In Northern Mists Volume I Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: Trade-routes between the Mediterranean and the North]

[Sidenote: Trade-routes between the Mediterranean and the North]

Archaeological finds show that as long ago as the Scandinavian Bronze Age, or before, there must have been some sort of communication between the Mediterranean and the northern lands. One of the earliest trade-routes between the Mediterranean and the Baltic certainly went from the Black Sea up the navigable river Borysthenes (Dnieper), of which early mention is made by the Greeks, thence along its tributary the Bug to the Vistula, and down the latter to the coast. We also find this route in common use in later antiquity. When we first meet with the Goths in history they are established at both ends of it, by the mouths of the Vistula and of the Borysthenes. The Eruli, who came from the North, are also mentioned by the side of the Goths on the Black Sea. What the wandering nation of the Cimmerians was we do not know, but, as before remarked (p. 14), they may have been Cimbri who in those early times had migrated to the northern sh.o.r.e of the Black Sea by this very route. This trade-route was well known in its details to our forefathers in Scandinavia, which likewise points to an ancient communication. Somewhat later it is probable that men travelled from the Baltic up the Vistula and across to the March, a tributary of the Danube, and so either down this river to the Black Sea or overland to the Adriatic. A similar line of communication certainly ran between the North Sea and the Mediterranean along the Elbe to the Adriatic, and up the Rhine across to the Rhone and down this to the coast, or across the Alps to the Po.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cromlechs: on the right, in Portugal (after Cartailhac); on the left, in Denmark (after S. Muller)]

But very early there was also communication by sea along the coasts of western Europe between the Mediterranean and the North. This is shown amongst other things by the distribution, about 2000 B.C., of cromlechs over Sicily, Corsica, Portugal and the north of Spain, Brittany, the British Isles, the North Sea coast of Germany, Denmark and southern Scandinavia as far as Bohuslen [cf. S. Muller, 1909, p. 24 f.], and perhaps farther. Somewhat later, in the middle of the second millennium B.C., the pa.s.sage-graves or chambered barrows followed the same route northward from the Mediterranean. That this sea-communication was comparatively active in those far-off times is proved by the fact that cromlechs, which originated in the grave-chambers of the beginning of the Mycenaean period in the eastern Mediterranean, reached Denmark, by this much longer route round the coast, before the single graves, which were an older form in the Mediterranean countries, but which spread by the slower route overland, through Central Europe.

That as far back as the Stone Age there was communication by one way or another, perhaps along the coast between Spain and the sh.o.r.e of the North Sea or the Baltic, appears probable from the fact that amber beads have been found in the Iberian peninsula containing 2 per cent.

of succinic acid, a proportion which is taken to indicate its northern (Baltic) origin [cf. L. Siret, 1909, p. 138].

On account of the many intermediaries, speaking different languages, through which it pa.s.sed, the information which reached the Mediterranean by these various routes was very defective. According to Herodotus [iv.

24] the Scythians on their trading journeys to the bald-headed Agrippaeans required no fewer than seven different interpreters to enable them to barter with the peoples on the way. Their first more direct knowledge of northern and western Europe must certainly have reached the Mediterranean peoples through the tin trade and the amber trade. It is worth remarking that it was precisely these two articles, representing two powerful sides of human nature, utility and the love of ornament, that were to be of such great importance also as regards knowledge of the North.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ancient Egyptian s.h.i.+p; from a grave in western Thebes (after R. Lepsius)]

[Sidenote: Tin in antiquity]

We do not know when, where, or how tin first came into use, the metal which, together with copper, was as important in the Bronze Age as iron is in our time. In Egypt it is found in the oldest pyramid-graves, and in the third millennium B.C. bronze was in general use there, though we know not whence the tin came to make it. Tin-ore occurs in comparatively few places on the earth, and if China, which formed a world by itself, be excluded, the only places where we know that the metal was obtained in ancient times are north-west Spain, the Ca.s.siterides (probably in Brittany) and Cornwall,[19] which still possesses rich deposits; and as far as we can trace history back, the civilised peoples of the Mediterranean and the Orient obtained their tin from western Europe.[20] If the first tin in Egypt and in the valley of the Euphrates also came from there, the civilisation of western Europe, implied by regular working of mines, would be given a venerable age which could almost rival the oldest civilisations of the Mediterranean. But this is difficult to believe, as we should expect to find traces of this early connection with Egypt along the trade-routes between that country and the place of origin of the tin; and no archaeological evidence to prove this is at present forthcoming.[21]

