The extant writers anterior to the time of Julius CÆsar, in whose works notice of the British islands are to be found, are, at most, but four in number. They are all, of course, Greek.

Herodotus is the earliest. He writes "of the extremities of Europe towards the west, I cannot speak with certainty ... nor am I acquainted with the islands Cassiterides, from which tin is brought to us."[3]—iii. 115.

Aristotle is the second. "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules," he tells us, "the ocean flows round the earth; in this ocean, however, are two islands, and those very large, called Britannic, Albion and Ierne, which are larger than those beforementioned, and lie beyond the Celti; and other two not less than these, Taprobane, beyond the Indians, lying obliquely in respect of the main land, and that called Phebol, situate over against[39] the Arabic Gulf; moreover not a few small islands, around the Britannic Isles and Iberia, encircle as with a diadem this earth; which we have already said to be an island."—De Mundo, §. 3.

Polybius comes next. "Perhaps, indeed, some will inquire why, having made so long a discourse concerning places in Libya and Iberia, we have not spoken more fully of the outlet at the Pillars of Hercules, nor of the interior sea, and of the peculiarities which occur therein, nor yet indeed of the Britannic Isles, and the working of tin; nor again, of the gold and silver mines of Iberia; concerning which writers, controverting each other, have discoursed very largely."—iii. 57.

Lastly come half-a-dozen lines of doubtful antiquity, which the editors of the "Monumenta Britannica" have excluded from their series of extracts, on the score of their being taken from a non-existent or impossible author—a bard of no less importance than Orpheus. The ship Argo is supposed to speak, and say—

An important sentence occurs a few lines lower. The British Isles are spoken of—

[40]This will be noticed in the sequel.

No reason for excluding these lines lies in the fact of their being forgeries. Provided that they were composed before the time of CÆsar, the authorship matters but little. If, as is the common practice, we attribute them to Onomacritus, a cotemporary of Mardonius and Miltiades, they are older than the notice of Herodotus.

It cannot be denied that these data for the times anterior to CÆsar are scanty. A little consideration will shew that they can be augmented. Between the time of Julius CÆsar and Claudius—a period of nearly a hundred years—no new information concerning Britain beyond that which was given by CÆsar himself, found its way to Rome; since neither Augustus nor Tiberius followed up the aggressions of the Great Dictator. Consequently, the notices in the "Bellum Gallicum" exhaust the subject as far as it was illustrated by any Roman observers. Now if we find in any writer of the time of Augustus or Tiberius, notices of our island which can not be traced to CÆsar, they must be referred to other and earlier sources; and may be added to the list of the Greek authorities.

If we limit these overmuch, we confine ourselves unnecessarily. Inquiry began as early as the days of Herodotus; and opportunities increased as time advanced. The Baltic seems to have been visited when Aristotle wrote; and between[41] his era and that of Polybius the intellectual activity of the Alexandrian Greeks had begun to work upon many branches of science—upon none more keenly than physical geography.

From the beginning of the Historical period, the first-hand information—for it is almost superfluous to remark that none of the Greek authors speak from personal observation—flows from two sources; from the inhabitants of western and southern Gaul, and from the Phoenicians. The text of Herodotus suggests this. In the passage which has been quoted, he speaks of the Kassiterides; and Kassiterides is a term which a Phoenician only would have used. No Gaul would have understood the meaning of the word. It was the Asiatic name for either tin itself, or for some tin-like alloy; and the passage wherein it occurs is one which follows a notice of Africa.

In two other passages, however, the consideration of the populations and geography of Western Europe is approached from another quarter. The course of the Danube is under notice, and this is what is said:—

"The river Ister, beginning with the Kelts, and the city of Pyrene, flows so as to cut Europe in half. But the Kelts are beyond the Pillars of Hercules; and they join the Kynesii, who are the furthest inhabitants of Europe towards the setting-sun."—ii. 33.[42]

"The Ister flows through the whole of Europe, beginning with the Kelts who, next to the KynetÆ, dwell furthest west in Europe."—iv. 49.

