Caratacus

*Caratācos",

Greek "Καράτακος";

variants Latin "Caractacus",

Greek "Καρτάκης"

was a historical British chieftain of the

Catuvellauni tribe ,

who led the British resistance to the Roman conquest.

The legendary Welsh character Caradoc and the legendary British king Arvirargus may be based upon Caratacus.

Caratacus is named by Dio Cassius as a son of the Catuvellaunian king Cunobelinus.

Based on coin distribution Caratacus appears to have been the protegé of his uncle Epaticcus, who expanded Catuvellaunian power westwards into the territory of the Atrebates. John Creighton, "Coins and power in Late Iron Age Britain", Cambridge University Press, 2000; Philip de Jersey (1996), "Celtic Coinage in Britain", Shire Archaeology] After Epaticcus died ca. 35, the Atrebates, under Verica, regained some of their territory, but it appears Caratacus completed the conquest, as Dio tells us Verica was ousted, fled to Rome and appealed to the emperor Claudius for help. This was the excuse used by Claudius to launch his invasion of Britain in the Summer of 43.

Cunobelinus had died some time before the invasion. Caratacus and his brother Togodumnus led the initial defence of the country against Aulus Plautius's four legions thought to have been around 40,000 men, primarily using guerrilla tactics. They lost much of the south-east after being defeated in two crucial battles on the rivers Medway see also Battle of the Medway and Thames. Togodumnus was killed and the Catuvellauni's territories were conquered. Claudius was present in August when his legions marched into Camulodunum, the capital of the Catuvellauni [A History of Britain, Richard Dargie (2007), , but Caratacus survived and carried on the resistance further west.

Resistance to Rome

Finally, in 51, Scapula managed to defeat Caratacus in a set-piece battle somewhere inOrdovicianterritory , see the Battle of Caer Caradoc), capturing Caratacus' wife and daughter and receiving the surrender of his brothers.

Caratacus himself escaped, and fled north to the lands of the Brigantes (modern Yorkshire where the Brigantian queen, Cartimandua handed him over to the Romans in chains. (This was one of the factors that led to two Brigantian revolts against Cartimandua and her Roman allies, once later in the 50s and once in 69, led by Venutius, who had once been Cartimandua's husband). With the capture of Caratacus, much of southern Britain from the Humber to the Severn was pacified and garrisoned throughout the 50s [A History of Britain, Richard Dargie (2007), p. 21] .

Legend places Caratacus' last stand at British Camp in the Malvern Hills, but the description of Tacitus makes this unlikely:

Although the Severn is visible from British Camp, it is nowhere near it, so this battle must have taken place elsewhere. A number of locations have been suggested, including a site near Brampton Bryan.

Captive in Rome

After his capture, Caratacus was sent to Rome as a war prize, presumably to be killed after a triumphal parade. Although a captive, he was allowed to speak to the Roman senate. Tacitus records a version of his speech in which he says that his stubborn resistance made Rome's glory in defeating him all the greater:

He made such an impression that he was pardoned and allowed to live in peace in Rome. After his liberation, according to Dio Cassius, Caratacus was so impressed by the city of Rome that he said "And can you, then, who have got such possessions and so many of them, covet our poor tents?" Dio Cassius,

Caratacus' name

• Caratacus' name appears as both "Caratacus" and "Caractacus" in manuscripts of Tacitus, and as"Καράτακος"and "Καρτάκης" in manuscripts of Dio. Older reference works tend to favour the spelling "Caractacus", but modern scholars agree, based on historical linguistics and source criticism, that the original Brythonic form was "*Caratācos", pronounced IPA|/ka.ra.taː'kos/, which gives the attested names “Caradog” in Welshand "Carthach" in Irish. [Kenneth H. Jackson, "Queen Boudicca?", "Britannia" 10 p. 255, 1979]

