468 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. xm. 



The second or eastern route, No. II. of map, runs by 

 Trieste by way of Laibach, Gratz, and Brack, and across 

 the basin of the Leitha to Presburg, and from thence 

 to the line of the Upper Oder, past Breslau, to the Lower 

 Vistula, to Elbing, and ultimately reaches the amber 

 coast of Samland. 1 



These two lines of traffic were used not merely by 

 the Etruskans, but also subsequently by the Komans, 

 and are marked by the discovery of amber from the 

 north, as well as articles derived from the south in the 

 tombs in their neighbourhood, and by them the Medi- 

 terranean markets derived their principal supply of 

 amber at the dawn of history. The ancient Greeks 

 confounded the Hadriatic ports, whence the amber was 

 shipped off to them, with the country where it was 

 found, and Herodotus tells the story current in his time 

 that a river 2 Po flowed into the northern ocean not far 

 from the Amber Isles, with the remark that his informa- 

 tion was second hand, and that he had never seen any 

 one who had visited those islands. The story is, how- 

 ever, true in its main points, that the amber of the 

 ancient Greeks was discovered in northern Europe, and 

 that it made its appearance in the civilised world at 

 Hatria, near the mouth of the river Po, without refer- 

 ence to its conveyance through the country separating 

 Italy from the North Sea and the Baltic, of which it 

 was very unlikely that Herodotus could have obtained 

 accurate information from the Greek traders. 



The Etruskan trade passed also northwards through 

 Switzerland into the Valley of the Ehine as far as its 



1 For lists of Etruskan finds in Bohemia, see Genthe, Ueber die Etrus- 

 kischen Tauschhandel nach dem Norden, 8vo, 1874, pp. 150-1. 



2 Herodotus, iii. 115. 



