CHAPTER II.
AUTHORITIES FOR THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL PERIOD.—HERODOTUS.—ARISTOTLE.—POLYBIUS.—ONOMACRITUS.—DIODORUS SICULUS.—STRABO.—FESTUS AVIENUS.—ULTIMATE SOURCES.—DAMNONII.—PHŒNICIAN TRADE.—THE ORGIES.—SOUTH-EASTERN BRITONS OF CÆSAR.—THE DETAILS OF HIS ATTACKS.—THE CALEDONIANS OF GALGACUS.
The extant writers anterior to the time of Julius Cæsar, in whose works notice of the British islands are to be found, are, at most, but four in number. They are all, of course, Greek.
Herodotus is the earliest. He writes "of the extremities of Europe towards the west, I cannot speak with certainty ... nor am I acquainted with the islands Cassiterides, from which tin is brought to us."[3]—iii. 115.
Aristotle is the second. "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules," he tells us, "the ocean flows round the earth; in this ocean, however, are two islands, and those very large, called Britannic, Albion and Ierne, which are larger than those beforementioned, and lie beyond the Celti; and other two not less than these, Taprobane, beyond the Indians, lying obliquely in respect of the main land, and that called Phebol, situate over against[39] the Arabic Gulf; moreover not a few small islands, around the Britannic Isles and Iberia, encircle as with a diadem this earth; which we have already said to be an island."—De Mundo, §. 3.
Polybius comes next. "Perhaps, indeed, some will inquire why, having made so long a discourse concerning places in Libya and Iberia, we have not spoken more fully of the outlet at the Pillars of Hercules, nor of the interior sea, and of the peculiarities which occur therein, nor yet indeed of the Britannic Isles, and the working of tin; nor again, of the gold and silver mines of Iberia; concerning which writers, controverting each other, have discoursed very largely."—iii. 57.
Lastly come half-a-dozen lines of doubtful antiquity, which the editors of the "Monumenta Britannica" have excluded from their series of extracts, on the score of their being taken from a non-existent or impossible author—a bard of no less importance than Orpheus. The ship Argo is supposed to speak, and say—
"For now by sad and painful trouble
Shall I be encompassed, if I go too near the Iernian Islands.
For unless, by bending within the holy headland,
I sail within the bays of the land, and the barren sea,
I shall go outward into the Atlantic Ocean."