Medieval British traditions

• Caratacus' memory may have been preserved in medieval British tradition. A genealogy in the Welsh Harleian MS 3859 (ca. 1100) includes the generations "Caratauc map Cinbelin map Teuhant", corresponding, via established processes of language change, to "Caratacus, son of Cunobelinus, son of Tasciovanus", preserving the names of the three historical figures in correct relationship. [; The Heirs of Caratacus] -Caratacus and his relatives in medieval Welsh genealogies]
  
• Caratacus does not appear in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain" (1136), although he appears to correspond to Arviragus, the younger son of Kymbelinus, who continues to resist the Roman invasion after the death of his older brother Guiderius. [Geoffrey of Monmouth, "Historia Regum Britanniae" ] In Welsh versions his name is Gweirydd, son of Cynfelyn, and his brother is called Gwydyr; [Geoffrey of Monmouth, "The History of the Kings of Britain", translated by Lewis Thorpe, 1973; Peter Roberts (trans), "The Chronicle of the Kings of Britain", 1811] the name Arviragus is taken from a poem by Juvenal. [Juvenal, "Satires", [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/juvenal/4.shtml 4.126-127] ]
  
• Caradog, son of Bran, who appears in medieval Welsh literature, has also been identified with Caratacus, although nothing in the medieval legend corresponds except his name. He appears in the Mabinogion as a son of Bran the Blessed, who is left in charge of Britain while his father makes war in Ireland, but is overthrown by Caswallawn (the historical Cassivellaunus, who lived a century earlier than Caratacus). ["The Mabinogion": " [http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/mab/mab22.htm Branwen, daughter of Llyr] "] The Welsh Triads agree that he was Bran's son, and name two sons, Cawrdaf and Eudaf. [Rachel Bromwich, "Trioedd Ynys Prydein", University of Wales Press, 1963; Triads from the [http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/triads1.html Red Book of Hergest] and [http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/triads2.html Peniarth MS 54] ]
  
• Modern traditions
  
• Caradog only began to be identified with Caratacus after the rediscovery of the works of Tacitus, and new material appeared based on this identification. An 18th century tradition, popularised by the Welsh antiquarian and forger Iolo Morganwg, credits Caradog, on his return from imprisonment in Rome, with the introduction of Christianity to Britain. Iolo also makes the legendary king Coel a son of Caradog's son Cyllen. [Iolo Morganwg, "Triads of Britain" , , , , , , , , , , ]
• 
  
• Another tradition, which has remained popular among British Israelites and others, makes Caratacus already a Christian before he came to Rome, Christianity having been brought to Britain by either Joseph of Arimathea or St. Paul, and identifies a number of early Christians as his relatives. [This article formerly made reference to a passage of Dio Cassius that described Caratacus as a "barbarian Christian". This derived from a transcription error in the version of the Cary translation of Dio online on the [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html Lacus Curtius] website, which has now been corrected to read "barbarian chieftain" as per the print edition ( [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/61*.html#33.3c Dio 61.33.3c] ). See also the [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10883 Foster translation] at [http://www.gutenberg.org/ Project Gutenberg] , which also reads "barbarian chieftain".]
  
• One is Pomponia Graecina, wife of Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of Britain, who as Tacitus relates, was accused of following a "foreign superstition", generally considered to be Christianity. [Tacitus, "Annals" [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Tac.+Ann.+13.32 13:32] ] Tacitus describes her as the "wife of the Plautius who returned from Britain with an ovation", which led John Lingard (1771 – 1851) to conclude, in his "History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church", that she was British; ["We are, indeed, told that history has preserved the names of two British females, Claudia and Pomponia Graecina, both of them Christians, and both living in the first century of our era." Lingard, John, "History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church", 2nd. ed. Newcastle, Walker, 1810 Vol. I., p1.] however, this conclusion is a misinterpretation of what Tacitus wrote. An ovation was a military parade in honour of a victorious general, so the person who "returned from Britain with an ovation" is clearly Plautius, not Pomponia. This has not prevented the error being repeated and disseminated widely.
  