This possibility is nevertheless not wholly excluded: finds of beads of northern (?) amber in Egyptian graves of the Fifth Dynasty (about 3500 B.C.) may point to ancient unknown communication with the farthest parts of Europe. In Spain, too, neolithic objects have been found, of ivory and other substances, which may have come from Egypt [cf. L. Siret, 1909]. It is certain that the earliest notices of tin in literature mention it as coming from the uttermost limits of Europe. In his lament over Tyre the prophet Ezekiel says [xxvii. 12]: "Tars.h.i.+sh was thy merchant by reason of the mult.i.tude of all kind of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs."

Herodotus [iii. 115] says that it came from the Ca.s.siterides. As Tarsis was the starting-point of the tin-trade with the Ca.s.siterides,[22] these two statements are in agreement.

Figures and thin rods of tin have been found in a.s.sociation with stone implements on the sites of pile-dwellings in Switzerland. Tin rings have also been found at Hallstatt. In barrows (of the Bronze Age ?) in the island of Anrum, on the west coast of Sleswick, there were found a dagger or arrowhead and several other objects of tin, besides a lump of the metal, and in Denmark it is known that tin was used for ornament on oak chests of the earliest Bronze Age, which again points to coastal traffic with the south-west.

In the Iliad tin is spoken of as a rare and costly metal, used for the decoration of weapons, and it appears that arms were then made of copper, bronze not being yet in general use, as was the case in the later time of the Odyssey. But in the excavations at Troy, curiously enough, bronze objects were found immediately above the neolithic strata, which would seem to show that the Bronze Age reached the Greeks from Egypt without any intervening copper age.

The Homeric songs do not allude to tin as a Phnician commodity, like amber. This may mean that the Greeks even in the earliest times obtained it through their own commercial relations with Gaul, without employing the Phnicians as middlemen.

Possibly the Greek word for tin, "ka.s.siteros," and the name of the tin-islands, "Ka.s.siterides," themselves point to this direct connection.

The same word is also found in Sanscrit, "kastira," and in Arabic, "qazdir." Professor Alf Torp thinks that the word both in Greek and in Sanscrit "must be borrowed from somewhere, but whence or when is not known. 'Ka.s.siteros,' of course, occurs as early as Homer, 'kastira' is in Indian literature much later, but as far as that goes it may well be old in Sanscrit. I do not know of any Celtic word one could think of; a 'ca.s.sitir' (woodland) is hardly to the point; it is true that 'tir' means 'land,' but no other 'ca.s.s' is known to me except one that means 'hair'"

(in a letter of November 9, 1909). We may therefore look upon it as certain that "ka.s.siteros" is not an original Greek word; it must in all probability have come from the country whence the Greeks first obtained tin (a.n.a.logous cases are the name of copper from the island of Cyprus, that of bronze from Brundisium, etc.). That this country was India, as some have thought, is improbable, since it is stated in the "Periplus Maris Erythraei" [xlix.], confirmed by Pliny [x.x.xiv. 163], that tin was imported into India from Alexandria in exchange for ivory, precious stones and perfumes; we must therefore suppose that the name reached India with the tin from the Greeks, and not vice versa. It is very possible that the word consists of two parts, of which the second "-teros" may be connected with the Celtic word "tir" for land (Latin "terra"). The first part, "ka.s.si," occurs in many Celtic words and names. Ptolemy [ii. 8] mentions in Gaul, in or near Brittany: "Bidu-kasioi," "Uenelio-kasioi,"

"Tri-kasioi," and "Uadi-kasioi." As mentioned by Reinach [1892, p. 278], there was a people in Brittany called "Ca.s.si" (a British king, "Ca.s.si-vellaunos," an Arvernian chief, "Ver-ca.s.si-vellaunos," etc.). It may be supposed that the country was named after these people, or was in some other way referred to by such a word and called "Ka.s.si-tir." In this case the Ca.s.siterides might be sought for in Brittany, and this agrees with what we have arrived at in another way. But this would entail the a.s.sumption that the Celts were already in Gaul at the time of the Iliad.

