540 Rev. Mr Williams on one Source of the 



the older commentators, and the tradition of the inhabitants, 

 places the Cimmerians near the Lake Avernus ; others placed 

 them a day's sail to the west of Circeii, in the very country which 

 the Umbri of history are said to have occupied. 



But in addition to the retention of the C in this ancient Cum- 

 erium promontorium, the modern Monte Comaro, there still re- 

 mains a convincing proof that the C was attached to the name 

 even within the year 585 a. c. There is in the Capitoline marbles 

 the following notice : 2 " Quintus Aufidius, Banker, at the sign of 

 the Cimbric shield, absconded as he was deep in debt." Now as 

 this authentic record, more authentic as many believe than 

 manuscripts, mentions a Cimbric shield sixty-seven years before 

 the well-known invasion of the Cimbri and Teutones, the shield 

 must have been named after some Cimbri other than those of 

 Jutland, whose name the Romans never heard, before their pas- 

 sage of the Rhine, and their devastations in Gaul and Spain. 

 " The arms of the Cimbri were first heard of in the 640th year 

 of our city," writes Tacitus. 3 This Cimbricum scutum could 

 not therefore have derived its name from them. Probably it drew 

 its origin from some Cumrian tribe, among the Gallic invaders 

 of Italy, if not from the Umbrians themselves. I have omitted 

 many coincidences of note between the ancient names of places 

 in Italy and in Britain, but I find it impossible to omit the fol- 

 lowing — 



4 Mevania, in Umbria, Mevania, Anglesea. 



1 The whole of the inscription applicable to the case is the following : — 



" Quintus. Aufidius. Mensarius. Tabernae. Argentarise. Ad. scutum. Cimbri- 

 cum. Cum. Magna. Vi. iEris. Cessit. Foro. retractus. ex. itinere. causam. dixit." 

 I owe this quotation to Thierry's history of the Gauls, vol. i. page 46. 



2 Taciti Germ. 



Sexcentessimum et quadragessimum annum urbs nostra agebat quum pri- 

 mum Cimbrorum arma audita sunt. 



4 Mevania, a city in a plain (" Projecta in campis, 11 or, as Lucan describes it, 

 " ubi se Mevania campis explicat, 11 ) watered by the sacred river Clitumnus. Now, 



