2"* S. V. 122., May 1. '68.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



349 



LONDON. SATURDAY, MAY 1. 1858. 



ON THE EARLIEST MENTION OF IBELAND. 



It has been shown in previous numbers (2°'* S. 

 V. 101. 218.) that tin was brouj^ht from Cornwall 

 to the eastern end of the Mediterranean by the 

 Carthaginian, and perhaps by the Pboenician na- 

 vigators, at a comparatively early period ; but it 

 was not till after the age of Alexander that the 

 Greeks and Romans heard of the existence of 

 Britain, and it was through the expedition of 

 Caesar that ihey first obtained a detailed know- 

 ledge of its inhabitants and physical character- 

 istics. 



It was stated by Polybius, in a lost portion of 

 his history, that the inhabitants of Massilia, Narbo, 

 and Corbilo on the Loire, being interrogated by 

 Scipio Africanus (who died in 129 b.c), were un- 

 able to give him any information respecting Bri- 

 tain (ap. Strab., iv. 2. § 1,). With respect to 

 Massilia and Narbo, towns on the Mediterranean, 

 this ignorance is intelligible ; though the Britan- 

 nic tin trade is said to have been carried on 

 through Massilia; but Corbilo, being situated 

 close to the mouth of the Loire, would seem to 

 have lain within the sphere to which a knowledge 

 of Britain would have penetrated, if the ordinary 

 intercourse between that island and Gaul had ex- 

 tended beyond the Channel. Consistently with 

 this statement, Caesar informs us that the Gauls 

 in his time knew scarcely anything in detail of 

 Britain. It was only, he says, visited by traders^ 

 who did not go beyond the coast, whieh lay oppo- 

 site to their own country. (B. G., iv. 20.) It may 

 be inferred from this passage that the Gauls, who 

 carried on the cross-channel trade between Gaul 

 and Britain, were the inhabitants of the northern 

 coast. 



It is remarked by Dio Cassius that the very 

 existence of Britain was unknown to the Greeks 

 and Romans in early times *, and that afterwards 

 they Avere ignorant whether it was an island or 

 not : various opinions on this point, founded on 

 mere probability, and not on actual examination 

 of the locality, had been promulgated (xxxix. 50.). 

 The insular character of Britain was first demon- 

 stratively established by the fleet of Agricola 

 (Tac, Agric. 10.). Livy (as we learn from Jor- 

 nandes, cife i?eZ>. Get, c. 2.) declared, that in his 

 time Britain had never been circumnavigated. 



Again, Dio speaks of the pride felt by Cassar 

 himself, and by his countrymen, at his having 



* There is an absurd passage in the work of Georgius 

 Cedrenus, a Greek monk of the eleventh ceuturj', which 

 represents Alexander as having visited the Phasis, Ga- 

 deira, and the Britannic islands, after having invaded 

 India, and as then sailing along the Indus (vol. i. p. 267., 

 ed. Bonn.). Britain is here supposed to be situated to 

 the eaat of India. 



actually landed in a country previously unknown, 

 even by report (ib. 53.). 



Plutarch describes Caesar's audacity in ven- 

 turing to cross the Western Ocean with an army, 

 and to sail agailist Britain over the Atlantic sea. 

 He attacked an island whose very existence was 

 in question, and advanced the Roman dominion 

 beyond the limits of the inhabited world (Caesar, 

 c. 23.) 



Servius, in commenting on the verse in Virgil's 

 First Eclogue (v. 67.), — 



" Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos," — 

 states that Britain is an island lying at a distance 

 in the Northern Ocean, and is called by the 

 poets another world. He adds that it had once 

 been joined to the mainland ; a fable similar to 

 that related of Sicily (^w. iii. 414.). According 

 to Eumenius, in his panegyric of Constantius, the 

 expression of Britain being another world was 

 used by Csesar in reporting to Rome his first in- 

 vasion of Britain (c. 11.). Lucretius, whose poem 

 was published before Caesar's Commentaries, uses 

 Britain as an example of a country in the extreme 

 north (vi. 1104.). 



The mere name of Britain seems indeed to have 

 been known to the Greeks since the time of Py- 

 theas, who aflJirmed that he had landed on the 

 island ; and it is mentioned by Polybius in con- 

 nexion with the tin trade. Dr. Lappenberg, 

 however, in his History of England under the 

 Anglo-Saxon Kings (Thorpe's translation, vol. i. 

 p. 3.), commits a serious mistake when he states 

 that " British timber was employed by Archi- 

 medes for the mast of the largest ship of war 

 which he had caused to be built at Syracuse." 

 He has been misled by the name 'Bpirravias, 

 in Athen. v. p. 208. e, whex-e Casaubon has re- 

 stored Bperrlas ; and Camden, in his Britannia, had 

 before him read BperTidfTis. It is not very likely 

 that Hiero should have sent to the remote and 

 almost unknown island of Britain in search of 

 timber, when it could be procured in abundance 

 and perfection on the neighbouring coast of Italy ; 

 as Casaubon, in his animadversions to Athenceus, 

 has pointed out. A similar confusion of Bruttia 

 and Britain likewise occurs in Diod., xxi. 21., 

 ed. Bekker, where the movements of Hannibal 

 are described. (Compare Diefenbach, Celtica, vol. 

 iii. p. 68.) 



But though the name of Britain was known to 

 the Greeks of the Post-Alexandrine period, the 

 earliest mention of Ireland in a writer whose age 

 is ascertained occurs in Caesar. In his History of 

 the Gallic war, he says that Hibernia lies to the 

 west of Britain, being estimated at less than half 

 its size : the distance between the two islands is 

 the same as that between Britain and Gaul. He 

 likewise states that the island of Mona is situated 

 midway between Hibernia and Britain ; by which 

 he means either Anglesey or Man (v. 13.). 



