An important sentence occurs a few lines lower. The British Isles are spoken of—
——"where (are) the wide houses of Demeter."
[40]This will be noticed in the sequel.
No reason for excluding these lines lies in the fact of their being forgeries. Provided that they were composed before the time of Cæsar, the authorship matters but little. If, as is the common practice, we attribute them to Onomacritus, a cotemporary of Mardonius and Miltiades, they are older than the notice of Herodotus.
It cannot be denied that these data for the times anterior to Cæsar are scanty. A little consideration will shew that they can be augmented. Between the time of Julius Cæsar and Claudius—a period of nearly a hundred years—no new information concerning Britain beyond that which was given by Cæsar himself, found its way to Rome; since neither Augustus nor Tiberius followed up the aggressions of the Great Dictator. Consequently, the notices in the "Bellum Gallicum" exhaust the subject as far as it was illustrated by any Roman observers. Now if we find in any writer of the time of Augustus or Tiberius, notices of our island which can not be traced to Cæsar, they must be referred to other and earlier sources; and may be added to the list of the Greek authorities.
If we limit these overmuch, we confine ourselves unnecessarily. Inquiry began as early as the days of Herodotus; and opportunities increased as time advanced. The Baltic seems to have been visited when Aristotle wrote; and between[41] his era and that of Polybius the intellectual activity of the Alexandrian Greeks had begun to work upon many branches of science—upon none more keenly than physical geography.
From the beginning of the Historical period, the first-hand information—for it is almost superfluous to remark that none of the Greek authors speak from personal observation—flows from two sources; from the inhabitants of western and southern Gaul, and from the Phœnicians. The text of Herodotus suggests this. In the passage which has been quoted, he speaks of the Kassiterides; and Kassiterides is a term which a Phœnician only would have used. No Gaul would have understood the meaning of the word. It was the Asiatic name for either tin itself, or for some tin-like alloy; and the passage wherein it occurs is one which follows a notice of Africa.
In two other passages, however, the consideration of the populations and geography of Western Europe is approached from another quarter. The course of the Danube is under notice, and this is what is said:—
"The river Ister, beginning with the Kelts, and the city of Pyrene, flows so as to cut Europe in half. But the Kelts are beyond the Pillars of Hercules; and they join the Kynesii, who are the furthest inhabitants of Europe towards the setting-sun."—ii. 33.[42]
"The Ister flows through the whole of Europe, beginning with the Kelts who, next to the Kynetæ, dwell furthest west in Europe."—iv. 49.