Discovery of Great Britain by the Romans.

The mercantile Phoenicians traded to the Scilly islands, the Cassiterides , or land of tin , from the port of Cadiz , four hundred years before Christ. The Romans, for a considerable time, could not discover the place from whence the former procured the precious metal. They attempted to detect the trade, by following the course of a Phoenician vessel; but the master, faithful to the interest of his country, voluntarily run his ship ashore in another place; preferring the loss of all, rather than sillier n. foreign nation to become partakers of so profitable a secret.

The public immediately compensated Iris loss out of its treasury . This did but make the Romans more eager for the discovery; and after many trials they succeeded. Publius Crassus (father of Marcus Crassus the Triumvir) who was praetor, and governed Spain for several years, landed in the Cassiterides, and found the report of their riches verified.

As soon as the Romans made a conquest of the country, they formed in the tin province camps and roads, still visible; and left behind vases, urns, sepulchres, and money, that exhibit daily proofs of their having been a stationary people in those parts” ; and that Dunmonium extended even to the Belerian promontory, or the Land’s-end


TIN COPPER

And was not, as some writers imagine, limited by the western parts of Somersetshire.

It is not to be imagined, that they could neglect a corner of our island, productive of a metal so useful in mechanics as tin, and which it yielded in such plenty, as to receive from that circumstance the name.

So great was the intercourse that foreign nations had with the inhabitants bordering on Belerium, as to give them a greater scavoir vivre, and more extensive hospitality, than was to be found in other parts of the island.

They were equally expert in working the mines, and preparing the ore, which lay in earthy veins within the rocky strata.

They melted and purified it, then cast it into rows of cubes, and carried it to let is, the modern Mount St. Michael: from thence it was transported into Gaul; conveyed from the place it was landed at, on horses’ backs, a journey of thirty days, to the mouth of the Rhone, and also to the Massylians, and the town of Narbonne".

Copper. Did not Caesar and Strabo agree in their account, I should never have believed it possible that the Britons could have neglected their rich mines of copper, and have beenobliged at first to import that metal. Perhaps the ore was less accessible, and the art of fusion unknown; for islands, from their very situation, must remainlonger ignorant of arts than continents; especially ours, which lay far to the west of the origin of all science.

Strabo says, that the Britons imported works of brass; but it is as certain, that they afterwards did themselves fabricate that metal into instruments.

The Celts, a British, instrument, was made in this island.

Numbers have been found in Yorkshire, and Essex", together with cinders, and lumps of melted metal; which evince the place of a forge. The Romans had then founderies of copper in our island; and cast the metal into regular forms.

A mass was found at Caer hen, the antient Conovium, four miles above Conway,which probably was smelted from the ore of the Snowdon hills; where of late years much has been raised.

This mass is in shape of a cake of beeswax; and on the upper part is a deep concave impression, with the words Socio Romae; across these is impressed obliquely, in lesser letters, Natsol.

I cannot explain it, unless Nat. stands for Natio, the people who paid this species of tribute; and sol. for solvit, that being the stamp-master’s mark. These cakes might be bought up hy a merchant resident in Britain, and consigned Socio RomaE, to his partner at Rome.

The weight of this antiquity is forty-two pounds;


Roman general Vespasian captures the Dorset hill forts c. Summer AD 44 Roman general Vespasian captures the Dorset hill fortsIn the second phase of the conquest of Britain, Roman general Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus – a future emperor) led his II Augusta Legion into Dorset. He fought numerous small-scale battles and captured a string of hill forts, including Maiden Castle and Hod Hill. By 48 AD, the Romans had effectively subdued all territory south of a line from the mouth of the Humber river to the Severn Estuary.

 The Ravenna Cosmography identifies a major regional Roman-era settlement  as Nemetostatio in central Dumnonia  identified with North Tawton , Devon , which would translate from Latin as  * The Outpost of the Sacred Grove *

 

The first section of the Ravenna Cosmography to deal with Britain, covering , is obscure but nevertheless generally recognised as dealing with south-western England . Why it should have been separated out by the Cosmographer is not at all clear. Rivet and Smith (1979, 197) see it as evidence for a special source covering this area in greater detail than the rest of Britain.

This does not seem a necessary hypothesis for reasons to be given. Indeed, the words that introduce the next section, ‘Again, next to the aforementioned civitas Isca Dumnoniorum’ iterum iuxta superscriptam ciuitatem scadumnamorum , strongly hint that the Cosmographer is looking at the same map as he used as a source for this section. We will see many instances of the Cosmographer duplicating names throughout his text, the most startling being *Moridunum* , Sidford, which is repeated no less than four times. However, they are not noticeably more common in this section than in those that follow. Had he employed a special and separate source for the south-west, it is difficult to see how he would have integrated the information he derived from it with that he derived from his main source without making many more such duplications. We would on this hypothesis also expect the following long section which covers the province or diocese of Britannia to contain a few names relating to the south-western peninsula which the Cosmographer had not noticed as duplications: we do not find them. Arguments e silentio are never strong; more telling are the duplications within this section that cannot be the result of taking names from two different sources.  For instance, the name *Antiuesteum* appears twice,  in both cases with virtually the same truncation.This truncation may well have occurred if the first three or four letters of the name were written ‘in the sea’ on the Cosmographer’s postulated map source . The same error of reading is extremely unlikely to have occurred as a result of using two separate source documents.

There are thus no compelling reasons to believe that the Cosmographer was using a separate and fuller source for the south-west of Britain than for the remainder of the island. True enough, the density of names in the peninsula is high, but it is also high in Cumbria  and between the Roman walls . The contrast is not so much with a low density in the remainder of the province, but with specific areas, such as Wales and East Anglia, very poorly represented. This does not solve the problem of why the Cosmographer should have seen Isca Dumnoniorum, Exeter, as a point at which to insert a break in his listing. The Peutinger Table may offer a clue: although Britain is severely truncated, with only East Anglia and Kent appearing on the surviving copy, Moridunum and Isca Dumnoniorum are also shown without any intervening south-coast places. It is possible that Isca Dumnoniorum was depicted as prominent in some way, perhaps isolated on a promontory or, as seems more likely, as the gateway to .

 In this way the Cosmographer might have decided to break his text at a point which appeared dictated by the geography of the region. He does so further north, where his listing of the Antonine Wall forts occurs ‘where that same Britain is seen to be narrowest from sea to sea’ ubi et ipsa britania plus angustissima de oceano in oceanum esse dinoscitur . Although this was not the primary reason for inserting a break at this latter point, the Cosmographer was clearly sensitive to the depicted shape of the island.

On the other hand, we should perhaps take into account the curious fact that the Civitas Dumnoniorum , basically the Cornish peninsula west of Exeter appears to have been a part of Britain virtually unaffected by those changes to élite behaviour usually termed ‘romanisation’. Is it possible that much of it lay outside provincial or diocesan control and that some kind of border was depicted on the Cosmographer’s map source as separating the south-western peninsula from the rest of Britain? In that case, Isca Dumnoniorum may have been prominent as a point of contact between the wilds of the far south-west and the more ‘civilised’ Durotriges (or Durotrages, following RIB 1673: the form of the name is very uncertain according to Rivet & Smith 1979, 352) to the east. Group 1: the Cornish Peninsula V ¶31 in qua britania plurimas fuisse ciuitates et castra legimus ex quibus aliquantas designare uolumus id est:

 Giano Barnstaple  10546

 Eltabo River Taw 10546

 Elconio River Torridge ? 10547

Nemestotatio North Tawton 10547

Tamaris Launceston ? 

 Puro coronauis ? 10548

 Pilais ? 10549

 Vernilis Liskeard ? 10549

 Ardua rauenatone River Dart 10550

 Deuionisso Statio ? 10551

 deuentia steno Buckfastleigh / Totnes ? 10551/10552

 Duriarno Plymouth  10552

 Vxelis Barnstaple ? 1061

 Verteuia Land’s End 1061 = 1069

This group appears to take us on a general perambulation of the Cornish Peninsula and adjacent area

 * Taua, the second name, is clearly the River Taw .

 *Nemetostatio is probably the fort at North Tawton, which is in an area where a group of modern names containing the elements Nymet and Nemet are found .

 The identification of *Conio* with Ptolemy’s  must therefore be questioned as the general progression seems to be from north-east to southwest.

 It may refer the River Torridge, although this is a Celtic name, derived from a Brittonic *Torric-, ‘violent, rough’.

 *Glano* should therefore be somewhere in north Devon, perhaps in the vicinity of Barnstaple.

 Tamaris, this a site on the River Tamar , perhaps at the crossing at Launceston , not the river itself , as the name recurs in the list of river-names . *Durocornouio* and *Pilais*

Britannia in the Ravenna Cosmography: a reassessment K J Fitzpatrick-Matthews cannot now be identified. Charles Thomas (1966a, 87) originally identified the former with The Rumps, a pre-Roman defended enclosure.

 More recently, he suggested that it might be Tintagel, the site of an important sub-Roman trading settlement, although its Romano-British status is not clear . *Vernilis* may be the , perhaps near Liskeard ; the correct RomanoBritish form may have been *Verleua.

The Cosmographer’s form would have arisen by way of a transposition of -l- and -u-, the latter being miscopied as -n-. The next name must be for * Deruentione, the River Dart, so the Cosmographer’s eye may have moved from travelling along the spine of Cornwall, following the poorly known road along the centre of the peninsula, and he has possibly now turned his attention to the road south from Exeter, closer to the south Devon coast. Deuionisso Statio and *Deruentio Statio (which are wrongly divided in the text) are probably unlocated Roman government establishments, perhaps tax offices. The latter may have lain in the Dart valley (Dart being Brittonic *Deruentiu: Ekwall 1928, 114), perhaps at Buckfastleigh or Totnes, and the former perhaps near Newton Abbot or elsewhere on the River Teign. The next name, Duriarno, is probably not the same as Durnouaria (Dorchester), as suggested by Rivet & Smith (1979, 345) following Horsley (1732, 490), since it is probably not corrupt (compare the Arnodurum quoted by Williams (Richmond & Crawford 1949, 32), which shows the more usual ‘continental’ ordering of elements). Instead, it may be the name of a site in the vicinity of Plymouth where the inhumation cemetery at Mount Batten and a sequence of coins attest a settlement of some importance (Thomas 1966a, 86). Uxelis is too far west to be the same as Ptolemy’s Οὔξελλα (II.3, 13), which must be on the River Parrett, his Οὐεξάλλα εἴσχυσις (II.3,2), and may be a site or river in Cornwall, perhaps the Fowey or the Fal, unless it is an example of a name written to the west of its symbol on the map source. If this is the case, then it may have been near Barnstaple (Strang 1997, 30). Group 2: the south Devon and Cornish coast  Melamoni Sidford ? 1062 = 1064/1069/10613 Scadumnamorum Exeter , Termonin    Mesteuia - Land’s End

The mention of Moridunum, Sidford , for the first time indicates a change of direction, and there are now hints of an ordering of names with a general progression from east to west. The -l- for -r- in Moridunum is also found in the next section; it may be that the name was very difficult to read in the Cosmographer’s source. It is unlikely to have occurred as a result of misreading two separate documents, further evidence for the essential unity of the Cosmographer’s sources. The unlocated *Terminum would have been somewhere between Exeter and Land’s End, an admittedly imprecise location. The River Gowy in Cheshire was formerly known as the aqua de Tervin (‘water of Tarvin’) in 1209, the name deriving from the Latin terminus, ‘boundary’, via Welsh Terfyn (Dodgson 1970, 26), which has been retained by a large parish and village. Although the origin of the latter name is generally sought in the post-Roman politics of the region (Bu’Lock 1972, 24), it is probable that the River Gowy was the eastern boundary of the prata legionis of the fortress at Chester. Could a similar origin be suggested for this name, at the western boundary of the prata legionis of the early fortress at Exeter or the territorium of the later capital of the CivitasDumnoniorum?


 Somerset  Milidunum Sidford 

Apaunaris Bath 

 Masona Camerton? 1065

 Alouergium Shepton Mallett 1065

The Cosmographer returns to Moridunum, with the same peculiar -l- for -r- as in the previous group, and a similarly logical ordering of names this time jumping north-eastward and then working back to the starting-point identify Apaunaris with Aquae Sulis, Bath, perhaps correctly, so the two remaining names may relate to sites between Bath and Sidford.

<Masona> suggests a name derived from that of a river, although which cannot now be ascertained; it perhaps refers to the small town at Camerton. The name is corrupt. *Alobergium should be in a hilly location, probably near the Mendip Hills at Shepton Mallett, where parts of a Romano-British small town have recently been identified.


Then again towards the North of Europe , there is evidently a quantity of gold by far larger than in any other land:

as to how it is got , here again I am not able to say for certain , but it is said to be carried off from the griffins by Arimaspians, a one-eyed race of men.But I do not believe this tale either, that nature produces one-eyed men which in all other respects are like other men. However  it would seem that the extremities which bound the rest of the world on every side and enclose it in the midst possess the things which by us are thought to be the most beautiful and the most rare.  This is a point in which all "Devonians” and,indeed ,dwellers in the three western counties of  Somerset , Devon and Cornwall may be especially interested.“ Dumnonia, ” like “ Demetia ” and “ Demetica regio", is a very ancient geographical term and the Dumnonii certainly go back to Roman times and were noted for their sea fairing qualities.


In King Alfred’s time “ Dumnonia” was used by the King’s Biographer, Bishop Asser, and would certainly mean a good deal more than we now mean by the County of Devon which meets Somerset at Countisbury Gate and Exmoor.


But until we are sure of the exact meaning of say, " Dumnonia ” and “ Demetica regio how can we follow King Alfred’s great Danish campaign of 878   Historical problems wait for their real solution upon the proper explanation of geographical terms.

 Many disputes have turned and still turn upon the exact site of Cynuit and Ethandune, two very momentous fights in our island history........There is an Edington Dumnonia !

Dumnonia

was a Keltic kingdom that existed in Britain from the late 4th to the late 8th centuries . It covered the regions of Cornwall, Devon, and parts of Somerset and Dorset. Its name came from the Dumnonii, a tribe that lived in the area before the Roman invasion. Dumnonia was one of the last bastions of Keltic culture and resistance against the Anglo-Saxon expansion. Its rulers claimed descent from King Arthur and maintained ties with Brittany, where many Dumnonian refugees settled. Dumnonia's history is shrouded in legend and mystery, but it remains a fascinating part of Britain's heritage . Dumnonia was a fascinating kingdom that existed in Britain from the 4th to the 9th centuries. It was ruled by the Dumnonii, a Keltic people who resisted the Roman invasion and maintained their independence for centuries. Dumnonia was rich in culture, religion, and trade, evidence of history and mythology .The origins of christianity christmas and the shortest day and the northern european customs ! The landscape has changed since bodecias' time in Britain !




Pytheas of Massalia (Ancient Greek: Πυθέας ὁ Μασσαλιώτης; Latin: Pitheas Massiliae; fl. 4th century BC), was a Greek geographer and explorer from the Greek colony of Massalia (modern-day Marseille). He made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe in about 325 BC, but his description of it, widely known in Antiquity, has not survived.

In this voyage he circumnavigated and visited a considerable part of Great Britain. He is the first person on record to describe the Midnight Sun. The theoretical existence of a Frigid Zone, and temperate zones where the nights are very short in summer and the sun does not set at the summer solstice, was already known. Similarly, reports of a country of perpetual snow and darkness (the country of the Hyperboreans) had reached the Mediterranean some centuries before. Pytheas is the first known scientific visitor and reporter of the Arctic, polar ice, and the Germanic tribes. He introduced the idea of distant Thule to the geographic imagination, and his account of the tides is the earliest known to suggest the moon as their cause
1 Dates
2 Record
3 Circumstances of the voyage
4 Discovery of Britain 4.1 The "circumnavigation"
4.2 Name and description of the British
4.3 The three corners of Britain: Kantion, Belerion and Orkas
4.4 The tin trade

5 Discovery of Thule
6 Encounter with drift ice
7 Discovery of the Baltic
8 Voyage to the Don
9 Pytheas' measurements of latitude 9.1 Latitude by the altitude of the sun
Pliny says that Timaeus (born about 350 BC) believed Pytheas' story of the discovery of amber. Strabo says that Dicaearchus (died about 285 BC) did not trust the stories of Pytheas.
That is all the information that survives concerning the date of Pytheas' voyage. Presuming that Timaeus would not have written until after he was 20 years old in about 330 BC and Dicaearchus would have needed time to write his most mature work, after 300 BC, there is no reason not to accept Henry Fanshawe Tozer's window of 330 BC – 300 BC for the voyage.[3] Some would give Timaeus an extra 5 years, bringing the voyage down to 325 BC at earliest. There is no further evidence.
If one presumes that Pytheas would not have written before reaching age 20, he would have been a contemporary and competitor of Timaeus and Dicaearchus. As they read his writings he must have written toward the earlier years of the window.


1620 edition of Strabo's Geographica.
Pytheas described his travels in a work that has not survived; only excerpts remain, quoted or paraphrased by later authors, most familiarly in Strabo's Geographica, Pliny's Natural History and passages in Diodorus of Sicily's history.
Most of the ancients, including the first two just mentioned, refer to his work by his name: "Pytheas says ..." Two late writers give titles: the astronomical author Geminus of Rhodes mentions τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ὠκεανοῦ (ta peri tou Okeanou), literally "things about the Ocean", sometimes translated as "Description of the Ocean", "On the Ocean" or "Ocean"; Marcianus, the scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes, mentions περίοδος γῆς (periodos gēs), a "trip around the earth" or περίπλους (periplous), "sail around".

Scholars of the 19th century tended to interpret these titles as the names of distinct works covering separate voyages; for example, Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology hypothesizes a voyage to Britain and Thule written about in "Ocean" and another from Cadiz to the Don River, written about in "Sail Around".
As is common with ancient texts, multiple titles may represent a single source, for example, if a title refers to a section rather than the whole. The mainstream today recognizes periplus as a genre of navigational literature and concedes that there was only one work, "on the Ocean", which was based on a periplus.

Diodorus does not mention Pytheas by name. The connection is made as follows: Pliny reports that "Timaeus says there is an island named Mictis... where tin is found, and to which the Britons cross." Diodorus says that tin is brought to the island of Ictis, where there is an emporium. The last link is supplied by Strabo, who says that an emporium on the island of Corbulo in the mouth of the Loire was associated with the Britain of Pytheas by Polybius. Assuming that Ictis, Mictis and Corbulo are the same, Diodorus appears to have read Timaeus, who must have read Pytheas, whom Polybius also read.

Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul

Pytheas was not the first Mediterranean mariner to reach the British Isles. The Massaliote Periplus is a more extensive fragment preserved in paraphrase in the Ora Maritima, a poem of the 4th century AD written by the Roman, Avienus. This periplus of a ship from Marseilles on which the poem relies is uncertain in date, but is believed to be possibly from the 6th century BC, not long after the founding of the city. It primarily describes the coasts of southern Spain and Portugal, but makes brief mention of a visit to "the sacred isle" (Ireland, Ierne) located across from Albion (an early name for Britain).