Professor Alf Torp has called attention to the remarkable circ.u.mstance that "the Cymric word for tin, 'ystaen,' resembles 'stannum,' which cannot be genuine Latin. I am inclined to think that both words are derived from an Iberian word; the Romans would in that case have got it from Galicia, and the Cymri doubtless from a primitive Iberian population in the British Isles. In some way or other our word 'tin' must be connected with this word, though the 'i' is curious in the face of the Cymric 'a'" (letter of November 9, 1909). In connection with this hypothesis of Professor Torp, it may be of interest to notice that in the tin district of Morbihan in Brittany, by the mouth of the Vilaine, is "Penestin," where the deposits still contain much tin, and the name of which must come from the Celtic "pen" (== head, cape) and "estein" (== tin).[23] It is conceivable that the Latin "stannum" was derived from Brittany rather than from Galicia.

In ancient Egyptian there is no word for tin; as in early Latin, it is described as white lead (dhti hs), which may point to a common western origin for these two metals.

There has been great diversity of opinion as to where the Ca.s.siterides of the Greeks were to be found. Herodotus [iii. 115] did not know where they were: "in spite of all his trouble, he had not been able to learn from any eye-witness what the sea is like in that region [that is, on the north side] of Europe. But it is certain that tin comes from the uttermost end, as also amber." Posidonius mentioned the islands as lying between Spain and Britain (see above, p. 23). Strabo says [iii. 175]:

"The Ca.s.siterides are ten, and lie near to one another, in the midst of the sea northwards from the harbour of the Artabri [Galicia]. One of them is unoccupied, while the others are inhabited by people in black cloaks, with the robe fastened on the breast and reaching down to their feet, who wander about with staves in their hands like the Furies in tragedy. They live for the most part as herdsmen on their cattle; but as they also have mines of tin and lead they barter these metals and hides for pottery, salt, and articles of copper with the merchants. Formerly the Phnicians alone carried on this trade from Gadir and kept the sea-route secret from every one else; but as the Romans once sailed in pursuit of one of their vessels with the object of finding out the position of their markets, the captain intentionally allowed his s.h.i.+p to be stranded on a sandbank and brought the same destruction upon his pursuers; but he saved himself from the wreck, and was compensated by the State for the value of his loss. Nevertheless the Romans discovered the sea-route after repeated attempts, and when Publius Cra.s.sus [under Caesar] had also traversed it he saw the metals dug out from near the surface and that the inhabitants were peaceful, and he proved this sea-pa.s.sage to be practicable, if one wished to make it, although it is longer[24] than that which divides Britain [from the continent]."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Places where tin is found in western Europe (marked with crosses), and routes of the tin-trade in ancient times (after L. Siret, 1908)]

It is unlikely that the Ca.s.siterides were Cornwall, as has been commonly supposed, since this peninsula can with difficulty be regarded as a group of islands; moreover this would not agree with the descriptions which always mention them as separate from Britain, and usually farther south.

The Scilly Isles, lying far out in the sea, where tin has never been worked to any great extent, and whose waters are dangerous to navigate, are out of the question. On the other hand, it may almost be regarded as certain that the Ca.s.siterides are the same as the "strymnides" (see below), and these must be looked for on the coast of Gaul. Furthermore tin is mentioned as "Celtic" by several Greek authorities; in the "Mirabiles auscultationes" of Aristotle or Pseudo-Aristotle [i. 834, A. 6] it is so called, and Ephorus (about 340 B.C.) speaks [in Scymnus of Chios] of Tartessus [i.e., Gadir], "the famous city," as "rich in alluvial tin from Celtica [Gaul], in gold, as also in copper."[25] It may further be mentioned that Mela referred to the Ca.s.siterides[26] as "Celtican," which would mean that they belonged to the north-west coast of Spain, unless it is confused with Celtic; and in his description of the islands of Europe, going from south to north, he puts them immediately before "Sena," or the ile de Seine at the western extremity of Brittany, which means in any case that they would be to the south of that island. Everything points to the islands being situated on the south coast of Brittany, and there is much in favour of Louis Siret's a.s.sumption [1908] that they are the islands of Morbihan ("Les iles du Morbraz"), west of the mouth of the Loire, exactly where "Penestin" is situated. This agrees very well, as we shall see later, with the description of Himilco's voyage to the strymnides. The free alluvial deposits along the sh.o.r.e in this district, near the mouth of the Vilaine, still contain a good deal of tin, together with gold and other precious metals; but in those distant times they may have been very rich in tin, and as they lie on the very seash.o.r.e they were naturally discovered early and became the most important source of tin until they were partly exhausted. In the meantime the rich tin deposits of Cornwall had begun to be utilised, and they became in turn the most important, while the Ca.s.siterides were gradually forgotten.

