attention to the eastern banks of the Rhine. Caesar and Tacitus speak of
Gauls dwelling in southern Germany, and expressly state that they spoke
Gallic. One of these nations is the _Aravisci_; another the _Boii_,
probably in Bohemia, but elsewhere also. These Boians appear as a great
people on the Danube as well as in Italy, whereas in Gaul itself there
are but few traces of them. No one can deny emigration in this instance,
where a nation diverges in two opposite directions, the one dwelling
on the north, and the other on the south of the Alps. The Boians were
afterwards extirpated, and that probably by the Cymri. The _Norici_ in
Carniola and Carinthia, are likewise mentioned as Gauls under Gallic
kings; after the period of the Hannibalian war, about the time of the
foundation of Aquileia, they were on terms of friendship with the
Romans. They occupied the country from the frontiers of Italy as far
as the Danube, but were not connected on their Italian frontier with
the other Gallic tribes, being separated from them by the Raetians and
Vindelicians. In the east, however, they were connected with a succession
of Gallic tribes, and probably in the west also, that is, in the north
of the Vindelicians and of the Danube. The _Vindelici_ were a Liburnian
people, north of the Raetians at the foot of the Brenner, and probably
in Bavaria also; but their frontier on the northern slope of the Alps
and farther towards the Danube cannot be defined. In the east of the
Norici, we find the _Taurisci_, and further on, the _Scordisci_, both
terrible nations, which for two centuries (down to the seventh century of
Rome) spread terror far and wide among the nations of those parts. The
Scordiscans were extirpated by the Romans in an internecine war, or at
least so much reduced that afterwards the Getae completely annihilated
them: in the first century after Christ, they can scarcely be said to
have existed at all. These nations appear in those countries at a time
of which Caesar speaks as of a bygone age, that is, about Olymp. 100,
soon after the Gauls had taken possession of Gallia Cisalpina. The time
at which the tide of migration from the west crossed the Rhine, cannot
be determined, but after it had once commenced it continued to flow
to far distant countries in the east. Some of the tribes established
themselves in the districts they had conquered, while others pressed
onward, until they met with some insurmountable obstacle. The Tauriscans
and Scordiscans displaced the Triballians, and extirpated the greater
part of the Illyrians, while they subdued the rest; for a period of two
centuries they then ruled over those countries as far as the frontiers of
Macedonia, and at times over Macedonia itself; afterwards, when Rome had
destroyed the kingdom of Macedonia, they even invaded Greece. About the
end of the fifth century of Rome, they dwelt for a time in Macedonia,
until they were expelled by Antigonus Gonatas. In like manner they
subdued Thrace, which thus was a Gallic empire until the middle of the
sixth century of Rome, when it was completely destroyed. All the foreign
tribes which we meet with in Asia Minor, and which for a period of fifty
years traversed Western Asia like nomades, belong to the same current of
migration which left behind the Tauriscans and Scordiscans, and overran
Thrace; they threw themselves into Asia, and settling in Phrygia, there
formed what was afterwards called _Galatia_. They were gradually tamed
by the kings of Pergamus, by time, and by the Asiatic climate and mode
of life. After the war with Antiochus, the Romans took the opportunity
to attack them for the purpose of protecting the people of Western Asia
and of preventing any germs of development being formed there. Now
whether the Gauls whom we afterwards meet with on the north bank of the
Danube, were a branch of that great current, which in its onward course
became divided, turning on the right into Thrace, and on the left into
Wallachia, is a question concerning which we can only form conjectures.
It certainly is possible: but it is also possible that another migration
may have spread in the north of the Carpathians. But it is an undoubted
fact, that, during the sixth century of Rome, at the time of the wars
of Philip and Perseus, the great nation of the _Bastarnae_ dwelt on
the lower Danube and in Wallachia. From the monuments of Olbia, in the
neighbourhood of the modern Odessa, on the Dniepr, it is manifest that at
the time when the great inscription was set up, Olbia was inhabited by
Gauls; and among them are mentioned the _Sciri_, who afterwards, during
the great migration of nations, are spoken of along with the Rugians.