The start of Pytheas's voyage is unknown. The Carthaginians had closed the Strait of Gibraltar to all ships from other nations. Some historians, mainly of the late 19th century and before, therefore speculated (on no evidence) that he must have traveled overland to the mouth of the Loire or the Garonne. Others believed that, to avoid the Carthaginian blockade, he may have stuck close to land and sailed only at night, or taken advantage of a temporary lapse in the blockade.

An alternate theory holds that by the 4th century BC, the western Greeks, especially the Massaliotes, were on amicable terms with Carthage. In 348 BC, Carthage and Rome came to terms over the Sicilian Wars with a treaty defining their mutual interests. Rome could use Sicilian markets, Carthage could buy and sell goods at Rome, and slaves taken by Carthage from allies of Rome were to be set free. Rome was to stay out of the western Mediterranean, but these terms did not apply to Massalia, which had its own treaty. During the second half of the 4th century BC, the time of Pytheas' voyage, Massaliotes were presumably free to operate as they pleased; there is, at least, no evidence of conflict with Carthage in any of the sources that touch on the voyage.

The early part of Pytheas' voyage is outlined by statements of Eratosthenes that Strabo says are false because taken from[clarification needed] Pytheas.
Apparently, Pytheas said that tides ended at the "sacred promontory" (Hieron akrōtērion, or Sagres Point), and from there to Gades is said to be 5 days' sail. Strabo complains about this distance, and about Pytheas' portrayal of the exact location of Tartessos. Mention of these places in a journal of the voyage indicates that Pytheas passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and sailed north along the coast of Portugal.


A 1490 Italian reconstruction of the map of Ptolemy. The map is a result of a combination of the lines of roads and of the coasting expeditions during the first century of Roman occupation. One great fault, however, is a lopsided Scotland, which in one hypothesis is the result of Ptolemy using Pytheas' measurements of latitude (see below).
Whether Ptolemy would have had Pytheas' real latitudes at that time is a much debated issue.
Strabo reports that Pytheas says he "travelled over the whole of Britain that was accessible".
The word epelthein, at root "come upon", does not imply any specific method, and Pytheas does not elaborate. He does use the word "whole" and he states a perimetros ("perimeter") of more than 40,000 stadia. Using Herodotus' standard of 600 feet for one stadium gives 4,545 miles; however, there is no way to tell which standard foot was in effect.
The English foot is an approximation. Strabo wants to discredit Pytheas on the grounds that 40,000 stadia is outrageously high and cannot be real.

Diodorus Siculus gives a similar number: 42,500 stadia, about 4,830 miles, and explains that it is the perimeter of a triangle around Britain. The consensus has been that he probably took his information from Pytheas through Timaeaus. Pliny gives the circuitus reported by Pytheas as 4,875 Roman miles.

The explorer Fridtjof Nansen explains this apparent fantasy of Pytheas as a mistake of Timaeus.
Strabo and Diodorus Siculus never saw Pytheas' work, says Nansen, but they and others read of him in Timaeus.
Pytheas reported only days' sail. Timaeus converted days to stadia at the rate of 1,000 per day, a standard figure of the times.
However, Pytheas only sailed 560 stadia per day for a total of 23,800, which in Nansen's view is consistent with 700 stadia per degree. Nansen goes on to point out that Pytheas must have stopped to obtain astronomical data; presumably, the extra time was spent ashore. Using the stadia of Diodorus Siculus, one obtains 42.5 days for the time that would be spent in circumnavigating Britain.

The perimeter, according to Nansen based on the 23,800 stadia, was 2,375 miles.
This number is in the neighborhood of what a triangular perimeter ought to be, but it cannot be verified against anything Pytheas may have said, nor is Diodorus Siculus very precise about the locations of the legs. The "perimeter" is often translated as "coastline", but this translation is misleading.
The coastline, following all the bays and inlets, is 12,429 kilometres (7,723 mi) (see Geography of the United Kingdom). Pytheas could have travelled any perimeter between that number and Diodorus'. Polybius adds that Pytheas said he traversed the whole of Britain on foot,of which he, Polybius, is skeptical. Despite Strabo's conviction of a lie, the perimeter said to have been given by Pytheas is not evidence of it. The issue of what he did say can never be settled until more fragments of Pytheas turn up.
The first known written use of the word was an ancient Greek transliteration of the original P-Celtic term. It is believed to have appeared within a periplus by the geographer and explorer Pytheas of Massalia, but no copies of this work survive. The earliest existing records of the word are quotations of the periplus by later authors, such as those within Strabo's Geographica, Pliny's Natural History and Diodorus of Sicily's history.
According to Strabo, Pytheas referred to Britain as Bretannikē, which is treated a feminine noun.

Form from a Pictish stone dated to the Middle Ages, but reflecting the custom surviving from the ancient Picts.
"Britain" is most like Welsh Ynys Prydein, "the island of Britain", in which is a P-Celtic allophone of Q-Celtic Cruithne in Irish Cruithen-tuath, "land of the Picts". The base word is Scottish/Irish cruth, Welsh pryd, "form".
The British were the "people of forms", thought to refer to their practice of tattooing or war painting.
The Roman word Picti, "the Picts", means "painted".

This etymology shows that Pytheas interacted not so much with Irish or Scots, as they used Q-Celtic. Rather, Pytheas brought back the P-Celtic form from more geographically accessible regions where Welsh or Breton are spoken today. Furthermore, some proto-Celtic was spoken over all of Greater Britain, and this particular spelling is prototypical of those more populous regions.
Reconstruction of a Celtic thatched hut in Wales
Diodorus based on Pytheas reports that Britain is cold and subject to frosts, being "too much subject to the Bear", and not "under the Arctic pole", as some translations say. The numerous population of natives, he says, live in thatched cottages, store their grain in subterranean caches and bake bread from it.They are "of simple manners" (ēthesin haplous) and are content with plain fare. They are ruled by many kings and princes who live in peace with each other. Their troops fight from chariots, as did the Greeks in the Trojan War.

The three corners of Britain: Kantion, Belerion and Orkas
opposite Europe in Diodorus is the promontory (akrōtērion) of Kantion (Kent), 100 stadia, about 11 miles, from the land, but the text is ambiguous: "the land" could be either Britain or the continent. Four days' sail beyond that is another promontory, Belerion, which can only be Cornwall, as Diodorus is describing the triangular perimeter and the third point is Orkas, presumably the main island of the Orkney Islands.

The tin trade
The inhabitants of Cornwall are involved in the manufacture of tin ingots. They mine the ore, smelt it and then work it into pieces the shape of knuckle-bones, after which it is transported to the island of Ictis by wagon, which can be done at low tide. Merchants purchasing it there pack it on horses for 30 days to the river Rhône, where it is carried down to the mouth. Diodorus says that the inhabitants of Cornwall are civilised in manner and especially hospitable to strangers because of their dealings with foreign merchants.

Discovery of Thule
Grain field in modern Trondheim, Norway
Strabo relates, taking his text from Polybius, "Pytheas asserts that he explored in person the whole northern region of Europe as far as the ends of the world." Strabo does not believe it but he explains what Pytheas means by the ends of the world. Thoulē, he says (today spelled Thule), is the most northerly of the British Isles.
There the circle of the summer tropic is the same as the Arctic Circle (see below on Arctic Circle). Moreover, says Strabo, none of the other authors mention Thule, a fact which he uses to discredit Pytheas, but which to moderns indicates Pytheas was the first explorer to arrive there and tell of it.

Thule is described as an island of six days' sailing north of Britain, near the frozen sea (pepēguia thalatta, "solidified sea").
Pliny adds that it has no nights at midsummer when the sun is passing through the sign of the Crab (at the summer solstice), a reaffirmation that it is on the Arctic Circle. He adds that the crossing to Thule starts at the island of Berrice, "the largest of all", which may be Lewis in the outer Hebrides. If Berrice was in the outer Hebrides, the crossing would have brought Pytheas to the vicinity of Trondheim, Norway, explaining how he managed to miss the Skagerrak. If this is his route, in all likelihood he did not actually circumnavigate Britain, but returned along the coast of Germany, accounting for his somewhat larger perimeter.

Concerning the location of Thule, a discrepancy in data caused subsequent geographers some problems, and may be responsible for Ptolemy's distortion of Scotland. Strabo reports that Eratosthenes places Thule at a parallel 11500 stadia (1305 miles, or 16.4°) north of the mouth of the Borysthenes.
The parallel running through that mouth also passes through Celtica and is Pytheas' base line. Using 3700 or 3800 stadia (approximately 420–430 miles or 5.3°-5.4°) north of Marseilles for a base line obtains a latitude of 64.8° or 64.9° for Thule, well short of the Arctic Circle. It is in fact the latitude of Trondheim, where Pytheas probably made land.

A statement by Geminus of Rhodes quotes On the Ocean as saying:... the Barbarians showed us the place where the sun goes to rest. For it was the case that in these parts the nights were very short, in some places two, in others three hours long, so that the sun rose again a short time after it had set.

Nansen points out that according to this statement, Pytheas was there in person and that the 21- and 22-hour days must be the customary statement of latitude by length of longest day. He calculates the latitudes to be 64° 32′ and 65° 31′, supporting Hipparchus' statement of the latitude of Thule. And yet Strabo says:
Pytheas of Massalia tells us that Thule ... is farthest north, and that there the circle of the summer tropic is the same as the Arctic[31] Circle.
Eratosthenes extends the latitudinal distance from Massalia to Celtica to 5000 stadia (7.1°), placing the base line in Normandy. The northernmost location cited in Britain at the Firth of Clyde is now northern Scotland.
To get this country south of Britain to conform to Strabo's interpretation of Pytheas, Ptolemy has to rotate Scotland by 90°.

The 5000 stadia must be discounted: it crosses the Borysthenes upriver near Kiev rather than at the mouth.
It does place Pytheas on the Arctic Circle, which in Norway is just south of the Lofoten islands. On the surface it appears that Eratosthenes altered the base line to pass through the northern extreme of Celtica. Pytheas, as related by Hipparchus, probably cited the place in Celtica where he first made land. If he used the same practice in Norway, Thule is at least the entire northwest coast of Norway from Trondheim to the Lofoten Islands.

The explorer, Richard Francis Burton, in his study of Thule points out that it has had many definitions over the centuries. Many more authors have written about it than remembered Pytheas. The question of the location of Pytheas' Thule remains. The latitudes given by the ancient authors can be reconciled. The missing datum required to fix the location is longitude: "Manifestly we cannot rely upon the longitude."[33]

Pytheas crossed the waters northward from Berrice, in the north of the British Isles, but whether to starboard, larboard, or straight ahead is not known. From the time of the Roman Empire all the possibilities were suggested repeatedly by each generation of writers: Iceland, Shetland, the Faroe Islands, Norway and later Greenland. A manuscript variant of a name in Pliny has abetted the Iceland theory: Nerigon instead of Berrice, which sounds like Norway. If one sails west from Norway one encounters Iceland. Burton himself espoused this theory.

The standard texts have Berrice today, as well as Bergos for Vergos in the same list of islands.
The Scandiae islands are more of a problem, as they could be Scandinavia, but other islands had that name as well. Moreover, Procopius says that the earlier name of Scandinavia was Thule and that it was the home of the Goths. The fact that Pytheas returned from the vicinity of the Baltic favors Procopius's view.
The fact that Pytheas lived centuries before the colonization of Iceland and Greenland by European agriculturalists makes them less likely candidates, as Thule was populated and its soil was tilled.

Concerning the people of Thule Strabo says of Pytheas, but grudgingly he might possibly seem to have made adequate use of the facts as regards the people who live close to the frozen zone, when he says that, ... the people live on millet and other herbs, and on fruits and roots; and where there are grain and honey, the people get their beverage, also, from them.
As for the grain, he says, – since they have no pure sunshine – they pound it out in large storehouses, after first gathering in the ears thither; for the threshing floors become useless because of this lack of sunshine and because of the rains.

What he seems to be describing is an agricultural country that uses barns for threshing grain rather than the Mediterranean outside floor of sun-baked mud and manufactures a drink, possibly mead.

Encounter with drift ice
Pancake ice in the Baltic in spring near the Swedish coast.
After mentioning the crossing (navigatio) from Berrice to Tyle, Pliny makes a brief statement that:

A Tyle unius diei navigatione mare concretum a nonnullis Cronium appellatur.
"One day's sail from Thule is the frozen ocean, called by some the Cronian Sea."

The mare concretum appears to match Strabo's pepēguia thalatta and is probably the same as the topoi ("places") mentioned in Strabo's apparent description of spring drift ice, which would have stopped his voyage further north and was for him the ultimate limit of the world. Strabo says:
Pytheas also speaks of the waters around Thule and of those places where land properly speaking no longer exists, nor sea nor air, but a mixture of these things, like a "marine lung", in which it is said that earth and water and all things are in suspension as if this something was a link between all these elements, on which one can neither walk nor sail.

The term used for "marine lung" (pleumōn thalattios) appears to refer to jellyfish of the type the ancients called sea-lung. The latter are mentioned by Aristotle in On the Parts of Animals as being free-floating and insensate.[38] They are not further identifiable from what Aristotle says but some pulmones appear in Pliny as a class of insensate sea animal;[39] specifically the halipleumon ("salt-water lung").[40] William Ogle, Aristotle's translator and annotator, attributes the name sea-lung to the lung-like expansion and contraction of the Medusae, a kind of Cnidaria, during locomotion.
The ice resembled floating circles in the water. The modern term for this phenomenon is pancake ice.

The association of Pytheas' observations with drift ice has long been standard in navigational literature, including Nathaniel Bowditch's American Practical Navigator, which begins Chapter 33, Ice Navigation, with Pytheas. At its edge, sea, slush, and ice mix, surrounded by fog.

Discovery of the Baltic
Amber
Strabo says that Pytheas gave an account of "what is beyond the Rhine as far as Scythia", which he, Strabo, thinks is false.[43] In the geographers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire, such as Ptolemy, Scythia stretches eastward from the mouth of the Vistula; thus Pytheas must have described the Germanic coast of the Baltic sea; if the statement is true, there are no other possibilities. As to whether he explored it in person, he said that he explored the entire north in person (see under Thule above). As the periplus was a sort of ship's log, he probably did reach the Vistula.

According to The Natural History by Pliny the Elder:


Pytheas says that the Gutones, a people of Germany, inhabit the shores of an estuary of the Ocean called Mentonomon, their territory extending a distance of six thousand stadia; that, at one day's sail from this territory, is the Isle of Abalus, upon the shores of which, amber is thrown up by the waves in spring, it being an excretion of the sea in a concrete form; as, also, that the inhabitants use this amber by way of fuel, and sell it to their neighbours, the Teutones.

The "Gutones" is a simplification of two manuscript variants, Guttonibus and Guionibus, which would be in the nominative case Guttones or Guiones, the Goths in the mainstream view.
The second major manuscript variant is either Mentonomon (nominative case) or Metuonidis (genitive case). A number of etymologies have been proposed but none very well accepted. Amber is not actually named.
It is called the concreti maris purgamentum, "the leavings of the frozen sea" after the spring melt. Diodorus uses ēlektron, the Greek word for amber, the object that gave its name to electricity through its ability to acquire a charge.
Pliny is presenting an archaic view, as in his time amber was a precious stone brought from the Baltic at great expense, but the Germans, he says, use it for firewood, according to Pytheas.

"Mentonomon" is unambiguously stated to be an aestuarium or "estuary" of 6000 stadia, which using the Herodotean standard of 600 feet per stadium is 681 miles. That number happens to be the distance from the mouth of the Skagerrak to the mouth of the Vistula, but no source says explicitly where the figure was taken. Competing views, however, usually have to reinterpret "estuary" to mean something other than an estuary, as the west of the Baltic Sea is the only body of estuarial water of sufficient length in the region.

Earlier Pliny says that a large island of three days' sail from the Scythian coast called Balcia by Xenophon of Lampsacus is called Basilia by Pytheas.
It is generally understood to be the same as Abalus. Based on the amber, the island could have been Heligoland, Zealand, the shores of Bay of Gdansk, Sambia or the Curonian Lagoon, which were historically the richest sources of amber in northern Europe. This is the earliest use of Germania.

Voyage to the Don

Pytheas claimed to have explored the entire north; however, he turned back at the mouth of the Vistula, the border with Scythia. If he had gone on he would have discovered the ancestral Balts. They occupied the lands to the east of the Vistula. In the west they began with the people living around Frisches Haff, Lithuanian Aismarės, "sea of the Aistians", who in that vicinity became the Baltic Prussians.
On the east Herodotus called them the Neuri, a name related to Old Prussian narus, "the deep", in the sense of water country. Later Lithuanians would be "the people of the shore". The Vistula was the traditional limit of Greater Germany. Place names featuring *ner- or *nar- are wide-ranging over the vast Proto-Baltic homeland, occupying western Russia before the Slavs.

Herodotus says that the Neuri had Scythian customs, but they were at first not considered Scythian.
During the war between the Scythians and the Persian Empire, the Scythians came to dominate the Neuri. Strabo, younger contemporary of Pytheas, denies that any knowledge of the shores of the eastern Baltic existed. He had heard of the Sauromatai, but had no idea where to place them.
Herodotus had mentioned these Sauromatai as a distinct people living near the Neuri. Pliny the Elder, however, is much better informed. The island of Baunonia (Bornholm), he says lies a days' sail off Scythia, where amber is collected.
To him the limit of Germany is the Vistula. In contrast to Strabo, he knows that the Goths live around the Vistula, but these are definitely Germans.

By the time of Tacitus, the Aestii have emerged.
The former Scythia is now entirely Sarmatia. Evidently the Sarmatians have conquered westward to the Vistula. The Goths have moved to the south. That the Balts lived east of the Vistula from remote prehistoric times is unquestioned. The Baltic languages, however, are only known from the 2nd millennium AD. They are known to have developed in tribal contexts, as they were originally tribal. The first mention of any tribes is in Ptolemy's description of European Sarmatia, where the main Prussian tribes are mentioned for the first time.
In Tacitus, only the language of the Aestii is mentioned. Strabo distinguishes the Venedi, who were Slavs. From these few references, which are the only surviving evidence apart from place name analysis, it would seem that the Balts Pytheas would have encountered were past the Common Balto-Slavic stage, but still spoke one language, which would have been Proto-Baltic. By turning back at what he thought was the limit of Germany, he not only missed the Balts, but did not discover that more Germans, the Goths, had moved into the Baltic area.

Polybius relates: "... on his return thence (from the north), he traversed the whole of the coast of Europe from Gades to the Tanais." Some authors consider this leg a second voyage, as it does not seem likely he would pass by Marseilles without refitting and refreshing the crew. It is striking that he encountered the border of Scythia, turned around, and went around Europe counter-clockwise until he came to the southern side of Scythia on the Black Sea. It is possible to speculate that he may have hoped to circumnavigate Europe, but the sources do not say.
In other, even more speculative interpretations, Pytheas returned north and the Tanais is not the Don but is a northern river, such as the Elbe river.
Pytheas' measurements of latitude

Latitude by the altitude of the sun

In discussing the work of Pytheas, Strabo typically uses direct discourse: "Pytheas says ..." In presenting his astronomical observations, he changes to indirect discourse: "Hipparchus says that Pytheas says ..." either because he never read Pytheas' manuscript (because it was not available to him) or in deference to Hipparchus, who appears to have been the first to apply the Babylonian system of representing the sphere of the earth by 360°.