The KynetÆ have reasonably been identified with the Veneti of CÆsar, whose native name is Gwynedd, and whose locality, in Western Brittany, exactly coincides with the notice of Herodotus. If so, the name is Gallic, and (as such) in all probability transmitted to Herodotus from Gallic informants. So that there were two routes for the earliest information about Britain—the overland line (so to say), whereon the intelligence was of Gallic origin; and the way of the Mediterranean, wherein the facts were due to the merchants of Tyre, Carthage, or Gades. Direct information, too, may have been derived from the Greeks of Marseilles, though the evidence for this is wanting.

The two foremost writers to whose texts the preceding observations have been preliminary, are Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, both of whom lived during the reign of Augustus, too early for any information over and above that which was to be found in the pages of CÆsar. Yet as each contains much that CÆsar never told, and, perhaps, never knew, the immediate authorities must be supposed to be geographical writers of Alexandria, one of whom, Eratosthenes, is quoted by CÆsar himself; the remoter ones being the[43] Phoenician and Gallic traders. The thoroughly Phoenician origin of the statement of these two authors is well collected from the following extracts, which we must consider to be as little descriptive of the Britannia of CÆsar and the Romans, as they are of the Britannia of the year 51 B.C. CÆsar's Britain is Kent, in the last half-century before the Christian era. Diodorus' Britain is Cornwall, some 300 years earlier. "They who dwell near the promontory of Britain, which is called Belerium, are singularly fond of strangers; and, from their intercourse with foreign merchants, civilized in their habits. These people obtain the tin by skilfully working the soil which produces it; this being rocky, has earthy interstices, in which, working the ore and then fusing, they reduce it to metal; and when they have formed it into cubical shapes they convey it to certain islands lying off Britain, named Ictis; for at the low tides, the intervening space being laid dry, they carry thither in waggons the tin in great abundance. A singular circumstance happens with respect to the neighbouring islands lying between Europe and Britain; for, at the high tides, the intervening passage being flooded, they seem islands; but at the low tides, the sea retreating and leaving much space dry, they appear peninsulas. From hence the merchants purchase the tin from the natives, and carry it across into Gaul;[44] and finally journeying by land through Gaul for about thirty days, they convey their burdens on horses to the outlet of the river Rhone."—v. 21, 22.

So is Strabo's.—"The Cassiterides are ten in number, and lie near each other in the ocean, towards the north from the haven of the Artabri. One of them is a desert, but the others are inhabited by men in black cloaks, clad in tunics reaching to the feet, and girt about the breast. Walking with staves, and bearded like goats; they subsist by their cattle, leading for the most part a wandering life. And having metals of tin and lead, these and skins they barter with the merchants for earthenware, and salt, and brazen vessels. Formerly the Phoenicians alone carried on this traffic from Gadeira, concealing the passage from every one; and when the Romans followed a certain ship-master, that they also might find the mart, the ship-master, out of jealousy, purposely ran his vessel upon a shoal, and leading on those who followed him into the same destructive disaster, he himself escaped by means of a fragment of the ship, and received from the State the value of the cargo he had lost. But the Romans, nevertheless, making frequent efforts, discovered the passage; and as soon as Publius Crassus, passing over to them, perceived that the metals were dug out at a little depth, and that the men being at peace were already beginning, in consequence of[45] their leisure, to busy themselves about the sea, he pointed out this passage to such as were willing to attempt it, although it was longer than that to Britain."—Lib. iii. p. 239.

Pliny is, to a great degree, in the same predicament with Strabo and Diodorus. Some of the statements which are not common to him and CÆsar, are undoubtedly referrible to the information which the conquest of Britain under Claudius supplied. Yet the greater part of them is old material—Greek in origin, and, as such, referrible to Western rather than Eastern Britain, and to the era of the Carthaginians rather than the Romans. Solinus' account is of this character; his Britain being Western Britain and Ireland almost exclusively.

A poem of Festus Avienus, itself no earlier than the end of the fourth century, concludes the list of those authors who represent the predecessors of CÆsar in the description of Britain. Recent as it is, it is important; since some of the details are taken from the voyage of Himilco, a Carthaginian. He supplies us with a commentary upon the word Demeter, in the so-called Orphic poem—a commentary which will soon be exhibited.

