The Kynetæ have reasonably been identified with the Veneti of Cæsar, whose native name is Gwynedd, and whose locality, in Western Brittany, exactly coincides with the notice of Herodotus. If so, the name is Gallic, and (as such) in all probability transmitted to Herodotus from Gallic informants. So that there were two routes for the earliest information about Britain—the overland line (so to say), whereon the intelligence was of Gallic origin; and the way of the Mediterranean, wherein the facts were due to the merchants of Tyre, Carthage, or Gades. Direct information, too, may have been derived from the Greeks of Marseilles, though the evidence for this is wanting.
The two foremost writers to whose texts the preceding observations have been preliminary, are Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, both of whom lived during the reign of Augustus, too early for any information over and above that which was to be found in the pages of Cæsar. Yet as each contains much that Cæsar never told, and, perhaps, never knew, the immediate authorities must be supposed to be geographical writers of Alexandria, one of whom, Eratosthenes, is quoted by Cæsar himself; the remoter ones being the[43] Phœnician and Gallic traders. The thoroughly Phœnician origin of the statement of these two authors is well collected from the following extracts, which we must consider to be as little descriptive of the Britannia of Cæsar and the Romans, as they are of the Britannia of the year 51 B.C. Cæsar's Britain is Kent, in the last half-century before the Christian era. Diodorus' Britain is Cornwall, some 300 years earlier. "They who dwell near the promontory of Britain, which is called Belerium, are singularly fond of strangers; and, from their intercourse with foreign merchants, civilized in their habits. These people obtain the tin by skilfully working the soil which produces it; this being rocky, has earthy interstices, in which, working the ore and then fusing, they reduce it to metal; and when they have formed it into cubical shapes they convey it to certain islands lying off Britain, named Ictis; for at the low tides, the intervening space being laid dry, they carry thither in waggons the tin in great abundance. A singular circumstance happens with respect to the neighbouring islands lying between Europe and Britain; for, at the high tides, the intervening passage being flooded, they seem islands; but at the low tides, the sea retreating and leaving much space dry, they appear peninsulas. From hence the merchants purchase the tin from the natives, and carry it across into Gaul;[44] and finally journeying by land through Gaul for about thirty days, they convey their burdens on horses to the outlet of the river Rhone."—v. 21, 22.
So is Strabo's.—"The Cassiterides are ten in number, and lie near each other in the ocean, towards the north from the haven of the Artabri. One of them is a desert, but the others are inhabited by men in black cloaks, clad in tunics reaching to the feet, and girt about the breast. Walking with staves, and bearded like goats; they subsist by their cattle, leading for the most part a wandering life. And having metals of tin and lead, these and skins they barter with the merchants for earthenware, and salt, and brazen vessels. Formerly the Phœnicians alone carried on this traffic from Gadeira, concealing the passage from every one; and when the Romans followed a certain ship-master, that they also might find the mart, the ship-master, out of jealousy, purposely ran his vessel upon a shoal, and leading on those who followed him into the same destructive disaster, he himself escaped by means of a fragment of the ship, and received from the State the value of the cargo he had lost. But the Romans, nevertheless, making frequent efforts, discovered the passage; and as soon as Publius Crassus, passing over to them, perceived that the metals were dug out at a little depth, and that the men being at peace were already beginning, in consequence of[45] their leisure, to busy themselves about the sea, he pointed out this passage to such as were willing to attempt it, although it was longer than that to Britain."—Lib. iii. p. 239.
Pliny is, to a great degree, in the same predicament with Strabo and Diodorus. Some of the statements which are not common to him and Cæsar, are undoubtedly referrible to the information which the conquest of Britain under Claudius supplied. Yet the greater part of them is old material—Greek in origin, and, as such, referrible to Western rather than Eastern Britain, and to the era of the Carthaginians rather than the Romans. Solinus' account is of this character; his Britain being Western Britain and Ireland almost exclusively.
A poem of Festus Avienus, itself no earlier than the end of the fourth century, concludes the list of those authors who represent the predecessors of Cæsar in the description of Britain. Recent as it is, it is important; since some of the details are taken from the voyage of Himilco, a Carthaginian. He supplies us with a commentary upon the word Demeter, in the so-called Orphic poem—a commentary which will soon be exhibited.
The points then of contact between the British Isles and the Continent of Europe, were two in number. They were far apart, and the nations that visited them were different. Both, indeed,[46] were in the south; but one was due east, the other due west. The first, or Kentish Britain, was described late, described by Cæsar, commercially and politically connected with Gaul, and known to a great extent from Gallic accounts. The second, or Cornish Britain, was in political and commercial relation with the Phœnician portions of Spain and Africa, or with Phœnicia itself; was known to the cotemporaries of Herodotus, and was associated with Ireland in more than one notice. Both were British. But who shall answer for the uniformity of manners throughout? It is better to be on our guard against the influence of general terms, and to limit rather than extend certain accounts of early writers. A practice may be called British, and yet be foreign to nine-tenths of the British Islands. There were war-chariots in Kent and in Aberdeenshire, and so far war-chariots were part of the British armoury; but what authority allows us to attribute to the old Cornishmen and Devonians? Better keep to particulars where we can.
As the ancient name for the populations of Cornwall and Devonshire was Damnonii, the Damnonii will be dealt with separately. It will be time enough to call them Britons when a more general term becomes necessary. Two-thirds of the notice of them have been given already in the extracts from Strabo and Diodorus, in which the[47] long beards and black dress must be noticed for the sake of contrast. No such description would suit the Britons of the eastern coast.
The so-called Orphic poem places the wide houses of the goddess Demeter in Britain. Standing by itself, this is a mysterious passage. But it has been said that an extract from Avienus will help to explain it—
——"Hic chorus ingens
Faminei cœtus pulchri colit orgia Bacchi.
Producit noctem ludus sacer; aera pulsant
Vocibus, et crebris late sola calcibus urgent.
Non sic Absynthi prope flumina Thracis alumnæ
Bistonides, non qua celeri ruit agmine Ganges,
Indorum populi stata curant festa Lyæo."
There were maddening orgies amongst the sacred rites of the Britons—orgies, that whilst they reminded one writer of the Bacchic dances, reminded another of the worship of Demeter. That these belonged to the western Britons is an inference from the fact of their being mentioned by the Greek writers, i.e., from those who drew most from Phœnician authorities. Avienus, as we have seen, thinks of the Bacchæ as a parallel. So does Pausanius—