Unfortunately the inscription bears no date, though it probably belongs
to the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century of
Rome: at that time, then, the Gauls extended as far as the Ukraine. The
first thirty years of the seventh century must be regarded as the end
of that migration; hence the expedition of the Cimbri, that is, Cymri,
belongs to that period, for most of those Gallic tribes were, no doubt,
Cymri, and the names of their chiefs are Cymric. This supposition also
agrees with the account of Posidonius, that the Cimbri (Cymri) came
from the Euxine.[74] The Bastarnae remained in the country about the
Carpathians until the time of Tacitus, and maintained themselves against
the Sarmatian immigration, which first set the Cymri in motion. I have
written a separate treatise on the migration of the Sarmatians.[75] In
Herodotus we find the Scythians on the Tanais as far as the Banat, all
Moldavia and Wallachia was occupied by them, and the Triballians are
found in Lower Hungary; but, afterwards, the latter occur in Moldavia,
the Getae in Wallachia, and the Celts between these two. The different
periods, therefore, must be carefully distinguished.
Johannes Müller was the first to propound the correct view about the
Cimbri, maintaining that they were not Germans, but Celts, and that they
did not come from the north. The work in which he proves this was his
earliest production, and at the same time his most critical one, but he
does not understand the nature of the Gallic migration. The Teutones were
unquestionably Germans.
AFRICA.
CYRENAICA.
The coast of Libya between the Syrtes and Egypt, both begins and ends
with a narrow, inhabitable, and yet barren tract of land; but in the
middle, where the country reaches the northernmost parallel, it is
beautiful, inhabited, and of considerable breadth. The eastern coast of
the Syrtes is a complete sandy desert, still, however, not so much so
as to be totally uninhabitable; towards Egypt, the country is stony,
dry, and incapable of cultivation. But between Berenice and a little to
the east of Cyrene, it is beautiful, richly watered, and fertile. The
whole forms a slope; the interior of Africa is considerably elevated,
and the desert, too, where it is removed from the coast, is high, while
towards the coast the land sinks down; only the tract on which Cyrene is
situated, forms another table-land rich in wood and springs of water.
From Cyrene downwards to the sea, the country is likewise well watered
and capable of cultivation. The elevation of Cyrene is so considerable,
that the harvest time differs by a full month from that in the lower
country. The coast, however, is not so beautiful nor so well fitted to be
inhabited as the higher country.
CYRENE is situated at a distance of about ten English miles from the sea,
but the beautiful country extends much farther into the interior; in the
neighbourhood of Barca and Berenice, the fertile country is less broad.
There are different traditions about the first settlement at Cyrene;
according to one, the town was founded by Aristaeus and his mother
Cyrene, and according to another by the Antenorids. This we learn from
Pindar’s epinician hymns and his scholiasts; and these statements clearly
show, that either a Tyrrheno-Pelasgian settlement existed there before
the arrival of the Greeks, or at least that there was a belief that the
coast had previously been inhabited by Pelasgians. Confusions, like that
of Aristaeus with the Trojan Agenorids, also occur among other nations,
among whom Tyrrhenian traditions existed. These legends, moreover, show
different phases: according to one, the colonists who founded Cyrene
came from Thera, whereas, according to Apollonius Rhodius, in his
Argonautics, Triton, the Libyan god of the sea, gave to the Argonauts a
clod of earth, which, on being thrown by them into the sea, formed the
island of Thera. Here, then, we have again the same fluctuation as to
mother-city and colony, which we have seen so often. Afterwards Cyrene
was Doric, and unquestionably a colony of Thera. It was originally a
small settlement, but during the period of the great commotion in Greece,
about Olymp. 40, people from all parts of Greece flocked to Cyrene, being
invited to defend the colony against the Libyans. Cyrene thus became
great, and acquired the circumference which is still indicated by its
magnificent ruins. Its kings traced their origin to the heroic ages, and
are mentioned in history down to the Persian period, after which they
disappear. The isolated situation of Cyrene was extremely fortunate, and
few Greek cities have been visited by so few great calamities as Cyrene.
When the Persians ruled in Egypt, Cyrene was little more than nominally
dependent, for the deserts by which it was separated from Egypt, afforded
it the means of putting itself in a favourable relation to Persia. When
Egypt was governed by native kings, Cyrene was doubly well off, because
it was for the interest of the Egyptians to keep up a good understanding
with the Greeks. At the time of the overthrow of the Persian empire,
Cyrene placed itself under the protection of Alexander; afterwards it
fell into the hands of Magas, a half-brother of Ptolemy Soter, under whom
the country became very prosperous, because Greeks and Greek civilisation
withdrew to that coast. It then was for a time an Egyptian province, but
again emancipated itself; on which occasion it was severely ravaged.