Diodorus [v. 22] alludes to the tin trade in the following terms: "On that promontory of Prettanike [Britain] which is called 'Belerion,'

the inhabitants are very hospitable, and they have become civilised by intercourse with foreign merchants. They produce tin, by actively working the land which contains it. This is rocky and contains veins of earth, and by working and smelting the products they obtain pure metal. This they make into the form of knuckle-bones and bring it to an island which lies off the coast of Britain and is called 'Ictis.'

For when the intervening s.p.a.ce becomes dry at ebb-tide they bring a quant.i.ty of tin to the island in waggons. A curious thing happens with the islands near the coast between Europe and Britain; for when the dividing strait is filled at high water they appear as islands, but when the sea recedes at the ebb and leaves a great s.p.a.ce of dry land, they look like part of the mainland. Here the merchants buy it from the natives and bring it across to Gaul; but finally they journey on foot through Gaul, and bring the goods on horses to the mouth of the river Rhone." In another place [v. 38] he says that the tin is conveyed on horseback to Ma.s.salia and to the Roman commercial town of Narbo.

Bunbury [1883, ii. p. 197] thinks that "this characteristic account leaves no reasonable doubt that Ictis was St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall (Belerion), to which the description precisely answers, and which contains a small port such as would have been well suited to ancient traders." The description decidedly does not fit, as some have thought, the island of Vectis (Wight); moreover the tin would in any case have had to be brought to the latter by sea from Cornwall, and not in waggons. It is, however, also possible that we have here some confusion with the original tin district in Brittany, where such places as Ictis, with the change between flood and ebb tide, are well known, from Caesar's description among others. But as Diodorus did not know the tin-mines of Brittany, which in his time had lost their importance, and had heard of tin-mines in Belerion, he transferred to the latter the whole description which he found in earlier writers.

This supposition may be confirmed by Pliny's statement [Hist. Nat. iv.

16, 104]: "The historian Timaeus says that in six days' sailing inwards from Britain the island of 'Mictis' is reached, in which white lead (tin) occurs. Thither the Britons sail in vessels of wicker-work, covered with hides." Originally the pa.s.sage doubtless read "insulam Ictis," which by transference of the "m" became "insula Mictis," and this again has been amended to "insulam Mictis." It is impossible to identify the description with Vectis, which moreover has just been mentioned by Pliny, and it is also difficult to understand how it could be a place in Cornwall, but it is consistent with the tin district of Brittany.

We do not know how or at what period this tin industry first developed.

Perhaps it was as early as the end of the neolithic period; but it is improbable that it should have been independently developed by the Iberian aborigines who lived in the tin districts of Iberia, and doubtless also of Brittany; it is far more likely to be due to communication with the Mediterranean through a seafaring, commercial people, and we know of none other than the Phnicians. How early they began their widespread commerce and industry is unknown; but they must have reached this part of the world long before Gadir was founded by the Tyrians about 1100 B.C. It is conceivable that in their search for gold and silver they discovered these deposits of tin and knew how to take advantage of them. As already remarked, there was as early as 2000 B.C. a continuous communication by sea along the coasts of western Europe, and it is probable that there arose at a very early time efficient navigators on the coasts of northern Spain and Brittany, just those districts which are rich in tin, where there are many good harbours. For a long time the tin trade was carried on by sea, southward along the coast to Tarsis in southern Spain; but by degrees an overland trade-route also came into use, going up the Loire and down the Rhone to the Mediterranean. This route became known to the Greeks, and the Phocaean colony Ma.s.salia was founded upon it about 600 B.C.; later the Greek colony of Corbilo was possibly founded at its other extremity, by the mouth of the Loire (?). Later still another trade-route ran along the Garonne overland to the Roman Narbo (Narbonne). On the development of the Cornish tin industry, the same routes by sea and land continued to be used. Thus it was that the tin trade furnished one of the first and most important steps in the path of the exploration of the North.

