The Isle of Wight, the Vectis or Ictis of the Ancients. 57 



the Forest, especially near Butts Ash barrows, by its deep 

 depressions. Both roads, though, can still tell us something 

 of the past. The opinion of late philologists and geographers, 

 with the exception of Lappenburg and Sir G. C. Lewis, has 

 been against the idea that the Isle of Wight was the Vectis 

 or Ictis of the ancients. The argument, however, against 

 the passage in Diodorus Siculus,* that it would be so much 

 easier for the first traders to have exported the tin from 

 Belerium instead of bringing it by inland transport to the 

 Island, and then shipping it to Gaul, is founded upon 

 ignorance. Sea carriage was then far more difficult and 

 dangerous than land conveyance. Ancient mariners were easily 

 frightened, and their vessels put into land every night. As Sir 

 G. C. Lewis further remarks, foreign merchants were always re- 

 garded with jealousy and distrust, and the overland route would 

 enable the traffic to be carried out through the whole distance by 

 native traders.! 



Singularly enough, however, Warner J states that a large 

 mass of tin was found on the very site of this old Koman road, 



* As the passage is so important, I give it in full : ' 

 8' ei's d<TTpayd\(t}j> pvd/j.oi>s K0/J.iov(riv el's TWO, vrjff 

 ovofJLa^ojJiev'rjv 5e "\KTLV Kara yap ras d/*7rwrets ava&pouvoptvov TOV fiera^v TOTTOV rats 

 d/idcus el's TavTTfv Ko/j.iov(ri da\f/i\7J TOV KaTTirepov. "ISiov 8 TI (rvftfiaivet Trepl 

 Tas Tr\r]criov vqaovs ras ywerat) Ket/u^as rrjs re Ei}/9t67n;s Kai TTJS TZpeTTaviKrjs. Kara 

 fjih yap rds TrX^/atiy^Sas TOV yuerai> ir6pov tr\fjpov^vov vyaot tyalvovrai, Kara 8 

 rds dfiirdreis aTroppeotiffris r^s flaXctTTTjs Kal TroXtiv rdirov dva&paivoijo-'rjs dewpovvrai 

 xeppovrjaoi. Lib. v., cap. xxii., vol. i., p. 438. Ed. Dindorf. Leipsic, 

 1828-31. Pliny, as Wesseling remarks, in his note on this passage, quoted 

 by Dindorf, vol. iv. p. 421, by some mistake, makes the Isle of Wight 

 (Mictis) six days' sail from England. See Sir G. C. Lewis's Astronomy of 

 the Ancients, chap, viii., sect. iii. p. 453. 



t As before, sect. iv. p. 462. 



J The South- Western Parts of Hampshire, vol. ii. pp. 5, 6, 1793. 



I 