Afterwards it became an appanage principality of the family of the
Ptolemies, until in the end it came under the dominion of Rome, under
whose rule it gradually decayed. In the history of Hadrian, we hear of
the subjugation of rebellious Jews in Cyprus and Cyrenaica, which may
have been one of the more immediate causes of the decay of Cyrene, so
that in the time of Synesius it appears as a deserted, inactive, and
insignificant place. Greek civilisation, however, maintained itself there
for a long time, as we see from the letters of Synesius, the talented
bishop of Cyrene in the fifth century. The city was at last destroyed
during the Arab conquest, and has never recovered since that time. At
present it is in a condition like that of Palmyra: the wandering Arabs
encamp among the ruins of its temples, and the few peasants living in the
neighbourhood destroy the monuments still more.
BERENICE is the westernmost place on the same coast. Three towns,
Berenice, Arsinoe, and Ptolemais, derived their names from members of
the royal family of Egypt. Berenice was a newly-built town, situated on
the frontier towards Carthage. At present not a trace of it remains,
but the ruins of ARSINOE, or Tauchira, are very numerous. According to
the description of Della Celia, a Genoese physician, the walls measure
three Italian miles in circumference, and are covered all over with
inscriptions. The most ample materials for history might be discovered
there. The origin of the town is unknown.
BARCA, founded in the reign of the third Arcesilaus, was an ἀποδασμὸς of
the Cyreneans, and for a long time hostile to Cyrene. Afterwards its
name was changed into _Ptolemais_, and it is still called _Tolometa_,
which arose out of _Ptolemaide_.
_Apollonia_ was the port town of Cyrene.
On the west, Cyrene bordered upon the great republic of
CARTHAGE.
The frontier between these two states was as natural as any can be
between two countries. The whole district from the bay of the lesser
Syrtis, or the country of Tripoli, is a deep sandy desert, of which
only a few parts, the neighbourhood of Tripoli, and the ancient Leptis,
are capable of cultivation. But agriculture there being limited to
sandy districts, produces nothing but _durra_, the African millet, and
palm trees, which succeed in sandy ground, if it is well watered. The
desert advances close to the coast, and the inhabitable coast tract is
interrupted and unequal. On the east of Leptis, where the desert retreats
farther into the interior and around the great Syrtis, the country forms
a real sea of sand, which is far more dangerous than the Sahara, where
the ground is for the most part firm; on this Syrtis, on the other hand,
persons sink deep into the sand at every step.
On the frontier there were boundary marks, called _Arae Philaenorum_. The
tradition about them was as follows:—Once the Cyreneans and Carthaginians
being involved in a dispute about their frontiers, determined to send
out men from the two extreme towns of their countries at the same
moment, agreeing that the point of their meeting should be the frontier.
This tradition is probably an invention, like so many other things
which Sallust relates from Punic authorities. The SYRTES are generally
described by the ancients, especially by the earlier Greeks, as one only.
The Syrtis, they say, has tides, and is a bay full of sand-banks, which
are sometimes sufficiently covered with water and sometimes rise above
the water like lagoons. The existence of tides in the Mediterranean has,
until recently, been denied, and all the statements of the ancients
regarding them have been rejected, as in general ancient geography,
about thirty or forty years ago, was treated with extreme recklessness.
Tides do exist beyond all doubt, but they occur in a very irregular
and unaccountable manner. They are very unequal: at Venice you may see
it every day, and during a spring tide, the water rises as much as one
foot and a half; it also exists in the Archipelago and in the Euripus
near Chalcis, where it comes from the north, which has given rise to the
story about the death of Aristotle.[76] It is said, that at Naples the
tides are not perceptible, but that at Antium they are, especially when
there is a spring tide. The peculiarity of the Syrtes, which the ancients
asserted, and which moderns have denied, is that a current runs into the
Syrtes and thus throws vessels on the sand-banks. This arises from the
meetings of two currents, one of which comes from the Adriatic and the
other from the Aegean; the one coming from the Euxine encounters that
coming from the Ionian sea, and moves round in a curve, as in general all
currents of the sea move in curves. We cannot wonder, therefore, that
during a north-west wind, ships, sailing from Sicily to the Archipelago,
were thrown into the Syrtes: the danger was, of course, much greater
for the ancients than for us. The countries round the Syrtes are the
most wretched and melancholy districts of all the inhabited parts of the
earth; they are worse than the desert itself, except that water is not
wanting for so long a period as in the desert. The caravans dig wells,
but the water is bad.
