[2881] The old reading here was Bannomanna, which Dupinet would translate by the modern Bornholm. Parisot considers that the modern Runa, a calcareous rock covered with vegetable earth, in the vicinity of Domess-Ness, is the place indicated.
[2882] It has been suggested by Brotier that Pliny here refers to the Icy Sea, but it is more probable that he refers to the north-eastern part of the Baltic, which was looked upon by the ancients us forming part of the open sea.
[2883] With reference to these divisions of land and sea, a subject which is involved in the greatest obscurity, Parisot states it as his opinion that the Amalchian or Icy Sea is that portion of the Baltic which extends from Cape Rutt to Cape Grinea, while on the other hand the Cronian Sea comprehends all the gulfs which lie to the east of Cape Rutt, such as the Haff, the gulfs of Stettin and Danzic, the Frisch-Haff, and the Kurisch-Haff. He also thinks that the name of ‘Cronian’ originally belonged only to that portion of the Baltic which washes the coast of Courland, but that travellers gradually applied the term to the whole of the sea. He is also of opinion that the word “Cronium” owes its origin to the Teutonic and Danish adjective groen or “green.” The extreme verdure which characterizes the islands of the Danish archipelago has given to the piece of water which separates the islands of Falster and Moen the name of Groensund, and it is far from improbable that the same epithet was given to the Pomeranian and Prussian Seas, which the Romans would be not unlikely to call ‘Gronium’ or ‘Cronium fretum,’ or ‘Cronium mare.’ In the name ‘Parapanisus’ he also discovers a resemblance to that of modern Pomerania.
[2884] Upon this Parisot remarks that on leaving Cape Rutt, at a distance of about twenty-five leagues in a straight line, we come to the island of Funen or Fyen, commonly called Fionia, the most considerable of the Danish archipelago next to Zealand, and which lying between the two Belts, the Greater and the Smaller, may very probably from that circumstance have obtained the name of Baltia. Brotier takes Baltia to be no other than Nova Zembla—so conflicting are the opinions of commentators!
[2885] Parisot suggests that under this name may possibly lie concealed that of the modern island of Zealand or Seeland, and that it may have borne on the side of it next to the Belt the name of Baltseeland, easily corrupted by the Greeks into Basilia.
[2886] Brotier takes these to be the islands of Aloo, and Bieloi or Ostrow, at the mouth of the river Paropanisus, which he considers to be the same as the Obi. Parisot on the other hand is of opinion that islands of the Baltic are here referred to; that from the resemblance of the name Oönæ to the Greek ὠὸν, “an egg,” the story that the natives subsisted on the eggs of birds was formed; that not improbably the group of the Hippopodes resembled the shape of a horse-shoe, from which the story mentioned by Pliny took its rise; and that the Fanesii (or, as the reading here has it, the Panotii, “all-ears”) wore their hair very short, from which circumstance their ears appeared to be of a larger size than usual.
[2887] Tacitus speaks of three great groups of the German tribes, the Ingævones forming the first thereof, and consisting of those which dwelt on the margin of the ocean, the Hermiones in the interior, and the Istævones in the east and south of Germany. We shall presently find that Pliny adds two groups, the Vandili as the fourth, and the Peucini and Basternæ as the fifth. This classification however is thought to originate in a mistake, for Zeuss has satisfactorily shown that the Vandili belonged to the Hermiones, and that Peucini and Basternæ are only names of individual tribes and not of groups of tribes.
[2888] Brotier and other geographers are of opinion that by this name the chain of the Doffrefeld mountains is meant; but this cannot be the case if we suppose with Parisot that Pliny here returns south from the Scandinavian islands and takes his departure from Cape Rutt in the territory of the Ingævones. Still, it is quite impossible to say what mountains he would designate under the name of Sevo. Parisot suggests that it is a form of the compound word “seevohner,” “inhabitants of the sea,” and that it is a general name for the elevated lands along the margin of the sea-shore.
[2889] Parisot supposes that under this name the isle of Funen is meant, but it is more generally thought that Norway and Sweden are thus designated, as that peninsula was generally looked upon as an island by the ancients. The Codanian Gulf was the sea to the east of the Cimbrian Chersonesus or Jutland, filled with the islands which belong to the modern kingdom of Denmark. It was therefore the southern part of the Baltic.
[2890] By Eningia Hardouin thinks that the country of modern Finland is meant. Poinsinet thinks that under the name are included Ingria, Livonia, and Courland; while Parisot seems inclined to be of opinion that under this name the island of Zealand is meant, a village of which, about three-fourths of a league from the western coast, according to him, still bears the name of Heinïnge.