Jeweled Ornament of the Mitre of William of Wykeham, 14th century: New College, Oxford. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Medal of James, Duke of York, afterward James II., commemorating the naval Victory over the Dutch, June FRONTISPIECE. Medal commemorating Battle of Plassy... Coin of Hadrian..... Reverse of Seal of Edward the Jeweled Ornament of the Mitre PAGE TITLEPAGE. PAGE 19 THE BRITONS, ROMANS, AND ANGLO-SAXONS. B.C. 55-A.D. 1066. CHAPTER I. THE BRITONS AND ROMANS. § 1. Earliest Notices of Britain. § 2. The earliest Inhabitants of Britain were Celts of the Cymric Stock. § 3. Religion of the Britons. § 4. Knights and Bards. § 5. Manners and Customs of the Britons. § 6. British Tribes. § 7. Cæsar's two Invasions of Britain. § 8. History till the Invasion of Claudius. § 9. Caractacus. § 10. Conquest of Mona; Boadicea. § 11. Agricola. § 12. The Roman Walls between the Solway and the Tyne, and the Clyde and the Forth. § 13. Saxon Pirates; Carausius. § 14. Picts and Scots. § 15. Final Departure of the Romans. § 16. Condition of Britain under the Romans. § 17. Christianity in Britain. § 1. THE Southwestern coasts of Britain were known to the Phoenician merchants several centuries before the Christian era. The Phoenician colonists of Tartessus and Gades in Spain were A 2 EARLIEST NOTICES OF BRITAIN. СНАР. І. attracted to the shores of Britain by its abundant supply of tin, a metal of great importance in antiquity from the extensive use of bronze for the manufacture of weapons of war and implements of peace. It would seem that the Phoenicians originally obtained this metal from India, since the Grecian name for tin is of Indian origin, and must have been brought into Greece by the Phoenicians, together with the article itself. Accordingly, when these traders found tin in the Scilly Isles, they gave them the name of the Cassiterides, or the Tin-islands, an appellation by which they were known to Herodotus† in the fifth century before the Christian era. Aristotle, however, is the first writer who mentions the British islands by name. He says, "In the ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules are two very large islands, called Bretannic, namely, Albion and Ierne;"‡ the former being England and Scotland, the latter Ireland. The origin of the name of Britain is very uncertain,§ but that of Albion is perhaps derived from a Celtic word signifying white, a name probably given to the island by the Gauls, who could not fail to be struck with the chalky cliffs of the opposite coast. Himilco, a Carthaginian navigator, whose diary was extant in the fifth century of our era, and who is repeatedly quoted as an authority by Festus Avienus in his geographical poem called Ora Maritima, touched near Albion at the Tin Islands, which he calls Oestrymnides. But the oldest writer who gives any account of the inhabitants is Pytheas, a Massilian, fragments of whose journal have been preserved by Strabo and other writers. By these means some knowledge of the British islands became gradually diffused among the natives of the Mediterranean. They had excited the curiosity and inquiries both of Polybius and Scipio as early as the second century before the Christian era.|| In addition to the Phoenician merchants, the Greek colonists of Massilia (Marseilles) and Narbo (Narbonne) carried on a trade at a very early period with the southern parts of Britain, by making overland journeys to the northern coast of Gaul. The principal British exports seem at that time to have been tin, lead, skins, slaves, and hunting-dogs, of which the last were used by the Celts in war; but at a later period, when the Britons became more civilized, corn and cattle, gold, silver, and iron, and an inferior kind of pearl may be added to the list. An interesting account The Greek name for tin is kassiteros (kaoσirepoç), which evidently comes from the Sanscrit kastira. + iii., 115. De Mundo, c. 3. § Many writers derive it from a Celtic word, brith or brit, "painted," because the inhabitants stained their bodies with a blue color extracted from woad. In the early Welsh poems we find the island called Prydain, which is clearly the same as Britain; but whether this is a genuine Celtic word, or borrowed from the Romans, can not be determined. Polyb., iii., 57. |