146 CRANIA BBITAJSTNICA. [CHAP. V.
launus*. Commius, tlie king of the Gaulisli Atrebates, possessed great influence in South Britain,
where he took refuge when pursued hy Oiesar t , and perhaps founded the Atrebatian State, in
or near the districts of the Segontiaci, Ancalites, and Bibrooi J. The Belgic origin of the British
tribes from the Parret to the Medway cannot be denied ; and the like may perhaps be claimed
for some to the north of the Thames, whose names correspond with those of Belgic or north-
Gallic states, who equally with the Belgse may have sent colonies to Britain. As to the Trinobantes,
nothing can be affii-med; but the great tribe with which they had been at war, the
CatucUani §, appear in Coesar under the name of Cassi ||. Both names, in slightly varymg or
compound forms, occur as those of tribes in Belgic Gaul, as the Velocasses ^ and the Catalauni,
which last seem to have been dependent on the great federal state of the Bemi. On the confines
of Belgic Gaul, but to the west of the Seme, were the Tricasses and the Vadicassii; and near the
Armorican coast, the Baiocasses and Viducasses **. It is scarcely to be doubted that Cassivellaunus,
the chief of the Catuellani, was a Belgic Briton; whilst the name of the state he
governed falls under the rule laid down by Cfesar t t - The great eastern and maritime state of
the Iceni may also have been derived from Northern Gaul. By Ptolemy they are called Simeni,
and there can be little doubt that they are the Cenimagni of OiEsar, and that then- name may be
identified ^-ith that of the Gaulish Cenomani i t Another smaU maritime tribe, the Parisi, who
occupied a great part of the East Biding of Yorkshire, have been traced to the Parisii of the continent,
where they occupied a territory on each side of the Seine, and may be almost regarded as
Belgic Gai-ils. Nearly aU the most fertile part of South Britain, fi-om the Severn to the German
Ocean, and from the Isle of Wight to the Hiimber, thus appears to have been peopled by Belgic
or north-Gaulish tribes. As to the other tribes of the west and north, e. g. the Damnonii, Boduni,
Silm-es, Demetas, Ordovices, Comavii, and Brigantes §§, there are no grounds for such a claim;
and the mountainous and remote districts which they occupied would be less attractive to the
tribes of the continent. The eastern tribe of Coritavi has been supposed of Teutonic origm, on
no better testimony than that of the Triad which speaks of the invading Coranied from the land
ofPwylllll.
The broad distinction, drawn by Csesar, between the inhabitants of the maritime districts.
* B. G. lib. ii. c. 4. " Apud eos fuisse regem nostra etiam
niemoria Divitiacum, qui quum luagnfe partis harum regionum
turn etiam Britannise imperium obtinuerit." There may have
been a conqnest in South Britaui, and a subsequent election of
Divitiaeus to the impermm of the Belgic states in the two countries.
Comp. Dr. Guest, Archajologicaljournal, Tol.viii.p. 150,
Herbert, Neo-Druids, pp. 2, 14.
t B. G. hb. iv. c. 21. Frontinus, Stratag. lib. ii. c. 13 ; ante,
p. 112. The Ultimate relations of the Belloraci with Britain arc
seen in the flight thither of their chiefs (B. G. lib. ii. c. 14)
that of the Britons with Gaul, in the aid they rendered during
the wars of the Gauls with Julius (B. G. lib. iii. c. 9; iv. c. 20).
J B. G. lib. V. c. 21. The four kings named by Caesar in
the next chapter seem to have ruled over as many of the maritime
states south of the Thames ("ad mare * * regionibus
c. 22 : comp. c. 14), of whom the Cantii are alone named.
The Segontiaci were probably the subjects of Segonas; whether
the other states were the Rhegni and Belgse must be doubtful.
§ This is the form in Dion (lib. Ix. § 20) : m Ptolemy it is
Catyeuchlani.
11 B. G. lib. V. c. 21.
^ Ih. lib. ii. c. 4.
. ** In Ptolemy these names terminate in casseii or caseii.
f t B. G. lib. V. c. 12. " Omnes fere lis nominibus civitatum
appellantur, quibus orti ex civitatibus."
t | Zeuss, Gram. Celt.p.73o. " Cenomani, Cenimagni, num
idem nomen=Cenimanni?"
§§ Many of the Celtic tribe-names may be shown to be of topographical
origin ; as those of the Cantii, Morini, Durotriges,
Comavii, Damnonii, Caledonii and Brigantes. When such reappear
in districts widely separated, there can usually be no
reasonable presumption of migration, but the identity of name
must be sought in similarity of geographical conditions.
lili Triad 7. PicyZ=pools, by which Holland has been understood.
The Coritavi occupied the extensive district watered
by the Trent and Nen. The etymology has been sought in the
Gaelic, coire, a hollow, daoine, a people; which makes them
dalesmen, as opposed to the Brigantes, mountaineers. (Phillips,
"Rivers, &c. of Yorkshire," pp. 195, 201). Kemble has unfortunately
given currency to the notion of Welsh writers that
the Coritavi were German, which, however, he hesitated to adopt
himself (Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 9-11).
