CHAP. III. Phænicians and Carthaginians in Britain. CHAP. in Spain BUT though the Kimmerii, and their kindred the Kelts, may have peopled Britain, a more celebrated people are also stated to have visited it. The Phoeni- Phoenicians cians, in their extensive commercial navigations, and Bricolonised many of the islands, and some of the coasts tain. of the Egean and Mediterranean Seas. Inscriptions in their language have been found in Malta. They occupied Spain, and founded Cadiz; and it was probably in pursuit of them, that Nebuchadnezzar, the celebrated King of Babylon, became the conqueror of Spain. They had also an established intercourse with islands, which the Greeks called "the Islands of Tin," or Cassiterides. This, being a descriptive The Cassi name, was probably the translation of the Phoenician appellation. As Herodotus intimates, that the Cassiterides were, with respect to Greece, in the farthest parts of Europe2; as Aristotle talks of Keltic tin3; and Strabo describes both these islands and Britain, to be opposite to the Artabri, or Gallicia in Spain, but northward, and places them within the British climate1; as in another passage he states them to be as to Rome, without, or on our side of, the columns ברת אנך on the Hebrew 1 KaσσTepov is the word used by the Greeks for tin. Bochart has founded an ingenious etymology of the "Britannic islands Baratanac, which, he says, means the Land of Tin. He says Strabo calls Britain, Βρεττανική. Boch. Canaan, lib. i. c. 39. p. 720. He also intimates, what is more probable, that the word KaooiTepov may have been of Phoenician origin. Chaldean Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, certainly call tin kastira and kistara, as the Arabs name it kasdar. 2 Herod. Thalia, c. 115. See Numbers, xxxi. 22. The 3 Aristot. lib. Mirabilium; Mela places the Cassiterides in Celticis, or among the Kelta, lib. iii. c. 6. p. 262. 4 Strabo Geog. lib. ii. p. 181. terides. BOOK I. of Hercules; as he mentions them to be productive of tin, obviously connecting them at the same time with the British islands; and in another part, as being in the open sea, north from the port of the Artabri', or Gallicia: the most learned, both at home and abroad, have believed the Cassiterides to have been some of the British islands. This opinion is warranted by there being no other islands famous for tin near the parts designated by Strabo; and by the fact, that British tin was so celebrated in antiquity, that Polybius intended to write on the British islands, and the preparation of tin.8 It has been suggested, that the Scilly islands and Cornwall were more peculiarly meant by the Cassiterides. When Cornwall was first discovered from the south of Europe, it may have been thought an island, before greater familiarity with the coast taught the navigators that it was only a projecting part of a larger country; and even then, when the whole country connected with it was found to be an island, there was no reason to change its insular appellation. In our navigations to the Pacific, new-discovered places have been at first marked as islands, which were afterwards traced to be parts of a continent; and others have been deemed continental, which have been discovered to be insular." 5 Strabo Geog. lib. ii. p. 191. He joins them with the British islands, kai Kattiπερίδες, και βρεττανίκαι. 6 Ib. lib. iii. p. 219. Here he says, that tin is produced among the barbarians above Lusitania, and in the islands Cassiterides, and from Britain is brought to Marseilles. Ib. lib. iii. p. 265. In this passage Strabo says likewise, they are ten in number, adjoining each other. 8 Polyb. Hist. lib. iii. c. 5. Festus Avienus describes islands under the name of Estrymnides, which are thought to be the same with Strabo's Cassiterides. He says they were frequented by the merchants of Tartessus and Carthage, and were rich in tin and lead. De oris Marit. The reasons for supposing the Cassiterides to be the Scilly islands are thus stated in Camden's Britannia. They are opposite to the Artabri in Spain; they bend directly to the north from them; they lie in the same clime with Britain; they look towards Celtiberia; the sea is much broader between them and Spain than between them and Britain; they lie just upon the Iberian sea; there are only Much of the false description with which the position of the Cassiterides has been confused, may have been designedly circulated by the Phoenicians themselves. We know from Strabo, that they were anxious to deprive the rest of the world of any acquaintance with these islands. He has told us a very striking incident of this monopolising solicitude, which must have been the parent of many misrepresentations about Britain, till the Romans subdued and examined it. He says, "anciently the Phoenicians alone, from Cadiz, engrossed this market; hiding the navigation from all others. When the Romans followed the course of a vessel, that they might discover the situation, the jealous pilot wilfully stranded his ship; misleading those, who were tracing him, to the same destruction. Escaping from the shipwreck, he was indemnified for his losses out of the public treasury.' "10 When Cæsar invaded Britain, we know from his Commentaries, that he was unacquainted with its magnitude, its harbours, or its people. It was even doubted whether it was a continent or an island. 