xxxiv 



NOTES. 



ground, that the amber was brought by sea, at first only from the west Cinv 

 brian coast, and that it reached the Mediterranean chiefly by land, being 

 brought across the intervening countries by means of inland traffic and barter. 

 The most thorough and acute investigation of this subject is contained in 

 Ukert's memoir iiber das Electrum, in der Zeitschrift fur Alterthumswissen- 

 schaft, Jahr. 1838, No. 5255. (Compare with it the same author's Geo- 

 graphic der Griechen und Romer, Th. ii. Abth. ii. 1832, S. 26 36, Th. iii. 

 i. 1843, S. 86, 175, 182, 320, and 349.) The Massilians, who, according to 

 Heeren, penetrated, after the Phoenicians, as far as the Baltic, under Pytheas, 

 hardly went beyond the mouths of the Weser and the Elbe. The amber 

 islands (Glessaria, also called Austrania) are placed by Pliny (iv. 16) de- 

 cidedly west of the Cimbrian promontory in the German Sea ; and the con- 

 nection with the expedition of Germanicus sufficiently shews that an island in 

 the Baltic is not meant. Moreover, the effects of the ebb and flood tides in 

 the estuaries which throw up amber, where, according to the expression of 

 Servius, " mare vicissim turn accedit, turn recedit," suits the coasts between 

 the Helder and the Cimbrian peninsula, but does not suit the Baltic, in which 

 Timseus places the island of Baltia (Plin. xxxviL 2). Abalus, a day's journey 

 from an sestuarium, cannot, therefore, be the Kurische Nehrung. On the 

 voyage of Pytheas to the west shores of Jutland, and on the amber trade 

 along the whole coast of Skagen, as far as the Netherlands, see also 

 Weiiauff, Vidrag til den nordiscke Ravhandels Historie (Copenh. 1835). 

 Tacitus, not Pliny, is the first writer acquainted with the glessum of the 

 shores of the Baltic, in the land of the JSstyans (2Estuorum gentium) and the 

 Venedi, concerning whom the great ethnologist Schaffarik (slawische Alter- 

 thumer, Th. i. S. 151 165), is uncertain whether they were Slavonians or 

 Germans. The more active direct connection with the Samland coast of the 

 Baltic, and with the ^Estyans by means of the overland route through 

 Pannonia, by Carnuntum, which was opened by a Roman knight under Nero, 

 appears to me to have belonged to the later times of the Roman Ceesars 

 (Voigt, Gesch. Preussen's, Bd. i. S. 85.) The relations between the Prustian 

 coasts and the Greek colonies on the Black Sea are evidenced by fine coins, 

 struck probably before the 85th Olympiad, which have been recently found ia 

 the Netz district (Lewezow, in den Abhandl. der fieri. Akad. der Wiss. aua 

 dcm Jahr 1833, S. 181224). No doubt the amber stranded or buried on 

 coasts (Plin. xxxvii. cap. 2), the electron, the sun stone of the very ancient 

 mythus of the Eridanus, came to the so'ith, both by land and by sea, from 

 veiy different districts. The " amber dug up at two places in Scythia was 