The whole of the western part of the north coast of Africa, of which
Carthage is the central point, was once under the dominion of Carthage,
from the Syrtes to the straits of Gibraltar, though that dominion was
not the same everywhere. The modern Algiers and Morocco contain no
traces of Carthaginian colonies; there existed in those parts nothing
but Carthaginian forts and factories for commercial purposes; but Tunis
and Tripoli, that is, the whole coast from Hippo to Leptis, was covered
with Punic towns. Some of them were more ancient than Carthage (which was
for this reason called “New Town”); Utica, Hippo, Leptis, and perhaps
also Hadrumetum, and others whose names can no longer be ascertained,
were, like Gades, direct colonies of Tyre and Sidon in Phoenicia, and
had been founded at the time when so many Phoenician settlements were
formed on the coasts of Greece, in the islands of the Archipelago, and
in Cyprus. It was during that period of the greatness of Phoenicia,
which lies beyond our history, that numerous colonies were established
on the coast of Africa. We do not know what circumstances directed the
attention to those parts, for the Libyans were a great people. The nature
of the country is very different in different parts: Tripoli (which
is inhabitable from the head of the lesser to the greater Syrtis), is
the foreland of the desert, while Tunis is much more fertile. Here the
northern chain of mount Atlas terminates; and the western part of Tunis
is a mountainous, beautiful, and fertile country. One range of the
mountain extends as far as the sea, forming a hilly country, with the
beautiful promontory and the bay of Carthage. The territory from this
promontory as far as the Syrtes is, according to all descriptions, one
of the most fertile countries, though the district in which Carthage was
situated was less healthy and of a less agreeable climate. _Byzacene_,
or the eastern coast of Tunis, on the other hand, is very healthy, and
has no overpowering heat, except in rare cases when the poisonous wind
blows from the desert this wind is much more frequent at Carthage and it
neighbourhood.
This coast, then, was thickly studded with towns, the more ancient ones
were Tyrian, and the more recent ones Carthaginian settlements. The
inhabitants of the latter are called _Libyphoenices_, whence, from their
very name, we cannot suppose that they were of pure Punic blood: they
were Punians who had admitted Africans among them, and their language was
a corrupt Punic. The Carthaginians were greatly inclined to mix with, and
admit other tribes, which accounts for the fact of their language being
so widely spread: all the civilisation adopted by the Africans was Punic.
The Carthaginians had a peculiar Libyan alphabet, and when the writing
of the Tuariks is once discovered, I hope the Carthaginian inscriptions
also will be deciphered. Their literature, however, was Punic. The Romans
gave the library of Carthage as a present to the kings of Numidia;
that library contained the native historical records of Africa, from
which such singular statements were extracted by Sallust in composing
his Jugurtha, and the key to which must still be discovered: they did
not contain real history, but we can see from them in what light those
nations regarded their history.
The language of the original inhabitants of northern Africa was
perhaps more widely spread than any other: this is the language of the
Berbers, which was once spoken from the Canary islands in the west to
the cataracts of the Nile, and in some parts it is spoken even at the
present day. It is singular that the nation speaking that language
embraced tribes of quite different physical characters, whites as well
as blacks (though not negroes); the ancients, in fact, distinguish
between Gaetulians and Melanogaetulians, though they regard them as one
nation. Harsh rudeness was a generally prevailing characteristic of the
nation, but in proportion to the extent of country occupied by it, it
was not numerous; at present their descendants occur only in the oases
of the desert, while formerly they extended from the Mediterranean to
the banks of the Niger; on the coast they have nearly everywhere been
displaced by the Arabs, who are still gaining ground, so that now they
are found only in some parts of Algiers and Morocco. The Romans called
them _Afri_, and the Greeks, Λίβυες; it has been supposed that the latter
name is connected with that of Levante or Leguante. The name by which
the nation designates itself, viz., Amazirgh, Mazirgh, or Mzirgh, is
found, according to an observation of Castiglione, even in Herodotus,
who speaks of Μάσυες; this is the correct form occurring in the MSS.,
instead of which the printed editions erroneously give Μάξυες. The name
_Massaesyli_, which was given to the western Libyans between the lesser
Syrtis and the Ocean, also is nothing but Mazirgh Shilha, for they also
call themselves Shilhas. The eastern tribes are called _Massyli_, which
is the same as Μάσυες, for the termination _yli_ seems to be the common
Italian one, which we find in _Aequuli_ for _Aequi_. The Carthaginians
probably called them by this name. The bilingual inscriptions, which
exist in considerable numbers, would throw more light upon the language
of those countries, if they were deciphered, and they may possibly
contain the key by which the Punic inscriptions also are to be explained.
