379 



of those chronicles do not assign any date for this calamity, nor do they 

 agree in their relations of it."'^' 



De Pisa remarks that it is singular no mention should be made of 

 it by any Greek or Latin writer, and doubts if the great drought was as ^ 

 extensive and of such long duration as it is said to have been. He" 

 makes no mention of any migrations from Spain at this period ; but at 

 the termination of the calamity, he says, vast numbers of people of se- 

 veral nations came into Spain — Celts, Rhodians, and Assyrians (Syrians 

 no doubt of Phoenicia ?). 



In the ''Annales del Eeyno de Valencia," by Pray Prancisco 

 Diago, Ord. Predic, 4to, 1613, we are told: — ''The city of Saguntum 

 (the modern Murviedro) having reached the pinnacle of its greatness, 

 by means of the Eutuli Ardeatini, the calamity of the great drought fell 

 on Spain, of which all historians agree in saying it lasted for twenty- six 

 years ; and it appears the date of its occurrence must be assigned to 1500 

 years before our era ; for to presume, as Plorian D'Ocampo did, that it 

 occurred about 1302 before Christ, is a mistake."! 



In one of the best of the Spanish chronicles, " Chronica de los 

 Principes de Asturias y Cantabria," por Pray Prancisco Sota, a learned 

 Benedictine friar, 4to, Madrid, 1681, page 168, we are informed that 

 '' the great drought in Spain was not so general as was commonly 

 imagined. According to Don Servando, Eishop of Orense, in the pro- 

 vince of Gallicia, all along the sea coast there was no want of rain. 

 That statement is confirmed by the fact of King Abidis, in the time of 

 that calamity, having sought a refuge and place of safety in Cantabria, 

 a region included in that province. And, moreover, as Spain was at that 

 time the name given to that territory only which is now called Anda- 

 lusia, it is probable that the great drought was confined to that terri- 

 tory. Beyond its limits, those inhabitants of the country who had fled 

 were the first to return to their native places, accompanied, too, by 

 some of the inhabitants of the countries they had sought an asylum in, 

 as we are likewise informed by the Bishop of Orense. And it must be 

 observed the flight of the Spaniards at that time was not to the most remote 

 regions of the earth, but to the adjacent countries, such as Prance, 

 Italy, Planders, England, Ireland, and Africa, from which they coald 

 return- in a short time, whenever it should please God to stay the exe- 

 cution of the Divine retribution. And when that time arrived, and the 

 fugitives returned, accompanied as they were in some instances by fo- 

 reigners of the countries they had sojourned in, we have no knowledge of 

 any Spanish province having had its name then changed, except in that 

 region named Iberia, which, on account of the Gauls, who accompanied 

 the Spaniards on their return to their own land, had a new mixed name 

 given to it of Celtiberia, and this was an alteration only, and not an 

 entire change of a name. But in after times the Celtiberians were named 

 Aragoneses."J 



* De Pisa, " Hist, de Toledo," p. 3. f Diago, " Annales de Valencia," p. 41. 

 % Sota, "Chron. de las Prin. de Asturia y Cantab.," p. 169. 



