Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/71

Rh These remarkable discoveries,and especially the Roman coins on the one hand and the Anglo-Saxon on the other, show that the great trade of Gotland was continuous from the Roman period to the later Saxon time in England. Its commercial prosperity as the chief centre of maritime trade in the North of Europe must consequently have extended over the whole period of the attacks on Britain by the Saxons, Angles, Jutes or Goths, and Danes. There can, indeed, be little doubt that such a maritime centre as the island was during the fifth and succeeding centuries furnished ships for the invasions and settlement of England by Goths and their allies. Gotland was no ordinary island, and Wisby, its great part, was no ordinary seaport. It must have exercised no ordinary influenue on maritime affairs in Northern Europe during the time it flourished, and this influence certainly extended to England. The Goths and other Teutonic people of the Baltic are brought under very early notice by Pytheas, the renowned navigator of Marseilles, in the fourth century B.C. He tells us that he sailed up the Baltic in search of the amber coast, rounding the cape of what is now called Jutland, and proceeding about 6,000 stadia along the coasts of the Guttones and Teutones. As the date of this voyage was about 325 B.C., the account shows that Goths and Teutons at that early time were known names for Northern races.

The relations of the Goths and the Vandals is important, and must be fully considered in reference to any part of Europe that was conquered and settled by the former nation, which was more advanced in civilization and the arts than their allies. The Goths invented runes, and so established among Northern races the art of writing, and they were skilled metallurgists and gilders. The Vandals of the Baltic coast whom they conquered were a less advanced people, but a lasting peace appears to have been formed between them, and to have been