words, in what hmgnage did the names BritamU and Bri- tannia originate? The nsoal doctrine is that these were native terms; u «. that the occupants of the British Islands called themselves so, and were there- fore so called hj their neighboors. Yet this is hj no means certain. The most certain fact connected with the gloss is that it was Greek before it was Roman. Whence did the Greeks get it? From one of two sonroes. From the Phoenicians, if thej had it anterior to the fonndation of Marseilles, and from the population of the parts aroond that dtj in case they got it sub- sequent to that event Now, if it were Phoenician, whence came it originally? More probably fhrni Spain than from either Gaul or Britain — in which case Britannia is the Iberic name for oertun British islanders rather than the native one. It may, of course, liave been native as well: whether it were so is a separate question. And if it were Massilian (i. e. from the neigh- bourhood of Marseilles), whence came it ? Probably from the Gauls of the parts around. But this b only a probability. It may have been Iberie even then; since it is well known that the Iberians of the Spanish Peninsula extended so far westward as the Lower Rhone. Hence, as the question stands at present, the presumption is rather in favour of the word being Iberic. Again, the ybrm is Iberic. The termmation -eon, comparatively rare in Gaul, abounds in the geo- graphy of ancient Iberia ; e. g, Turde-tofi-i, Garpe- tof»-i, &c. In all speculations upon the etymology of words, the preliminary question as to the language to which the word under notice is to be referred is of importance. In the present instance it is emi- nently so. If the root BriL be Gallic (or Keltic), the current etymologies, at least, deserve notice. If, however, it be Iboric, the philologist has been on the wrong track altogether, has looked in the wrong language for his doctrine, and must correct his cri- ticism by abandoning the Keltic, and having recourse to the Basque. Again, if the word be Iberic, the < is no part of the root, but only an inflexional element. Lest, however, we overvalue the import of the form -ton being Iberic, we must remember that the stmihurly-formed name Aqui-tof»-ia, occuxb in Gaul ; but, on the other hand, lest we overvalue the import of this, we most remember that AquiUmia itself may possibly be Iberic Probably the word was Iberic and Gallic as well. It was certainly Gallic in Caesar's time. But it may have been Gallic without having been native, «. e. British. And tliis was probi^Iy the case. There is not a shadow of evidence to the fact of any part of the population of the British Isles having called themselves Britons. They were called so by the Gauls; and the Gallic name was adopted by the Romans. This was alL The name may have been strange to the people to whom it was so iq>* BRITANNICAE INSULAE. plied, as tlie word Welth is to the natives of the Cambro-Briton principality. Probably, too, it was only until the tiade of Massilia had become developed that the root Brit/ was known at all. As long as the route was viA Spain, and the trade exclusively Phoenician, the most prominent of the British isles was Ireland, The Orphic extract speaks only to the lemian Isles, and Hoodotua only to the Cassiterides. y. The txh-trade of Britain. One of the instruments in the reconstmction of the history of the early commerce and the early civilising influences of Britun is to be found in the fiu^ of its being one of the few localities of a scantily-diffused metal — tin. This, like the amber of the coasts of Prussia and Goivland, helps us by means of archaeo- logy to history. Yet it is traversed by the fiM:t of the same metal being found in the far east — in Banca and the Malayan peninsula. Hence, when we find amongst the antiquities of Assyria and Egypt — the countries of pre-eminent antiquity— vessds and im- plements of bronze, the inference that the tin of that alloy wa4 of British origin is by no means indubita- ble. It is strengthened indeed by our knowledge of an actual trade between Phoenicia and Cornwall; but still it is not unexceptionable. When, however, writers so early as Herodotus describe tin as a branch of Phoenician traffic in the fifth century b.c., we may reasonably carry its origin to an earlier date; a date which, whatever may be the antiquity of the Aegyptian and Assyrian alloys, is still reason- able. An early British trade is a known fact, an equally early Indian one a probability. In round numbers we may lay the beginning of the Phoenician intercourse with Cornwall at B.a lOOO^w- The next question is the extent to *which the metallurgic skill thus inferred was native. So far as this was the case, it is undoubtedly a measure of our indigenous civilisation. Now if we remember that it was almost wholly for tin that the Phoenician s ^ght the Cassiterides, we shall find it xutticult to deny to the earliest population of the tin-districts some knowledge and practice — ^no matter how slight — of metallurgic art; otherwise, it must have been either an instinct or an accident that brought the first vessel from the Mediterranean to the coast of Cornwall. Some amount, then, of indigenous me- tallui^ may be awarded to its occupants. Perhaps they had the art of smelting copper as well — though the reasoning in &vour of this view is of the d priori kind. Copper is a metal which is generally the first to be worked by rude nations; so that whenever a metal less reducible is smelted, it is fair to assume that Ihe more reducible ore is smelted also. On the other hand, however, the absence of pure copper implements in the old tvmtiU suggests the notion that either the art of alloying was as old as that of smelting, or else that tin was smelted first From the knowledge of reduction and alloys, we may proceed to the questicm as to the knowledge of the art of casting. The main fiust here is the discovery of moulds, both of stone and bronze, for the casting of axes and spear-heads. The former we can scared j suppose to have been imported, whatever opinion we may entertain respecting the latter. Whether the invention, however, of either was British, or whether the Phoenicians showed the way, is uncertain. The