Fig. 172.—From Barthelemy.
With the river Ebro may be connoted the South Spanish town of Ebora or Epora which is within a few miles of Andura. The coins of this city are inscribed Epora, Aipora, and Iipora, and the “bare bearded head to the right within a laurel garland” may here no doubt be identified with Hyperion, the father of Helios the Sun. In Homer, Helios himself is alluded to as Hyperion, which is the same name as our Auberon: the coins of the Tarragonensian town of Pria, which has been sometimes confused with Baria, in the south of Spain, figure a bull and are inscribed Prianen.
There are in existence certain coins figuring an ear of corn, a pellet, a crescent, the head of Hercules, and a club, inscribed Abra: the site of this city is unknown, but is believed to have been near Cadiz.
On the banks of the Tagus there was a city named Libora and its coins pourtrayed a horse: in the opinion of Akerman the unbridled horse was the symbol of liberty, and it is quite likely that among other interpretations this was one, for it is beyond question that symbolism was never fettered into one solitary and stereotyped form.
The ancient Libora is now known as Talavera la Reyna which may seemingly be modernised into Tall Vera, the Queen. The Tarraconensian town of Barea—whose emblem was the thistle—is now known as Vera: the old Portuguese Ebora is now Evora, uber is the German for over; Varvara is the Cretan form of Barbara, and it is quite obvious that in various directions Vera and Bera with their derivatives were synonymous terms.
It would seem that Aubrey or Avery toured with his cross into Helvetia, planting it particularly at Ginevra, now Geneva, and there for the moment we may leave him amid the Alpine Oberland at Berne.
The ancient town of Berne memorises in its museum a famed St. Bernard dog named “Barry,” which saved the lives of forty travellers: this “Barry” associated with Oberthal may be connoted with “Perro,” a shepherd’s dog in Wales, whose curious name Borrow was surprised to find corresponded with perro, the generic term for dog in Spain.[346]
Berne still maintains its erstwhile sacred Bruin or bears in their bear-pit, but the Gaulish Eburs or Iburii seemingly reverenced not Bruin but the boar, vide the Ebur coin here illustrated. The capital of the ancient Eburii is now Evreux, and they seem, no doubt for some excellent reason, to have been confused with the Cenomani, a people seemingly akin to our British Cenomagni, Iceni, or Cantii.
Fig. 174, bearing the inscription Eburo, is a coin of the Eburones who inhabited the neighbourhood of Liége. It is a noteworthy fact that the people of Liége are admittedly conspicuous as the most courteous and charming of all Belgians. Their coins were inscribed Ebur, Eburo, and sometimes Com—a curious and unexplained legend which occurs frequently upon the tokens of Britain.
The Celtiberian town of Cunbaria is now known as La Maria, the Kimmeroi were synonymously the Kymbri, and it is not improbable that these dual terms have survived in the compère and commère of modern France. The pères or priests of France, like the parsons, priests, and presbyters of Britain, assign to infants at Baptism a God-Father and a God-Mother, which the French term respectively parrain and marrain. Compère and commère figure not only in the Church but also in the Theatre, and it is more than likely that the commère and compère of the modern Revue are the direct descendants of the patriarchal Abaris, Abhras, Priest, and Presbyter of prehistoric times.