Strabo uses the degrees, based on Hipparchus. Neither say that Pytheas did. Nevertheless, Pytheas did obtain latitudes, which, according to Strabo, he expressed in proportions of the gnōmōn ("index"), or trigonometric tangents of angles of elevation to celestial bodies. They were measured on the gnōmōn, the vertical leg of a right triangle, and the flat leg of the triangle. The imaginary hypotenuse looked along the line of sight to the celestial body or marked the edge of a shadow cast by the vertical leg on the horizontal leg.

Pytheas took the altitude of the sun at Massalia at noon on the longest day of the year and found that the tangent was the proportion of 120 (the length of the gnōmōn) to 1/5 less than 42 (the length of the shadow).
Hipparchus, relying on the authority of Pytheas (says Strabo, states that the ratio is the same as for Byzantium and that the two therefore are on the same parallel. Nansen and others prefer to give the cotangent 209/600, which is the inverse of the tangent, but the angle is greater than 45° and it is the tangent that Strabo states. His number system did not permit him to express it as a decimal but the tangent is about 2.87.

It is unlikely that any of the geographers could compute the arctangent, or angle of that tangent. Moderns look it up in a table. Hipparchos is said to have had a table of some angles. The altitude, or angle of elevation, is 70° 47’ 50″ but that is not the latitude.

At noon on the longest day the plane of longitude passing through Marseilles is exactly on edge to the sun. If the Earth's axis were not tilted toward the sun, a vertical rod at the equator would have no shadow. A rod further north would have a north-south shadow, and as an elevation of 90° would be a zero latitude, the complement of the elevation gives the latitude. The sun is even higher in the sky due to the tilt. The angle added to the elevation by the tilt is known as the obliquity of the ecliptic and at that time was 23° 44′ 40″.
The complement of the elevation less the obliquity is 43° 13′, only 5′ in error from Marseilles's latitude, 43° 18′.
Latitude by the elevation of the north pole
A second method of determining the latitude of the observer measures the angle of elevation of a celestial pole, north in the northern hemisphere. Seen from zero latitude the north pole's elevation is zero; that is, it is a point on the horizon. The declination of the observer's zenith also is zero and therefore so is his latitude.
As the observer's latitude increases (he travels north) so does the declination. The pole rises over the horizon by an angle of the same amount. The elevation at the terrestrial North Pole is 90° (straight up) and the celestial pole has a declination of the same value. The latitude also is 90.
Moderns have Polaris to mark the approximate location of the North celestial pole, which it does nearly exactly, but this position of Polaris was not available in Pytheas' time, due to changes in the positions of the stars.
Pytheas reported that the pole was an empty space at the corner of a quadrangle, the other three sides of which were marked by stars.
Their identity has not survived but based on calculations these are believed to have been α and κ in Draco and β in Ursa Minor.
Pytheas sailed northward with the intent of locating the Arctic Circle and exploring the "frigid zone" to the north of it at the extreme of the earth. He did not know the latitude of the circle in degrees. All he had to go by was the definition of the frigid zone as the latitudes north of the line where the celestial arctic circle was equal to the celestial Tropic of Cancer, the tropikos kuklos (refer to the next subsection). Strabo's angular report of this line as being at 24° may well be based on a tangent known to Pytheas, but he does not say that. In whatever mathematical form Pytheas knew the location, he could only have determined when he was there by taking periodic readings of the elevation of the pole (eksarma tou polou in Strabo and others).

Today the elevation can be obtained easily on ship with a quadrant. Electronic navigational systems have made even this simple measure unnecessary. Longitude was beyond Pytheas and his peers, but it was not of as great a consequence, because ships seldom strayed out of sight of land. East-west distance was a matter of contention to the geographers; they are one of Strabo's most frequent topics. Because of the gnōmōn north-south distances were accurate often to within a degree.

It is unlikely that any gnōmōn could be read accurately on the pitching deck of a small vessel at night. Pytheas must have made frequent overnight stops to use his gnōmōn and talk to the natives, which would have required interpreters, probably acquired along the way. The few fragments that have survived indicate that this material was a significant part of the periplus, possibly kept as the ship's log. There is little hint of native hostility; the Celts and the Germans appear to have helped him, which suggests that the expedition was put forward as purely scientific. In any case all voyages required stops for food, water and repairs; the treatment of voyagers fell under the special "guest" ethic for visitors.
Location of the Arctic Circle
The ancient Greek view of the heavenly bodies on which their navigation was imported from Babylonia by the Ionian Greeks, who used it to become a seafaring nation of merchants and colonists during the Archaic period in Greece. Massalia was an Ionian colony. The first Ionian philosopher, Thales, was known for his ability to measure the distance of a ship at sea from a cliff by the very method Pytheas used to determine the latitude of Massalia, the trigonometric ratios.

The astronomic model on which ancient Greek navigation was based, which is still in place today, was already extant in the time of Pytheas, the concept of the degrees only being missing. The model divided the universe into a celestial and an earthly sphere pierced by the same poles. Each of the spheres were divided into zones (zonai) by circles (kukloi) in planes at right angles to the poles. The zones of the celestial sphere repeated on a larger scale those of the terrestrial sphere.

The basis for division into zones was the two distinct paths of the heavenly bodies: that of the stars and that of the sun and moon. Astronomers know today that the Earth revolving around the sun is tilted on its axis, bringing each hemisphere now closer to the sun, now further away. The Greeks had the opposite model, that the stars and the sun rotated around the earth. The stars moved in fixed circles around the poles. The sun moved at an oblique angle to the circles, which obliquity brought it now to the north, now to the south. The circle of the sun was the ecliptic. It was the center of a band called the zodiac on which various constellations were located.

The shadow cast by a vertical rod at noon was the basis for defining zonation.
The intersection of the northernmost or southernmost points of the ecliptic defined the axial circles passing through those points as the two tropics (tropikoi kukloi, "circles at the turning points") later named for the zodiacal constellations found there, Cancer and Capricorn. During noon of the summer solstice (therinē tropē) rods there cast no shadow.
The latitudes between the tropics were called the torrid zone (diakekaumenē, "burned up").

Based on their experience of the Torrid Zone south of Egypt and Libya, the Greek geographers judged it uninhabitable. Symmetry requires that there be an uninhabitable Frigid Zone (katepsugmenē, "frozen") to the north and reports from there since the time of Homer seemed to confirm it. The edge of the Frigid Zone ought to be as far south from the North Pole in latitude as the Summer Tropic is from the Equator. Strabo gives it as 24°, which may be based on a previous tangent of Pytheas, but he does not say.
The Arctic Circle would then be at 66°, accurate to within a degree.

Seen from the equator the celestial North Pole (boreios polos) is a point on the horizon. As the observer moves northward the pole rises and the circumpolar stars appear, now unblocked by the Earth. At the Tropic of Cancer the radius of the circumpolar stars reaches 24°. The edge stands on the horizon. The constellation of mikra arktos (Ursa Minor, "little bear") was entirely contained within the circumpolar region. The latitude was therefore called the arktikos kuklos, "circle of the bear". The terrestrial Arctic Circle was regarded as fixed at this latitude. The celestial Arctic Circle was regarded as identical to the circumference of the circumpolar stars and therefore a variable.

When the observer is on the terrestrial Arctic Circle and the radius of the circumpolar stars is 66° the celestial Arctic Circle is identical to the celestial Tropic of Cancer.
That is what Pytheas means when he says that Thule is located at the place where the Arctic Circle is identical to the Tropic of Cancer.
At that point, on the day of the Summer Solstice, the vertical rod of the gnōmōn casts a shadow extending in theory to the horizon over 360° as the sun does not set. Under the pole the Arctic Circle is identical to the Equator and the sun never sets but rises and falls on the horizon. The shadow of the gnōmōn winds perpetually around it.

Latitude by longest day and shortest solar elevation

Strabo uses the astronomical cubit (pēchus, the length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the little finger) as a measure of the elevation of the sun. The term "cubit" in this context is obscure; it has nothing to do with distance along either a straight line or an arc, does not apply to celestial distances, and has nothing to do with the gnōmōn. Hipparchus borrowed this term from Babylonia, where it meant 2°. They in turn took it from ancient Sumer so long ago that if the connection between cubits and degrees was known in either Babylonia or Ionia it did not survive. Strabo states degrees in either cubits or as a proportion of a great circle. The Greeks also used the length of day at the summer solstice as a measure of latitude. It is stated in equinoctial hours (hōrai isēmerinai), one being 1/12 of the time between sunrise and sunset on an equinox.

Based partly on data taken from Pytheas, Hipparchus correlated cubits of the sun's elevation at noon on the winter solstice, latitudes in hours of a day on the summer solstice, and distances between latitudes in stadia for some locations.
Pytheas had proved that Marseilles and Byzantium were on the same parallel (see above). Hipparchus, through Strabo, adds that Byzantium and the mouth of the Borysthenes, today's Dnepr river, were on the same meridian and were separated by 3700 stadia, 5.3° at Strabo's 700 stadia per a degree of meridian arc. As the parallel through the river-mouth also crossed the coast of "Celtica", the distance due north from Marseilles to Celtica was 3700 stadia, a baseline from which Pytheas seems to have calculated latitude and distance.

Strabo says that Ierne (Ireland) is under 5000 stadia (7.1°) north of this line.
These figures place Celtica around the mouth of the Loire river, an emporium for the trading of British tin. The part of Ireland referenced is the vicinity of Belfast. Pytheas then would either have crossed the Bay of Biscay from the coast of Spain to the mouth of the Loire, or reached it along the coast, crossed the English channel from the vicinity of Brest, France to Cornwall, and traversed the Irish Sea to reach the Orkney Islands. A statement of Eratosthenes attributed by Strabo to Pytheas, that the north of the Iberian Peninsula was an easier passage to Celtica than across the Ocean, is somewhat ambiguous: apparently he knew or knew of both routes, but he does not say which he took.

At noon on the winter solstice the sun stands at 9 cubits and the longest day on the summer solstice is 16 hours at the baseline through Celtica.[70] At 2500 stadia, approximately 283 miles, or 3.6°, north of Celtica, are a people Hipparchus called Celtic, but whom Strabo thinks are the British, a discrepancy he might not have noted if he had known that the British were also Celtic. The location is Cornwall. The sun stands at 6 cubits and the longest day is 17 hours. At 9100 stadia, approximately 1032 miles, north of Marseilles, 5400 or 7.7° north of Celtica, the elevation is 4 cubits and the longest day is 18 hours. This location is in the vicinity of the Firth of Clyde.

Here Strabo launches another quibble. Hipparchus, relying on Pytheas, according to Strabo, places this area south of Britain, but he, Strabo, calculates that it is north of Ierne. Pytheas, however, rightly knows what is now Scotland as part of Britain, land of the Picts, even though north of Ierne. North of southern Scotland the longest day is 19 hours. Strabo, based on theory alone, states that Ierne is so cold[27] that any lands north of it must be uninhabited. In the hindsight given to moderns Pytheas, in relying on observation in the field, appears more scientific than Strabo, who discounted the findings of others merely because of their strangeness to him. The ultimate cause of his skepticism is simply that he did not believe Scandinavia could exist. This disbelief may also be the cause of alteration of Pytheas' data.

Pytheas on the tides
Pliny reports that "Pytheas of Massalia informs us, that in Britain the tide rises 80 cubits."
The passage does not give enough information to determine which cubit Pliny meant; however, any cubit gives the same general result. If he was reading an early source, the cubit may have been the Cyrenaic cubit, an early Greek cubit, of 463.1 mm, in which case the distance was 37 metres (121 ft). This number far exceeds any modern known tides.
The National Oceanography Centre, which records tides at tidal gauges placed in about 55 ports of the UK Tide Gauge Network on an ongoing basis, records the highest mean tidal change between 1987 and 2007 at Avonmouth in the Severn Estuary of 6.955 m (22.82 ft).
The highest predicted spring tide between 2008 and 2026 at that location will be 14.64 m (48.0 ft) on 29 September 2015.
Even allowing for geologic and climate change, Pytheas' 80 cubits far exceeds any known tides around Britain. One well-circulated but unevidenced answer to the paradox is that Pytheas is referring to a storm surge.

Matching fragments of Aëtius in pseudo-Plutarch and Stobaeus attribute the flood tides (πλήμμυραι plēmmurai) to the "filling of the moon" (πλήρωσις τῆς σελήνης plērōsis tēs sēlēnēs) and the ebb tides (ἀμπώτιδες ampōtides) to the "lessening" (μείωσις meiōsis). The words are too ambiguous to make an exact determination of Pytheas' meaning, whether diurnal or spring and neap tides are meant, or whether full and new moons or the half-cycles in which they occur. Different translators take different views.

That daily tides should be caused by full moons and new moons is manifestly wrong, which would be a surprising view in a Greek astronomer and mathematician of the times. He could have meant that spring and neap tides were caused by new and full moons, which is partially correct in that spring tides occur at those times. A gravitational theory (objects fall to the center) existed at the time but Pytheas appears to have meant that the phases themselves were the causes (αἰτίαι aitiai). However imperfect or imperfectly related the viewpoint, Pytheas was the first to associate the tides to the phases of the moon.
Pytheas was a central source of information on the North Sea and the subarctic regions of western Europe to later periods, and possibly the only source. The only ancient authors we know by name who certainly saw Pytheas' original text were Dicaearchus, Timaeus, Eratosthenes, Crates of Mallus, Hipparchus, Polybius, Artemidorus and Posidonius.
Notably the list does not include Strabo or Tacitus, though Strabo discusses him and Tacitus may likely have known about his work. Either of the two could have known him through other writers or have read his work in the original.

Strabo, citing Polybius, accuses Pytheas of promulgating a fictitious journey he could never have funded, as he was a private individual (idiōtēs) and a poor man (penēs).
Markham proposes a possible answer to the funding question: seeing that Pytheas was known as a professional geographer and that north Europe was as yet a question mark to Massalian merchants, he suggests that "the enterprise was a government expedition of which Pytheas was placed in command."
In another suggestion the merchants of Marseilles sent him out to find northern markets.
These theories are speculative but perhaps less so than Strabo's contention that Pytheas was a charlatan just because a professional geographer doubted him.
Strabo does explain his reasons for doubting Pytheas' veracity.
Citing numerous instances of Pytheas apparently being far off the mark on details concerning known regions, he says: "however, any man who has told such great falsehoods about the known regions would hardly, I imagine, be able to tell the truth about places that are not known to anybody."
As an example he mentions that Pytheas says Kent is several days' sail from Celtica when it is visible from Gaul across the channel. If Pytheas had visited the place he should have verified it personally.
The objection although partially true is itself flawed. Strabo interjects his own view of the location of Celtica, that it was opposite to Britain, end to end.
Pytheas, however, places it further south, around the mouth of the Loire (see above), from which it might justifiably be several days' sail.
The people across from Britain in Caesar's time are the Germani in the north and the Belgae in the south. Still, some of the Celtic lands were on the channel and were visible from it, which Pytheas should have mentioned but Strabo implies he did not.
Strabo's other objections are similarly flawed or else completely wrong. He simply did not believe the earth was inhabited north of Ierne. Pytheas however could not then answer for himself, or protect his own work from loss or alteration, so most of the questions concerning his voyage remain unresolved, to be worked over by every generation. To some he is a daring adventurer and discoverer;[79] to others, a semi-legendary blunderer or prevaricator.
The logical outcome of this tendency is the historical novel with Pytheas as the main character and the celebration of Pytheas in poetry beginning as far back as Virgil. The process continues into modern times; for example, Pytheas is a key theme in Charles Olson's Maximus Poems. Details of Pytheas’ voyage also serve as the backdrop for Chapter I of Poul Anderson’s science fiction novel, The Boat of a Million Years.


ANCIENT ROADS AND TRACKS.

The road system of Constantine is not merely medieval, it is prehistoric. This is not intended to be a criticism of those who have charge of the roads but merely a statement of fact. There are no

roads in the parish worth mentioning that have been made in modern times .We have seen that the principal roads leading northwards from the Helford River are ridgeways. The most westerly is still in use as the main road from Gweek to the Helston-Truro road ( itself a ridgeway ) at Buttres Gate. Beyond that it once continued by Stythians, Bissoe and Baidu till it joined the principal ridgeway running along the watershed from one end of Cornwall to the other. This road brought the tin bearing region of Stythians into communication with the port of Gweek. It enters Constantine parish at a place called Ponstreath or Ponstrays , which is possibly a corruption of Penstrase , i.e., Street-end, the word strase or strad being used for a paved way, a relic of the Roman strata . At Carloggas a fortification adjoined it . At Tolvan it was crossed by the principal track leading across the parish, and the meeting place of the roads was doubtless suggested by the presence of the Tolvan

Quoit2.

The second ridgeway from Gweek runs up to Carwythenack Chase, where an earthwork lies on its left hand3. Then it went straight up over the top of Brill hill, to Trevease, passing the stone cross at the ford, and so out to join the other ridgeway at Buttres Gate. This road is only used in its lower part, but it can be traced through the crofts on Brill hill by a double line of hedges.


Ancient Roads and Tracks 17

The third ancient ridgeway is that coming from the Quay at Merthen Hole, up through the woods, across the old deer park, where it passes through the ditch of the earthworks, so out over the Downs, across the fields to Brill. Then to Trewardreva and over the ford (Ret) which gave name to Retallack. So up the hill along past the site of Maen Rock, skirting Treworvac, across the fields to the “ Dead lane” , where it proves its antiquity by being a part of the parish boundary, then into the Lestraines lane and out to the Turnpike from Helston to Truro at Rame. The “ Dead lane ” is a strip of this ridgeway which has not been used for over a century, and is so called because It is now a cul-de-sac. On either side of it is a tumulus, for barrows, like ancient roads, are found on ridges. It is remarkable that this lane, about three-quarters of a mile in length, is the only piece of road which forms part of the Constantine parish boundary. All the rest of the boundary is formed by creeks, streams, or, for a very small distance, by hedges. At Merthen Hole it is a typical pack-horse track cut out of the rock. Its paving stones remain beneath the fields and make ploughing Impossible.The fourth main ridgeway is the present main road from Penryn, entering the parish near Bossawsack and continuing past High Cross down to the river atCalamansack. There are two principal tracks across the parish from east to west, 2nd as the lower has to traverse six deep valleys, it affords a good example of the precipitous nature of old roads.

