Müllenhoff (Deutsche Altertumskunde, i, 1890, p. 471) holds that Pliny confused the distance of Ictis from Britain with that of Thule, which, as he says in an earlier passage (Nat. Hist., ii, 75 [77], § 187), was ‘six days’ sail northward from Britain’ (sex dierum navigatione in septentrionem a Britannia). See p. 505, infra.
[2347] The geographical position of Corbilo cannot be fixed. Desjardins (Géogr. de la Gaule rom., i, 1876, p. 288) was originally inclined to place it near Beslon in the peninsula of Guérande, because the neighbourhood is ‘rempli de souvenirs celtiques’. Beslon is no more on the Loire than Margate is on the Thames; and if the tin had been landed there, it would have been necessary either to tranship it and carry it across the Loire, or to take the pack-horses by a roundabout route up the valley of that river. Afterwards (ib., ii, 1878, pp. 139, 484-5, 485, n. 1) Desjardins changed his mind, and identified Corbilo with St.-Nazaire: ‘cet emplacement’, he remarked, anticipating one of the objections which I have just made against his former view, ‘cet emplacement s’accorde-t-il beaucoup mieux que celui de Beslon avec le texte de Strabon, qui porte cet ancien port sur la Loire, et non sur la mer.’ He relied mainly upon the investigations of an engineer, M. René Kerviler, who, ‘ayant eu l’occasion de faire des travaux d’approfondissement à Saint-Nazaire, y a découvert des substructions qui avaient fait vraisemblablement partie de l’ancien port de Corbilon.’ See Rev. arch., nouv. sér., xxxiii, 1877, pp. 145-53, 230-9, 342-53. M. Kerviler himself identified the remains with those of the Brivates portus of Ptolemy, Geogr., ii, 8, § 1.
[2348] Geogr., iv, 2, § 1.—πρότερον δὲ Κορβιλὼν ὑπῆρχεν ἐμπόριον ἐπὶ τούτῳ τῷ ποταμῷ, περὶ ἧς εἴρηκε Πολύβιος, μνησθεὶς τῶν ὑπὸ Πυθέου μυθολογηθέντων, ὅτι Μασσαλιωτῶν μὲν τῶν συμμιξάντων Σκιπίωνι οὐδεὶς εἶχε λέγειν οὐδὲν μνήμης ἄξιον ἐρωτηθεὶς ὑπὸ τοῦ Σκιπίωνος περὶ τῆς Βρεττανικῆς, οὐδὲ τῶν ἐκ Νάρβωνος οὐδὲ τῶν ἐκ Κορβιλῶνος, αἵπερ ἦσαν ἄρισται πόλεις τῶν ταύτῃ.
[2349] Cf. Folk-lore, i, 1890, pp. 85-6, and H. F. Tozer, Hist. of Anc. Geogr., p. 36.
[2350] Cf. K. Müllenhoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde, i, 1890, p. 471, and D. Detlefsen in W. Sieglin’s Quellen und Forschungen, &c., Heft 9, p. 77.
[2351] Origins of Eng. Hist., 1890, p. 34.
[2352] Celtic Britain, 1904, p. 46.
[2353] Mr. Alfred Tylor blunders even more hopelessly than Elton. ‘The transhipment of tin’, he says (Archaeologia, xlviii, 1885, p. 233), ‘was described by ancient writers as taking place at Vectis, six days’ sail from Cornwall.’
[2354] Folk-Lore, i, 1890, pp. 95-7.
[2355] Ib., pp. 98-101.