v-l
M
6 4 CRANIA BRITANNICA. [CHAP. V.
era. In this passage, the British isles are spoken of as " two very large islands called Albion
and lerne, lying beyond the Kelts, outside the pillars of Hercules, in the ocean which flows
round the earth, whilst not a few small islands around the Bretannic, encircle as with a diadem
the earth, which we have aheady said to be an island*." Here it is important to observe; that
both the islands are regarded as Britannic; and further, that in so careful and able a writer as
Ptolemy, who seems to distinguish them as Great and Little Britain t , they retain the same
names of Albion and lerne, or as he vraites, Alouion and lonernia, which names may clearly
be accepted as representing the original native appellations. That Albion was the native name
of the larger island is clear, from what Phuy, writing fifty years earlier than Ptolemy, says in
describing "Britannia, so celebrated in the records of Greece and Rome;" namely, that "its
former name was Albion, but at a later period it and all the surrounding islands were included
under the name Britanniiei." The name of Albion is still preserved in the Gaelic native
designation of the Highlanders of Scotland, who caU themselves Albaniclt, and the name may
perhaps be best derived from the Gaelic aluin, bright or beautiful, a word which comes very near
to the Alouion of Ptolemy §. lerne, in the Erse, Eri and Srin, is still the native name of
Ireland ||, the true etymology of which is from the Erse, iar or eir, the west, and i or in, an island.
Eestus Avienus, whose authorities, as we have seen, were very ancient, and, in great part, Carthaginian,
after describing the Cassiterides, says, " it is two days' sail from hence to the Sacred
island, as the ancients called it, which spreads a wide space of turf in the midst of the waters,
and is inhabited by the Hibernian people. Near to this again is the broad island of Albion
Here the two ancient names are preserved; but in addition we have a Greek gloss on the name
of lerne, showing the great antiquity of this name, which from its resemblance to the Greek
word 'lepii, Avienus seems to have erroneously regarded as having the signification of sacred**.
The great size of the British Islands, in which respect they were compared to Taprobane
(Ceylon), and to Phebol and the Golden Chersonese, is much dwelt on by the Greek writers :
thus Dionysius, in Ms " Periegesis," says,
"And on the ocean's northern coasts are found
Two British islands fronting to the Rhine,
Where in the sea he disembogues his stream :
Of these the extent is vast, no other isles
To the Britannic justly can compare-ft-"
Some of the Greeks called Britain a microcosm, or world in itself X15 whilst Stephanus
Bvzantinus (A.D. 490) says it "resemWes a continent, and lies off Celtica§§." In shape, Britain
was often compared with Sicily, the largest island previously well-known to the ancients, and its
* De Mundo, c. 3. This treatise is now, by many critics,
attributed to Appuleius (c. A.D. 130) : others, however, assign
it to Chrysippus the Stoic (c. 240 B.C.).
t Almagest, hb. ii. c. 6. Geog. lib. ii. c. 1.
% Phny, lib. iv. tf. 30. Avienus also calls the larger Island
Albion.
§ In the names of at least two rivers in Britain, the Alaunua
of Ptolemy, now Alne, the same Gaelic word may be traced.
^ " Ast hinc duobus in Sacram, sic insulam
Dixere prisci,—solibus cursus rati est :
Hcec inter undas multa cespitem jacet,
Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit ;
Propinque rursus insula Albionum patet."
Or. Marit. v. 109.
II lerne is the form of the Greek name for Ireland in Strabo •
in Diodorus it is Iris, or rather Irin, in the accusative. In
the pseudo-Orphic poem, the " Argonautica," the British isles
collectively are named lernian.
** Latham, in Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Geography," vol. i. p. 433; vol. ii. p. 15.
f t Periegesis, v. 5G5. De Mundo, loc. cit, Marcian.
Heracl. lib. i.
XX " Q'lam Graecorum philosophi quasi micosmin appellant."
Anon. Ravenuat. Geog. lib. i. c. 3.
§§ Appian, in the second century, said of Britain, "it is
greater than a large continent." Solinus, speaking of Britain,
says, "nomen peeue orbis alterius mereretur," c. 22.
