“Vel super Hesperiæ vada caligantia Thiles.”
Again (Sylv., iv. 4, 62):
“——aut nigræ littora Thule.”
And again (Sylv., v. 1, 90, 91):
“——quantum ultimus orbis,
Cesserit et refluo circumsona gurgite Thule.”
Strabo (book ii., chap. 4, § 8) is quoted to show by Pytheas, that Thule is “one of those islands that are called British,” and we have seen Strabo’s own opinion that it lies farther south than where the Massilian placed it. He quotes Catullus (B.C. 87; Ad Furium Carm., xii.):
“Sive trans altas gradietur Alpes,
Cæsaris visens monumenta magni,
Gallicum Rhenum, horribilesque ultimosque Britannos;”
and Horace (i. 35, 30):
“Serves iturum Cæsarem in ultimos
Orbis Britannos;”
to show that the Britons were the northernmost people then known. Due use is made of Silius Italicus (nat. circ. A.D. 25; Punic, lib. xvii., 417, 418):