252 Details of an Address by Dr. Phene at Stonehenge. 



taken flocks and herds or grain, and Strabo says tin and lead were \ 

 their articles of exchange for what was required from the continent. [ 



But Caesar did not land in or near Cornwall, but in the south-east, J 

 where there was no tin. But tin was his object, and to get rid oflj 

 him the people of the south would readily have sent flocks and herds J 

 into Cornwall, or, in haste, hostages for their delivery, just as they j 

 gave hostages to Caesar, I have no doubt, for the delivery of tin to 

 him. The Cornish trade being stopped, the natives would be only 

 too glad to hear of a revival, and a new channel of commerce, and i 

 no delay would have occurred in despatching the ore. But the 

 people of the south-east would be as averse to give their reasons for 

 wanting the tin, as Caesar was to giving his to the Senate, and no 

 doubt they invented as ingenious excuses for their requirements, as 

 he did to the Senate for the invasion of Britain. In his commentaries I 

 he suggests that he attacked Britain to suspend succours thence to fi 

 the Gauls ; but he had already done this by the destruction of the I 

 fleet. From Suetonius and Pliny we learn, what they could only I 

 have obtained through Caesar, that he pretended his object was to I 

 procure British pearls for the altar of Venus. 1 



In this state of things a place of rendezvous became indispensable, 

 a sacred spot where the oaths of the contracting parties would be I 

 effective. Tor the people of the south and east. Avebury would J 

 suffice as a place for solemn contract. But the people of the far | 

 west must equally engage and swear on their sacred stones or in 

 one of their own temples. To do this a temple, probably the most I 

 or one of the most sacred, must be transported. And here — as was 1 

 the old Phoenician custom — they could deposit their tin ore, and 

 the other side could bring their flocks or corn and leave them in j 

 payment. This Phoenician custom still exists, in some of the trade 

 ports of the Erythrean Sea — now the Indian Ocean. 



If we may assume such a case as this and that these smaller stones 

 were so transported here, we can readily understand that when the 

 Romans came to settle in the island, and whether or not they be- 

 came acquainted with the cause of the institution, this would become 

 the great spot for communication with the people of the east and 

 west, and that here the Romans would do honour to the country by 



