At the same time, that there were some actual Belgæ in Britain is likely enough; but that they were a separate substantive population, of sufficient magnitude to be found in all the parts of Britain where Belgic names occurred, and still more that they were Germans, is an unsafe inference; safe, perhaps, if the two texts of Cæsar stood alone, but unsafe, if we take into consideration the numerous facts, statements, and presumptions which complicate and oppose them.
The Belgic names themselves, which occurred in Britain, were as follows:—
a. Attrebates.—There were Attrebates both in Belgium and Britain; the Gaelic ones in Artois,[70] which is only Attrebates in a modern form. Considerable importance attaches to the fact, that before Cæsar visited Britain in person, he sent Commius, the Attrebatian, before him. Now, this Commius was first conquered by Cæsar, and afterwards set up as a king over the Morini. That Commius gave much of his information about Britain to Cæsar is likely; perhaps he was his chief informant. He, too, it was who, knowing the existence of Attrebates in Britain, probably drew the inference which has been so lately suggested, viz., that of a Belgæ migration, or a series of them. Yet the Attrebates of Britain were so far from being on the coast, that they must have lain west of London, in Berkshire and Wilts; since Cæsar, who advanced, at least, as far as Chertsey, where he crossed the Thames, meets nothing but Cantii, Trinobantes, Cenimagni, Segontiaci, Ancalites, Bibroci and Cassi. It is Ptolemy who first mentions the British Attrebatii; and he places them between the Dobuni and the Cantii. Now, as the Dobuni lay due west of the Silures of South Wales, we cannot bring the Attrebatii nearer the coast than Windsor.
b. The Belgæ.—These—like the Attrebatii, first mentioned by Ptolemy—are placed south of the Dobuni, and on the sea-coast between the Cantii and Damnonii of Devonshire; so that Sussex,[71] Hants, and Dorset, may be given them as their area.
c. The Remi are mentioned by no better an authority than Richard of Cirencester, as Bibroci under another name.
d. The Durotriges, too, or people of Dor-set, are stated by the same authority to have been called Morini.
e. f. In Ireland we have two populations with German names; the Menapii and the Chauci, both in the parts about Dublin, and in the neighbourhood of one another. And these are mentioned by Ptolemy.
Now, whatever these Belgic names prove, they do not prove Cæsar's statement that it was the maritime parts of Britain which were Belgic; since the Menapii and Chauci must have been wholly unknown to him, and the Attrebatii lay inland.
At the same time, they prove something. They also introduce difficulties in the very simple view that Britain was solely and exclusively British. This leads to a further consideration of the details. The Remi may be disposed of first. They stand on bad authority, viz., that of a monk of the twelfth century.
So may the Morini. Though I admit the ingenuity and soundness of the doctrine that the existence of a double nomenclature such as that[72] by which the Durotriges are called Morini, and the Morini, Durotriges, is well explained by the assumption of a second language, and the notion that the inhabitants of certain districts were sometimes called by a British, sometimes by a German, name, the hypothesis is not valid where the facts can be more easily explained otherwise. No one would thus explain such words as Lowlander and Borderer applied to the people of the Cheviot Hills. Yet both are current; one being given when their relation to England, the other when their difference from the Highland Gaels, is expressed.