corrected, would have made Hannibal to have fought in Britain.22 Later Greek stories are mere random fictions.23 But that Britain was at least in the recollection of the Romans before Cæsar, is obvious from the passage of Lucretius which alludes to it.24 The remarks of Dion Cassius and of Diodorus, express the real state of the question as to the actual intercourse of the Grecians and Romans with Britain.25 It is well known, that Jeffrey of Monmouth, who diffused in the twelfth century that history of Britain which in former times so much occupied the public mind, deduces the first colonisation of Britain from a Trojan source; from Brutus, the son of Æneas, who, after wandering through the sea, and landing in Gaul, finally settled in this island. The same story is in the Welsh Chronicles, which are ascribed to Tyssilio, and supposed, though too gratuitously, to have been Jeffrey's originals. Not a line of history can be written from a work so obviously fabulous as the composition, or, as he describes it, the translation from Breton manuscripts, of Jeffrey. But the curious student may fairly ask, did this Trojan story originate with Jeffrey, or had 22 The corrupt passage of Polybius occurs in the eclogue of the 11th book. The corruption here is manifest, as Camden has remarked. The passage applies wholly to Italy. 23 There have been some absurd fancies about the earlier intercourse of the Greeks and Romans with Britain. That Alexander the Great came from Cadiz to Britain, or that British kings made presents to Cato the Elder, in approbation of his virtue, as Cedrenus and J. Tzetzes mention, are circumstances which show that the introduction of romance into history did not originate merely from our minstrels. 24 Nam quid Britannium cœlum differre putamus Et quod in Ægypto est, qua mundi claudicat axis." Luc. 25 Dion says, " Its existence was not known to the earliest Greeks and Romans, and to the more recent it was a doubt whether it was a continent or an island. But though several maintained each opinion, they had no actual knowledge about it, as they neither saw the island themselves nor conversed with its natives." lib. xxxix. p. 127. Diodorus remarks. "Anciently it remained untouched by foreign powers; for we have not heard that either Bacchus or Hercules, or any of the other heroes, reigned in it," lib. iv. p. 300. Mela's opinion is, that Cæsar subdued it in tribes, not only unconquered before, but even unknown, lib iii. p. 263. CHAP. IV. BOOK I. it an earlier origin? A few observations will be sufficient on the subject. It appears from Nennius, who wrote in the ninth century, that the opinion of this descent was in Britain in his time; for he mentions an outline of that story 26, which Jeffrey has so much amplified and dramatised. Taliesin, in his poems, frequently mentions Troy, and seems to allude to the tradition of such a descent. 27 All this is too vague for history. But it is remarkable, that there should have been in Europe several traditions connected both with the conquerors and the conquered, in that celebrated warfare which Homer has immortalised. 28 It was the ambition of Cæsar, who delighted to accomplish what no man before him had achieved, that led him, after the conquest of the Keltic nation in Gaul, and its German invaders, to attempt the discovery and subjugation of Britain. He knew not whether it was a vast continent or a confined island. But the doubt and obscurity were but additional 26 Nennius professes to derive his account from the annals of the Romans. It is chiefly this: Brutus was the grandson of Ascanius, the son of Æneas. Driven from Italy and the Tyrrhenian Sea, he went to Gaul, and founded Tours, and thence came to this island, gave it his name, and peopled it about the time that Eli was the judge in Israel, c. 33. 27 See Welsh Archaiology, vol. i. 28 Thus Tacitus mentions the opinion of the Germans, that Ulysses was driven into the Northern Ocean, and built there Asciburgum; and that an altar dedicated to Ulysses, with the name of Laertes his father, had been found there, De Mor. Germ. s. 3. Solinus notices a tradition of Ulysses having reached a bay in Caledonia; "which," he adds, "an altar with a Greek inscription shows," c. 22. A Trojan colony is stated to have founded Trapano in Italy, Dion. Hal. p. 41, 42. Virgil intimates, Æn. 1. 1. v. 242., that Antenor founded Padua, and led his Trojan followers into Illyria and Liburnia, and to the springs of the Timavus, or into Sclavonia, Croatia, and Friuli. — Pliny, 1. 