108 



Vestiges of the Earliest Inhabitants of Wiltshire. 



B.C. 900 : and we have farther allusions to Britain more or less 

 distinct by others of the earliest classical writers : viz., Hecata)us, 1 

 Herodotus, 2 Aristotle, 3 and Polybius ; 4 and as we advance onwards 

 to the Christian .ZEra, the list of authors who touch on Britain 

 begins to expand, while the details given are more full and accu- 

 rate : 5 and these are the written evidences we have, (drawn from 

 foreign sources, when letters were unknown in Britain) of the 

 position this country held at that day in the eye of the then civil- 

 ized world, the scanty, (I allow,) but attractive materials out of 

 which the early history of Britain, and therefore of Wiltshire must 

 be gathered. 



1 Hecatceus, quoted by Diodorus Siculus flourished B.C. 530. In speaking of 

 the Hyperboreans, who were originally conjectured to inhabit the extreme north 

 of Europe, but were afterwards assigned a portion at the extreme west ; he 

 describes them " as inhabiting an island as large as Sicily, lying towards the 

 north, over against the country of the Celts, fertile and varied in its productions, 

 possessed of a beautiful climate, and enjoying two harvests a year." [Hecat : 

 Abder : Fr : 2.] In this island it is not difficult to recognize our own country. 

 [Rawlinson's Herod: vol. iii, 28. Sir R. Hoare's Ancient Wilts, vol. i., 156, 

 157.] 



2 Herodotus read his famous history at Athens B.C. 445. He mentions the 

 Cassiterides (lib. iii., 115), but he seems to have known little of them, but by 

 reports of a very vague character. 



3 Aristotle B.C. 345, wrote that " without the pillars of Hercules, the ocean 

 flows round the earth ; in this ocean are two islands, and those very large, called 

 Bretannic (Albion and Ierne) which lie beyond the Celti." [Monumenta 

 Historica Britannica.] 



4 Polybius the historian, who accompanied Scipio, and flourished about B.C. 

 260, says " of the utmost ocean, the British isles, the plenty of tin gold and sil- 

 ver in Spaine, old writers with different opinions have reported much," iii. 57, 3. 

 [Camden's Britannia, p. 29.] 



5 In addition to those named above, the following amongst the earliest clas- 

 sical authors speak of Britain. 



Yirgil (B.C. 70) Eclogue, i., 68. Georgic, iii., 25. 



Strabo (B.C. 54) iii., 125. 



Diodorus Siculus (B.C. 44,) v., 21, 22, 38. 



Cjesar (B.C. 44) Bell : gall : iv. 



Cicero (B.C. 43) De Divin : De Natura Deorum. 



Ovid (B.C. 38). 



Horace (B.C. 20) Odes lib. L, 30, 35, lib. iii., 5, 3, lib. iv., 14, 48. 

 Pliny (A.D. 23) iv., 30, 36, vii., 57. 

 Pomponius Mela (A.D. 45) iii., 6. 

 Tacitus (A.D. 60) in Agric : c. x. Annales. 

 Dio Cassius (A.D 155). 