The points then of contact between the British Isles and the Continent of Europe, were two in number. They were far apart, and the nations that visited them were different. Both, indeed,[46] were in the south; but one was due east, the other due west. The first, or Kentish Britain, was described late, described by CÆsar, commercially and politically connected with Gaul, and known to a great extent from Gallic accounts. The second, or Cornish Britain, was in political and commercial relation with the Phoenician portions of Spain and Africa, or with Phoenicia itself; was known to the cotemporaries of Herodotus, and was associated with Ireland in more than one notice. Both were British. But who shall answer for the uniformity of manners throughout? It is better to be on our guard against the influence of general terms, and to limit rather than extend certain accounts of early writers. A practice may be called British, and yet be foreign to nine-tenths of the British Islands. There were war-chariots in Kent and in Aberdeenshire, and so far war-chariots were part of the British armoury; but what authority allows us to attribute to the old Cornishmen and Devonians? Better keep to particulars where we can.

As the ancient name for the populations of Cornwall and Devonshire was Damnonii, the Damnonii will be dealt with separately. It will be time enough to call them Britons when a more general term becomes necessary. Two-thirds of the notice of them have been given already in the extracts from Strabo and Diodorus, in which the[47] long beards and black dress must be noticed for the sake of contrast. No such description would suit the Britons of the eastern coast.

The so-called Orphic poem places the wide houses of the goddess Demeter in Britain. Standing by itself, this is a mysterious passage. But it has been said that an extract from Avienus will help to explain it—

There were maddening orgies amongst the sacred rites of the Britons—orgies, that whilst they reminded one writer of the Bacchic dances, reminded another of the worship of Demeter. That these belonged to the western Britons is an inference from the fact of their being mentioned by the Greek writers, i.e., from those who drew most from Phoenician authorities. Avienus, as we have seen, thinks of the BacchÆ as a parallel. So does Pausanius—

So does Dionysius Periegetes; indeed the three accounts seem all referrible to one source. But[48] not so Strabo. That writer, or rather his authority Artemidorus, finds his parallel in Ceres. "Artemidorus states, with regard to Ceres and Proserpine, what is more worthy of credit. For he says, that there is an island near Britain wherein are celebrated sacred rites, similar to such as are celebrated in Samothrace to these goddesses."

Strabo's—or rather Artemidorus'—parallel is the same as that of the Orphic poem, and, probably, is referrible to the same source. Damnonian Britain, then, or the tin-country, had its orgies—orgies which may as easily have been Phoenician as indigenous, and as easily indigenous as Phoenician: orgies, too, may have been wholly independent of Druidism, and representative of another superstition.

Between the Damnonian Britons of the Land's-end and the Britons of Kent, as described by CÆsar, there may or there may not have been strong points of contrast. That there were several minor points of difference is nearly certain. The a priori probabilities arising from the peculiarities of their industrial occupations and commercial relations suggest the view; the historical notices confirm rather than invalidate it. Fragments, however, of this history is all that can be collected. We have followed the Alexandrian critics in the west; let us now follow a personal[49] observer in the east, CÆsar—himself a great part of the events that he describes. The Britons of Kent first appear as either tributaries or subjects to one of the Gallic chiefs, Divitiacus, king of the Suessiones, or people of Soissons in Champagne; so that they are the members of a considerable empire, or at least of an important political confederation, before a single Roman plants his foot on their island. But the vassalage is either partial or nominal, nor is it limited to the members of the Belgic branch of the Gauls; for the Veneti were a people of Brittany, whose name is still preserved under the form Vannes, the name of a Breton district, and who were true Galli. Yet, in the next year, they call upon the Britons for assistance, which is afforded them, in the shape of ships and sailors; the Veneti being amongst the most maritime of the Gallic populations.

In looking at these two alliances it may, perhaps, be allowed us to suppose that the parts most under the control of Divitiacus were the districts that lay nearest to him, Kent and Herts; whereas it was the southern coast that was in so intimate a relation with the Veneti. This is what I meant when I said that the sovereignty of Divitiacus might have been partial.