This enters the parish from Mawnan at Tregarne Mill, passes the steep hill to Treworval , by what is now a rough lane, continues across the fields to Driff and Treviades, then down past Gwealllin to the creek-head at Polwheveral. This part bore the name Clodgy lane in 1649, a common name in Cornwall, derived, in all zbability, from Clud, a carriage, or perhaps from Clodding, meaning trenched ” or “ embanked5.” At the bottom stood two grist mills, d • Tucking or Fulling Mill. The bridge over the stream was built  as appears from the contract between the parish and Roger Urd, a mason, of Tregoney, entered into the old Vestry Book . It appears to continue on the other side of the river through Tremayne and Henforth ( =Old road ) to St. Martins. ‘, Clodgy lane at Helston. Mr. Henderson later changed his mind, and Came to the conclusion that Clodgy meant a Lazar-house. a copy of this interesting document in the present writer’s Old Cornish Bridges,



TIN. COPPER.  was not, as some writers imagine, limited by the western parts of Somersetshire. It is not to be imagined, that they could neglect a corner of our island, productive of a metal so useful in mechanics as tin, and which it yielded in such plenty, as to receive from that circumstance the name.
So great was the intercourse that foreign nations had with the inhabitants bordering on Belerium,
as to give them a greater scavoir vivre, and more extensive hospitality, than was to be found in other parts of the island. They were equally expert in working the mines, and preparing the ore, which
lay in earthy veins within the rocky strata. They melted and purified it, then cast it into rows of cubes, and carried it to let is, the modern Mount St. Michael: from thence it was transported into Gaul; conveyed from the place it was landed at, on horses’ backs, a journey of thirty days, to the mouth of the Rhone, and also to the Massylians, and the town of Narbonne".
Copper.

Did not Caesar and Strabo agree in their account, I should never have believed it possible
that the Britons could have neglected their rich mines of copper, and have been obliged at first to import that metal. Perhaps the ore was less
accessible, and the art of fusion unknown; for islands, from their very situation, must remain

St Winnow was recorded in theDomesday Bookof 1086 as San Winnuc. In 1644-45, some ninety people from the parish died of the plague: only four were soldiers but a campaign of the Civil War was going on at the time.

Andrew Langdon (1996) records three stone crosses in the parish. A cross found at Higher Coombe in 1903 was afterwards erected at St Nectan's chapel. A cross from Lanlivery was made into the upper section of "The Monument" on Druids Hill. It was brought from Lanlivery in 1846; this monument commemorates the loss of life in the Battle of Braddock Down in 1643. A third cross called Waterlake Cross stands in a private garden near Respryn.[5]The third cross had already been recorded by Arthur G. Langdon in 1896; at Waterlake, a hamlet near Bodmin Road station, there is a Cornish cross.

Churches and chapels Parish church

This is of Norman foundation but the present building is almost entirely of the 15th century. The rood screen survives and there is some interesting stained glass.

The church is at the riverside, next to a quay at the limit of navigation of theRiver Fowey. It is probably on the site of the 7th century oratory of St Winnoc. A stone church was built in the 12th century, probably cruciform in plan, and there are traces of the Norman stonework on the north side. The transept arch was reconstructed in the 13th century. About 1465 the south wall was demolished and the south aisle, arcade and roofs built. The chancel was restored by J. H. Seddon in the 19th century, retaining the 16th century east window. The west tower is of standard Cornish Perpendicular style. There is stained glass of c. 1500 in the east windows of the chancel and S aisle. The 16th century rood screen, carved with leaves and flowers, was restored by Violet Pinwell in 1907 . The loft, rood and some of the south aisle screen were newly made in the restoration. The granite font, carved with angels bearing shields, is 14th century. The pulpit is of c.1600 and richly carved. There are also carved bench ends of various dates from 1485 to 1630. The monuments include one in slate to William Sawle, d. 1651.

Saint Winwaloe

Portrait of a silver bust of Saint Guénolé , Died 3 March 532 Landévennec AbbeyVeneratedinEastern Orthodox Church , Catholic ChurchFeast 3 March PatronageFertility

Winwaloe(Breton:Gwenole;French:Guénolé;Latin:Winwallus or Winwalœus; c.460– 3 March 532) was the founder and first abbot ofLandévennec Abbey(literally "Lannof Venec"), also known as the Monastery of Winwaloe. It was just south ofBrestinBrittany, now part ofFrance.

Life St Winwaloe's Church, Gunwalloe

Winwaloe was the son ofFragan(or Fracan), a prince ofDumnonia, and his wifeGwen the Three-Breasted, who had fled to Brittany to avoid the plague.[1][2]

Winwaloe was born about 460, apparently atPlouguin, nearSaint-Pabu,[citation needed]where his supposed place of birth, a feudal hillock, can still be seen. Winwaloe grew up inPloufragannearSaint-Brieucwith his brotherWethenoc, and his brotherJacut.[2]They were later joined by a sister,Creirwy, and still later by half-brotherCadfan.[3]He was educated byBudocofDolon Lavret island in theBréhatarchipelago nearPaimpol.

As a young man Winwaloe conceived a wish to visitIrelandto see the remains ofSaint Patrick, who had just died. However, the saint appeared to him in a dream to say that it would be better to remain in Brittany and found an abbey. So, with eleven of Budoc's other disciples, he set up a smallmonasteryon theÎle de Tibidy, at the mouth of the Faou. However it was so inhospitable that after three years, he miraculously opened a passage through the sea to found anotherabbeyon the opposite bank of the Landévennec estuary.

Winwaloe died at his monastery on 3 March 532.

Veneration

Winwaloe was venerated as a saint at Landévennec untilVikinginvasions in 914 forced themonksto flee, with his body, toChâteau-du-Loirand thenMontreuil-sur-Mer. Hisrelicswere often taken on procession through the town.

Winwaloe's shrine was destroyed during theFrench Revolutionin 1793.

He apparently acquired apriapicreputation through confusion of his name with the wordgignere(Frenchengendrer, "to beget") and was thus a patron of fertility as one of thephallic saints.[4]He is also the patron of Saint-Guénolé inPenmarch,Finistère.

InCornwall, Winwaloe is the patron of the churches atTremaine,St Wynwallow's Church, Landewednack,GunwalloeandPoundstockas well asEast PortlemouthinDevonand two lost chapels inWales. His feast day is 28 April and Gunwalloe feast is celebrated on the last Sunday of April.[5]The churches ofSt Twynnells, nearPembroke, PembrokeshireandWonastow,Monmouthshiremay have been originally dedicated to him.[6]They were probably founded by his successor at Landévennec,Gwenhael, who certainly made trips toGreat Britain.Exeter Cathedral,Glastonbury Abbey,Abingdon AbbeyandWaltham Abbey Churchheld small relics. He was also popular inEast Angliawhere the abbey at Montreuil had a daughter house;St Winwaloe PrioryinNorfolkwas dedicated to him.

Monday 7 May 2018

"PHŒNICIANS IN DART VALE.


BELSTONE


Derivation of the name—Phœnicians—Taw Marsh—Artillery practice on the moors—Encroachments—The East Okement—Pounds and hut circles—Stone rows on Cosdon—Cranmere Pool—Sticklepath—Christian inscribed stones—South Zeal—West Wyke—North Wyke—The wicked Richard Weekes—South Tawton church—The West Okement—Yes Tor—Camp and Roman road—Throwleigh.

AGOOD deal of pseudo-antiquarianism has been expressed relative to the name of a little moorland parish two and a half miles uphill fromOkehampton. It is now calledBelstone, and it has been surmised that here stood a stone dedicated toBaal, whose worship had been introduced by the Phœnicians.

I must really quote one of the finest specimens of "exquisite fooling" I have ever come across. It appeared as a sub-article in theWestern Morning Newsin 1890.

It was headed: —

"PHŒNICIANS IN DART VALE.

[SPECIAL.]

"Much interest, not only local but world-wide, was aroused a few months back by the announcement of a Phœnician survival atIpplepen, in the person of Mr. Thomas Ballhatchet, descendant of the priest of the SunTemple there, and until lately owner of the plot of land called Baalford, under Baal Tor, a priestly patrimony, which had come down to him through some eighteen or twenty centuries, together with his name and his marked Levantine features and characteristics.

"Such survivals are not infrequent among Orientals, as, for instance, the Cohens, Aaron's family, the Bengal Brahmins, the Rechabites, etc. Ballhatchet's sole peculiarity is his holding on to the land, in which, however, he is kept in countenance in England by the Purkises, who drew the body of Rufus to its grave in Winchester Cathedral on 2nd August, 1100.

"Further quiet research makes it clear beyond all manner of doubt that the Phœnician tin colony, domiciled at Totnes, and whose Sun Temple was located on their eastern sky-line at Ipplepen, have left extensive traces of their presence all the way down the Dart in the identical andunaltered names of places, a test of which the Palestine Exploration Committee record the priceless value. To give but one instance. The beautiful light-refracting diadem which makes Belliver[1]the most striking of all her sister tors, received from the Semite its consecration as 'Baallivyah,' Baal, crown of beauty or glory. The word itself occurs in Proverbs i. 9 and iv. 9, and as both Septuagint and Vulgate so render it, it must have borne that meaning in the third century B C., and in the third century A.D., and, of course, in the interval. There are many other instances quite as close, and any student of the new and fascinating science of Assyriology will continually add to them. A portrait of Ballhatchet, with some notes by an eminent and well-known Semitic scholar, may probably appear in theGraphic; in the meantime it may be pointed out that hisname is typically Babylonian. Not only is there at Pantellaria the gravestone of one Baal-yachi (Baal's beloved), but no less than three clay tablets from the Sun Temple ofSippara(the Bible Sepharvaim) bear the names of Baal-achi-iddin, Baal-achi-utsur, and Baal-achi-irriba. This last, which bears date 22 Sivan (in the eleventh year ofNabonidus, B.C. 540), just two years before the catastrophe which followed on Belshazzar's feast, is in the possession of Mr. W. G. Thorpe,F.S.A.It is in beautiful condition, and records a loan by one Dinkiva to Baal-achi-irriba (Baal will protect his brother), on the security of some slaves."


One really wonders in reading such nonsense as this whether modern education is worth much, when a man could write such trash and an editor could admit it into his paper.

Ballhatchet means the hatchet or gate to a ball,i.e. a mine.

As it happens, there is not a particle of trustworthy evidence that the Phœnicians ever traded directly with Cornwall and Devon. The intermediary traders were theVenetiof what is now Vannes, and the tin trade was carried throughGaultoMarseilles, as is shown by traces left on the old trade route. In the next place, there is no evidence that our British orIvernianancestors ever heard the name of Baal. And finally,Belstoneis not named after a stone at all, to return to the point whence we started. InDomesdayit is Bellestham, or theham, meadow of Belles or Bioll, a Saxon name that remains among us as Beale.

Belstone is situated at the lip of Taw Marsh, once a fine lake, with Steeperton Tor rising above it atthe head. Partly because the river has fretted a way through the joints of the granite, forming Belstone Cleave, and partly on account of the silting up of the lake-bed with rubble brought down by the several streams that here unite, the lake-bed is now filled up with sand and gravel and swamp.

The military authorities coveted this tract for artillery practice. They set up butts, but woman intervened. A very determined lady marched up to them, although the warning red flags fluttered, and planted herself in front of a target, took out of her reticule a packet of ham sandwiches and a flask of cold tea, and declared her intention of spending the day there. In vain did the military protest, entreat, remonstrate; she proceeded to nibble at her sandwiches and defied them to fire.

She carried the day.

Since then Taw Marsh has been the playfield of many children, and has been rambled over by visitors, but the artillery have abstained from practising on it.

The fact is that the military have made the moors aboutOkehamptonimpossible for the visitor, and those who desire to rove over it in pursuit of health have been driven from Okehampton to Belstone, and object to be moved on further.

What with the camp at Okehampton and the prisons atPrincetownand encroachments on every side, the amount of moorland left open to the rambler is greatly curtailed.

The privation is not only felt by the visitor but also by the farmer, who has a right to send outhis sheep and cattle upon the moor in summer, and in times of drought looks to this upland as his salvation.

A comparison between what the Forest of Dartmoor was at the beginning of this century and its condition to-day shows how inclosures have crept on—nay, not crept, increased by leaps; and what is true of the forest is true also of the commons that surround it. Add to the inclosed land the large tract swept by the guns at Okehampton, and the case becomes more grave still. The public have been robbed of their rights wholesale. Not a word can now be raised against the military. TheTransvaal Warhas brought home to us the need we have to become expert marksmen, and theForest of Dartmoorseems to offer itself for the purpose of a practising-ground. Nevertheless, one accepts the situation with a sigh.

There is a charming excursion up theEast Okementfrom the railway bridge to Cullever Steps, passing on the way a little fall of the river, not remarkable for height but for picturesqueness. There is no path, and the excursion demands exertion.

On Belstone Common is a stone circle and near it a fallen menhir. The circle is merely one of stones that formed a hut, which had upright slabs lining it within as well as girdling without.

Under Belstone Tor, among the "old men's workings" by the Taw, an experienced eye will detect ablowing-house, but it is much dilapidated.

TheTawand an affluent pour down from the central bog, one on each side of Steeperton Tor,and from the east the small brook dances into Taw Marsh. Beside the latter, on the slopes, are numerouspoundsandhut circles, and near its source is astone circle, of which the best uprights have been carried off for gateposts. South of it is amenhir, the Whitmoor Stone, leaning, as the ground about it is marshy. Cosdon, or, as it is incorrectly called occasionally, Cawsand, is a huge rounded hill ascending to 1,785 feet, crowned with dilapidatedcairnsand ruinedkistvaens. East of the summit, near the turf track from South Zeal, is a cairn that contained three kistvaens. One is perfect, one wrecked, and of the third only the space remained and indications whence the slabs had been torn. From these three kistvaens in one mound start three stone rows that are broken through by the track, but can be traced beyond it for some way; they have been robbed, as the householders of South Zeal have been of late freely inclosing large tracts of their common, and have taken the stones for the construction of walls about their fields.

By ascending the Taw, Cranmere Pool may be reached, but is only so far worth the visit that the walk to and from it gives a good insight into the nature of the central bogs. The pool is hardly more than a puddle. Belstone church is not interesting; it was rebuilt, all but the tower, in 1881. Under Cosdon nestles Sticklepath. "Stickle" is the Devonshire for steep. Here is a holy well near an inscribed stone. A second inscribed stone is by the roadside to Okehampton. At Belstone are two more, but none of these bear names. They areChristian monuments of the sixth, or at latest seventh, century. At Sticklepath was a curious old cob thatched chapel, but this has been unnecessarily destroyed, and a modern erection of no interest or


Inscribed Stone, Sticklepath


beauty has taken its place. South Zeal is an interesting little village, through which ran the old high-road, but which is now left on one side. For long it was a treasury of interesting old houses; many have disappeared recently, but the "Oxenham Arms," the seat of the Burgoyne family, remains, the fine old village cross, and the chapel, of granite.Above South Zeal, on West Wyke Moor, is the house that belonged to the Battishill family, with a ruined cross near it. The house has been much spoiled of late; the stone mullions have been removed from the hall window, but the ancient gateway, surmounted by the Battishill arms, and with the date 1656, remains untouched. It is curious, because one would hardly have expected a country gentleman to have erected an embattled gateway during the Commonwealth, and in the style of the early Tudor kings. In the hall window are the arms of Battishill, impaled with a coat that cannot be determined as belonging to any known family. In the same parish of South Tawton is another old house, North Wyke, that belonged to the Wyke or Weekes family. The ancient gatehouse and chapel are interesting; they belong, in my opinion, to the sixteenth century, and to the latter part of the same. The chapel has a corbel, the arms of Wykes and Gifford; and John Wyke of North Wyke, who was buried in 1591, married the daughter of Sir Roger Gifford. The gateway can hardly be earlier. The house was built by the same man, but underwent great alteration in the fashion introduced from France by Charles II., when the rooms were raised and the windows altered intocroisées.

Touching this house a tale is told.

About the year 1660 there was a John Weekes of North Wyke, who was a bachelor, and lived in the old mansion along with his sister Katherine, who was unmarried, and his mother. He was a manof weak intellect, and was consumptive. John came of age in 1658. In the event of his death without will his heir would be his uncle John, his father's brother, who died in 1680. This latter John had a son Roger.

Now it happened that there was a great scamp of the name of Richard Weekes, born at Hatherleigh, son of Francis Weekes of Honeychurch, possibly a remote connection, but not demonstrably so.

He was a gentleman pensioner of Charles II., but spent most of his leisure time in the Fleet Prison. One day this rascal came down from London, it is probable at the suggestion of consumptive John's mother and sister, who could not be sure what he, with his feeble mind, might do with the estate.

Richard ingratiated himself into the favour of John, and urged him not to risk his health in so bleak and exposed a spot as South Tawton, but to seek a warmer climate, and he invited him to Plymouth. The unsuspicious John assented.

When John was cajoled to Plymouth, Richard surrounded him with creatures of his own, a doctor and two lawyers, who, with Richard's assistance, coaxed, bullied, and persuaded the sickly John into making a deed of settlement of all his estate in favour of Richard. The unhappy man did this, but with a curious proviso enabling him to revoke his act by word as well as by deed. Richard had now completely outwitted John's mother and sister, who had been conspirators with him, on the understanding that they were to share the spoils.

After a while, when it was clear that John was


North Wyke Gate House

dying, Richard hurried him back to North Wyke, where he expired on Saturday, September 2ist,

1661, but not till he had been induced by his mother and sister to revoke his will verbally, for they had now learned how that the wily Richard had got the better of them.

Next day, Sunday, Richard Weekes arrived, booted and spurred, at the head of a party of men he had collected. With sword drawn he burst into the house, and when Katherine Weekes attempted to bar the way he knocked her down. Then he drove the widow mother into a closet and locked the door on her. He now cleared the house of the servants, and proceeded to take possession of all the documents and valuables that the mansion contained. Poor John's body lay upstairs: no regard was paid to that, and, saying "I am come to do the devil's work and my own," he drove Katherine out of the house, and she was constrained to take refuge for the night in a neighbouring farm. The widow, Mary Weekes, was then liberated and also turned out of doors.

The heir-at-law was the uncle John, against whom Mary and Katherine Weekes had conspired with the scoundrel Richard. This latter now sought Uncle John, made him drunk, and got him to sign a deed, when tipsy, conveying all his rights to the said Richard for the sum of fifty pounds paid down. Richard was now in possession. The widow thereupon brought an action in Chancery against Richard. The lawyers saw the opportunity. Here was a noble estate that might be sucked dry, and they descended on it with this end in view.

The lawsuit was protracted for forty years, from 1661 to 1701, when the heirs of the wicked Richard retained the property, but it had been so exhausted and burdened, that the suit was abandoned undecided. Richard Weekes died in 1670.

The plan resorted to in order to keep possession after the forcible entry was this. The son of Richard Weekes had married a Northmore of Well, in South Tawton, and the Northmores bought up all the debts on the estate and got possession of the mortgages, and worked them persistently and successfully against the rightful claimants till, worried and wearied out, and with empty purses, they were unable further to pursue the claim. In 1713 the estate was sold by John Weekes, the grandson of Richard, who had also married a Northmore, and North Wyke passed away from the family after having been in its possession since the reign of Henry III.

