Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar

by T. Rice Holmes

[1686] M. d’Arbois de Jubainville formerly pointed out, in support of Tacitus’s conclusion, that, according to Festus Avienus (Ora maritima, 433), there was a mountain in the Spanish peninsula called Silurus (Les premiers habitants de l’Europe, i, 1889, p. 44). But, since the origin of the name Silures is unknown, it seems rash to found an ethnological argument on its resemblance to Silurus. In Mexico there is a river called Tamesi: would M. d’Arbois infer from the name which Caesar latinized into Tamesis that the people who named this river were akin to the prehistoric inhabitants of Britain? M. d’Arbois has since argued that the Silures could not have been Iberian (Les Celtes, p. 30); but his recantation is hardly more reasonable than his original theory.

[1687] Rice Holmes, Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul, 1899, p. 480.

[1688] Nature, Nov. 22, 1894, p. 92.

[1689] Crania Britannica, ii, pl. 59, p. 5, note.

[1690] Mem. Anthr. Soc., i, 1865, p. 160.

[1691] The Races of Britain, p. 26.

[1692] Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul, 1899, pp. 270-3.

[1693] L’Anthr., v, 1894, pp. 276-87.

[1694] See p. 376, supra.

[1695] See Bull. de la Soc. d’anthr., 4^e sér., vii, 1896, pp. 666-71.