3. c. 2. stations Dardani in Mœsia, which he extends from the Pontus to the Danube, and Strabo, 1. 7. enumerates the Dardanidæ among the Illyrians; while Pindar ascribes the settlement of Cyrene in Africa also to Antenor. Pyth. Od. 5. Another tradition connects Ulysses with Lisbon. Livy describes the same Trojan chief as likewise founding the Venetian population. Hist. 1. 1. But the tradition more immediately connecting itself with the intimations of Nennius, is that noticed by Ammianus Marcellinus, that some Trojans, flying from the Greeks, and dispersed all around, occupied regions in Gaul then uninhabited, lib. xv. c. 9. temptations to his aspiring genius. To great minds, the unknown is as attractive as the wonderful, and untried danger is but a mysterious incentive to explore it. He prepared a small fleet to examine its coasts, and resolved with the force which he could then venture to take from Gaul, to attempt to penetrate a country, which none of the conquerors of the civilised world appeared to have even seen. CHAP. IV BOOK CHAP. V. The Memoirs of the Ancient Britons. The Druids. WHEN Britain was invaded by the Romans, it exhibited the state of a country which had been peopled from several shoots of the barbaric or nomadic stocks, at different periods, with some grafts or improvements from more civilised nations. Its inhabitants were divided into many tribes, of which about forty-five have been enumerated with distinct appellations.1 These were afterwards comprised in the Roman district called Britannia Prima, III. Between the Thames, the Severn, the Mersey, the Humber, and the ocean, the district afterwards named Flavia Cæsariensis, comprised the IV. In the Maxima Cæsariensis of the Romans, or in our present Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, Yorkshire, Durham, and part of Northumberland, were the V. The five nations, who occupied the districts of the Roman province of Valentia, which, comprising chief part of Northumberland, extended from the Wall of Hadrian, into Scotland, as far as the Wall of Antoninus, were the VI. Beyond these, in North Britain, were the tribes included in the Roman province of Vespasiani. Of these, the Belgæ, whom Cæsar particularises to have passed over from Belgic Gaul, and to have been established in the island by their victories, occupied part of the coast of the British Channel. He distinguishes the Cantii, or people of Kent, as more advanced than the rest in the habits of civilised life, and as not differing much from the people of Gaul. The Belgæ pursued agriculture. But most of the interior tribes lived on milk and flesh, or in that state which has been called the pastoral, and clothed themselves with skins.2 All the Britons stained themselves of a blue colour with woad, which gave them a more horrible appearance in battle. They wore long hair on their heads, but shaved it from the other parts of the body excepting the upper lip. Their population appeared numerous to the Romans.4 The aspect of the country, as it first struck their view, presented a succession of forests, lakes, and great rivers: and Mela remarks of it, what must have been true of most parts of Europe, where agriculture was little practised, that it was more adapted to the kindly nourishment of cattle than of men. He also represents the people in general as not only uncivilised, but as much behind the nations on the continent in their social culture. Their cattle and fields were their general wealth, and they seem to have been acquainted with no other.5 2 Cæsar. Comment. lib. v. c. 10. Herodian speaks of those in the northern districts, with whom Severus fought, as usually naked, with an iron ring round their neck or stomach, lib. iii. p. 83. 3 Cæsar. ib. Mela, lib. iii. c. 6. This seems to have been done from infancy, as Pliny says the British wives and nurses did it, lib. xxii. c. 2. Hence Martial's epithet "Cæruleis Britannis," lib. xi. c. 32. Herodian remarks, of the Britons who resisted Severus, that they painted the figures of all kinds of animals on their bodies, lib. iii. p. 83.; and as Claudian mentions "the fading figures on the dying Pict," it seems to have pervaded the island, and to have been continued by the less civilised to his time. Claud, de Bell. Get. 4 Cæsar. Mela, lib. iii. c. 6. Cicero gives us the impression of his day on this subject. In a letter to Atticus he says, "It is known that there is not a scruple of money CHAP. V. |