It was broken up into two farms, and the house divided into two. Recently it has, however, been repurchased by a descendant of the original possessors, in a female line, the Rev. W. Wykes Finch, and the house is being restored in excellent taste.

In South Tawton church is a fine monument of the common ancestor, John Wyke, 1591. The church has been renovated, monumental slabs sawn in half and used to line the drain round the church externally. With the exception of the sun-dial, bearing the motto from Juvenal, "Obrepet non intellecta senectus"and a Burgoyne monument and that of "Warrior Wyke," the church does not present muchof interest at present, whatever it may have done before it fell into the hands of spoilers.

The West Okement comes down from the central bogs through a fine "Valley of Rocks," dividing and forming an islet overgrown with wild rose and whortleberry. Above it stands Shilstone Tor, telling by its name that on it at one time stood a cromlech, which has been destroyed. This valley furnishes many studies for the artist.

Hence Yes Tor may be ascended, for long held to be the highest elevation on Dartmoor. The highest peak it is, rising to 2,030 feet, but it is over-topped by the rounded High Willhayes, 2,039 feet. Between Yes Tor and Mill Tor is a rather nasty bog. Mill Tor consists of a peculiar granite; the feldspar is so pure that speculators have been induced to attempt to make soda-water bottles out of it, by fusing without the adjunct of other materials.

On the extreme edge of a ridge above the East Okement, opposite Belstone Tor, is a camp, much injured by the plough. Apparently from it leads a paved raised causeway or road, presumed to be Roman; but why such a road should have been made from a precipitous headland above the Okement, and whither it led, are shrouded in mystery. Near this road, in 1897, was found a hoard of the smallest Roman coins, probably the store of some beggar, which he concealed under a rock, and died without being able to recover it. All pertained to the years between A.D. 320 and 330.

Of Okehampton I will say nothing here, as the place has had a chapter devoted to it in myBook ofthe West—too much space, some might say, for in itself it is devoid of interest. Its charm is in the scenery round, and its great attraction during the summer is the artillery camp on the down above Okehampton Park. On the other side of Belstone, Throwleigh may be visited, where there are numerous prehistoric relics. There were many others, but they have been destroyed, amongst others a fine inclosure like Grimspound, but more perfect, as the inclosing wall was not ruinous throughout, and the stones were laid in courses. The pulpit of Throwleigh church is made up of old bench-ends.


    CHAPTER IX.
    THE MANOR, TITHING & BARTON OF MERTHEN
    The Barton of Merthen has belonged to the Vyvyans of
    Trelowarren for three hundred years. It occupies a promontory
    that runs out into a long tail-like point, known as the Groyne, between
    the two principal arms of the Helford River. From the Barton
    House, and still more from the ancient earthworks 350 yards northwest of it, one obtains a view that commands the mouth of the Haven,
    and it is easy to understand why the Lords of Merthen have always
    had such extensive rights over the river.
    The meaning of the name Merthen is obscure. It has however nothing whatever to do with the place-name Merther implying a Chapel in honour of a martyr. The earliest spelling of the name,
    Meredin, suggests that it is called after a Din or fortress, and the remarkable earthworks in the old Deer-park bear this out. These
    earthworks (which have been described on p. 13) consist of two
    rectangular enclosures, each of about one acre in area, which join each
    other at right angles. The site which they occupy is more
    commanding than the site of the farm house, and the line of a very
    ancient ridgeway (see p. 17) coming from Merthen Quay northwards
    passes through the western ditch of one of them.
    There are places called Merthen in St. Austell and Buryan.
    Both lie on the coast, the former on a long promontory not unlike
    the Groyne, though the creek on one side of it has been filled up.
    The word Din, a fortress, latinized into Dunum, was used for a
    chief’s residence or capital town. Moridunum (i.e. the sea-city) is
    named in the Roman Itineraries as a port on the Roman road east
    of Exeter and is generally identified with Sidmouth. Merthen, the
    Meridin of the 12th century, may well have been another Moridunum,
    a fortress embraced by arms of the sea, which afforded a haven
    protected from storms and hostile attack.
    Although Merthen has been a farm on the Trelowarren estate for
    just three centuries, it has usually been occupied by well-to-do tenants
    such as members of the Vyvyan family itself, the Tyackes etc. and it
    has preserved much of its former dignity. In the Middle Ages,

     an old saxon map of their world  slightly different but shows perspective of known world ,,,,, british isles on edge highlights celtic kingdoms





    Saxon history in the Westcountry from 577 AD  light on the Saxon history in the Westcountry. 


    No doubt there were all along tares mingled with the wheat.

    The Church of the first three centuries was never, except perhaps on the day of Pentecost, in an absolutely ideal condition. But yet during the ages of persecution, the Church as a whole was visibly an unworldly institution . It was a spiritual empire in recognized antagonism with the world-empire.But from the time of the conversion of Constantine, a .d . 312, and still more completely from the time of Theodosius the Great, a d 379 , the Church and . the world seemed, in some respects at any rate, to have made terms with each other.The world, without ceasing to be the world, was no longer outside, but had been admitted within the sacred enclosure.And that Roman world of the fourth century, what a detestable world it was ! On this point Christian writers of every school seem to be agreed.The fervent and eloquent Roman Catholic Montalembert quotes and adopts the words of the Protestant Guizot, who says, “ The sovereigns and the immense majority of the people had embraced Christianity;but at bottom civil society was pagan; it retained the institutions, the laws, and the manners of paganism.It was a society which paganism, and not Christianity, had made.” 1 Montalembert adds that “ this paganism . . . was paganism under its most degenerate form . , . Nothing,” he says, “ has............... ever equalled the abject condition of the Romans of the empire. . . . With the ancient freedom, all virtue, all manliness disappeared. There remained only a society of officials , without strength , without honour , and without rights. . . . We must acknowledge that in this so-called Christian society, the moral poverty is a thousand times greater than the material, and that servitude has crushed souls more than bodies. Everything is enervated, attenuated, and decrepit. Not a single great man, nor illustrious individual rises to the surface of that mire. Eunuchs and sophists of the court govern the state without control, experiencing no resistance but from the Church.” These last words guard Montalembert’s meaning. He is speaking of civil society, which was now nominally inside the Church; but, side by side with this Christianized paganism, the Church still handed on the glorious traditions which had been bequeathed to her by the age of the martyrs. Though it may be true that the civil society of the fourth and fifth centuries produced no great men, yet the hierarchy the Church produced a galaxy of heroes. Let me state only five, Saint Athanasius, Saint Basil , Saint Ambrose, Saint Christostum and Saint Augustine. A religious institution which can produce such splendid names is full of life; but nevertheless the church whioh had admitted the world within her precincts, was in a very different condition from the Church during the first three centuries of her

     Guizot, Histoire de la Civilization en France, leot. 11., quoted in Montalembert’s Monks of the West (English tram, 1861, i. 263). silchester Historic Scenes along the Norwich Road By Charles G. Harper Historian of the British Highways Chapter XL1VThe old coaching road to Norwich,


    Roman influence on Britain

    The materials produced are quite unlike the early Roman pottery usually found, which has much Belgic influence in Wollaston in the 2nd century, and soon became surrounded by suburban ‘overspill’. In the large areas between these were very many villa-farms and smaller steads. The villa-farms generally occupied only a few acres, and so are too small to be called villages, but were rather larger than single-family modern farms. They supported the Roman Imperial economy by cattle-rearing and agriculture.

    Many farms were superimposed on previous Belgic or Iron Age farm sites, and probably to a certain extent used the same field systems and employed the original Celtic populace as labourers.
    Proof of a continuity of Iron Age traditions came from the various hut-circle ditches found on Roman sites. At Wollaston, off Hinwick Road, a hut circle of diameter 40 feet with an entrance 13 feet wide had an off-centre hearth made of two large roofing tiles. Both of these tiles had numerals incised on them before firing. In the ditch was a large quantity of early 2nd century a.d. pottery44.
    At Deanshanger, similar penannular ditches were found 46.

    Gravel workings at Ringstead revealed a hut circle underlying a stone-built circular structure 30 feet in diameter 46. The most complicated stone examples known in the neighbourhood are at Bozeat. One, dating from the early 3rd century, is 48 feet in diameter with four central pier, or post, bases and a few cross walls47.
    Only a few such structures are known, and the plan is near-identical with an Iron Age wooden structure at Little Woodbury, Wilts., dating from c. 300 B.C.48. At an estate south of Bozeat High Street there is another site with circular buildings, also of the 3rd century49. Examples have also been discovered in Oxfordshire50.
    Villa-farms are certainly the norm of the many Romano-British sites scattered over the whole of Northamptonshire. A few of them had central heating, bath suites, mosaic floors, and painted walls. At Easton Maudit, trial excavations revealed a substantial building with hypocaust box tiles (used to conduct hot air along the walls) and a crude mosaic floor. This was substantially built with a layer of hard-core supporting firm mortar which supported a white very hard plaster in which the stones were embedded. Instead of a design composed of different coloured stones, the floor was made of small stones with a design painted on. Recently a fine floor has been discovered at Thenford61. Several have been known for many years, e.g. those at Nether Heyford noted by Morton (in 1712) and by the Victoria County History.
    Bath suites are usually only recognized by large scale excavation. Total excavation of a villa at Brixworth, north of the church, revealed a complicated bath suite with hot and cold compartments . At least two of the Roman sites known at Wollaston seem likely to have been villas, according to the debris in the top soil. A fine aerial photograph of the villa site near Cut-Throat Bridge shows the plan, with a corridor and series of rooms, and some surrounding enclosures.
    Painted wall-plaster does not survive in ploughsoil, and so is only known at those sites that have been excavated. At the Brixworth villa several motifs were recovered, and at the housing estate at Bozeat a considerable quantity of fine quality 3rd-century plaster survived in the building debris.
    Of the Roman towns there is a very imperfect plan of Chester made by Baker, vicar of Hargrave, in 1879, showing various buildings including a temple. In the 1920s and 1930s many rich finds were found during ironstone quarrying in the cemetery east of the town. These now seem to be lost for the most part, except for some bowls in Northampton Museum. Aerial photographs show the road-plan of Chester to consist of winding lanes rather than the usual grid pattern. These probably represent a continuity from an Iron Age settlement53.
    Excavation and aerial photographs at Castor have led to the compilation of a very complicated plan, but again outside the town proper, and not at all regular54.
    Of Roman industry there are many remains, principally relating to potters. The invading legions brought with them their own potters, who operated wherever the military was stationed. Such a site has recently been found at Longthorpe. The materials produced are quite unlike the early Roman pottery usually found, which has much Belgic influence. Early kilns, dating from the late 1st century, have been found under the circular buildings at Bozeat. The area of the Nene valley east of Northampton was the centre of an early industry; this, however, later became less important. In later Roman times, the area north of the town of Durobrivae in the parish of Castor was the centre of a very large pottery. The main products were colour-coated wares, often with fine relief designs, finished in white on a black or red background. This pottery was traded throughout the country.
    The other industry practised in the south and north of the county was iron smelting. Large areas of black dense slag can be found in fields in the old Rockingham Forest. Each represents a bloomery site where iron was smelted. Some of these sites are several miles away from the nearest ironstone because it was easier to carry the ore to the wooded areas where charcoal was made. This was because the ratio of iron to charcoal needed is about 1:5. Recent excavations of a slag patch at Wakerley55 showed the small clay furnace to be quite miniscule, about 9 inches in diameter. Analysis of the slag shows that no flux was used, and much iron remains as dense black silicate.

    Industry and agriculture meet in the process of corndrying. The sitesio Wollaston
    in the 2nd century, and soon became surrounded by suburban ‘overspill’. In the large areas between these were very many villa-farms and smaller steads. The villa-farms generally occupied only a few acres, and so are too small to be called villages, but were rather larger than single-family modern farms. They supported the Roman Imperial economy by cattle-rearing and agriculture. Many farms were superimposed on previous Belgic or Iron Age farm sites, and probably to a certain extent used the same field systems and employed the original Celtic populace as labourers.
    Proof of a continuity of Iron Age traditions came from the various hut-circle ditches found on Roman sites. At Wollaston, off Hinwick Road, a hut circle of diameter 40 feet with an entrance 13 feet wide had an off-centre hearth made of two large roofing tiles. Both of these tiles had numerals incised on them before firing. In the ditch was a large quantity of early 2nd century a.d. pottery . At Deanshanger, similar penannular ditches were found. Gravel workings at Ringstead revealed a hut circle underlying a stone-built circular structure 30 feet in diameter. The most complicated stone examples known in the neighbourhood are at Bozeat. One, dating from the early 3rd century, is 48 feet in diameter with four central pier, or post, bases and a few cross walls.
    Only a few such structures are known, and the plan is near-identical with an Iron Age wooden structure at Little Woodbury, Wilts., dating from c. 300 B.C.48. At an estate south of Bozeat High Street there is another site with circular buildings, also of the 3rd century49. Examples have also been discovered in Oxfordshire50.
    Villa-farms are certainly the norm of the many Romano-British sites scattered over the whole of Northamptonshire.

    A few of them had central heating, bath suites, mosaic floors, and painted walls.At Easton Maudit, trial excavations revealed a substantial building with hypocaust box tiles (used to conduct hot air along the walls) and a crude mosaic floor.This was substantially built with a layer of hard-core supporting firm mortar which supported a white very hard plaster in which the stones were embedded. Instead of a design composed of different coloured stones, the floor was made of small stones with a design painted on. Recently a fine floor has been discovered at Thetford6. Several have been known for many years,

    e.g. those at Nether Heyford noted by Morton (in 1712) and by the Victoria County History.
    Bath suites are usually only recognized by large scale excavation. Total excavation of a villa at Brixworth, north of the church, revealed a complicated bath suite with hot and cold compartments52.
    At least two of the Roman sites known at Wollaston seem likely to have general plan and some details o f every great work of art, of ruinous or entire, before the mind can properly apply which belong to it. In Stonehenge this especially necessary; for however the imagination by the magnitude o f those masses of stone which in their places, by the grandeur even of the fragments
    or broken in'their fall, by the consideration of the vast required to bring such ponderous substances to this desolate
    spot, and by surmise o f the nature of.the mechanical skill by which they were lifted up and placed in order and proportion, it is not till the entire plan is fully comprehended that we can properly
    surrender ourselves to the contemplations which belong to this remarkable scene. It is then, when we can figure to ourselves a
    perfect structure, composed of such huge materials symmetrically arranged, and possessing, therefore, that beauty which is the result
    of symmetry, that we can satisfactorily look back through the dim light of history or tradition to the object for which such a structure
    was destined. The belief now appears tolerably settled that Stonehenge was a temple of the Druids. It differs, however, from all other Druidical remains, in the circumstance that greater mechanical art was employed in its construction, especially in the superincumbent stones of the outer circle and of the trilithons, fromwhich it is supposed to derive its name; stan being the Saxon for a stone, and heng to hang or support. From this circumstance it is maintained that Stonehenge is of the very latest ages of Druidism; and that the Druids that wholly belonged to the ante-historic period
    followed the example of those who observed the command of the law : “ If thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.” (Exodus, chap. xx.) Regarding Stonehenge as a work of masonry and architectural proportions, Inigo Jones came to the conclusion that it was a Roman Temple of the Tuscan order. This was an architect’s dream. Antiquaries, with less of taste and fancy that Inigo Jones, have had their dreams also about Stonehenge, almost as wild as the legend of Merlin flying away with the stones
    from the Curragh of Kildare. Some attribute its erection to the Britons after the invasion of the Romans. Some bring it down to as recent a period as that of the usurping Danes. Others again
    carry it back to the early days of the Phoenicians. The first notice of Stonehenge is found in the writings of Nennius, who lived in the ninth century of the Christian era. He says that at the spot
    where Stonehenge stands a conference was held between Hengist and Vortigern, at which Hengist treacherously murdered four
    hundred and sixty British nobles, and that their mourning survivors erected the temple to commemorate the fatal event. Mr. Davies, a modern writer upon Celtic antiquities, holds that Stonehenge
    was the place of this conference between the British and Saxon princes, on account of its venerable antiquity and peculiar sanctity.
    There is a passage in Diodorus Siculus, quoted from Hecataeus, which describes a round temple in Britain dedicated to Apollo; and this Mr. Davies concludes to have been Stonehenge. By another writer, Dr. Smith, Stonehenge is maintained to have been “ the grand orrery of the Druids,” representing, by combinations of its stones, the ancient solar year, the lunar month, the twelve signs of
    the zodiac, and the seven planets. Lastly, Stonehenge has been pronounced to be a temple of Budha, the Druids being held to be race of emigrated Indian philosophers. Startling as this last assertion may appear to be, a variety of facts irresistibly lead to the conclusion that the circles, the stones of memorial, the cromlechs, and other monuments of the highest antiquity in these islands, have a distinct resemblance to other monuments of the same character scattered over Asia and Europe, and even found in the New World, which appear to have had a common origin. In Great Britain and Ireland, in Jersey and Guernsey, in France, in Germany in Denmark and Sweden, such monuments are found extensively dispersed. They are found also, though more rarely in the Netherlands. Portugal, and M alta in Gozo and Phoenicia. But their presence is also unquestionable in Malabar, in India, in Palestine, in Persia. Figures 7 and 8 represent a Druidical circle, and a single upright stone standing alone near the circle, which are described by Sir William Ouseley him at Darab, in the province of Fars. in are copied from those in Sir William Ouseley them upon the same page with the If we had obliterated the Oriental figures might easily receive them as from another point of view. The book We have the general arrangement of Stonehenge, and other similar monuments of Europe, led Sir William Ouseley to the natural conclusion that a “ British Antiquary might be almost authorised to pronounce it Druidical, according to the general application of the word
    among us.” A t Darab there is a peculiarity which is not found at Stonehenge, at least in its existing state. Under several of the stones there are recesses, or small caverns. In this particular, and
    in the general rudeness of its construction, the circle of Darab resembles the Druidical circle of Jersey ,. although the circle there is very much smaller, and the stones o f very inconsiderable
    dimensions,— a copy in miniature of such vast works as those of Stonehenge and Avebury. This singular monument, which was found buried under the earth, was removed some fifty years ago by General Conway, to his seat near Henley, the stones being placed in his garden according to the original plan. When we open the great store-house not only of divine truth but of authentic history, we find the clearest record that circles of stone were set up for sacred and solemn purposes. The stones which were taken by Joshua out o f the bed of the Jordan, and set up in Gilgal, supply the most remarkable example. The name Gilgal
    itself signifies a circle. Gilgal subsequently became a place not only of sacred observances, but for the more solemn acts of secular government. It was long a controversy, idle enough as ‘'such
    controversies generally are, whether Stonehenge was appropriated to religious or to civil purposes. If it is to be regarded as a Druidical monument, the discussion is altogether needless; for the Druids were, at one and the same time, the ministers of religion, the legislators, the judges, amongst the people. The account which Julius Caesar gives of the Druids of Gaul, marked as it is by his usual clearness and sagacity, may be received without hesitation as a description of the Druids of Britain : for he says, “ the system of Druidism is thought to have been formed in Britain, and from thence carried over into Gaul ; and now those who wish to be more accurately versed in it for the most part go thither (/. e. to Britain)
    in order to become acquainted with it.” Nothing can be more explicit than his account of the mixed office of the Druids: “ They
    are the ministers o f sacred things; they have the charge o f sacrifices, both public and private ; they give directions for the ordinances of religious worship (religiones interpretantur). A great number of young men resort to them for the purpose of instruction in their system, and they are held in the highest reverence. For it is they who determine most disputes, whether of the affairs of the state or of individuals: and if any crime has been committed, if a man has been slain, if there is a contest concerning an inheritance or the boundaries of their lands, it is the Druids who settle the matter: they fix rewards and punishments : if any one, whether in an individual or public capacity, refuses to abide by their sentence, they forbid him to come to the sacrifices. This punishment is among them very severe; those on whom this interdict is laid are accounted among the unholy and accursed ; all fly from them, andshun their approach and their conversation, lest they should be injured by their very touch ; they are placed out of the pale of the law, and excluded from all offices of honour.” After noticing that a chief Druid, whose office is for life, presides over the rest, Csesar mentions a remarkable circumstance which at once accounts for the selection of such a spot as Sarum Plain, for the erection of a great national monument, a temple, and a seat of justice :— “ These Druids hold a meeting at a certain time of the year in a consecrated spot in the country of the Carnutes (people in the neighbourhood of Chartres), which country is considered to be in the centre of all Gaul. Hither assemble all from every part who have a litigation, and submit themselves to their determination and sentence.” At
    Stonehenge, then, we may place the seat of such an assize. There were roads leading direct over the plain to the great British towns of Winchester and Silchester. Across the plain, at a distance not exceeding twenty miles, was the great temple and Druidical settlement of Avebury. The town and hill-fort of Sarum was close at hand . Over the dry chalky downs, intersected by a few streams easilv forded, mig ht pilgrims resort from all the surrounding The seat of justice which was also the seat of the highest unity, would necessarily be rendered as magnificent
    Id accomplish. Stonehenge might be of a later than Avebury, with its mighty circles and long avenues of tu.Iars : but it might also be of the same period,— the one . sned by its vastness, the other by its beauty of proportion, sriee executed in that judgment-seat was, according to     Britannia in the Ravenna Cosmography: a reassessment K J Fitzpatrick-Matthews
    Unknown Roman bases in westcountry
    This does not solve the problem of why the Cosmographer should have seen Isca Dumnoniorum, Exeter, as a point at which to insert a break in his listing. The Peutinger Table may offer a clue: although Britain is severely truncated, with only East Anglia and Kent appearing on the surviving copy, Moridunum and Isca Dumnoniorum are also shown without any intervening south-coast places. It is possible that Isca Dumnoniorum was depicted as prominent in some way, perhaps isolated on a promontory or, as seems more likely, as the gateway to a peninsula (as suggested by Rivet & Smith 1979, 200). In this way the Cosmographer might have decided to break his text at a point which appeared dictated by the geography of the region. He does so further north, where his listing of the Antonine Wall forts occurs ‘where that same Britain is seen to be narrowest from sea to sea’ (ubi et ipsa britania plus angustissima de oceano in oceanum esse dinoscitur 10750 to 10751). Although this was not the primary reason for inserting a break at this latter point, the Cosmographer was clearly sensitive to the depicted shape of the island.

