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58 CRANIA BRITANNICA. [CHAP. V. CHAP. V.] HISTORICAL ETHNOLOGY OP BRITAIN. 59
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a black mantle, sagiim or lana *. The Bastotani, of whom this is related, were a mixed race,
partly Iberian and partly PhcEniciant; and there is much reason to suppose that the same was
the case with the inhabitants of the Cassiterides. The Phoenicians were remarkable for the
facility with which they mingled with other races; and as the object of their voyages to Britain
was the trade in metals, and particvdarly tin, nothing seems more probable than that they
should have induced a colony of Iberian miners, possibly of mixed Phcenician and Iberito stock,
to settle in the south-west of the island t The evidence on this subject, though on no one
point decisive, is of the cumulative kind; and the legitimate conclusion seems to be the admission
of an Iberian settlement in the south-west of Britain, to which in particiüar the principal
tribe of SüuTes is to be traced. The original seat of this Iberian colony appears to have been
the SciUy Isles and adjacent parts of CornwaH and West Devon, the coimtry of the Damnonii.
It is by no means impossible that, at a subsequent period, when the Belgic Gauls settled in the
south of Britain, the Silures may in great measiu-e have been forced to abandon their original
settlements, and, relinquishing the mines of Cornwall to these new immigrants, themselves to
find a refuge in the mountainous district of South Wales.
As regards Ireland, we have a strong presumption in favom- of an Iberian origin, for part, at
least, of its ancient inhabitants, in those traditions which "uniformly deduce the people of that
island from Spain, and ultimately from the East §." We do not attempt the task of reconciling
with history and probability the traditions contained in the bardic poems and monkish
chronicles of that coimtry, the difficulties of which have often been pointed out. On the whole,
however, we are disposed to agree with the most j udicious and learned of the modern liistorians
and antiquaries of Ireland—the two O'Connors, andDrs. Petrie and O'Donovan,—in the opinion
that, Avith much in these accounts that is to be rejected as fabulous, fantastic, and iaconsistent with
history, there is combined a true historical element, to be eUcited by a right critical method.
The Scoti or Müesians, who are stated to have subdued the Tuatha de Danáan in the south
of Ireland, and to have driven them into the north of the island, are, by aU the Irish chroniclers
and poets who wrote before the tenth century, brought from Spain. Dr. O'Connor was of
opinion, that when the inhabitants of that peninsula were oppressed by the Carthaginians and
Romans, a colony of them emigrated into Ireland; and it must be admitted, as Dr. Prichard
allows, that there is nothing inconsistent in this opinion. Eor the present, therefore, we accept
as probable the existence of an intrusive Iberian element in the early population of Ireland, as
well as in that of the south-west of Britain ||.
§ Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, January 1849, p. 72.
" Kesearchcs," vol. iii. p. 140-149.
II Dr. Latham also admits that Iberian and Phffiniciau elements
may have been introduced into Ireland in the ante-historical
period (Smith's Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 16). It has been
thought that the names of the Ellebri (otherwise Velibori) and
Gangani, tribes placed by Ptolemy m the south-west of Ireland,
as well as of the Luceni, referred to by Orosius, and in the
Cosmography, ascribed to jEthicus, are identical with those of
tribes or localities in the north-west of the Iberian peninsula.
It may be doubtful how far we can identify the Gangani of
Ireland with the Concani of Cantabria, or the Luceni with the
Lncenses of Gallaecia. The name of the Ellebri, however, has
a distinctly Iberian form, and seems clearly identical with that
of Illiberi or Illiberis, the name of places in Spain and Aquitania.
* Strabo, lib. iii. c. 3. § 7; lib. iii. c. 5. § 11. Diodorns, lib. v.
c. 33. The Bastetani and Celtiberians, as well as the people of
the Cassiterides, were Melanchteni, i. e. dark-robed.
t Smith's " Diet, of G. and B. Geogr.," s. v. Bastetani.
X Among the modem historians who have regarded with more
or less favour the opinion that the Silures were of Iberian
origin, are Camden, Niebuhr, aud Lappenberg. See Camden's
" Britannia" (Scilly Isles). Niehnhr's " Lectures on Ethnography,"
&e. vol. ii. p. 322. Lappenberg, " England under
the jtaglo-Saxon Kings," vol. i. p. 4. Dr. Nott ( " Types of
Mankind," p. 109) says, "one pristine population of the British
Isles was probably Iberian; and their type is still beheld in
many of the dark-haired, dark-eyed and dark-skinned Irish, as
well as occasionally in Great Britain itself." Though this view
has found its way into manypopnlar works, magazines, and even
directories, it is not yet generally acknowledged by scholars.
