Page:Notes and Queries - Series 7 - Volume 12.djvu/89

7th S. XII., '91.] LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 1891.

—No 292.

THE CASSITERIDES. (See 6th S. x. 261, 378, 458, 523.)

As the question of the alleged existence of Phœnician remains in South Devon is once more to the fore, further correspondence on the Cassiterides may perhaps be of some interest at the present moment.

I am glad to learn that Mr. Thorpe's pamphlet is in type, and fondly hope that his argument is founded on a broader basis than the mere finding of a solitary idol of doubtful Phœnician provenance and the sound of one or two place-names. If theories built up on such treacherous data were allowed to pass unchallenged, we might, at no distant date, see Ball's Pond blossom forth as an old Phœnician colony, especially if some learned antiquary should have the good fortune to discover a Tyrian idol lost by some careless curio hunter near Dalston Junction.

To resume the discussion on the Cassiterides. Your correspondent at the first reference finds fault with Mr. Elton for seeking to dispel the old illusion, and speaks of "our traditional connexion with the prehistoric Cassiterides of Europe." Some evidence should be forthcoming to prove that the "tradition" is older than Camden, who was the first among writers, ancient or modern, who identified the "long sought for" Cassiterides with the Scilly Islands. But though this was only one of many random guesses for which the 'Britannia' is so notorious, the "tradition" has taken firm root and cannot easily be eradicated.

Strabo says the Cassiterides were ten in number; according to Camden's own computation there are one hundred and forty-five Scilly Isles. But he disposes of the difficulty by selecting ten as the more important of the group and disregarding the rest as wholly insignificant.

There is another difficulty. There is no tin to be found in the Scilly Islands, and Cornish antiquaries have so far, I believe, failed to discover any ancient workings. This serious objection is met by Camden's supporters with the naive statement that there is plenty of tin to be found in the "adjacent" peninsula, Cornwall to wit, which with its numerous promontories could be easily mistaken for a group of islands "by strangers." But the Phœnicians were, we are told, regular traders to Cornwall, and not strangers; the nearest point of the "adjacent" peninsula is about thirty miles from the Scilly Isles, and if they were such clever navigators they could not possibly have committed such a strange geographical blunder.

Too much importance is generally attached to the well-known passage in Strabo, wherein the Cassiterides are described as situate north of the Artabri (i.e., near Cape Finisterre, in modern Galicia), "somewhere within the Britannic climate." But, as Hillebrand has pointed out, in order to be able to understand the meaning of this statement it is essential that one should consult a map embodying Strabo's ideas of the configuration of Europe such a one, for instance, as that prefixed to C. Müller's careful edition of the ancient geographer's works. If any doubt should be left in our minds as to the exact site where Strabo fancied the Cassiterides were situate, we have only to refer to his description of them and see in what order he enumerates them. They are mentioned at the end of the third book in connexion with other islands adjacent to Spain, as Gades and the fabulous isle of Erytheia. Gaul and Britain are treated of in the next book.

If further evidence were required to show where geographers living at the beginning of the Christian era placed the Tin Islands, we may refer to Diodorus Siculus, who was a contemporary of Strabo, and who, after a fairly detailed account of the British tin trade round about Bolerium Promontory, mentions the Cassiterides as lying above Lusitania in the ocean over against Iberia.