11 Of course the Romans at that time could have known nothing of the connection and continuance of coast between Cornwall and Dover. This ignorance of other nations, and the designed misinformation given by the Phenicians, may have occasioned the distinction to have been taken between the Cassiterides and Britain, and a supposition, favoured by Strabo, that some sea intervened. 12 The Cassiterides had become imperfectly known to the Romans in the time of Strabo, by the attempt of 13 Publius Crassus to discover them. He ten of them of any note, and they have veins of tin which no other isle has in this tract. Camd. Brit. p. 1112., ed. 1695. All these circumstances have been mentioned of the Cassiterides. 10 Strabo, lib. iii. p. 265. 11 Dio Cass. lib. xxxix. p. 127. Cæsar Comm. de Bell, Gall. lib. iv. s. 18. 12 Solinus says, that a turbid sea divided the Scilly isle (Siluram) from Britain, Polyhist. c. 22. p. 31. The distance is near forty miles. Whit. Manch. ii. p. 172. 8°. 13 Strabo, lib. iii. p. 265. Huet thinks this was not the Crassus who perished CHAP. III. BOOK I. Welsh traditions. seems to have landed at one of them; but the short account given of his voyage does not incline us to believe that he completely explored them. 14 14 If we once presume that the Phoenicians reached the Scilly islands, and extracted tin from them, we shall do great injustice to their memory to suppose that they, who could sail from Tyre to the Scilly islands, would not have adventured across the small sea between them and the Land's End. Indeed, the voyage of Himilco shows that the Carthaginians, the offspring of Tyre, pursued voyages even more northward than Britain. 15 We may therefore admit, without much chance of error, that the Cassiterides visited by the Phoenicians were the British islands, though the Romans understood by the name the islands of Scilly, with perhaps part of the coast of Cornwall.16 Having thus stated the most authentic circumstances that can be now collected, of the peopling of Britain by the Kimmerians, the Keltoi, and the Phonicians; it may not be improper to state, in one view, all that the Welsh traditions deliver of the ancient inhabitants of the island. As traditions of an ancient people committed to writing, they deserve to be preserved from absolute oblivion. According to the Welsh triads, while it was uninhabited by human colonies, and was full of bears, wolves, beavers, and a peculiar kind of wild cattle, it had the name of Clas Merddhin. 17 In this state, Hu against the Parthians, though he had fought in Portugal and triumphed in Spain; but his son, who was Cæsar's lieutenant in his Gallic wars, and who subdued the people of Vannes and its vicinity. He may have undertaken the voyage from curiosity, as Volusenus, by Cæsar's orders, examined part of the sea coasts of our island for military purposes. Hist. de Com. des Anciens, c. 38. p. 183., ed. Par. 1727. 14 Whittaker's description of the present state of the Scilly islands is worth reading. Hist. Manch. ii. p. 169. Though the same chapter in other parts discovers a fancy painting far beyond the facts in its authorities. 15 Pliny, lib. ii. c. 67. 16 Pliny has preserved the name of the Phoenician navigator who first procured lead from the Cassiterides. He says, Plumbum ex Cassiteride insula primus apportavit Midacritus. Hist. Nat. lib. vii. c. 57. 17 Trioedd 1. In the course of Cadarn led the first colony of the Cymry to it, of CHAP. III. nians ac tain. As the prosperity of the Phoenicians declined under Carthagithe hostilities of the ancient conquerors, who emerged quainted from Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, their descendants, with Brithe Carthaginians, succeeded to the possession of their European settlements; and in some places, as in Spain and Scilly, greatly extended their territorial power. The Carthaginian occupation of Spain is fully attested to us by the Roman historians, and was distinguished by the wars in that country of the celebrated Carthaginian generals Asdrubal and Hannibal. It was natural that when possessed of Spain, 18 Trioedd 4. and 5. 20 Trioedd 1. inhabitants. 21 Trioedd 5. 25 Ib. 7. VOL. I. 19 Ib. 1. Isidorus says, that Britain derived its name from a word of its |