CHAP. V. ] HISTOBICAL ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. 147
who were an agricultural and partly civilized people, and those of the interior of the island, who
had not advanced beyond the pastoral and nomad condition *, is often supposed to imply a
difference of race; and the former have been regarded as a Gaelic, the latter as a Cymricspeaking
people. There is, however, no proof of this, or that the Gaelic was the language of any
part of Britain in the time of Julius. Cymry is the name by which the Welsh caU themselves,
and from which the usual designation of the British dialects is derived. Erom the resemblance
of the name to those of the Cimbri and Cimmerii, the connexion if not identity of the three
peoples has often been maintained. The Tauric Cnnmerii were by some of the ancients identified
. with the Cimbri of Jutland t- This fanciful view, now generaUy rejected, had perhaps scarcely
any fomdation beyond the resemblance of the names and the ancient geographical error, as to
the continuity of the Cimbric and Cimmerian coasts J. Though the Cimbri of northern Europe
were probably Celts §, there is no proof of then- connexion with the Britons, the ancestors of the
Welsh, now known as Cymry. The Cimbri, as a migratory people, are last traced in the Aduatici,
who about 102 B.C. settled in Belgic Gaul, but were extirpated by Csesar 1|. The resemblance of
the two names, Cimbri and Cymry, may, however, not be accidental. Both are no doubt of Celtic
origin, and they may be the same word. Cimbri is by Plutarch and Suidas said to signify a robber,
and Eestus adds that it was from the GaUic language H- It was an epithet hiely to be appUed
to, and adopted by, a predatory tribe, with whom the ideas of robbery and war were almost
identical **. There is no trace of the name of Cymry, as connected with Britain, in any Greek
or Boman writer, or ia GUdas or Bede; and it first appears in the Welsh poets, Llywarch and
Taliesin f t . The name of Cumbri is that of Cymry adapted to the Latin alphabet, and it does not
occur in the Saxon chronicles before the niuth century i t It perhaps originated in an epithet
applied to some of the western Britons, when the Boman rule was relaxed, and when the tribes
of North Wales began to adopt predatory habits, and became known to the civilized Britons as
depredators or Cymry, the etymon of which is traced in the Welsh cymeryd, to seize §§. Many
of the arguments of Thierry, as to Celtic ethnology, rest on the supposed identity of these peoples,
the Cimmerii, Cimbri and Cymry; the fallacy of which, we think, is obvious. The names Cymry
and Cymric can hardly be abandoned, but when used it should be simply as meaning the Welsh
and then- language, as opposed to the Gael and Gaelic.
* Atite, p. 66. for authorities.
t Posidonius, Strabo, Ub. vii. c. 2. § 2. Diod. Sic. lib. v.
c. 32. Plutarch, Mar. c. 11.
J Niebuhr, Ancient History, Eng. ed. 1852. Latham, Man
and his Migrations,p. 169. Articles "Cimbri"and "Cnnmerii,"
Smith's Dictionary. The hypothesis has been revived in the
edition of Herodotus by Rawlinson, vol. iii. Essay I. "On the
Cimmerians and the Migrations of the Cymric race."
The name of the Cimbric chief Boiorix (Plut. Mar. c. 40.
Livy, epit. Ixvii.) is Celtic, and identical with that of a chief of
the Boii nearly a century earher (Livy, lib. xxxiv. c. 46). The
passage from Philemon (Pliny, lib. iv. c. 2) also seems to show
that their language was Celtic ; " Morimarusam a Cimbris vocnri;
hoc est mortuum mare." Mor y marw, Welsh,=the Dead
Sea. Zeuss, Gram. Celt. pp. 25, 752. See also the arguments
of Herbert, Britannia after Romans, p. Ixxi.
I157B.C. B. G. lib. ii. c. 29-33. Those who still occupied
their old home in the Cimbric Chersonese were in the time of
Tacitus a feeble remnant, "parva nunc civitas." Germ. c. 37.
^ "Cimbri hiigua Gallica latrones dicuntur" (Festus).
Plutarch says the word is German, which is less probable.
** As among the ancient Germans, as observed by Herbert,
" Latrocinia nullam habent infamiam quse extra fines cnjusque
civitatis fiunt."—B. G. lib. vi. c. 23.
t t T. Stephens, quoted by Basil Jones, " Certam Terms of
CelticEthnology," 1858,p.22. DeBelloguet,TypesGaul.p.248.
:3::T: " Pihtis Cumbrisque," Ethelwerd, A.D. 875 ; where
Cumbris means the Strathclyde Britons of the A.-S. Chroniclc.
A.-S.C. A.D. 945, " Cumbra-land."
§§ Britannia after Romans, p. Ixxiii, 39. Herbert makes
the names of the Cimmerii, Cimbri and Cymry identical in
signification ; but his proofs apply only to the two last. Zeuss
thinks the name of Cymry originated subsequently to the
Anglo-Saxon conquest, that it signifies conterraneous, and
refers to the abstract rights of natives as opposed to those of
foreign mvaders. Gram. Celt. p. 226. " Cymry * * * est
compositum e ajn (con) ct hro (terra), significatque conterraneum;
* * * vet. form. Combroges, cui oppositum est vetustum
Gallicum nomen Allobroges, i. e. alienee terrte incolse."
(Schol. in Juvenal. Sat. viii. 13.) This etymology is in part
identical with that of Owen and other Welsh writers, the objections
to which are shown by Herbert, oj). cit, p. l.\ix.