Toms sculp.
The Approach to Radfin fronting the Avenue of Stonehenge 8. June 1724
A. the avenue. B. the old Kings barrows. C. the new Kings barrows. D. Vespasians camp. E. the beginning of the avenue.
This calls to my memory, what the above-mention’d Dr. Harwood inform’d me, he had heard the great Sir Christopher Wren say, that there were such structures as Stonehenge, in Africa, being temples dedicate to Saturn. But I need not be tedious in observing, how absurd the Monkish reports are; of a christian king erecting Stonehenge, as a sepulchral monument for the British nobility, massacred in the monastery of Ambresbury. At the same time they say, their bodies were buried in the church-yard of the monastery. Nor how they confound the names of Ambrosius the king, Ambrius the abbot, the town, abby and mountain of Ambry, and perhaps of Merlin too, for one of them was call’d Ambrosius. But their affirming, the edifice came out of Africa into Spain, thence into Ireland, thence into Britain, and of its being erected here in the same form, by art magic; and that the stones are of a medicinal virtue: these notions lead us to the original truth, of the Druid founders, and that Stonehenge had originally, the name of Ambres, and from it the adjacent town of Ambresbury had its name.
To pursue this matter a little further. Between Stonehenge and the town, hanging over the river, upon elevated ground is a fine and ancient camp, commonly call’d Vespasian’s, and not without much probability, attributed to him. We have often had occasion to mention it before. That great man, destin’d by providence for executing his final vengeance, on the people of the Jews, and thereby accomplishing our Saviour’s predictions; by his successes in this place, pav’d a road to the imperial dignity. Having conquer’d the isle of Wight, he pursued his good fortune, higher up into this country, where he made this camp, and another across the heath, call’d Yanesbury; which seems to retain the latter part of his name. The camp we are speaking of near Ambresbury, is an oblong square, nicely placed upon a flexure of the river, which closes one side and one end of it. There is an old barrow inclos’d in it, which, doubtless was one of those belonging to this plain, and to the temple of Stonehenge, before this camp was made. It is pretty to observe, that the road from Stonehenge to Ambresbury, runs upon the true via prætoria of the camp. The Generals tent or prætorium was in that part south of the road, between it and the river, toward little Ambresbury. There is another gate of the camp, at the lower end, northward, the porta prætoria ordinaria, in the Roman language. Now I apprehend, that Stonehenge was originally call’d the Ambres, from thence this camp was call’d Ambresburgh, and thence the name of the town underneath.
Mr. Camden writes, “that near Pensans in Cornwall, is a very remarkable stone, call’d main Ambre, which tho’ it be of a vast bigness, yet you may move it with one finger: notwithstanding a great number of men cannot remove it from its place. The name is interpreted the stone of Ambrosius.” A picture of it in Norden’s history of Cornwall, p. 48. I have seen one of these rocking stones, as call’d commonly, in Derbyshire. Mr. Toland in his history of the Druids, mentions it too, and says there are such in Wales and in Ireland. Sir Robert Sibbald mentions them in Scotland, all rightly judg’d to have been done by the Druids. Sir Robert speaking of the rocking stone near Balvaird (or the Bards town) in Fife: “I am inform’d (says he) that this stone was broken by the usurper Cromwell’s soldiers. And it was discover’d then, that its motion was perform’d, by a yolk extuberant in the middle of the under surface of the uppermost stone, which was inserted in a cavity, in the surface of the lower stone.” This is the artifice of the stones at Stonehenge, but applied here by the Druids for a moveable principle, as there, for stability. I call them mortaise and tenon: and before observ’d them to be of an egg-like form; which Sir Robert calls a yolk. The Main Amber in Cornwall was likewise destroy’d in the civil wars, by one of Oliver’s governors. These reformers had a notion of these works being superstitious matters. Main Ambre is lapis Ambrosius, or petra Ambrosia. And that name leads us to consider the famous petræ Ambrosiæ, on the coins of the city of Tyre. A specimen of them, I have drawn on the Plate following.
These, and many more of the like sort, struck by the city of Tyre, in honour of their founder Hercules, may be seen in Vaillant’s second Volume of colony coins, pag. 69, 148, 218, 251, 337.
They represent two great, rough stones, call’d petræ ambrosiæ, with an altar before them, and an olive tree; Hercules the hero of Tyre, the famous Navigator of antiquity, their founder, sacrificing. On some of the coins petræ ambrosiæ wrote in Greek. He is represented indeed like the Greek Hercules, but in the latter times of the Roman empire, when these coins were struck, they at Tyre were as far to seek about the true meaning and origin of their first antiquities, as we of ours. And what knowledge they had of them, was from legendary reports of the Greeks, who chiefly, among the heathens, had the knack of writing. These reports, as we may find in Nonnus his Dionysiacs, 40. and 41. acquaint us, that Hercules invented shipping, as a latin poet too intimates, Tibullus.
Prima ratem ventis credere docta Tyrus.
They acquaint us that he ordered Tyre to be built, where the petræ ambrosiæ stood, which were two moveable rocks, standing by an olive tree. He was to sacrifice on them, and they should become fixt and stable: rather, the City should be built with happy auspice, and become permanent.