389 



tar, communicating between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean. 

 These relations are forged statements made ad libitum to amuse credu- 

 lous people."^' 



This mode of dealing with a national tradition of universal accept- 

 ance with all the old annalists of a country may appear to modern 

 Spanish writers infected with modern French philosophical opinions 

 very liberal and enlightened ; but literary men with any pretensions to 

 critical or scholarlike acquirements will judge differently of this sweep- 

 ing denial of all truth in a very old and widely-spread tradition, and 

 discriminate between the embellishments and exaggeration of ancient 

 writings and the facts they had erroneously intended to improve. 



Of the great mischief done to Spanish history by the forgeries and 

 fabrications of Annius of Viterbo, Mohedano, in the ''Historia Litteraria 

 deEspana," has given a just account. He states that when Mariana wrote 

 his history, the fictions invented by that great impostor Annius had 

 been so long received as solemn truths promulgated by an eminent scholar 

 and exalted ecclesiastic, and had taken such firm hold of the public mind 

 throughout Spain, he (Mariana) looked upon these fables as established 

 by prescription, though no length of time or permanence of an imposi- 

 tion is a prescription against truth. So he allowed the story of TubaFs 

 coming into Spain, founding a kingdom, and of a long line of kings 

 having descended from him, to pass current as indisputable facts. Of 

 the founding also of several cities, and peopling of several territories in 

 Spain byTarsis, the same observations are made by Mohedano. 



^'We may acknowledge," says this author, ''that Spain, or at least 

 Andalusia, was called Tarsis in the Scriptures. It may be conceded 

 also that it was sometimes designated the country of Tarseyo, and that 

 it is thus not erroneously mentioned by Poly bins. But it is not neces- 

 sary that Tarsis came to Spain to people that country because his name 

 was given to it. It would be suf&cient for that purpose that his de- 

 scendants came there and established themselves. There is no sufficient 

 proof in history that countries or populations are called after their first 

 founders, kings, or inhabitants. The most that can be said in the 

 matter, without prejudice to sound criticism and verisimilitude is, that 

 Tubal being established in Asiatic Iberia, and Tarsis in Ciiicia, some 

 immediate descendants of both brought colonies into Spain. The de- 

 scendants of Tubal established themselves in that part of Spain to which 

 the name was given of Iberia, and from the name of his father the 

 principal river of that region got the name of the Ebro. The descen- 

 dants of Tarsis entered Spain probably by Gallia IS'arbonensis, and, colo- 

 nizing from east to west, they extended and fixed themselves eventually 

 in the south-west of Spain, in Betica, giving to that province the name 

 of Tarsis, their progenitor, calling it Tarsis, or Tarseys, or Tarteso, 

 Thus it is true what is asserted on the authority of Eusebius, that the 

 Spaniards had their origin from Tarsis, without clashing with the opinion 



* Mohedano's "Hist. Litt. de Espana," torn, i., p. 424. 

 K. I. A. PEOC. VOL. VIII. 3 F 