• Another is Claudia Rufina, a historical British woman known to the poet Martial. [Martial, "Epigrams", XI:53 (ed. & trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Harvard University Press, 1993)] Martial describes Claudia's marriage to a man named Pudens, [Martial, "Epigrams" IV:13] almost certainly Aulus Pudens, an Umbrian centurion and friend of the poet who appears regularly in his "Epigrams". It has been argued since the 17th century [Baronius, "Annales Ecclesiastici", Antwerp, 1614; Archbishop James Ussher (1637), "British Ecclesiastical Antiquities", Oxford; Cardinal Michael Alford (1663), "Annales Ecclesiae Britannicae: Regia Fides, Vol 1"; Williams, J. (1848)(Archdeacon), contributor John Abraham, "Claudia and Pudens", Herauld] that this pair may be the same as the Claudia and Pudens mentioned as members of the Roman Christian community in "2 Timothy" in the New Testament. ["2 Timothy" 4:21 -"Eubulus saluteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren."] Some go further, claiming that Claudia was Caratacus' daughter, and that the historical Pope Linus, who is described as the "brother of Claudia" in an early church document, was Caratacus' son. Pudens is identified with St. Pudens, and it is claimed that the basilica of Santa Pudenziana in Rome, and with which St. Pudens is associated, was once called the "Palatium Britannicum" and was the home of Caratacus and his family.
  
• This theory was popularised in a 1961 book called "The Drama of the Lost Disciples" by George Jowett, but Jowett did not originate it. He cites renaissance historians such as Archbishop James Ussher, Caesar Baronius and John Hardyng, as well as classical writers like Caesar, Tacitus and Juvenal, although his classical cites at least are wildly inaccurate, many of his assertions are unsourced, and many of his identifications entirely speculative. He also regularly cites "St. Paul in Britain", an 1870 book by R. W. Morgan, and advocates other tenets of British Israelism, in particular that the British are descended from the lost tribes of Israel. [George Jowett, "The Drama of the Lost Disciples", Covenant Books, 1961]

*** In the late 4th century a British monk,

Pelagius, travelled to Rome,

where he became a theologian and teacher, revered for his learning and ascetic lifestyle.

But he soon aroused the ire of some of the Church's leading figures, preaching a Christian doctrine which many regarded as heretical.

Pelagius believed that mankind was not inherently depraved, and disputed the necessity of original sin.

His opinions were highly controversial and led to fierce division.

Pelagius's most prominent opponent was the African bishop St Augustine of Hippo. Their dispute resulted in the persecution and eventual condemnation of Pelagius and his followers, and was to be of long-lasting significance to the future of the Church. ***

A pilgrimage is a journey or search of moral or spiritual significance.

Typically, it is a journey to a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith, although sometimes it can be a metaphorical journey into someone's own beliefs.

Many religions attach spiritual importance to particular places: the place of birth or death of founders or saints, or to the place of their "calling" or spiritual awakening, or of their connection visual or verbal) with the divine, to locations where miracles were performed or witnessed, or locations where a deity is said to live or be "housed", or any site that is seen to have special spiritual powers.

Such sites may be commemorated with shrines or temples that devotees are encouraged to visit for their own spiritual benefit: to be healed or have questions answered or to achieve some other spiritual benefit. A person who makes such a journey is called a pilgrim.

As a common human experience, pilgrimage has been proposed as a Jungian archetype by Wallace Clift and Jean Dalby Clift.

The Holy Land acts as a focal point for the pilgrimages of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

According to a Stockholm University study in 2011, these pilgrims visit the Holy Land to touch and see physical manifestations of their faith, confirm their beliefs in the holy context with collective excitation, and connect personally to the Holy Land.

Christianity had started to become powerful in the Roman Empire around the third century.

Following the conversion of Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century, the influence of Christianity grew steadily.

The cathedral's first bishop was Augustine of Canterbury, previously abbot of St. Andrew's Benedictine Abbey in Rome; when other dioceses were founded in England he was made archbishop. He was sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 596 as a missionary to the Anglo-Saxons. Augustine founded the cathedral in 597 and dedicated it to Jesus Christ, the Holy Saviour

Augustine also founded the Abbey of St. Peter and Paul outside the city walls.