    [...] the circle of Darab resembles the Druidical circle of Jersey, although the circle [in Jersey] is very much smaller, and the stones of very inconsiderable dimentsions,—a copy in miniature of such vast works as those of Stonehenge and Avebury. This singular monument, which was found buried under the earth, was removed some fifty years ago [in 1785] by General Conway, to his seat near Henley, the stones being placed in his garden according to the original plan.”  The ‘seat near Henley’ is now a school:Park Place School, Remenham, Henley-on-Thames. The school Web site makes mention of the remains of a druidical temple brought there from Jersey. There are photographs on thePrehistoric JerseyWeb site.

                  On the other hand , we should perhaps take into account the curious fact that the Civitas Dumnoniorum , basically the Cornish peninsula west of Exeter appears to have been a part of Britain virtually unaffected by those changes to élite behaviour usually termed ‘romanisation’. Is it possible that much of it lay outside provincial or diocesan control and that some kind of border was depicted on the Cosmographer’s map source as separating the south-western peninsula from the rest of Britain?In that case,Isca Dumnoniorum may have been prominent as a point of contact between the wilds of the far south-west and the more ‘civilised’ Durotriges (or Durotrages, following RIB 1673: the form of the name is very uncertain according to Rivet & Smith 1979, 352) to the east. Group 1: the Cornish Peninsula V ¶31 in qua britania plurimas fuisse ciuitates et castra legimus ex quibus aliquantas designareted  Giano 

    Puro coronauis ? 10548
    Pilais ? 10549
    Vernilis Liskeard ? 10549
    Ardua rauenatone River Dart 10550
    Deuionisso Statio ? 10551
    deuentia steno Buckfastleigh / Totnes ? 10551/10552
    Duriarno Plymouth 10552
    Vxelis Barnstaple ? 1061
    Verteuia Land’s End 1061 = 1069
    This group appears to take us on a general perambulation of the Cornish Peninsula and adjacent area.

    *Fl Taua, the second name, is clearly the River Taw (Ekwall 1928, 394; Thomas 1966a, 87; Rivet & Smith 1979, 470). *Nemetostatio is probably the fort at North Tawton,which is in an area where a group of modern names containing the elements Nymet and Nemet are found (Rivet & Smith 1979, 425).The identification of *Fl Conio with Ptolemy’s Κενίωνος ποταμοῦ ἐκβολαί (Geography II.3,3) made by Rivet & Smith (1979, 306) must therefore be questioned as the general progression seems to be from north-east to southwest.It may refer the River Torridge, although this is a Celtic name, derived by Ekwall (1928, 414) from a Brittonic *Torric-, ‘violent, rough’.*Glano should therefore be somewhere in north Devon,perhaps in the vicinity of Barnstaple. Tamaris,

    the Ταμάρη of Ptolemy (II.3,13), is a site on the River Tamar (Ekwall 1928, 389), perhaps at the crossing at Launceston, not the river itself, as the name recurs in the list of river-names (10748). *Durocornouio and <Pilais>
    Britannia in the Ravenna Cosmography: a reassessment K J Fitzpatrick-Matthews
    15

    Peninsula1:

    1. Giano
    2. Barnstaple
    3. Eltabo (River Taw)
    4. Elconio (River Torridge)
    5. Nemetotatio (North Tawton)
    6. Tamaris (Launceston) Tamaris Launceston ? this we think probably  or Calstock on the tamar ,,,,, also kings tamerton Plymouth
    7. Puro coronauis
    8. Pilais
    9. Vernilis (Liskeard)
    10. Ardua rauenatone (River Dart)
    11. Deuionisso Statio
    12. Deuentia steno (Buckfastleigh / Totnes)

    Please note that some of the names mentioned in the map are uncertain, and their exact form is not well-documented1.

    If you would like to learn more about the Civitas Dumnoniorum and its historical significance, I recommend referring to the Wikipedia page on theDumnonii2. It provides detailed information about the Dumnonii tribe, their geography, etymology, language, and more.

    Let me know if there’s anything else I can assist you with ! cannot now be identified. Charles Thomas (1966a, 87) originally identified the former with The Rumps, a pre-Roman defended enclosure.

    More recently, he suggested that it might be Tintagel, the site of an important sub-Roman trading settlement, although its Romano-British status is not clear (Harry & Morris 1997, 121). <Vernilis> may be the same as Ptolemy’s Οὐολίβα (Geography II.3,13), perhaps near Liskeard (Strang 1997, 30); the correct RomanoBritish form may have been *Verleua. The Cosmographer’s form would have arisen by way of a transposition of -l- and -u-, the latter being miscopied as -n-. The next name must be for *Fl Deruentione, the River Dart, so the Cosmographer’s eye may have moved from travelling along the spine of Cornwall, following the poorly known road along the centre of the peninsula, and he has possibly now turned his attention to the road south from Exeter, closer to the south Devon coast. Deuionisso Statio and *Deruentio Statio (which are wrongly divided in the text) are probably unlocated Roman government establishments, perhaps tax offices.



    The latter may have lain in the Dart valley  , Dart being Brittonic  *Deruentiu: Ekwall 1928, 114), perhaps at Buckfastleigh or Totnes, and the former perhaps near Newton Abbot or elsewhere on the River Teign.The next name, Duriarno, is probably not the same as Durnouaria (Dorchester),as suggested by Rivet & Smith (1979, 345) following Horsley (1732, 490),since it is probably not corrupt (compare the Arnodurum quoted by Williams (Richmond & Crawford 1949, 32),which shows the more usual ‘continental’ ordering of elements).Instead,it may be the name of a site in the vicinity of Plymouth where the inhumation cemetery at Mount Batten and a sequence of coins attest a settlement of some importance (Thomas 1966a, 86).

    Uxelis is too far west to be the same as Ptolemy’s Οὔξελλα (II.3, 13), which must be on the River Parrett, his Οὐεξάλλα εἴσχυσις (II.3,2), and may be a site or river in Cornwall, perhaps the Fowey or the Fal, unless it is an example of a name written to the west of its symbol on the map source. If this is the case, then it may have been near Barnstaple (Strang 1997, 30). Group 2: the south Devon and Cornish coast Melamoni Sidford ? 1062 = 1064/1069/10613
    Scadumnamorum Exeter 1062
    Termonin ? 1063
    Mesteuia Land’s End 1063 = 1061
    The mention of Moridunum, Sidford ?, for the first time indicates a change of direction, and there are now hints of an ordering of names with a general progression from east to west. The -l- for -r- in Moridunum is also found in the next section; it may be that the name was very difficult to read in the Cosmographer’s source. It is unlikely to have occurred as a result of misreading two separate documents, further evidence for the essential unity of the Cosmographer’s sources. The unlocated *Terminum would have been somewhere between Exeter and Land’s End, an admittedly imprecise location. The River Gowy in Cheshire was formerly known as the aqua de Tervin (‘water of Tarvin’) in 1209, the name deriving from the Latin terminus, ‘boundary’, via Welsh Terfyn (Dodgson 1970, 26), which has been retained by a large parish and village. Although the origin of the latter name is generally sought in the post-Roman politics of the region (Bu’Lock 1972, 24), it is probable that the River Gowy was the eastern boundary of the prata legionis of the fortress at Chester. Could a similar origin be suggested for this name, at the western boundary of the prata legionis of the early fortress at Exeter or the territorium of the later capital of the Civitas Dumnoniorum?


    16

    Group 3: Somerset ? Milidunum Sidford ? 1064=1062/1069/10619
    Apaunaris Bath ? 1064
    Masona Camerton? 1065
    Alouergium Shepton Mallett 1065
    The Cosmographer returns to Moridunum, with the same peculiar -l- for -r- as in the previous group, and a similarly logical ordering of names (this time jumping north-eastward and then working back to the starting-point). Rivet & Smith (1979, 255) identify Apaunaris with Aquae Sulis, Bath, perhaps correctly, so the two remaining names may relate to sites between Bath and Sidford.

    <Masona> suggests a name derived from that of a river, although which cannot now be ascertained; it perhaps refers to the small town at Camerton.The name is corrupt. Alobergium should be in a hilly location, probably near the Mendip Hills at Shepton Mallett, where parts of a Romano-British small town have recently been identified.


    Neolithic, Beaker and “ Food Vessel : sherds from Rowberrow Cavern will be described later, were near it.With the pottery was a service of Hint implements wrought by shallow scaling, including part of a polished tool and barbed stone arrowheads.

    But undoubtedly the important feature of the industry here found was the presence of , pygmy flints  though not quite the same as the earlier
    pygmies from King Arthur’s Cave they are probably derived from the Arthursian industry.

    They suggest that the indwellers in Rowberrow Cavern were the descendants of men who dwelt in Britain in y. lardenoisian times.

    They in turn perhaps were derived from the
    cave men of Old Stone Age.
    Cheddar, has also produced an association of round
    bottomed Neolithic pottery, sherds of Beaker-ware, finely scaled flint implements and small fragments of a polished axe.

    Soldier’s Hole in Cheddar Gorge has so far given us a set of stone implements including a polished axe and a chipped stone spear-head.
    The most significant Neolithic site m this district was found by the Somerset Archaeological Society under an overhanging rock in. Chelm’s Combe, Cheddar, where round bottomed bowls and the bones of the men who used them had survived. One of the bowls is of a Spanish type.

    The Neolithic men who dwelt in these seven caves had domestic beasts, but they hunted freely to augment their food stocks.
    Neolithic Man.
    The description of the Palaeolithic man of Aveline’s Hole and Gough’s Cave could be used for the men from the Gloucestershire and Somersetshire long barrows and from Chelm’s Combe without much amending.

    Perhaps the main difference is that the long-barrow men had narrower faces than the cave men.Judging by the skeletons we have there is no reason to suppose that the long-barrow men were other than the descendants of the cave men.

    But this is a theory that needs testing by research in transitional stations.
    A skull was taken from Bisley long-barrow upon which the dangerous and delicate surgical operation of trepanning had been successfully performed. 
    It has been asserted that the Megalithic culture was carried across Europe by traders from the Near East who were in quest of gold, amber and pearls. They were dark broad-heads, and are known as Prospectors. Professor Fleure has discovered in Pembroke and South Cardigan, where Megaliths are numerous, numbers of men who may be their descendants.

    Never the less, no oriental Neolithic objects have appeared in the West of England and, moreover, the skeletons from the long-barrows all appear to belong to the distinctive native type.
    At this period it is probable that work began on the gold bearing gravel of Wicklow.

    For centuries this was the most important gold-field in Europe and this may account for the enormous number of flint axes and early bronze implements found in Ireland. But there are few signs of the gold trade in these parts. >
    Trade there was:

    no one can walk across a ploughed field on Mendip without discovering a flint implement or flake.

    No flint is found naturally in the district, therefore, the presence of such enormous quantities on the land is testimony of settled conditions and an interchange of commodities in the New Stone and Bronze Ages.
    Die Megalithie stage certainly lasted into the early Bronze Age;

    the occurrence of Beaker-ware with Neolithic pottery is good evidence of that.

    Stonehenge itself was raised after the close of the New Stone Age. It is now well-known that the inner circle of blue stones was brought thence from Pembrokeshire. Perhaps they were ferried across the Severn estuary to Uphill or Worlehury and toiled along Mendip to the Wiltshire Downs by devout herdsmen.
    Merlin s Cave, Symond's Vat.

     



    The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page   Saint Augustine


    Sir FRANCIS YOUNGHUSBAND , the President of the Royal Geographical Society , remarked in his address at the Anniversary Meeting, 29th May, 1922, that the time had arrived for the emergence of a new type of explorer ,  the Homeland explorer , who will explore, observe and describe his own homeland .

    I have endeavoured, magno intervallo no doubt , to throw some light upon what may be termed “ Ancient Dumnonia.”

    This is a point in which all Devonians” and, indeed, dwellers in the three western counties of Somerset, Devon and Cornwall may be especially interested . “ Dumnonia ,”  like  “ Demetia ” and “ Demetica regio," is a very ancient geographical termand the Dumnonii certainly go back to Roman times and were noted for their sea faring qualities.

     In King Alfred’s time “ Dumnonia ” was used by the King’s Biographer , Bishop Asser,

    and would certainly mean a good deal more than we now mean by the County of Devon which meets Somerset at Countisbury Gate and Exmoor.

    But until we are sure of the exact meaning of, say, " Dumnonia ” and “ Demetica regio ” how can we follow King Alfred’s great Danish campaign of  878 ? Historical problems wait for their real solution upon the proper explanation of geographical terms. Many disputes have turned and still turn upon the exact site of Cynuit and Ethandune, two very momentous fights in our island history. There is an Edington Dumnonia

     

    Ancient Dumnonia . at what time the existing boundaries between West Somerset and North Devon were universally acknowledged is not clear and this uncertainty, dating far back in County annals, has continued even up to modern times. Florence of Worcester (a.d. 1118) in his Chronicle, when recording the Danish Foray up the Severn Sea in a .d . 997, described it as made upon " Watchet in Devonshire.” Watchet or Wacet, the small Saxon port on the north coast of Somerset, lies many miles within the County borders and , in Domesday (1086) was certainly located within the County as a place of ancient importance.

    Moreover,  in the Somerset Exchequer Lay Subsidies Watchet figured as a Somerset “ Burgus ” or Burgh.

    There was the same popular uncertainty about Exmoor and Exmoor Forest, that well-known Royal preserve, which, according to all records we have of Forest Courts and Forest proceedings from the earliest times , was always reckoned a Somerset Forest.

    This undoubted fact seems to have been lout sight of, or forgotten, when, in the days of Charles I Kmlymion Porter, a Court favourite asked for Simonsbath ioi a porquisite for himself describing it in his application as lying “ within Devon.”

    Even Sir Henry Spelman in his  'dialogue of Royal Forests, c. 1670, places Exmoor in Devon ; Spelman’s Glossary “ Forestae ” . Dumnonia In this particular case of Exmoor Forest where the Devon Parishes of Countisbury and Brendon and, it may be added, Lynton, and Parracombe, are so close to the north-west corner of the Forest , and Devon landowners and farmers have for so long exercised Common rights on the Forest and along its “ purlieus,” some confusion may be natural. It was a question about which many appeared to be ill-informed or careless.

    The antiquary Leland knew the boundaries hereabouts when he wrote in his Itinery (a .d . 1538) :

    “ The bounds of Somersetshire go beyond the stream (i.e. the Barle) one way by north west a 2 miles or more to a plain called the Spanne and the Tourres ;

    for there be hillocks of yerth cast up of auncient tyme for markes and Limites between Somersetshire and Devonshire and hereabout is the Limes and Bounds of Exmoor Forest.

    ” This would be in the neighbourhood of what is now called “ The Duck-Pool Allotment ” and “ Moles Chamber,” and “ Shoulsbury Castle,” the latter being in Devonshire.

    But leaving one antiquary for another what can be said of the learned Sir William Dugdale who, in his Epitome of the “ Monasticon,” locates the alien Priory of Stoke Courcy in Devonshire whereas it lay close to the mouth of the River Parret ?] Or what indeed, to the Reverend Richard Warner of Bath, a west country topographer and pedestrian in his day, who when crossing the Parret at Comwich during one of his “ Walks ” to the West (1800) , noticed what he termed the “ hills of Devon ” as seen from Comwich Passage, meaning - surely the Quantock Hills or, perhaps the “ triple-crowned ” Dunkery , all in Somerset. To this day, indeed, many visitors to the West think or speak of Exmoor as lying in Devonshire.

    The very expression of “The Devon and Somerset stag hounds” fosters the illusion although , as a matter of fact , neither the runs or meets of the pack take place as a rule , within Devon , but almost always within the accepted borders of Somerset.