CÆsar prepares to punish the islanders for their assistance to his continental enemies;[50] partly tempted by the report of the value of the British pearls, a fact which indicates commerce and trade between the two populations. The Britons send ambassadors, whom CÆsar sends back, and along with them Commius the Attrebatian, a man of the parts about Artois. Commius the Crooked, as, possibly, he was named, from the Keltic Cam, and a namesake of the valiant Welshman David Gam, who fought so valiantly more than 1300 years afterwards at Agincourt. He was a king of CÆsar's own making, and had had dealings with the Britons before; with whom he had, also, considerable authority. From him CÆsar seems to have obtained his chief preliminary information. But he applied to traders as well; telling us, however, that it was only the coast of Britain that was at all well known. He is resisted and cut off from supplies at landing, and unexpectedly attacked after he has succeeded in doing so. So that he finds reason to respect both the valour and the prudence of his opponents; and, eventually leaves the country for Gaul, having demanded hostages from the different States. Two, only, send them.

The following year the invasion is repeated. In the first we had a few details, but no names of either the clans, or their chief. The second is more fruitful in both. It gives us the campaign of Cassibelaunus. The most formidable[51] part of the British armoury was the war-chariots. These were driven up and down, before and into, the hostile ranks, by charioteers sufficiently skilful to keep steady in rough places and declivities, to take up their master when pressed, to wheel round and return to the charge with dangerous dexterity. Meanwhile the master, himself, either hurled his javelins on the enemy from a short distance, or jumping from the chariot—from the body or yoke indifferently—descended on the ground, and fought single-handed. When pressed by the cavalry they retreated to the woods; which, in many cases, were artificially strengthened by stockades.

About eighty miles from the sea, CÆsar reached the boundaries of the kingdom of Cassibelaunus, now the head of the whole Britannic Confederacy; but until the discordant populations became united by a sense of their common danger, an aggressive and ambitious warrior, involved in continuous hostilities with the populations around. His name is evidently compound. The termination, -belaunus, or -belinus, we shall meet with again. The Cass- is not unreasonably supposed to exist at the present moment in the name of the Hundred of Cassio, in Herts (whence Cassio-bury).

This is the first British proper name. The next is that of the Trinobantes—beginning with[52] the common Keltic prefix (tre-) meaning place. Imanuentius, the king, had been slain in some previous act of aggression by Cassibelaunus, and his son Mandubratius had fled to CÆsar whilst in Gaul. He is now restored upon giving hostages.

In the list which follows of the population who sent hostages to CÆsar, we find the name of the Cassi; which suggests the notion of Cassibelaunus' own subjects have become unfaithful to him. The others are Cenimagni, the Segontiaci, the Ancalites, and the Bibroci.

CÆsar seems now to be in Hertfordshire, west of London, i.e., about Cassio-bury, the stockaded village, or head-quarters, of Cassibelaunus—Cassibelaunus himself being in Kent. Here he succeeds in exciting four chiefs, Cingetorix (observe the Keltic termination, -orix), Carvilius, Taximagulus, and Segonax, to attack the ships; in which attempt they are repulsed with the loss of one of their principal men, Lugot-orix.

The campaign ends in CÆsar coming to terms with Cassibelaunus, forbidding any attacks during his absence on Mandubratius and the Trinobantes, and returning to Gaul with hostages.

From an incidental notice of the British boats in a different part of CÆsar's books, we learn that those on the Thames, like those on the Severn, were made of wicker-work and hides—coracles in short; and from a passage of Avienus we learn[53] that the Severn boats were like those of the Thames—

CÆsar's conquest was to all intents and purposes no conquest at all. Nevertheless, Augustus received British ambassadors, and, perhaps, a nominal tribute. Probably, this was on the strength of the dependence of the Eastern Britons on some portion of Gaul. At any rate, there was no invasion.

The latter part of the reign of Tiberius, and the short one of Caligula, give us the palmy period for native Britain—the reign of Cynobelin, the father of Caractacus, the last of her independent kings.