This was later rededicated to St. Augustine himself and was for many centuries the burial place of the successive archbishops. The abbey is part of the World Heritage Site of Canterbury, along with the cathedral and the ancient Church of St Martin.

Anglo-Saxon

Bede recorded that Augustine reused a former Roman church. The oldest remains found during excavations beneath the present nave in 1993 were, however, parts of the foundations of an Anglo-Saxon building, which had been constructed across a Roman road.

They indicate that the original church consisted of a nave, possibly with a narthex, and side-chapels to the north and south.

A smaller subsidiary building was found to the south-west of these foundations.

During the ninth or tenth century this church was replaced by a larger structure (49 m. by 23 m.) with a squared west end.

It appears to have had a square central tower.

The eleventh century chronicler Eadmer, who had known the Saxon cathedral as a boy, wrote that, in its arrangement, it resembled St Peter's in Rome, indicating that it was of basilican form, with an eastern apse.

During the reforms of Dunstan, archbishop from 960 until his death in 988, a Benedictine abbey named Christ Church Priory was added to the cathedral.

But the formal establishment as a monastery seems to date only to c.997 and the community only became fully monastic from Lanfranc's time onwards (with monastic constitutions addressed by him to prior Henry).

Dunstan was buried on the south side of the high altar.

Bodecia Iceni

Boudicca died ad 61 ruled over a small tribe of Celt who challenged the colonization plans of the Roman Empire in England. The insurrection she lead almost succeeded in turning back the Roman colonizers. Very little historical evidence survives about the queen named Boudicca, ruler of a small tribe of Celtic peoples known as the Iceni during the first century .

The Iceni made their home near what is now Norfolk, England, and it is known that Boudicca inherited her crown upon the death of her husband. Not long afterward, she was integral in forming a pan-tribal alliance of Celtic warriors who carried through a decisive,

bloody, and very nearly successful uprising against their despised Roman colonizers in C.E. 61.The revolt that bears Boudicca's name would be remembered in history as one of the most significant insurrections against the mighty Roman Empire during Europe's classical era.

The Iceni and Pre-Roman Britain

Boudicca, whose name is sometimes spelled Boadicea, may or may not have been of direct Icenian heritage; it is only known that she was married to the Iceni king, Prasutagus, and among royal Celtic houses marital alliances with other tribes were not unusual. Knowledge of Boudicca survives from the writings of two historians of the Roman empire, Tacitus and Cassius Dio. The latter penned his impression of the Iceni Queen: Boudicca, wrote Dio as quoted in The Rebellion of Boudicca, "was huge of frame, terrifying of aspect, and with a harsh voice. A great mass of bright red hair fell to her knees: she wore a great twisted golden necklace, and a tunic of many colours, over which was a thick mantle, fastened by a brooch."

The Iceni held the territory in what is present-day Norfolk, England, and historians assume they migrated at one point in the late Bronze Age from the European continent. In England they established a farming economy, were weavers of cloth and also made pottery. Their stability was threatened by the arrival of the Belgae from Gaul (France). The Belgae had earned the enmity of the Roman emperor Caesar for providing help to their brethren back in Gaul who were resisting Caesar and Roman rule there. For this, Caesar began attacking Britain around 55 B.C.E.

Matters were further complicated by the superiority of the Belgae over their Celtic neighbors, such as the Iceni. The Belgae were skilled ironsmiths, more adept at farming, and most importantly, possessed a well-organized military force. They soon began taking over other tribes in the area. The Iceni built forts against them, but when the Romans launched a massive military invasion of the British Isles in C.E. 43, the Belgae capitulated. In total, eleven kings of varying Celtic tribes surrendered in a formal signing. The Arch of Claudius in Rome commemorates this historic surrender. Two kings, however, had engineered agreements with the Romans early on in exchange for retaining some power over their tribes. These rulers were Cogidubnus of the Regni tribe and Prasutagus, Boudicca's husband.

