2'>a S. VI. 131., July 3. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



LONDON, SATURDAY, JULYS. 1858. 



THE AMBER TRADE OF ANTIQUITT. 



The Greek word electron had a double signi- 

 fication : it denoted amber, and also a metallic 

 compound, formed by the mixture of gold and 

 silver in certain proportions. Whichever of these 

 significations was the original one, it is certain 

 that the transfer from one to the other was owing 

 to the tawny colour and the lustre which were 

 common to the two substances. 



The use of the word electron in Homer and 

 Hesiod, where it is described, as applied to differ- 

 ent ornamental purposes, does not determine its 

 meaning. Buttniann, however, in his dissertation 

 on the subject (^Ueber das Elektron, Mythologus, 

 vol. ii. p. 337.), has made it probable that it sig- 

 nifies amber in the early epic poetry ; and he de- 

 rives the word from tAKw, in allusion to the electric 

 properties of amber. The use of the word in the 

 plural number for the ornaments of a necklace in 

 two passages of the Odysseij (xv. 460., xviii.29o.), 

 though not decisive, agrees best with the supposi- 

 tion that knobs or studs of amber are meant, as 

 in the passage of Aristophanes, where it denotes 

 the ornaments fastened to a couch. (Eq. 532.) 

 Upon this hypothesis, the acceptation of the word 

 in the sense of pale gold would be derivative and 

 secondary. (Compare Boeckh, Metrol. Unter- 

 suchungen, p. 129.) 



The fable of the daughters of the sun being 

 changed into poplars on the banks of the river 

 Eridanus, and their tears for the death of their 

 brother Phuethon being converted into amber, 

 though posterior to the early epic poetry, is ante- 

 rior to Jischylus and the Attic tragedians, who 

 introduced it into their dramas. Hyginus even 

 ascribes this fable to Hesiod. (Buttmann, lb. 

 p. 342.) 



The notions of the ancients both as to the na- 

 ture of amber, and the places where it occurred, 

 were singularly conflicting and indistinct ; as we 

 learn from the full compilation in Pliny {H. N., 

 xxxvii. 11.). But although Theophrastus speaks 

 of it as Iiaving been found in Liguria (De Lapid., 

 § 16. edit. Schneider), it maybe considered as cer- 

 tain that the amber imported into ancient Greece 

 and Italy was brought from the southern shores 

 of the Baltic, where it is now almost exclusively 

 obtained. According to Herodotus, amber was in 

 hi.s time reported to come from a river, called 

 Eridanus by the barbarians, which flowed into the 

 sea to the north. Herodotus however rejects 

 this story : he considers the name Eridanus as 

 being manifestly of Greek origin, and as invented 

 by some poet ; he cannot ascertain that such a 

 river exists, or that Europe is bounded by sea to 

 the wCil. He believes however, with respect 



both to amber and tin, that they come from coun- 

 tries at the extremity of the earth (iii. 115). The 

 account of Pytheas the navigator (about 350 B.C.), 

 as recited to us by Pliny, is, that a shore of the ocean 

 called Mentonomon, reaching 6000 stadia (750 

 miles) in length, was inhabited by the Guttones, 

 a nation of Germany ; that beyond this coast, at 

 the distance of a day's sail, the island of Abalus 

 was situated ; that amber was thrown upon this 

 island in spring by the waves, and was a marine 

 concretion ; and that the natives used it as a fuel, 

 and likewise sold it to their neighbours the Teu- 

 toni. The account of Pytheas was, according to 

 Pliny, followed by Timjeus ; with this exception, 

 that he called the island, not Abalus, but Basilia 

 (xxxvii. 11.). The testimony of Timseus is, how- 

 ever, differently reported by Pliny in another 

 place (iv. 27.) ; he there states that, according to 

 Timseus, there was an island one day's sail from 

 the northern coast of Scythia, called Raunonia, 

 into which amber was cast up by the waves in 

 spring. In the same chapter he likewise says, that 

 a large island off the northern coast of Scythia, 

 which others called Baltia, was by Timseus called 

 Basilia. The account of Diodorus is not very 

 different, and is apparently derived from a similar 

 source. He states that Basileia is an island in 

 the ocean opposite the coast of Scythia beyond 

 Galatia : that amber is cast up by the sea on this 

 island, and that it occurs nowhere else ; and that 

 it is here collected and carried by the natives to 

 the opposite continent, whence it is imported to 

 Greece and Italy (v. 23.). 



Tacitus informs us, in his Gei-mania (c. 45.), 

 that the .^stui, who dwell on the right or eastern 

 shore of the Suevic Sea, find in the shoal water 

 and on the shore, amber, which they call glesuin. 

 Like other barbarians (he continues) they were 

 incurious about its nature, and it lay for a long 

 time among the other substances cast up by the 

 sea; they made no use of it, until Roman luxury 

 gave it value ; they now collect it and send it on- 

 wards, in a rude and unmanufactured state, and 

 wonder at the price which they receive for it. 

 Tacitus himself believes it to be a gum, which 

 distils from trees in the islands of the west, under 

 the immediate influence of the sun, falls into the 

 sea, and is carried by tlie winds to the opposite 

 coast. One of the islands in the Northern Ocean 

 is stated by Pliny to have been named by the 

 Roman soldiers Glessaria, from its producing 

 gleasum, or amber (glass) : it had been reduced 

 by Drusus, and was called Austrania, Austravia, 

 or Actania, by the natives (iv. 27., xxxvii. 11.). 

 Pliny places it near the island of Burchana, which 

 was between the mouths of the Rhine and the 

 Sala, and was likewise taken by Drusus (Strab. 

 vii. 1.3). 



These accounts agree in pointing to the northern 

 const of Europe a'^ the jdace in which amber was 



