TAB. XXXIX.
P. 76.
Stukeley del.
Prospect of the British Temple at Barrow Lincolnshr July 25. 1724.
This Apher is the Africus mention’d by Mela, I. 9. He calls him an Arabian king, who being driven out by the Assyrians, went into Africa. ’Tis very remarkable, that his name, when interpreted, signifies Tyn; as the great Bochart makes the name of Britain, come from Bratanac, the land of tyn; equivalent to the greek word κασσιτερος, whence Cassiterides in latin. This expulsion seems to be hinted at in Gen. xiv. 6. in the days of Abraham. Now a reader not much acquainted with these kind of inquiries, will be apt to smile at pretending to a similitude between Apher and Britain. So in making the Wiltshire word sarsens deriv’d from the same word as the name of the city of Tyre; tho’ ’tis an undeniable fact, and easily perceiv’d by the learned.
The evidences of Hercules planting Britain, are of the like nature, which I shall very briefly recapitulate. Apollodorus in II. after the story of Hercules, Antæus and Geryon, two kings in Afric and Spain, mentions his conquering Alebion and Dercynus sons of Neptune, in the same mythologic strain as the others, because they attempted to drive away his oxen. He makes it to be in Libya, others in Ligya or Liguria, others in Gaul. The variety of places is of no consequence in these very old stories. I regard only the personal names of Albion and Bergion, as more commonly call’d, sons of Neptune. If this be really so, sons of Tarshish, son of Javan: for Tarshish was the true Neptune of the heathen; and he was one of the sons to whom the heathen generally attribute the plantation of islands, as well as Moses, Gen. x. 5. But Albion and Bergion are notoriously most ancient names of Britain and Ireland. Mela, II. 5. mentions Hercules fighting Albion and Bergion. So Tzetzes in chiliad. and Tzetzes the interpreter of Lycophron.
Tacitus says expressly Hercules was in Germany, in that part lying upon the ocean especially. Ammianus Marcellinus, in his XV. 9. tells us from Timagenes, an ancient historian, “that the Dorienses following the more ancient Hercules, inhabited the western countries bordering on the ocean.” By mount Carmel was a city Dora spoken of by Josephus, and by Stephanus of Byzantium, quoting Hecatæus, and many more old authors. See the famous fragment of Stephanus. Claudius Julius, in his III. of the Phœnician history, writes, “next to Cæsarea is Dora, inhabited by Phœnicians on account of the great quantity of the purple fish there found.” Now Hercules being confessedly the inventor of this Tyrian dye, ’tis probable the companions of his, mention’d by Ammianus, were of this city.
If Hercules peopled the ocean, coasts of Gaul, Spain and Germany, we may well imagine he would do the like in Britain. Pliny’s testimony is express, that Melcarthus (corruptly Midacritus) first brought tyn from the Cassiterid islands, which can be no other than Britain.
The poets and mythologists, when speaking of the Titans, agree they went all into the west, which seems to be meant of Hercules and his people settling in Britain. Our Thule, or northern island, seems to have been named by our Hercules, as a demonstration of his being there, from an island of the same name in the Persian gulph. Of which Bochart.
The like is to be inferr’d from such stories as that related by Parthenius Nicæus, “that Hercules travelling, after his expedition against Geryon, pass’d thro’ the country of the Celts, and was entertain’d by Britannus. His daughter Celtine fell in love with him, on whom he begat a son call’d Celtus; from him afterwards the people of the Celts received their denomination.”