The Roman Empire in Britain

Over the next few years, Romans established a strong military presence in Britain, as they did elsewhere in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Roman colonization meant financial hardship for the conquered peoples. Their economy was immediately forced to gear itself toward the production of food for the massive legions of Roman soldiers stationed in their lands. Also, Roman officials imposed heavy taxes for an array of services and goods, and Roman moneylenders arrived in Britain to take advantage of the situation by making loans. Britain's Rome-appointed governor, Suetonius Paulinus, was also dedicated to eradicating Druidism, the native Celt religion. Its priests retained a great deal of influence over both common Celts and royal lines.

The origins of Boudicca's revolt began when the despised Procurator Catus Decianus rescinded the terms of a financial agreement between the Emperor Claudius and Prasutagus. It had been called a grant, but then was renamed a loan. In response, Prasutagus left a stipend of half his kingdom in his will to Nero, Claudius's successor, to satisfy the debt. Roman officials under Catus Decianus arrived in Iceni lands and instead took the whole. Boudicca, who had inherited the kingdom since she and Prasutagus had no male heirs, was arrested and beaten, and her two daughters raped. The estates of wealthy Iceni were liquidated, and lesser relatives of the royal house sold into Roman slavery Boudicca joined forces with the Trinovantes and together they raised an army to fight the Romans.

Boudicca's army captured and burned London Colchester ahcf St Albans.

The Romans were forced-to raise largest army they had ever had to defeat queen Boudicca. The Romans killed anyone who had fought them Boudicca poisoned herself to prevent the romans catching her.....

Cirencester's recorded history begins soon after the invasion of Britain by the Emperor Claudius in AD 43.

In the following years the victorious army over-ran the West Country.

In order to link up with the forces fighting further north, a road known as the Fosse Way was constructed about AD 47 linking the Exeter area with Lincoln passing through the Cotswolds.

The future site of Cirencester was selected for one of the forts for the military, especially the cavalry;

it is thought that up to 800 cavalrymen and their logistical support were housed here.

Tombstones of two auxiliary cavalrymen have been found in Watermoor, Cirencester.

Later, about AD 75, a town was established, replacing the fort as the chief city and administrative centre for the British tribe known as the Dobunni, who had not opposed the newcomers.

Their tribal centre was formerly at Bagendon, some four miles north of Cirencester, where some earthworks survive today and excavations have revealed coin-mints and many pre-Roman artefacts. The new centre, now known as Cirencester, was formally called Corinium Dobunnorum in Roman references.

By the 2nd century, it was the second largest town in Britain, covering 240 acres, compared with the 330 of London with a population of up to 15,000, not far short of the population of today!

The defensive "wall", at first built only of earth, was later faced by an external wall of stone and extra stone towers were added. Most of these defences have disappeared, but their line on the eastern side can be traced in the form of an earthen bank alongside the river in the Abbey Grounds (where a section is exposed to view) and along Beeches Road to the City Bank Playing Field in Watermoor, where a footpath runs along the top of the bank.

There were at least four gates in the encircling walls of Corinium through which the great Roman roads passed.

They crossed in the centre of the Roman town (now indicated by the crossing from South Way to Tower Street where it cuts Lewis Lane). Ermin Street on the NW-SE axis passed north through the gates to Gloucester and Wales and departed south to Silchester and the south coast.

The Fosse Way and Akeman Street, from Lincoln and Colchester (via Verulamium or St Albans) respectively, converged just outside north-east gate and continued as one road to Bath and the south-west.

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.

Many such fairs are still held in every county and they connect the present day very closely with the life of bygone days. It is “all the fun of the fair” which draws people to them mostly nowadays, but in some of them there is still important business done; people are attracted to them for trade as well as for pleasure.

Some of these fairs are held in big towns, such as Lincoln and Carlisle. At Barnet a great horse fair is held every year in September. But some big fairs are held away from any large town, such as the big sheep fair at Weyhill, in Hampshire. At Stourbridge, in Cambridgeshire, a fair is still held; it is quite an ordinary one now, but in the Middle Ages it was one of the most important fairs, not only in England, but in Europe -—a great gathering, where East and West met to do business with each other.