[Sidenote: Amber in ancient times]

When Phaethon one day had persuaded his father Helios to let him drive the chariot of the sun across the sky, the horses ran away with him and he first came too near the vault of heaven and set fire to it, so that the Milky Way was formed; then he approached too near the earth, set the mountains on fire, dried up rivers and lakes, burned up the Sahara, scorched the negroes black, until, to avoid greater disasters in his wild career, Zeus struck him down with his thunderbolt into the river Erida.n.u.s.

His sisters, the daughters of the sun, wept so much over him that the G.o.ds in pity changed them into poplars, and their tears then flowed every year as amber on the river's banks. "For this reason amber came to be called 'electron,' because the sun has the name of 'Elector.'" In this way the Greeks, in their poetry, thought that amber was formed. The mythical river Erida.n.u.s, which no doubt was originally in the north (cf. Herodotus), was later identified sometimes with the Rhone, sometimes with the Po.

Herodotus [iii. 115] says of northern Europe: "I do not suppose that there is a river which the barbarians call Erida.n.u.s, and which flows into the sea to the northward, from whence amber may come.... For in the first place the name Erida.n.u.s itself shows that it is h.e.l.lenic and not barbarian, and that it has been invented by some poet or other"; and in the second, he was not able to find any eye-witness who could tell him about it (cf. p. 27); but in any case he thought that amber as well as tin came from the uttermost limits of Europe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Places where amber is found (marked with crosses)]

The most important sources of amber in Europe are the southern coast of the Baltic, especially Samland, and the west coast of Jutland with the North Frisian islands. It is also found in small quant.i.ties in many places in western and central Europe, on the Adriatic, in Sicily, in South Africa, Burmah, the west coast of America, etc. Northern amber, from the Baltic and the North Sea, is distinguished from other kinds that have been investigated, by the comparatively large proportion of succinic acid it contains, and it seems as though almost all that was used in early antiquity in the Mediterranean countries and in Egypt was derived from the north. Along the coasts of the Baltic and North Sea the amber is washed by the waves from the loose strata of the sea-bottom and thrown up on the beach. When these washed-up lumps were found by the fishers and hunters of early times they naturally attracted them by their brilliance and colour and by the facility with which they could be cut. It is no wonder, therefore, that amber was used as early as the Stone Age for amulets and ornaments by the people on the Baltic and North Seas, and spread from thence over the whole of the North. In those distant times articles of amber were still rare in the South; but in the Bronze Age, in proportion as gold and bronze reach the north, they become rarer there, but more numerous farther south. In the pa.s.sage-graves of Mycenae (fourteenth to twelfth centuries B.C.) there are many of them, as also in Sparta at the time of the Dorian migration (twelfth to tenth centuries B.C.; cf. p. 14).

It is evident that amber was the medium of exchange wherewith the people of the North bought the precious metals from the South, and in this way it comes that the two cla.s.ses of archaeological finds have changed their localities. The neolithic ornaments of amber at Corinth, already referred to, the amber beads of the Fifth Dynasty in Egypt, and those of the neolithic period in Spain, show, however, if they are northern, that this connection between South and North goes back a very long way. But the Greek tribes among whom the Iliad originated do not appear to have known amber, as it is not mentioned in the poem, and it is first named in the more recent portions of the Odyssey (put into writing in the eighth century B.C.). Among the jewels which the Phnician merchant offered to the Queen of Syria was "the golden necklace hung with pieces of amber"

[Od. xv. 460]. We must therefore believe that the Phnicians were the middlemen from whom the Greeks obtained it at that time. But it was not so much esteemed by the Greeks of the cla.s.sical period as it became later, and they rejected it in their art industries, for which reason it is seldom mentioned by Greek authors. Thales of Miletus (600 B.C.) discovered that when rubbed it attracted other bodies, and from this important discovery made so long ago has sprung the knowledge of that force which dominates our time, and which has been named from the Greek word for amber, "electron."