3. EARLIEST HISTORICAL NOTICES-BRITAIN AS KNOWN TO THE PHCENICIANS AND GREEKS.
Through Phoenicia, the great maritime state of the ancient world, Britain first became
known to the East, to Greece and to Rome. Gadeira or Gades, the great western colony
of Tyre, was founded on the shores of Tartessus or Spain, outside the pOlars of Hercules, about
1100 years before our era, or, as Strabo expresses it, " a Uttle after the period of the Trojan war*."
That ships from Tyre itself navigated to the shores of Britain, though probable, is not absolutely
proved; but there can be no doubt that Gaditanian vessels, from the emporium of TarsMsh,
traded to the south-west of Britain, as early perhaps as the time of Solomon, about 1000 B.C.,
and doubtless before that of the prophet Ezekiel (594 B.C.), who, speaking of Tyre, says,
" Tarshish was thy dealer, by the abundance of aU riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they
furnished thy markets" (xxvii. 12). The earUest distinct reference to Britain is that by
Herodotus (450 B.C.), who, recording his ignorance of the geography of the west of Europe, adds,
" nor am I acquainted with the islands Cassiterides, from which tin is brought to us f . " This
passage proves that the chief, if not the sole, source of the metal tin, in the days of Herodotus,
and probably long before, was the western land, caUed Cassiterides, fr-om Ku^airepoc., the Greek
name of that metal J.
That by the Cassiterides were in the first instance intended the Scilly Isles, a comparison
of the several notices of them scarcely allows us to doubt. In the ScUly Isles indeed it is true
that tin is not now worked, and Borlase says, " that the ancient workings were neither numerous
nor deep §." " But even," as has been weU observed, " had they produced no tin, it was exactly
a c c o r d a n t with the policy of the Phoenicians, to take possession of islands near a coast with which
they had to carry on trade, securing themselves by this means against any sudden attack, and
holdmg in then- hands the power of arrival and departure. An island might natm-aUy be
described as rich ia tin and lead, which was the emporium of a district so productive of these
metals as CornwaU||." At first, as Strabo exin-essly states, "The Phoenicians of Gadeira
* Strabo, lib. i. c. 3. § 2 ; also Mela, lib. iii. c. 6.
t Herodotus, iii. 115. The ignorance, as to Britain, of the
Greek geographers of the age succeeding Herodotus, of Eratosthenes
and Timosthenes, is especially insisted on by Strabo,
lib.ii. c. 1. § 41.
X Pliny (lib. xxxiv. § 47), speaking of the eariy use of tin,
says, " that it was in esteem during the Trojan time. Homer is
witness, who calls it Ka^mrcpov." Homer is the first writer
who names this metal, if we except the doubtful reference to
it in the Pentateuch {Numlers, xxxi. 22). It is very probable
that the bronzes recently obtained from the ruins of Assyria,
and now iu the Museums of London and Paris, were fabricated
with tin derived from the British Islands. Thi, one of the
most rarely distributed of the metals, was also known to the
ancients as occurring in Spain(Posidonius apud Strabon.,Hb. iii.
c. 2. 9. Pliny, lib. iv. § 34 ; lib. xxxiv. § 47), aud, notwithstanding
the superior fame of the Cassiterides, was probably
worked in Spam earlier than in Britain (Kcnrick, " Phccnieia,"
1855, p. 214). Tin also occurs in several localities of Transgangetie
India (Salang, Banca, &c.) ; and Dionysius of Alexandria
(apiid Stephan. Byzant.), probably in the third or
fourth century, speaks of an eastern " Cassitira, an island in
the ocean near India, whence comes tin." The authority of
Pliny (hb. xxxiv. § 49) is, however, clearly opposed to the
notion, that this metal had, up to his times, been imported into
Europe from the remote shores of Malacca. Speaking of
plumhum album, or tin, he proceeds, " India neque ¡es ñeque
plumbum habet, gemmisque suis ac margaritis hoc permutât."
The Periplus of the Red Sea, formerly attributed to Arrian, is
quoted as authority for the exportation of tin to India from the
west, in Roman times. (Kenrick, loc. cit. p. 213.) Strabo
(lib. XV. p. 784. Cas.) speaks of tin being found in Drangiana,
now Sejestan, in Central Asia. This country is not, we believe,
known to produce tin ; but if the unsupported statement of
Strabo were confirmed, the opinion that the Assyrians obtained
the tin for their bronze, from Britain, through the Phoenicians,
would be open to question.
% "Isles of Scilly," 1756, pp. 45, 73. "Cornwall," 1769,
p. 30.
I| Kenrick, loc. cit. p. 218.
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