In some places the business part of the fair has quite died out, and a few stalls, a roundabout, a shooting-gallery, and swings are all that can be seen on a fair-day.

The word “fair” comes from an old word which means a “feast” or festival. There are many villages which still have their annual village feast, more important to thevillage than Christmas or a “ Bank Holiday Houses are turned out and cleaned from top to bottom; everything must be made fit to be seen “ for the feast It is a great meeting-time for families, and the boys and girls who have gone away to work in some big town try to get back for a few hours to their native village, to “the old house at home”.

In the beginning the village feast was connected with the parish church—it was the festival of the saint after whom the church was named. That day was a holiday, and all the people went to church as a matter of course. The church was the gathering-place, and, in the porch and the churchyard, and on the village green, friends, neighbours, and relatives met and had a time of rejoicing.

So many people coming together attracted pedlars and hawkers, who spread out their goods on the green, in the churchyard, and in the church porch itself. People who met but seldom used the chance of doing a little business with each other. Little by little, then, the “feast” became a “ fair”, and in many cases was a very important business and trading meeting.

Now it did not suit the ideas of people in those days that outsiders should come into their village and buy and sell as they chose. You know how the boys living in one street even nowadays object to the boys from another street coming to play in their street—“ You go and play in your own street ”. So in very early times the lord of the manor began to regulate these things. Outsiders who brought their goods for sale had to pay a “due” or “toll” to the lord of the manor to be allowed to trade; and the right, of receiving tolls for fairs became one of an overlord’s privileges.

The people in the towns, who were more interested in trade than the people in the villages, saw how very important and profitable a fair was—that it was something

io6 SOCIAL LIFE IN ENGLAND

“with money in it”—and the towns were very anxious to get the right to hold one or more annual fairs. But the overlord, the king, had a voice in the matter, because each stall set up, and each bale of goods, brought in “by right ” an income.

The king had the right to grant, almost to whom he pleased, the privilege of holding a fair; and the privilege was much sought after. Towns, as we saw in a former chapter, got charters from the king, which very often gave to them this right. But it was quite a common thing for the king to make a grant of an annual fair to a religious house which he wanted to benefit without much cost to himself, and the profits of the fair went to support the house. The king’s nobles did the same kind of thing in their own domains.

All the shops in the place where the fair was held had to be shut while the fair was on, and nothing could be bought or sold except in the fair. The tradesmen of the place had to pay their tolls to the person or public body to whom the fair had been granted, just as the strangers coming into the town did.

Fairs lasted in some cases for only one day; in others for two, three, or more days, and sometimes as long as a fortnight, during which time, whether the inhabitants liked it or not, all trade had to be carried on only in the fair. That was one of the things which caused jealousy between the trading class and the religious houses, and often led to much ill-feeling and disorder.

Then, too, the king could grant to any person the right to go to any fair in the country without paying toll and duty. Of course those persons to whom the king granted this right had to pay him very heavily for this privilege, but you can see that it was quite worth their while. Foreign merchants and Jews1 often had such privileges granted to them, and that partly accounts

1 The Jews were expelled from England A.D. 1290.

for the great dislike there was to these classes of people.

Many of the religious houses had entered into trade too, and very often the same privilege of putting their goods on the market was granted to them. Members of a religious house could often travel from place to place without having to pay any of the tolls and duties which other folk had to pay. That might be quite right and reasonable when they were on some religious duty or errand of mercy, but when it was connected with buying and selling the goods produced or manufactured on the monastery lands it was “rather hard”, as we should say, on the traders. The grievance grew up gradually, but it caused very often a bitter feeling between the towns and the religious houses in them, which over and over again led to riots and bloodshed.

The Iceni

were a Brittonic tribe of eastern Britain during the Iron Age and early Roman era.

Their territory included present-day Norfolk and parts of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and bordered the area of the Corieltauvi to the west, and the Catuvellauni and Trinovantes to the south.