CHAP. V.] HISTOBICAl ETHNOLOGY OP BEITAIN. C5
great extent was expressed by the statement that it was far larger than Sicily*. Diodorus says,
" opposite that part of Gaul which borders on the ocean, * * * * are many islands of which that
caUed Britaia is the greatest, * * *. This island, being in form triangular, Hke SicUy, has its
sides of unequal length; and itself stretches out by the side of Europe obliquelyt." By the
Greek geographers, the British islands were described as lying in the Arctic, Boreal, or as it was
commonly called, the Hyperborean Ocean, which was more particularly, as by Ptolemy, said to
bound them on the north. The relative situation of the principal islands, Albion and leme,
was commonly misunderstood so late as the time of Strabo ; who fixes the most northern limits
of the habitable earth in lerne, which he says " lies in front of Britain to the north, whither is
the furthest sea voyage north from Celtica, and where men altogether in a savage state, live with
difficulty on account of the coldi." A much-controverted passage from Hecatseus of Abdera,
preserved by Diodorus, describing an " island in the ocean over against Celtica, not less than
Sicily, inhabited by Hyperboreans§," hereafter further alluded to, can hardly be regarded
otherwise than as refcrriag to Britain.
Nearly aU the authorities for Britain down to the time of Csesai-, as well as many of a
subsequent date, are Greek writers who have chiefly derived their knowledge from Phcenician
sources, Tyrian, Gaditanian or Punic, or fi'om the Greek voyagers and merchants of MassUia
and Gaul. The descriptions of these writers refer in great part, as we have seen, to the west
of Britain, the Cassiterides and the trade in tin. In Diodorus, Strabo, and even Ptolemy (who
founded his geography on the basis of that of Marinus of Tyre), the same thing is to be observed.
The Latin classics, however, for the most part follow the accounts of Caesar, through whose two
expeditions, 55 and 54 B.C., the Eomans became acquainted with the south-east of the island,
and in particular with the Cantian promontory. As Diodorus observes, " we have no tradition
that Bacchus or Hercules or any other of the heroes or mighty men warred against Britain, but
in our times Csesar, who for his exploits has been entitled a god, first of any on record subjugated
the island, and having vanquished tbe Britons, compelled them to pay certain specified
tributes Although Britain became better known to the ancients after the invasions of
Julius, and some intercourse with Eome was kept up; yet notvrithstanding the claims of the
Imperial City, which though not enforced, were never abandoned, the island for nearly a century
maintained a virtual independence, under its native princes. In the reign of Claudius (43 A.D.)
Britain was again invaded, and at last subjected to the Roman power; but a period of forty
years elapsed before the complete subjugation of the south of the island, as far as the estuaries of
the Forth and Clyde, was effected under tlie great Agricola. It is no part of oui- task to trace the
civil history of near four centuries, during which South Britain remained a Roman province,
and its inhabitants became more or less assimilated to the Romans, in manners, customs and
language. Pausing, however, at this point, and tm-ning to the pages of Ciesar, Tacitus, and of
the subsequent Rroman and Greek writers, we may here trace the manners, arts, and religion,
the language, and the political and social condition of the Britons, as these existed prior to, or
remained uninfluenced by, the Roman conquest; at the same time noting tlie ethnological
inferences to be drawn therefrom.
* Belisarius apud Procopium, lib. ii. c. Ö.
t Diodorus, lib. v. c. 21. Half a century later, Pomponius
Mela says of Britain, " in diversos ángulos cuneat triquetra, et
SiciUcc maxime similis, plana, ingens, foìcunda, verum his,
quce pecora quam homines benignius alant."
X Lib. ii. c. 1. § 13 ; lib. ii. c. 5. § 8. Strabo, in these
, places, has preferred the vague and inaccurate information,
indirectly derived perhaps from the sailors of Gadeira, to the
positive statement of Ctesar, that Ireland was to the west of
Britain. B. G. lib. v. c. 13.
§ Diodorus, lib. ii. c. 47.
II Diodorus, lib. v. c. 21. Compare Csssar, B. 6 . lib. v.c.22.