The south-eastern Britons were the same class with the Belgæ—
Therefore they were Germans.
Such a syllogism, I repeat, would be in proper form, and the inference satisfactory.
But there is a great deal to set against both: so much as to make it extremely probable that the utmost that can be got from the first statement is, that a part of the Belgæ, and more especially the Condrusi, Eburones, Cærasi, and Pæmani were Germans only in the way that the people of Guernsey and Jersey are English, i.e., politically but not ethnologically; and that the second only proves that certain national names occurred on both sides of the channel.
If we look at the numerous local, national, and individual names of the Belgæ, we find that they agree so closely in form with those of the undoubted Gauls, as to be wholly undistinguishable. The towns end in -acum, -briva, -magus, -dunum, and -durum, and begin with Ver-, Cær-, Con-, and Tre-, just like those of Central Gallia; so that we have—to go no farther than the common maps—Viriovi-acum, Minori-acum, Origi-acum, Turn-acum, Bag-acum, Camar-acum, Nemet-acum, Catusi-acum, Gemini-acum, Blari-acum, Mederi-acum, Tolbi-acum; Samaro-briva; Novio-magus, Moso-magus; Vero-dunum; Marco-durum, Theo-durum; Ver-omandui; Cær-asi; Con-drusi; Tre-viri—all[67] Gallic compounds on Belgian ground, and all forms either wholly foreign to any German area, or else exceedingly rare. Now it is no objection to this remarkable and exclusive preponderance of Gallic names in Belgian geography, to say that there is no proof of the designations in question being native; and that, although they existed in the language of Cæsar's informants, who were Gauls, they were strange to the Belgæ, even as the word Welsh is strange to a Cambro-Briton—being the name by which he is known to an Englishman, but not the true and native denomination. I say that all argument of this kind, valid as it is in so many other cases where it is never applied, has no place here; since Cæsar's informants about the Belgic populations were the Belgæ themselves, and it is inconceivable that they should have used nothing but Gallic terms when they spoke of themselves, if they had not been Gauls.
The names of the individual Belgic chiefs are as Gallic as those of the towns and nations, e.g., Commius and Divitiacus, and so are those of such Britons as Cassibelaunus.
I submit that this is, as far as it goes, a reason for limiting rather than extending all such statements as the ones in question. And it is by no means a solitary one. A statement of Strabo confirms it:—"The Aquitanians are wholly different"[68] (i.e., from the other Gauls) "not only in language, but in their bodies,—wherein they are more like the Iberians than the Gauls. The rest are Gallic in look; but not all alike in language. Some differ a little. Their politics, too, and manners of life differ a little."—Lib. iv. c. 1.
With the external evidence, then, of Strabo, coinciding with the internal evidence derived from the geographical, national, and individual names, it seems illegitimate to infer from the text of Cæsar more than has been suggested.
Unless we believe the Belgæ of Picardy to have been Germans, the second fact stated by Cæsar, viz., the Belgic origin of the south-eastern Britons is comparatively unimportant, since it merely shews that between the Britons of the south-eastern coast, and those of the interior, there were certain points of difference, the former being recent immigrants, and Belgium being the country from which they migrated. Nevertheless, this introduces a difficulty; since, by drawing a distinction between the men of Kent, and the men of the Midland Counties, we are precluded from arguing that the Britons in general belonged to the same class as the Gauls; inasmuch as Cæsar's description may fairly be said to apply to the Belgic Britons only.
I think, myself, that Cæsar's statement must[69] be taken as an inference rather than as evidence; in other words, he must not be considered to say that certain Attrebates and Belgæ crossed the Straits of Dover and settled in Britain, but that, as certain portions both of Belgium and Britain bore the same names, a migration had taken place; such being the explanation of the coincidence. Or, if we suppose Cæsar himself to have been too acute a reasoner to confound a conclusion with a fact (as, perhaps, he was), we may attribute the inference to his informants. Whoever is in the habit of sifting ethnological evidence, is well aware that a confusion of kind in question is one of the commonest of the difficulties he must deal with.