Coins have been found in many places; but as it is not always certain that they were not Gallic, the proofs of a very early coinage in Britain is inconclusive. Indeed, the notion that the tin trade—to which may be added that in fur and salt—was carried on by barter is the more probable. But the coins of Cynobelin are numerous. They have been well illustrated;[4] are of gold and silver; and whether stamped in Gaul or Britain,[54] indicate civilization of commerce and industry. The measure of the progress of Britain from the Stone period upwards, partly referrible to indigenous development, partly to Gallic, and partly to Phoenician, intercourse, is to be found in these coins. It is the civilization of a brave people endowed with the arts of agriculture and metallurgy, capable of considerable political organization, and with more than one point of contact with the continent—their war-chariots, their language, and their Druidism being their chief distinctive characters. Iron was in use at this time—though, perhaps, it was rare.

The conquests under Claudius carry us over new localities; and they are related by a great historian, with more than ordinary means of information. In Tacitus we read the accounts of Agricola. Yet the information, with the exception of a few interesting details, is confirmatory of what we have been told before, rather than suggestive of any essential differences between the Britons of the interior and the Britons of the southern coast. The war-chariot was limited to certain districts. The rule of a woman was tolerated. The wives and mothers looked-on upon the battles of the husbands and daughters. They may be said, indeed, to have shared in them. Their cries, and shrieks, and reproaches, their dishevelled hair, all helped to stimulate the warriors,[55] who opposed Suetonius Paulinus in the fastnesses of the Isle of Anglesey. The Druids added fuel to the fiery energy thus excited. There was the political organization that consolidates kingdoms. There was the spirit of faction which disintegrates them. As were the Brigantes, so were the Iceni; as were the Iceni, so were the Silures and Ordovices. The same family likeness runs throughout; likeness in essentials, difference in detail. In Caledonia the hair was flaxen; in South Wales curled and black. The complexion too was florid, from which Tacitus has drawn certain inferences.

The conquests under Vespasian carry us further still into Scotland, and to the Grampians, against the Caledonians under Galgacus. The extent to which they differed from the Britons is not to be collected from the account of Tacitus. We expect that they will be as brave; but ruder. Still, the details which we get from the life of Agricola are few. They fought from chariots, and their swords were broad and blunt. As the swords of the Bronze period were thin and pointed, this is an argument in favour of iron having become the usual material for warlike weapons as far north as the Grampians. The historical testimony to the inferior civilization of the North Britons, or Caledonians, is to be found in a later writer, Dio Cassius, in his history[56] of the campaigns of Severus. "Amongst the Britons the two greatest tribes are the Caledonians and the MÆatÆ; for even the names of the others, as may be said, have merged in these. The MÆatÆ dwell close to the wall which divides the island into two parts; the Caledonians beyond them. Each of these people inhabit mountains wild and waterless, and plains desert and marshy, having neither walls nor cities, nor tilth, but living by pasturage, by the chase, and on certain berries; for of their fish, though abundant and inexhaustible, they never taste. They live in tents, naked and barefooted, having wives in common, and rearing the whole of their progeny. Their state is chiefly democratical, and they are above all things delighted by pillage; they fight from chariots, having small swift horses; they fight also on foot, are very fleet when running, and most resolute when compelled to stand; their arms consist of a shield and a short spear, having a brazen knob at the extremity of a shaft, that when shaken it may terrify the enemy by its noise; they use daggers also; and are capable of enduring hunger, thirst, and hardships of every description; for when plunged in the marshes they abide there many days, with their heads only out of water; and in the woods they subsist on bark and roots; they prepare, for all emergencies,[57] a certain kind of food, of which, if they eat only so much as the size of a bean, they neither hunger nor thirst. Such, then, is the Island Britannia, and such the inhabitants of that part of it which is hostile to us."

Of Ireland, we have no definite accounts till much later, so that, with the exception of a few details, the characteristics of the social condition of that island must be inferred from the analogy of Great Britain, and from the subsequent history of the Irish. Now a rough view of even the British characteristics is all that has been attempted in the present chapter. No historic events have been narrated, except so far as they elucidate some national or local habit; and no such habits and customs have been noted unless they could be referred to some particular branch of our populations; for the object has been specification rather than generalization, the indication of certain Cornubian, Kentish, or Caledonian peculiarities rather than of British ones. At the same time, the fact that all the occupants of the British Islands are referrible to the great Keltic stock, implies the likelihood of these differences lying within a comparatively small compass.

The step that comes next is the history of the stock itself.

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