     

    There is, we believe, some grounds for these historical uncertainties about the geography of North Devon and West 1.

    See Strachey’s List of Religious Houses in Somersetshire - Stoke Courey . Humor,not, both countries appearing to have fallen largely within the bounds of one geographical term that covered both , till any rate as far as the mouth of the Parret , if not further on  and the term was a general one , . “ Dumnonia ,” pre-norvod in the ancient “ Dyffneint ” We feel sure that, in King Alfred’s time, when the biographer Asser spoke of Dumnonia ” he meant a larger geographical term than what is meant now by Devonshire.

    The block of country along the NorthSomerset Coast, comprising the Hundreds of Canning VVilliton and Carhampton, all Royal Hundreds at Domesday, may have been a debateable region.

    Exmoor Forest was a kind of non-Parochial area, and indeed, it was not until later that Exmoor Parish, as an ecclesiastical unit, was called Into being, after the Royal Forest passed by purchase into private hands, the buyer being Mr. John Knight of Worcester shire.

    In the twelfth century there was an “ Archdeacon ul Heyond Parret,” so described, meaning the present Arch- deacunry of Taunton. The whole question of the evolution of a " Shire” is interesting especially as Somerset and Dorset Inn I I liu same Shire Reeve (sheriff) up to 1566.

    Asser,  describes the county as “ Summurtunensis Paga ” in region round Somerton ( Sea-moor Town ). He also  who with the help of Diinmonii fought in 851 against the Pagans at Wicgambeorg, * Wigborough near South Petherton.


             [ˈɔɣam]   The Isle of Man may be a small and - particularly when Time Team was there - wet and windy island stuck in the middle of the Irish Sea.

    But it's crammed full of influences from British,  Irish and even Viking incomers. In fact, it's been a cultural crossroads for thousands of years, including a time when Christianity vied with Norse paganism to be the island's principal religion.

    One of the legacies of this battle for dominance were the keeills - small, simple chapels that were once found scattered right across the island. Yet today, every single one of these ancient monuments has been destroyed by agriculture, built over by later medieval churches, or dug often very badly by antiquarians.

    All, that is, except one which has lain protected beneath the seventh fairway of the Mount Murray golf course, marked only by a patch of unkempt grass and a single standing stone atop a small mound. Time Team was given the unique opportunity to excavate the only known untouched keeill remaining on the Isle of Man.

    [ˈɔɣam]
    Ogham is an alphabet that appears on monumental inscriptions dating from the 4th to the 6th century AD, and in manuscripts dating from the 6th to the 9th century. It was used mainly to write Primitive and Old Irish, and also to write Old Welsh, Pictish and Latin. It was inscribed on stone monuments throughout Ireland, particuarly Kerry, Cork and Waterford, and in England, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Wales, particularly in Pembrokeshire in south Wales.
    The name Ogham is pronounced [ˈoːm] or [ˈoːəm] in Modern Irish, and it was spelt ogam and pronounced [ˈɔɣam] in Old Irish. Its origins are uncertain: it might be named after the Irish god Ogma, or after the Irish phrase og-úaim (point-seam), which refers to the seam made by the point of a sharp weapon. Ogham is also known as or ogham craobh (tree ogham) beth luis fearn or beth luis nion, after the first few letters.
    Ogham probably pre-dates the earliest inscriptions - some scholars believe it dates back to the 1st century AD - as the language used shows pre-4th century elements. It is thought to have been modelled on or inspired by the Roman, Greek or Runic scripts. It was designed to write Primitive Irish and was possibly intended as a secret form of communication.
    While all surviving Ogham inscriptions are on stone, it was probably more commonly inscribed on sticks, stakes and trees. Inscriptions are mostly people's names and were probably used to mark ownership, territories and graves. Some inscriptions in primitive Irish and Pictish have not been deciphered, there are also a number of bilingual inscriptions in Ogham and Latin, and Ogham and Old Norse written with the Runic alphabet.  letters: 25, which are grouped into five  Each aicme is named after its first letter. Originally Ogham consisted of 20 letters or four aicmí; the fifth acime, or Forfeda, was added for use in manuscripts.
    Writing surfaces: rocks, wood, manuscripts
    Direction of writing: inscribed around the edges of rocks running from bottom to top and left to right, or left to right and horizontally in manuscripts.
    Letters are linked together by a solid line.
    Used to write: Primitive and Old Irish, Pictish, Old Welsh and Latin

    Numus honoratur sine. Numo nullus amatur.

    Money is honoured, without money nobody is loved
    From: The Annals of Inisfallen of 1193

    From: The Book of Ballymote (Leabhar Bhaile an Mhóta), written in 1390 or 1391.

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    GLASTON AND THE WWORD TOR AND BURY
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    mick gambol
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    The Dumnonii of Devon (and Cornwall) were not as advanced as their neighbours in Dorset and Somerset , nor as most other contemporary tribes of lowland Britain. They struck no coins, and for internal exchange seem to have relied on iron currency-bars, a hoard of which has been found at Holne Chase near Ashburton. These, whose value lay in the fact that they could be converted by any smith into implements or weapons, were made in several standard sizes. Coins of Gaulish and of other British peoples however have been found at Mount Batten (Plymouth), showing that some overseas trad­ing existed long before the coming of the Romans.Besides the use of the rivers, inland movement was possible along the ridgeways, which followed watersheds, avoiding valley forests and swamps. These tracks had been in use since early Bronze Age times, and ran close to many hill-forts. Some remain in use as roads today, and one forms a long stretch of the county border on Exmoor.

    The Iron age produced most, if not all, of the earthwork forts which still crown hill-tops and clif1s in the Devon landscape. Their construction seems to have begun in the third century BC, in response to further waves of invasion, and to have continued with new building or strengthening for two hundred years. Few sites have yet been properly excavated, and the events of this period are at present less clear than, for example, in Dorset. Evidence suggests that successive invaders crossed the sea from Brittany, established themselves at first near the estuaries of the south coast, and then penetrated inland, either building forts themselves or causing the previous inhabitants to do so for protection. The earliest examples show a single line of rampart and ditch, either cutting off the neck of a headland (‘promon­tory fort’) or following the contour of a hill-top. The ramparts were often revetted with stone or turf or timber, to give a more perpendicular profile than is seen today. One such, Cranbrook above the upper Teign, was never finished, possibly because those building it were attacked and overwhelmed before they could do so.Later forts were built or remodelled with two or more lines of rampart, following the introduction of sling-warfare from Brittany in the first century BC, and the outstanding example in Devon is Hembury near Honiton. This crowns a bold promontory with close-set double or triple lines, designed not for successive defence but to keep attackers at a distance where the defenders, shooting downhill, could reach them without being hit in return. Digging here has revealed stocks of sling-pebbles, signs of a stockade on the inner rampart, and timber platforms for slingers at the gates. This is one of a group in the south-east of the county, possibly built to resist the warlike Durotriges of Dorset, but equally possibly taken over and reconstructed by them— since Duro­trigan pottery has been found in the later layers.A peculiar type of defended settlement, found only in Devon and Cornwall, appeared in the first century BC. These were built on a slope rather than a hill-top, and had widely spaced concentric en­closures. One such, at Milber near Newton Abbot, has an almost rectangular centre, presumably for habitation. Two outer enclosures were probably for stock, while a larger but indefensible one may have been for cultivation. At Clovelly Dykes in North Devon is a similar example, probably representing a separate invasion by the same people by way of the Bristol Channel.By no means all the Iron Age population lived in or near the forts, though their distribution on the map may be some guide to the most populated parts of the country at the time. The commonest type of settlement was probably in undefended farmsteads, and remained so throughout the Roman period; but these, unlike the forts, are difficult to trace. Most Iron Age farming in Devon was still mainly pastoral rather than arable, and many small ring-works may have served as cattle-enclosures rather than as defences.


    The climate of the Iron Age was, comparatively cool and wet, making the higher ground previously used by Bronze Age people no longer habitable, while the valley soils had not yet been opened up by clearance and drainage. Most of the Iron Age popu­lation seems to have lived somewhere near the 500-foot (150-metre) contour.The Dumnonii of Devon (and Cornwall) were not as advanced as their neighbours in Dorset and Somerset, nor as most other contemporary tribes of lowland Britain. They struck no coins, and for internal exchange seem to have relied on iron currency-bars, a hoard of which has been found at Holne Chase near Ashburton. These, whose value lay in the fact that they could be converted by any smith into implements or weapons, were made in several standard sizes. Coins of Gaulish and of other British peoples however have been found at Mount Batten (Plymouth), showing that some overseas trad­ing existed long before the coming of the Romans.Besides the use of the rivers, inland movement was possible along the ridgeways, which followed watersheds, avoiding valley forests and swamps. These tracks had been in use since early Bronze Age times, and ran close to many hill-forts. Some remain in use as roads today, and one forms a long stretch of the county border on Exmoor. it is possible that Isca Dumnoniorum was depicted as prominent in some way, perhaps isolated on a promontory or, as seems more likely, as the gateway to a peninsula (as suggested by Rivet & Smith 1979, 200). In this way the Cosmographer might have decided to break his text at a point which appeared dictated by the geography of the region. He does so further north, where his listing of the Antonine Wall forts occurs ‘where that same Britain is seen to be narrowest from sea to sea’ (ubi et ipsa britania plus angustissima de oceano in oceanum esse dinoscitur 10750 to 10751). Although this was not the primary reason for inserting a break at this latter point, the Cosmographer was clearly sensitive to the depicted shape of the island.
    On the other hand, we should perhaps take into account the curious fact that the Civitas Dumnoniorum (basically the Cornish peninsula west of Exeter) appears to have been a part of Britain virtually unaffected by those changes to élite behaviour usually termed ‘romanisation’.

    Is it possible that much of it lay outside provincial or diocesan control and that some kind of border was depicted on the Cosmographer’s map source as separating the south-western peninsula from the rest of Britain?In that case,Isca Dumnoniorum may have been prominent as a point of contact between the wilds of the far south-west and the more ‘civilised’ Durotriges (or Durotrages : the form of the name is very uncertain according to Rivet & Smith  to the east . Inside this site the noted Roman areas do not seem to fit this revision with the one dig at Calstock : the Cornish Peninsula  in qua britania plurimas fuisse ciuitates et castra legimus ex quibus aliquantas designare uolumus id est: Giano Barnstaple ? 10546 Eltabo River Taw 10546 , Elconio River Torridge ? , 10547 Nemetotatio North Tawton 10547 Tamaris Launceston ? the question mark is from an old enquiry damnonia .blue would suggest Kings' Tamerton situated in plymouth for various reason , click link for why.... 10548 Puro coronauis ? 10548 Pilais ? 10549 Vernilis Liskeard ? 10549 Ardua rauenatone River Dart 10550 Deuionisso Statio ? 10551 deuentia steno Buckfastleigh Totnes ? 10551 ,

    10552 Duriarno Plymouth 10552 ? the question mark is from an old enquiry damnonia .blue would suggest plympton

    Vxelis Barnstaple ? 1061 Verteuia Land’s End 1061 = 1069
    This group appears to take us on a general perambulation of the Cornish Peninsula and adjacent area.

    *Fl Taua, the second name, is clearly the River Taw(Ekwall 1928, 394; Thomas 1966a, 87; Rivet & Smith 1979, 470). *Nemetostatio is probably the fort at North Tawton,which is in an area where a group of modern names containing the elements Nymet and Nemet are found (Rivet & Smith 1979, 425).The identification of *Fl Conio with Ptolemy’s Κενίωνος ποταμοῦ ἐκβολαί (Geography II.3,3) made by Rivet & Smith (1979, 306) must therefore be questioned as the general progression seems to be from north-east to southwest.It may refer the River Torridge, although this is a Celtic name, derived by Ekwall (1928, 414) from a Brittonic *Torric-, ‘violent, rough’.*Glano should therefore be somewhere in north Devon,perhaps in the vicinity of Barnstaple. Tamaris,the Ταμάρη of Ptolemy (II.3,13), is a site on the River Tamar (Ekwall 1928, 389), perhaps at the crossing at Launceston, not the river itself, as the name recurs in the list of river-names (10748). *Durocornouio and Pilais
    Britannia in the Ravenna Cosmography: a reassessment K J Fitzpatrick-Matthews


    cannot now be identified. Charles Thomas (1966a, 87) originally identified the former with The Rumps, a pre-Roman defended enclosure.

    More recently, he suggested that it might be Tintagel, the site of an important sub-Roman trading settlement, although its Romano-British status is not clear (Harry & Morris 1997, 121). <Vernilis> may be the same as Ptolemy’s Οὐολίβα (Geography II.3,13), perhaps near Liskeard (Strang 1997, 30); the correct RomanoBritish form may have been *Verleua. The Cosmographer’s form would have arisen by way of a transposition of -l- and -u-, the latter being miscopied as -n-.
    The next name must be for *Fl Deruentione, the River Dart, so the Cosmographer’s eye may have moved from travelling along the spine of Cornwall, following the poorly known road along the centre of the peninsula, and he has possibly now turned his attention to the road south from Exeter, closer to the south Devon coast. Deuionisso Statio and Deruentio Statio , which are wrongly divided in the text are probably unlocated Roman government establishments, perhaps tax offices.



    The latter may have lain in the Dart valley , Dart being Brittonic *Deruentiu: perhaps at Buckfastleigh or Totnes, and the former perhaps near Newton Abbot or elsewhere on the River Teign.

    damnonia has a few exras to observe waterways have the answer to all the doubts in this old review Iscas and taintona will give you clues

    the river Lemon too

    The next name, Duriarno, is probably not the same as Durnouaria (Dorchester),as suggested by Rivet & Smith (1979, 345) following Horsley (1732, 490),since it is probably not corrupt (compare the Arnodurum quoted by Williams (Richmond & Crawford 1949, 32),which shows the more usual ‘continental’ ordering of elements).

    Instead,it may be the name of a site in the vicinity of Plymouth where the inhumation cemetery at Mount Battenand a sequence of coins attest a settlement of some importance (Thomas 1966a, 86).

    Uxelis is too far west to be the same as Ptolemy’s Οὔξελλα (II.3, 13), which must be on the River Parrett, his Οὐεξάλλα εἴσχυσις (II.3,2), and may be a site or river in Cornwall, perhaps the Fowey or the Fal, unless it is an example of a name written to the west of its symbol on the map source. If this is the case, then it may have been near Barnstaple (Strang 1997, 30). Group 2: the south Devon and Cornish coast Melamoni Sidford ? 1062 = 1064/1069/10613
    Scadumnamorum Exeter 1062
    Termonin ? 1063
    Mesteuia Land’s End 1063 = 1061
    The mention of Moridunum, Sidford ?, for the first time indicates a change of direction, and there are now hints of an ordering of names with a general progression from east to west. The -l- for -r- in Moridunum is also found in the next section; it may be that the name was very difficult to read in the Cosmographer’s source. It is unlikely to have occurred as a result of misreading two separate documents, further evidence for the essential unity of the Cosmographer’s sources. The unlocated *Terminum would have been somewhere between Exeter and Land’s End, an admittedly imprecise location. The River Gowy in Cheshire was formerly known as the aqua de Tervin (‘water of Tarvin’) in 1209, the name deriving from the Latin terminus, ‘boundary’, via Welsh Terfyn (Dodgson 1970, 26), which has been retained by a large parish and village. Although the origin of the latter name is generally sought in the post-Roman politics of the region (Bu’Lock 1972, 24), it is probable that the River Gowy was the eastern boundary of the prata legionis of the fortress at Chester. Could a similar origin be suggested for this name, at the western boundary of the prata legionis of the early fortress at Exeter or the territorium of the later capital of the Civitas Dumnoniorum?

    for the field inwhich stands Castle Dore was called Carhurles meaning 'Gorlas's fortress'.


    It therefore seems that the chieftain could have preceded King Mark of the Tristan saga at this earthwork which is known to have been re-occupied in Gorlas's time having been abandoned during the Roman period. 
    Assuming that the traditional link between

    the Arthurian and Tristan sagas could be factual and that King Mark DID succeed GORLAS and hold this southern territory by the sixth century,

    HISTORY
    Polpenrith , alias Polpere , and Polwevorel Creeks , running up towards Constantine Church ; and a mile fartherdown , Chielow , aliasCalmansake Creek , This haven, within a mile of its mouth, is secure enough for ships of 200 ton ; and at its passage into the sea, is abouta mile wide.This River rises in the highest Northern part of Wendron parish , whence, in about five miles, it reaches the borough ofHelston about a mile below which it forms a Lake , called the Lo Pool; the River giving rise to the Lake , and the Lake , as the mostremarkable part of the Water , giving name to the River. Four brooks give rise to this River ; and uniting at Relubbas from a Western Course, turn to the North , and in three miles reach St. Erth , alias St. Ercy Bridge, of three stone Arches, and a raised Gaucey well walledon each side, reaching cross the valley . The Bridge has been built somewhat more than 400 years, before which time there was a ferryhere, and ships of great burden came up to it.  The valley, above bridge, has been much raised by the sands and earth, washed down from the hills and mines ; and the haven below has suffered the same misfortune, from the sands of the Northern lea ; lb that lighters only come within a bow -lh ot oi the bridge ; and that with the tide of fiood, which at fpring tides
    flows near a mile above the bridge.

    Here the land of Cornwall, is at it’s narroweft dimenfion ; fo that from the full fca mark o f Hcyl on the North Sea, to the full Sea-mark at Marazion in Mount's
    Bay on the South Sea, the diftance is but three miles.

    From St. Erth the H c y l b ean d ircflly N o rth , fpreading an area of fand, of half a mile wide at a medium , and two miles long, but navigable
    only in the chancl of the River, which admits fm all ships a mile inwards from the fca under the village of Lannant.

    Nea r it’s mouth the Hcyl is joined by a brook from the Enft, which , under the Parochial Church of Philac, makes a branch of this haven for fhips o f 100 tons.

    The Sea has not only alm oft filled this fm all harbour w ith fand, bur form s a bar alio at it's mouth, over which fhips of 80 and 100 ton only can come in at the height of a fpring
    tide ; and the bed o f the whole is lo railed, that it admits the tide in it only fix hours in twelve ; fo that whereas, in harbours openn to
    the fca, the tide flow s fix hours, and ebbs fix hours : here ’tis
    • KilmJiuch, the Monti
    other wife ;

    in which King Arthur received his mortal wound : thus recorded by the Poet Naturam Cambela fontis Mutatam stupet este fui, transcendit in undas Sanguineus torrens ripas, et ducit in aequor Corpora caesorum ; plures natare videres,  Et petere auxilium quos undis vita reliquit.”


