Beside the patriarchal custom of building these places of worship, and
consecrating them with oil, we find many other footsteps of that most
ancient religion, in the history of _Hercules_. _Silius_ speaking of
the strange rites used in the _Gaditan_ temple of _Hercules_, says,
the priests officiated there barefooted, practis’d chastity, had no
statues, us’d white linen surplices. And it is a notorious custom
with the ancient _Phœnicians_, to pay tithe. Indeed they paid tythe
to _Hercules_. Which only imports, that it was a precept and practice
introduc’d by _Hercules_. And after they had deified _Hercules_ they
practis’d it toward him. This was a common method, when idolatry began.
I shall treat more largely of these affairs; when I discourse expressly
of the patriarchal religion. Likewise, I shall prove more fully, from
chronological characters, that this _Hercules_ liv’d at the time,
we are speaking of, in the _canon Mosaicæ chronologiæ_. What I now
recite, concerning these matters, I could not well avoid, as they in my
apprehension, relate to the name of _Stonehenge_.
_Pliny Nat. Hist._ VII. 56. gives us a testimony, of our _Hercules_,
under the name of _Melcartus_, (as _Bochart_ rightly corrects it)
first bringing tin into _Greece_, from the _Cassiterid_ islands. By
which the _British_ are meant. The tin of _Tyre_, which the merchants
of _Greece_, came to buy, at the fairs of that city, is mention’d
_Ezekiel_ xxvii. 12. which, no doubt, came from hence. But it is much
earlier mention’d, among lead and other metals, when the _Midianites_
had it in _Moses_’s time, _Numbers_ xxxi. 22. the _Chaldee_ and
_Arabic_ version there, use the word _kastira_, the _Hierosolymitan
kistara_. No wonder the _Midianites_ should then abound with tin: when
we were told by _Josephus_, that _Apher_ son of _Midian_, was one of
_Hercules_’s companions. The LXX. in that passage of _Numbers_ call it
κασσίτερος. But tin is mention’d earlier still, in _Job_ xix. 24. and
_Job_ liv’d in this same country, on the borders of _Arabia_.
It is very evident from _Bochart_, that the _Phœnicians_, had sail’d
quite round _Britain_, by what he writes of _Thule_. How then can we
doubt but the great island, which they found in the extremest west, was
_Britain_? but they kept their gainful navigation hither so secret,
for many centuries, that even _Herodotus_ the earliest _Greek_ writer
professes he knows not, whence the tin comes. _Britain_ was the only
country, where it could come from, in any quantity, as _Pliny_ says.
But from this great secrecy of the _Phœnicians_, we have lost the high
antiquities of _Britain_, as unknown to the _Greeks_; the only heathen
nation that had the address to commit things to writing. Therefore we
must be content with what small remains of this kind, can be fish’d
out of the wreck of time, by such conjectural methods, as antiquaries
cannot avoid insisting on.
In _Devonshire_ is _Hartland_ point so call’d corruptly, as the
excellent _Camden_ observes, for _Herculis promontorium_. And upon the
_Durham_ sea coast is a town on a promontory call’d _Hartlepool_. A
village call’d _Hart_ near it. I take it to have been call’d by the
_Greek_ traders here _Heracleopolis_. And hence, probably came that
fine old altar in _Greek_, dedicated to the _Tyrian Hercules_, which
Mr. _Roger Gale_ and I copied, in _Corbridge_ church-yard.
From these and many other considerations of this kind, which I shall
hereafter treat of more largely and professedly: I cannot but join in
opinion with _Franc. Philelphus_ in his epistles, and _Lilius Giraldus_
in his _Hercules_ mention’d by Mr. _Camden_, in the last quoted
passage, and with many other writers, that the very ancient _Phœnician_
or _Tyrian Hercules_ conducted an eastern colony hither, upon the
_aborigines_; with whom came the Druids, the builders of _Stonehenge_
and the like works among us. And let this suffice for what I promis’d
upon the first head of this chapter, _viz._ to speak of the antiquity
of these works in general. 2. We are to speak of the time of founding
_Stonehenge_.