It is singular that the Romans called those nations _Numidae_, which
is not a proper name, but a common noun. The Greek form was νομάδες,
and from this the Romans made _Numidae_, a circumstance which shows to
what extent Greek words were in common use among the Romans. Afterwards
_Numida_ and _Numidia_ became names of the nation and the country, so
that, no doubt, Masinissa called himself king of Numidia. These tribes
extended from the boundary of the Carthaginian territory to the river
Molochath (Mulucha), which still may be regarded as the frontier of
Algiers. We must not, however, suppose that the country beyond that
river was occupied by a different race, for it was only another tribe
of the same stock. These latter were called _Mauri_ (Μαυροὶ, Blacks, in
the Alexandrian dialect), a name which became as firmly established for
the western tribes as Numidae was for the eastern ones. The country in
the south, between Mount Atlas and the Sahara, as far as the Niger, was
inhabited by the _Gaetuli_ and _Melanogaetuli_, the modern Tuariks. The
Melanogaetuli were unquestionably of the same race as the Gaetuli, but
had no doubt arisen from a mixture with the Aethiopians, who dwelt there.
They were accordingly a dark mixed race like that at present in Darfoor.
We do not know by what name they called themselves.
The _Garamantes_ are placed too far to the south-east in our maps; they
were the inhabitants of the modern Fezzan, and the present town of Germa
was their capital, where Roman inscriptions are still found among the
ruins. The dominion of the Romans in those parts, about which nothing is
said by ancient geographers, belongs to the second century, when they
extended their power in different directions, for under Trajan they
entered far into the interior of Arabia, and in Nubia they advanced as
far as Dongola, the surrounding tribes being too weak to offer effectual
resistance. The distance between Tripoli and Fezzan is about forty days’
journey. The town of _Augila_, mentioned by Herodotus, in the country
of the Nasamones, is called to this day Audyeelah or Eudyeelah; the
name of the Nasamones themselves has not yet been re-discovered. Count
Castiglione has written a very beautiful essay on those countries in
the form of an appendix to his work entitled “Les Monnaies des Arabes
frappées en Afrique.”
Herodotus divides Africa into four parts, the agricultural, the
mountainous, the country of beasts of prey, and the desert. Beyond the
river, Nigritae also are mentioned, but we must not imagine that either
this name or that of the river Niger has anything to do with _niger_,
black; it is the Punic _nahar_ which signifies “a river,” and shows the
intercourse of the Carthaginians with those countries. The same fact
has also been confirmed by the discovery of balls and staves of glass
of exquisite beauty in those parts. The art of treating glass in such a
manner as to include in a white glass a number of flowers, balls, and
other objects, without injuring the outlines, is assuredly of Phoenician
origin, and at present quite unknown. Some specimens of such glass are
found in Italy, where it was partly employed to ornament rooms, and quite
a similar piece of glasswork has been discovered in the tomb of a negro
king in Guinea, whither it had evidently been exported from Carthage.
Such pieces are said to have been used as ornaments for victors, and
there is even a tradition among the negroes, that these glass ornaments
have from time immemorial belonged to their sceptres. Servius states,
that the Romans gave to the chiefs of the Berbers ornamented sticks
instead of sceptres; the same custom still exists, but the sticks are not
adorned with silver.
The name _Marmarica_ is derived from _mar_, salt, with a reduplication
very frequent in those languages.