Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 69.djvu/146

138 As to the first point, Diodorus Siculus (ii, 47) has preserved a state- ment of Hecatseus in which Stonehenge alone can by any probability be referred to.

" We think that no one will consider it foreign to our subject to say a word respecting the Hyperboreans.

" Amongst the writers who have occupied themselves with the mythology of the ancients, Hecatieus and some others tell us that opposite the land of the Celts [er rots avrnrtpy.v r>ys KeXriKTJs TO-OIS] there exists in the Ocean an island not smaller than Sicily, and which, situated under the constellation of The Bear, is inhabited by the Hyper- boreans ; so called because they live beyond the point from which the North wind blows. ... If one may believe the same mythology, Latona was born in this island, and for that reason the inhabitants honour Apollo more than any other deity. A sacred enclosure [vi/o-ov] is dedicated to him in the island, as well as a magnificent circular temple adorned with many rich offerings. . . . The Hyperboreans are in general very friendly to the Greeks."

The Hecatneus above referred to was probably Hecatseus of Abdera, in Thrace, fourth century B.C. ; a friend of Alexander the Great. This Hecatreus is said to have Avritten a history of the Hyperboreans : that it was Hecatteus of Miletus, an historian of the sixth century B.C., is less likely.

As to the second point, although we cannot go so far back in evidence of the power and civilisation of the Britons, there is an argument of some value to be drawn from the fine character of the coinage issued by British kings early in the second century B.C., and from the state- ment of Julius Caesar (' De Bello Gallico,' vi, p. 13) that in the schools of the Druids the subjects taught included the movements of the stars, the size of the earth and the nature of things (Multa praeterea de sideribus et eorum motu, de mundi magnitudine, de rerum natura, de deorum immortalium vi ac potestate disputant et juventuti tradunt).

Studies of such a character seem quite consistent with, and to demand, a long antecedent period of civilisation.

The chief evidence lies in the fact that an "avenue," as it is called, formed by two ancient earthen banks, extends for a considerable dis- tance from the structure, in the general direction of the sunrise at the summer solstice, precisely in the same way as in Egypt a long avenue of sphinxes indicates the principal outlook of a temple.

These earthen banks defining the avenue do not exist alone. As will be seen from the plan which accompanies this paper, there is a general common line of direction for the avenue and the principal axis of the structure, and the general design of the building, together with the position and shape of the Naos, indicate a close connection of the whole temple structure with the direction of the avenue. There may have been other pylon and screen equivalents as in ancient temples,