96 Stonehenge and its Barrows. 



considers that the Phoenicians were the giants o£ the " Chorea 

 Gigantum/^ and that the art of erecting these stones, instead of the 

 stones themselves, was brought from the farthermost parts of Africa, 

 the known habitations of the Phoenicians. Sir William Betham (in 

 the " Gael and Cymbri," 8vo., Dublin, 1834) has advocated the same 

 opinion, but he considered that the Phoenicians were preceded in the 

 occupation of both Britain and Ireland by the Caledonians, after- 

 wards called the Picts, whom he conceives to have been a people of 

 Scandinavian origin, the Cimbri of antiquity. The Phoenicians he 

 considered to be the same people with the Gael or Celts. 



Of the Belgae, and their probable connection with Stonehenge, 

 the writer will speak presently. 



Some have supposed that Stonehenge was constructed by the 

 Romans during their occupation of Britain. But the Romans pre- 

 ferred the plains and valleys for their villas and temples to the hill- 

 tops and cold downs. It is perfectly true that there was a continuous 

 Roman occupation of the Mendip Hills, as evidenced by the remains 

 of their amphitheatre, and by the considerable number of coins, fibulae, 

 incised stones, etc., which are constantly being found, especially at 

 Charterhouse ; but to such utilitarians as the Romans, it was a matter 

 of importance to occupy these heights, in order that they might derive 

 the full advantage accruing to them from the smelting of lead, and 

 other metals, by the native and subject population. But neither 

 was Salisbury Plain the site which Romans would have selected for 

 the erection of a temple, nor was the style of Stonehenge that which 

 would be adopted by a Roman architect. In Gaul they built such 

 temples as those at Nimes ; in the west of Britain they built to Sul 

 Minerva such a temple as that of which the remains may still be 

 seen at Bath. Moreover, the Romans were wont to make their stones 

 "vocal,'" as Bolton quaintly puts it, "by inscriptions," or by sculpture. 

 Much stress is often laid upon the silence of Roman writers respecting 

 the megalithic structures of Britain, and Mr. Herbert and others 

 argue from this ^ that they must therefore be of post-Roman date ; 



* " Humboldt confirms a statement I have often made, that we dare not draw 

 too much from the silence of an author. He refers to three weighty and quite 

 undeniable facts, to which there is no testimony in the very places where we 