    The other, a bloody battle, fought betwixt the Cornish , and the West Saxons of Devonshire , in the year 824 ’, in which many thousands fell on each side, and the victory remained uncertain. Hence, after a run of about 12 miles, it becomes navigable for sand barges at Parbrok ; and at Eglofhel  , receives a plentiful addition to it’s stream, from the River Laine A mile farther down, this River reaches the greatest bridge in this county, called Wadebridge : about the year 1460 there was a ferry here whilst the tide was in, and a very dangerous ford when the tide was retired , which moved the then Vicar of Egloshel, one Mr. Lovebon, with great industry and public spirit, to undertake this bridge ; a great and useful, but tedious work. Besides the expence, fo disproportioned to his circumftances, in the course of the work, there arose fuch difficulties, as might have baffled a more mechanical age than that in which he lived : the ground, for the foundation of some of the piers, proved so swampy, that after repeated efforts another way, they were forced at last to build on wool-packs ; however, it fhould never be forgotten, that by his follicitations, and the liberal contributions of others, but chiefly by his own perfeverance, and the blessings of providence, he lived to accomplish the bridge as it now stands, with seventeen fair and uniform arches, reaching quite cross the valley, to the great safety of travellers, and the credit of his country. Hither come up small barks of 40 and 60 ton, and supply the country with coal from Wales, with flat, which rifes about ten miles off, lime, timber, and groceries from Bristol.A mile farther down the Alan makes two small Creeks on the East, in return for a brook or two which it receives; then keeping to the North-Weft, and supplying two Creeks on the Western bank which run up into St. Illy, and little Petrock pariflies, in a mile more it reaches the ancient town of Petrockstow, alias Padstow, where there is a pier, and some


     In Camden, page 23. and the Elaine, (Hinnulus) in Radnorshire, and


    1 See Saxon chronicle. Montgomery Ihife, &c. probably this River Lain,


    m That is, the Church on the River. had the name of Elaine from the fwiftnefs of


    " Some Rivers among the British, says Lhuyd it’s course. in Baxter’s glossary, page 273, take their names 0 Leland, Vol. II. page 82. ; as the Caru (Cervus) in Shropfhire,

    NATURAL HISTORY
    Polpenrith, alias Polpere, and Polwevorel Creeks, running up towards Constantine Church ; and a mile fartherdown , Chielow , alias Calmanfake Creek 

    This haven, within a mile of it s mouth, is fccurc enough for fhips of 200 ton ; and at its paflage into the lea, is about a mile wide.
    This River riles in the higheft Northern part of Wendron parifh , whence, in about five miles, it reaches the borough of IIlfton  about a mile below which it forms a Lake , called the Lo Pool; the River giving rise to the Lake , and the Lake , as the moft remarkable part of the Water, giving name to the River *. Four brooks give rise to this River ; and uniting at Relubbas from a Westerly Course, turn to the North , and in three miles reach St. Erth , alias St. Ercy Bridge, of three ftonc Arches, and a raifed Giulcywell walled on each fide, reaching crossthe valley. The Bridge has been built fom cw hat more than 400 years , beforce which time there was a ferry here, and Ships of great burden came up to it. The valley, above bridge, has been much raised by the sand and earth, washed down from the hills and mines ; and the haven below has fullered the fame misfortune, from the sands of the Northern lea ; so that lighters only come within a bow-lhotoi the bridge ; and that with the tide of fiood, which at spring tides flows near a mile above the bridge.

    Here the land of Cornwall, is at it’s narrowest dimension ;so that from the full fca mark of Hcylon the North Sea, to the full Sea-mark at Marazion in Mount's
    Bay on the South Sea, the distance is but three miles.

    From St. Erth the Heyl bean dircflly North , spreading an area of sand, of half a mile wide at a medium , and two miles long, but navigable only in the chancl of the River, which admits fm all Ships a mile inwards from the fca under the village of Lannant.Near it’s mouth the Hcyl is joined by a brook from the East, which , under the Parochial Church of Philac, makes a branch of this haven for ships o f 100 tons.

    The Sea has not only alm oft filled this small harbour withsand, bur forms a bar alio at it's mouth, over which fhips of 80 and 100 ton only can come in at the height of a spring
    tide ; and the bed o f the whole is lo railed, that it adm its the tide in it only six hours in twelve ; so that whereas, in harbours open to the sea, the tide flows six hours, and ebbs six hours : 


    shall take this opportunity of mentioning incidentally the other minerals of Great Britain, taken notice of by the antients, either as articles of trade or matters of curiosity.

    Tin was not only the first metal in these islands which we read of; but also the greatest object of commerce; and which originally led to the discovery of Great Britain by the Romans.

    The mercantile Phoenicians traded to the Scilly islands,
    the Cassiterides, or land of tin, from the port of Cadiz, four hundred years before Christ. The Romans, for a considerable time, could not discover the place from whence the former procured
    the precious metal. They attempted to detect the trade, by following the course of a Phoenician vessel; but the master, faithful to the interest of his country, voluntarily run his ship ashore in another place; preferring the loss of all, rather than sillier n. foreign nation to become partakers of so profitable a secret. The public immediately compensated Iris loss out of its treasury.

    This did but make the Romans more eager for the discovery; and after many trials they succeeded. Publius Crassus (father of Marcus Crassus the Triumvir) who was praetor, and governed Spain for several
    years, landed in the Cassiterides, and found the report of their riches verified.
    As soon as the Romans made a conquest of the country, they formed in the tin province camps and roads, still visible; and left behind vases, urns,

    sepulchres, and money, that exhibit daily proofs of their having been a stationary people in Those parts

    ”1; and that Dunmonium extended even to the Belerian promontory, or the Land’s-end;

    Intriguingly , the Ravenna Cosmography identifies a major regional Roman-era settlement as

    Nemetostatio in central Dumnonia

    identified with North Tawton, Devon which would translate from Latin as

    'The Outpost of the Sacred Grove"

    Britannia in the Ravenna Cosmography:  a reassessment K J Fitzpatrick-Matthews


     

    The south-west

    The first section of the Ravenna Cosmography to deal with Britain, covering 10546 to 1065, is obscure but nevertheless generally recognised as dealing with south-western England

    (Richmond & Crawford 1949, .

    Why it should have been separated out by the Cosmographer is not at all clear.

     see it as evidence for a special source covering this area in greater detail than the rest of Britain.  This does not seem a necessary hypothesis for reasons to be given below . Indeed, the words that introduce the next section , ‘Again, next to the aforementioned  civitas Isca Dumnoniorum’ iterum iuxta superscriptam ciuitatem iscadumnamorum , strongly hint that the Cosmographer is looking at the same map as he used as a source for this section . We will see many instances of the Cosmographer duplicating names throughout his text , the most startling being *Moridunum , Sidford ? , which is repeated no less than four times. However, they are not noticeably more common in this section than in those that follow. Had he employed a special and separate source for the south-west, it is difficult to see how he would have integrated the information he derived from it with that he derived from his main source without making many more such duplications. We would on this hypothesis also expect the following long section which covers the province or diocese of Britannia to contain a few names relating to the south-western peninsula which the Cosmographer had not noticed as duplications: we do not find them. Arguments e silentio are never strong; more telling are the duplications within this section that cannot be the result of taking names from two different sources. For instance, the name *(Anti)uesteum appears twice, at 1061 and 1063, in both cases with virtually the same truncation. This truncation may well have occurred if the first three or four letters of the name were written ‘in the sea’ on the Cosmographer’s postulated map source (Rivet &Smith 1979, 198). The same error of reading is extremely unlikely to have occurred as a result of using two separate source documents.

    There are thus no compelling reasons to believe that the Cosmographer was using a separate and fuller source for the south-west of Britain than for the remainder of the island. True enough, the density of names in the peninsula is high, but it is also high in Cumbria (1071 to 1076 and 10710 to 10711) and between the Roman walls (10730 to 10747). The contrast is not so much with a low density in the remainder of the province, but with specific areas, such as Wales and East Anglia, very poorly represented.

    This does not solve the problem of why the Cosmographer should have seen Isca Dumnoniorum, Exeter, as a point at which to insert a break in his listing. The Peutinger Table may offer a clue: although Britain is severely truncated, with only East Anglia and Kent appearing on the surviving copy, Moridunum and Isca Dumnoniorum are also shown without any intervening south-coast places. It is possible that Isca Dumnoniorum was depicted as prominent in some way, perhaps isolated on a promontory or, as seems more likely, as the gateway to a peninsula (as suggested by Rivet & Smith 1979, 200). In this way the Cosmographer might have decided to break his text at a point which appeared dictated by the geography of the region. He does so further north, where his listing of the Antonine Wall forts occurs ‘where that same Britain is seen to be narrowest from sea to sea’ (ubi et ipsa britania plus angustissima de oceano in oceanum esse dinoscitur 10750 to 10751). Although this was not the primary reason for inserting a break at this latter point, the Cosmographer was clearly sensitive to the depicted shape of the island.


     

    On the other hand, we should perhaps take into account the curious fact that the Civitas Dumnoniorum  , basically the Cornish peninsula west of Exeter) appears to have been a part of Britain virtually unaffected by those changes to élite behaviour usually termed ‘romanisation’. Is it possible that much of it lay outside provincial or diocesan control and that some kind of border was depicted on the Cosmographer’s map source as separating the south-western peninsula from the rest of Britain? In that case, Isca Dumnoniorum may have been prominent as a point of contact between the wilds of the far south-west and the more ‘civilised’ Durotriges (or Durotrages, following RIB 1673: the form of the name is very uncertain according to Rivet & Smith 1979, 352) to the east. Group 1: the Cornish Peninsula V ¶31 in qua britania plurimas fuisse ciuitates et castra legimus ex quibus aliquantas designare uolumus id est:

     

    Giano Barnstaple ? 10546

     

    Eltabo River Taw 10546


     Elconio River Torridge ? 10547


    Nemetotatio North Tawton 10547


     Tamaris Launceston ? 10548


     Puro coronauis ? 10548


     Pilais ? 10549


     Vernilis Liskeard ? 10549


     Ardua rauenatone River Dart 10550


     Deuionisso Statio ? 10551


     deuentia steno Buckfastleigh / Totnes ? 10551/10552


    Duriarno Plymouth  10552


     Vxelis Barnstaple ? 1061

     

    Verteuia Land’s End 1061 = 1069


    This group appears to take us on a general perambulation of the Cornish Peninsula and adjacent area. *Fl Taua, the second name, is clearly the River Taw (Ekwall 1928, 394; Thomas 1966a, 87; Rivet & Smith 1979, 470). *Nemetostatio is probably the fort at North Tawton, which is in an area where a group of modern names containing the elements Nymet and Nemet are found (Rivet & Smith 1979, 425). The identification of *Fl Conio with Ptolemy’s Κενίωνος ποταμοῦ ἐκβολαί (Geography II.3,3) made by Rivet & Smith (1979, 306) must therefore be questioned as the general progression seems to be from north-east to southwest. It may refer the River Torridge, although this is a Celtic name, derived by Ekwall (1928, 414) from a Brittonic *Torric-, ‘violent, rough’. *Glano should therefore be somewhere in north Devon, perhaps in the vicinity of Barnstaple. Tamaris, the Ταμάρη of Ptolemy (II.3,13), is a site on the River Tamar (Ekwall 1928, 389), perhaps at the crossing at Launceston, not the river itself, as the name recurs in the list of river-names (10748). *Durocornouio and Pilais,

    Britannia in the Ravenna Cosmography: a reassessment K J Fitzpatrick-Matthews

    If the roman averice was  for goods then shoud I consider minerals and that water transport was essential ,then I could consider two Iscas , Hoazme and Laira .

    Tamar Lyhner Plym  For one the recnt calstock roman fort ,where does that fit in with this old literature hmmm ,another real consideration would be the waterways bear now no resemblance to "2000 yrs ago, cannot now be identified. Charles Thomas originally identified the former with The Rumps, a pre-Roman defended enclosure. More recently, he suggested that it might be Tintagel, the site of an important sub-Roman trading settlement, although its Romano-British status is not clear (Harry & Morris 1997, 121). <Vernilis> may be the same as Ptolemy’s Οὐολίβα (Geography II.3,13), perhaps near Liskeard (Strang 1997, 30); the correct RomanoBritish form may have been *Verleua. The Cosmographer’s form would have arisen by way of a transposition of -l- and -u-, the latter being miscopied as -n-.

    The next name must be for *Fl Deruentione, the River Dart, so the Cosmographer’s eye may have moved from travelling along the spine of Cornwall, following the poorly known road along the centre of the peninsula, and he has possibly now turned his attention to the road south from Exeter, closer to the south Devon coast. Deuionisso Statio and *Deruentio Statio (which are wrongly divided in the text) are probably unlocated Roman government establishments, perhaps tax offices. The latter may have lain in the Dart valley (Dart being Brittonic *Deruentiu: Ekwall 1928, 114), perhaps at Buckfastleigh or Totnes, and the former perhaps near Newton Abbot or elsewhere on the River Teign. The next name, Duriarno, is probably not the same as Durnouaria (Dorchester), as suggested by Rivet & Smith (1979, 345) following Horsley (1732, 490), since it is probably not corrupt (compare the Arnodurum quoted by Williams (Richmond & Crawford 1949, 32), which shows the more usual ‘continental’ ordering of elements). Instead, it may be the name of a site in the vicinity of Plymouth where the inhumation cemetery at Mount Batten and a sequence of coins attest a settlement of some importance (Thomas 1966a, 86). Uxelis is too far west to be the same as Ptolemy’s Οὔξελλα (II.3, 13), which must be on the River Parrett, his Οὐεξάλλα εἴσχυσις (II.3,2), and may be a site or river in Cornwall, perhaps the Fowey or the Fal, unless it is an example of a name written to the west of its symbol on the map source. If this is the case, then it may have been near Barnstaple (Strang 1997, 30). Group 2: the south Devon and Cornish coast  Melamoni Sidford ? 1062 = 1064/1069/10613

     Scadumnamorum Exeter 1062

     Termonin ? 1063

     Mesteuia Land’s End 1063 = 1061

    The mention of Moridunum, Sidford ?, for the first time indicates a change of direction, and there are now hints of an ordering of names with a general progression from east to west. The -l- for -r- in Moridunum is also found in the next section; it may be that the name was very difficult to read in the Cosmographer’s source. It is unlikely to have occurred as a result of misreading two separate documents, further evidence for the essential unity of the Cosmographer’s sources. The unlocated *Terminum would have been somewhere between Exeter and Land’s End, an admittedly imprecise location. The River Gowy in Cheshire was formerly known as the aqua de Tervin (‘water of Tarvin’) in 1209, the name deriving from the Latin terminus, ‘boundary’, via Welsh Terfyn (Dodgson 1970, 26), which has been retained by a large parish and village. Although the origin of the latter name is generally sought in the post-Roman politics of the region (Bu’Lock 1972, 24), it is probable that the River Gowy was the eastern boundary of the prata legionis of the fortress at Chester. Could a similar origin be suggested for this name, at the western boundary of the prata legionis of the early fortress at Exeter or the territorium of the later capital of the Civitas Dumnoniorum?


     

    16

     

    Group 3: Somerset ?  Milidunum Sidford ? 1064=1062/1069/10619

     Apaunaris Bath ? 1064

     Masona Camerton? 1065

     Alouergium Shepton Mallett 1065

    The Cosmographer returns to Moridunum, with the same peculiar -l- for -r- as in the previous group, and a similarly logical ordering of names (this time jumping north-eastward and then working back to the starting-point). Rivet & Smith (1979, 255) identify Apaunaris with Aquae Sulis, Bath, perhaps correctly, so the two remaining names may relate to sites between Bath and Sidford. <Masona> suggests a name derived from that of a river, although which cannot now be ascertained; it perhaps refers to the small town at Camerton. The name is corrupt. *Alobergium should be in a hilly location, probably near the Mendip Hills at Shepton Mallett, where parts of a Romano-British small town have recently been identified.


     The successors of Caesar and Augustus were persuaded to follow the example of the former, rather than the precept of the latter.

    The proximity of its situation to the coast of Caul seemed to invite their arms ; the pleasing, though doubtful, intelligence of a pearl fishery, attracted their avarice ;  and as Britain was viewed in the light of a distinct and insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed any exception to the general system of continental measures. After a war of about forty years,
    undertaken by the most stupid,3 maintained by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the
    emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke.The various tribes of Britons possessed Germanicus, Suetonius, Paulinus, and Agricola were checked and recalled in the course of their victories. Corbulo was put to death.
    Military merit, as it is admirably expressed by Tacitus, was, in the strictest sense of the word, imperatoria virtus.



    Caesar himself conceals that ignoble motive; but it is mentioned by Suetonius, c. 47. The British pearls proved, however, of little value, my account of their dark and livid colour. Tacitus observes, with reason (in Agricola, c. 12), that it was an inherent defect. “ Ego facilius crediderim, naturam margaritis deesse quam nobis avaritiam.”
     Claudius, Nero, and Domitian. A hope is expressed by Pomponius Mela, he wrote under Claudius, that, by the success of
    the roman arms, the island and its savage inhabitants would soon be better known. It is amusing enough to peruse such passages in the midst of London.


     Bee the admirable abridgment given by Tacitus, in the life of Agricola, and copiously , though perhaps not completely, illustrated by our own antiquarians, Camden and Horsley.
    valour without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union.
    They took up arms with savage fierceness ; they laid them down, or turned them against each other, with wild inconstancy ; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued.
    Neither the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the despair of Boadicea, nor the fanaticism of the Druids, could avert the slavery of their country, or resist the steady progress of the Imperial generals, who maintained the national glory, when the throne was disgraced by the weakest, or the most vicious of mankind. A t the very time when Domitian,
    confined to his palace, felt the terrors which he inspired, his legions, under the command of the virtuous Agricola, defeated the collected force of the
    Caledonians, at the foot of the Grampian hills; and his fleets, venturing to explore an unknown and dangerous navigation displayed the Roman arms round every part of the island. The conquest of Britain was considered as already achieved; and it was the design of Agricola to complete and ensure his success, by the easy reduction of Ireland, for which, in his opinion, one
    legion and a few auxiliaries were sufficient. The western isle might be improved into a valuable possession, and the Britons would wear their chains with the less reluctance, if the prospect and example of freedom were on every side removed from before their eyes. But the superior merit of Agricola soon occasioned his removal from the
    government of Britain ; and for ever disappointed this rational , though extensive, scheme of conquest. Before his departure, the prudent general had provided for security as well as for dominion. He had observed that the island is almost divided into two unequal parts by the opposite gulfs, or, as they
    are now called, the Friths of Scotland. Across the narrow interval of about forty miles, he had drawn a line of military stations, which was afterwards fortified in the reign of Antoninus Ptus, by a turf rampart, erected on founda1 The Irish writers, jealous of their national honour, 

    Rivers and navigable creeks, p. 36. Tamar, Lynher, p. 38. Tide, or Tidi, p. 40. Seaton, ib.
    Loo, or Eaft-Loo, ibid. ProfpoCt of Loo Bridge," ib. Duloo, or Weft Loo river, p. 41. fawy, ib.
    Fal, 42, and it’s harbour. Hel, or Heyl river in Kerricr, p. 43. Lo or Low river in Kerrier, p 44.
    A1
    Heyl in Penwith, ibid. Ganal creek, p. 45. River Alan, al Lamel, ibid. Wade navigable rivers in
    may be made notbeneficial, p. 47. Subject: to obftrudtions, p. 49.


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