AUTHORITIES FOR THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL PERIOD.--HERODOTUS.--
ARISTOTLE.--POLYBIUS.--ONOMACRITUS.--DIODORUS SICULUS.--STRABO.--
FESTUS AVIENUS.--ULTIMATE SOURCES.--DAMNONII.--PH[OE]NICIAN TRADE.--
THE ORGIES.--SOUTH-EASTERN BRITONS OF CÆSAR.--THE DETAILS OF HIS
ATTACKS.--THE CALEDONIANS OF GALGACUS.
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 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--
"For now by sad and painful trouble
Shall I be encompassed, if I go too near the _Iernian Islands_.
For unless, by bending within the holy headland,
I sail within the bays of the land, and the barren sea,
I shall go outward into the Atlantic Ocean."
An important sentence occurs a few lines lower. The British Isles are
spoken of--
----"where (are) the wide houses of Demeter."
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 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
Ph[oe]nicians. 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 Ph[oe]nician 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.
"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 Ph[oe]nician and Gallic traders. The thoroughly
Ph[oe]nician 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; 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 Ph[oe]nicians
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 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, 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 Ph[oe]nician portions of Spain and Africa, or with Ph[oe]nicia
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 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--
----"Hic chorus ingens
Faminei c[oe]tus pulchri colit orgia Bacchi.
Producit noctem ludus sacer; aera pulsant
Vocibus, et crebris late sola calcibus urgent.
Non sic Absynthi prope flumina Thracis alumnæ
Bistonides, non qua celeri ruit agmine Ganges,
Indorum populi stata curant festa Lyæo."
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
Ph[oe]nician authorities. Avienus, as we have seen, thinks of the Bacchæ
as a parallel. So does Pausanius--
"Nec spatii distant Nesidum litora longe;
In quibus uxores Amnitum Bacchica sacra
Concelebrant, hederæ foliis tectæque corymbis."
So does Dionysius Periegetes; indeed the three accounts seem all
referrible to one source. But 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 Ph[oe]nician as indigenous, and as easily indigenous as
Ph[oe]nician: orgies, too, may have been wholly independent of Druidism,
and representative of another superstition.
[Sidenote: B.C. 57.]
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 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.
[Sidenote: B.C. 56.]
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.
[Sidenote: B.C. 55.]
Cæsar prepares to punish the islanders for their assistance to his
continental enemies; 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.
[Sidenote: B.C. 54.]
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 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 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 that the Severn boats were like
those of the Thames--
Non hi carinas quippe pinu texere
Acereve norunt, non abiete, ut usus est,
Curvant faselos; sed rei ad miraculum
Navigia juncta semper aptant pellibus,
Corioque vastum sæpe percurrunt salum.
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.
[Sidenote: A.D. 20 to 43.]
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, 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 Ph[oe]nician,
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, 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 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, 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The translations of this and all the following Greek extracts are
from the "_Monumenta Historica Britannica_."
[4] _See_ the papers of Mr. Beale Post in the "Archæological Journal."