Among the Romans of the Empire this substance was so highly prized that Pliny tells us [x.x.xvii., chap. 12] that "a human likeness made of it, however small, exceeds the price of a healthy living person." This was both on account of its beauty and of its occult properties; when worn as an amulet it was able to ward off secret poisons, sorcery and other evils.

It therefore naturally became an article that was in great demand, and for which merchants made long voyages.

It has been thought that the North Sea amber came into the southern market before that of the Baltic, and as the Erida.n.u.s of the myth was sometimes taken for the Rhone and sometimes for the Po, it was believed that in early times amber was carried up the Rhine and across to both these rivers, later also up the Elbe to the Adriatic [cf. Schrader, 1901, "Bernstein"]. It was thought that the archaeological finds also favoured this theory; but it must still be regarded as doubtful, and it is scarcely probable that the Phnicians obtained it from the mouths of the Rhone and the Po, while they may have brought it by sea at an early period. By what routes amber was distributed in the earliest times is still unknown.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Phnician wars.h.i.+p, according to an a.s.syrian representation]

[Sidenote: Voyages of the Phnicians]

Even though the Phnicians were for the most part a commercial and industrial people, who were not specially interested in scientific research, there can be no doubt that by their distant voyages they contributed much geographical knowledge to their age, and in many ways they influenced Greek geography, especially through Miletus, which from the beginning was partly a Phnician colony, and where the first Greek school of geographers, the Ionian school, developed. Thales of Miletus was himself probably a Semite. How far they attained on their voyages is unknown. Hitherto no certain relics of Phnician colonies have been found along the coasts of western Europe farther north than south-west Spain (Tarsis), and there is no historically certain foundation for the supposition that these seafaring merchants of antiquity, the Phnicians, Carthaginians and Gaditanians, on their voyages beyond the Pillars of Hercules and northwards along the coasts of western Europe, should have penetrated beyond the tin country and as far as the waters of northern Europe, even to Scandinavia and the Baltic, whence they themselves might have brought amber.[27] But a hypothesis of this sort cannot be disproved, and is by no means improbable. Everything points to the Phnicians having been uncommonly capable seamen with good and swift-sailing s.h.i.+ps; and a seafaring people who achieved the far more difficult enterprise of circ.u.mnavigating Africa, and of sailing southwards along its west coast with whole fleets to found colonies, cannot have found it impossible to sail along the west and north coast of Europe, where there are plenty of natural harbours. It would then be natural for them to try to reach the North Sea and the Baltic, if they expected to find the precious amber there, and on this point they certainly had information from the merchants who brought it either by land or by sea. It has already been remarked that it is first mentioned in history as a Phnician article of commerce.[28]

It may be supposed that the Phnicians at an early period obtained amber from their harbours on the Black Sea;[29] but after having pursued this prosperous carrying-trade from their harbours here and in the west, it is not improbable that they themselves tried to penetrate to the amber countries with their s.h.i.+ps.[30] The Phnicians, however, tried to keep their trade-routes secret from their dangerous and more warlike rivals the Greeks, and it is therefore not surprising that no mention of these routes should be extant, even if they really undertook such voyages; but it is undeniably more remarkable still that no certain trace of them has been found along the coasts of western Europe.

[Sidenote: Himilco's voyage, 500 B.C.]

The only thing we know is that about the year 500 B.C. the Carthaginians are said to have sent out an expedition under Himilco through the Pillars of Hercules and thence northwards along the coast. This is the first northern sea voyage of which mention is to be found in literature. At that time Tyre, the mother-city of Gadir, had been destroyed. Until then she had controlled the trade of the west. It was natural that Gadir in her isolated position should seek support from Carthage, which was now rising into power. To strengthen her trade communications, therefore, this flouris.h.i.+ng city sent out Hanno's great expedition along the west coast of Africa, and Himilco to the tin country in the north. Himilco seems to have written an account of the journey; but of this all that has been preserved is a few casual pieces of information in a poem ("Ora Maritima") by the late Roman author Rufus Festus Avienus[31] (of the end of the fourth century A.D.). The only other place where Himilco's name is mentioned is in Pliny [Hist. Nat. ii. 67, 169], who merely says that he made a voyage to explore the outer coast of Europe, contemporary with Hanno's voyage to the south along the west coast of Africa, and in addition he names him in the list of his authorities. But Pliny himself probably never saw his work; it cannot be seen that he has made use of it.

It is true that Avienus makes a pretence of having used Himilco's original account, but certainly he had never seen it. He may have utilised a Greek authority of about the time of the Christian era [cf. Marx, 1895]. This again was a compound of Greek tales, of which a part may have been taken from a Punic source, but of the latter no trace is found in any other known cla.s.sical writer, with the exception of Pliny. Unfortunately the information given us by Avienus shows little intelligence in the use of his authorities, and his poem is often obscure.

In the description of the coast of western Europe [vv. 90-129] we read:

"And here the projecting ridge raises its head--the older age called it 'strymnis'--and all the high ma.s.s of rocky ridge turns mostly towards the warm south wind. But beneath the top of this promontory the strymnian Bay opens out before the eyes of the inhabitants. In the midst of this rise the islands which are called strymnides, scattered widely about, and rich in metals, in tin and in lead. Here live a mult.i.tude of men with enterprise and active industry, all having continually commercial interests; they plough in skilful fas.h.i.+on far and wide the foaming sea ['fretum,' literally, strait], and the currents of monster-bearing Ocean with their small boats. For these people do not know how to fit together [literally, weave] keels of fir or maple; they do not bend their craft with deal, in the usual way; but strange to say, they make their s.h.i.+ps of hides sewed together, and often traverse the vast sea with the help of hides. Two days' voyage from thence lay the great island, which the ancients called 'the Holy Island,'[32] and it is inhabited by the people of Hierne [i.e., Ireland] far and wide, and near to it again extends the island of Albion. And it was the custom of the men of Tartessus to trade to the borders of the strymnides, also colonists from Carthage and the many who voyage between the Pillars of Hercules visited these seas. The Carthaginian Himilco a.s.sures us that these seas can scarcely be sailed through in four months, as he has himself related of his experience on his voyage; thus no breeze drives the s.h.i.+p forward, so dead is the sluggish wind of this idle sea. He also adds that there is much seaweed among the waves, and that it often holds the s.h.i.+p back like bushes. Nevertheless he says that the sea has no great depth, and that the surface of the earth is barely covered by a little water. The monsters of the sea move continually hither and thither, and the wild beasts swim among the sluggish and slowly creeping s.h.i.+ps."

It may be difficult to decide how much of this is really derived from Himilco. The name "strymnis" is not found elsewhere in literature, and may be taken from him.[33] The supposition that it was Cape Finisterre and that the strymnic Bay ("sinus strymnicus") was the Bay of Biscay is improbable; a bay so open and wide could scarcely have been described in terms which a Latin author would have rendered by "sinus"; besides which there would be difficulties with the strymnides which were widely spread therein. strymnis is certainly in Brittany, and since it "turns chiefly towards the warm south wind," we may suppose it to be a headland on the south coast. That the strymnic Bay opens out beneath this headland ("sub hujus") agrees with all that we know of it. As already stated, the tin-producing strymnides are undoubtedly the Ca.s.siterides, which may probably be the islands in the bay by the mouth of the Vilaine and Quiberon, on the south side of Brittany, where tin occurs.

It is just in this district, at the mouth of the Loire, that we find the Veneti as the only people famous for seamans.h.i.+p in ancient times in these parts. But, according to Caesar's valuable description, they had strong, seaworthy s.h.i.+ps, built wholly of oak and with leather sails. This seems scarcely to tally with the statement that the people of the strymnides sailed the sea in boats of hide, the coracles of the Celts, which is also confirmed by Pliny's statement [x.x.xiv. c. 47]

that "according to fabulous tales tin was brought in s.h.i.+ps of wicker-work sewed round with hides from islands in the Atlantic Ocean." Either the Veneti must have acquired the art of s.h.i.+pbuilding after the voyage of Himilco--perhaps, indeed, through their intercourse with Carthaginians and Gaditanians--or else we must believe that the statement in Avienus rests upon a misinterpretation of the original authorities, and that the flowery language really means that the s.h.i.+ps were not built of fir, maple or spruce, but of oak, the omission of which is striking.