In the Roman period, their capital was Venta Icenorum at modern-day Caistor St Edmund.

Julius Caesar does not mention the Iceni in his account of his invasions of Britain in 55 and 54 BC, though they may be related to the Cenimagni, who Caesar notes as living north of the River Thames at that time. The Iceni were a significant power in eastern Britain during Claudius' conquest of Britain in AD 43, in which they allied with Rome.

Increasing Roman influence on their affairs led to revolt in 47, though they remained nominally independent under king Prasutagus until his death around AD 60. Roman encroachment after Prasutagus' death led his wife Boudica to launch a major revolt from 60–61.

Boudica's uprising seriously endangered Roman rule in Britain and resulted in the burning of Londinium and other cities. The Romans finally crushed the rebellion, and the Iceni were increasingly incorporated into the Roman province

Archaeology

Archaeological evidence of the Iceni includes torcs—heavy rings of gold, silver orelectrum worn around the neck and shoulders.

The Iceni began producing coins around 10 BC.

Their coins were a distinctive adaptation of the Gallo-Belgic "face of a horse" design , and in some early issues, most numerous near Norwich, the horse was replaced with a boar. Some coins are inscribed ECENI, making them the only coin-producing group to use their tribal name on coins. The earliest personal name to appear on coins is Antedios (about 10 BC), and other abbreviated names like AESU and SAEMU follow.

It has been discovered that the name of Antedios’ succeeding ruler Prasutagus appears on the coins as well. H. R. Mossop in his article “An Elusive Icenian Legend” discusses coins that were discovered by D. F. Allen in Joist Fen, Suffolk, and states, “It is the coins Nos. 6 and 7 which give an advance in the obverse reading, confirming Allen’s attractive reading PRASTO, with its implied allusion to Prasutagus” (Mossop and Allen 258).

Sir Thomas Browne, the first English archaeological writer, said of the Roman occupation, Boudica and Iceni coins:

ThatBritainwas notably populous is undeniable, from that expression of Caesar. That the Romans themselves were early in no small Numbers, Seventy Thousand with their associates slain by Bouadicea, affords a sure account... And no small number of silver pieces near Norwich; with a rude head upon the obverse, an ill-formed horse on the reverse, with the Inscriptions Ic. Duro.T. whether implying Iceni, Durotriges, Tascia, or Trinobantes, we leave to higher conjecture. The British Coyns afford conjecture of early habitation in these parts, though the city of Norwich arose from the ruins of Venta, and though perhaps not without some habitation before, was enlarged, built, and nominated by the Saxons.[6]

The Icknield Way, an ancient trackway linking East Anglia to the Chilterns, may be named after the Iceni.

John A. Davies and Tony Gregory conducted archaeological surveys of Roman coins that appeared during the period of Roman occupation of Norfolk. Their study showed that the bulk of the coins circulating before AD 60 was Icenian rather than Roman. They speculated that Roman coins were not adapted into the Iceni area until after AD 60. The coin study also showed that there was not a regular supply of Roman coinage from year to year: The predominance of specific issues at sites across the province and relative scarcity of coins of some emperors illustrates the point that supply was sporadic and that there were periods when little or no fresh coinage was sent to Britain from the imperial mints. In certain rural regions of Norfolk, Davies and Gregory speculate that the Iceni farmers were impacted very little by the civitas, seeing as there is a scarce presence of coinage and treasures. On the other hand, their surveys found "coin-rich temple sites, which appear to have served as centres for periodic fairs and festivals and provided locations for markets and commercial transactions within their complexes and environs. In such rural areas, producers and consumers would have been attracted to these sites for commerce from afield"

Gold stater (15 BC -20 AD). (right) horse (left) flower

Bronze coins of the Iceni. Museum of London.

Icenian silver coin, found in Norfolk.

The Roman invasion

The meaning of the name Iceni is unknown. Icenian coins dating from the 1st century AD use the spelling ECEN: another article by D. F. Allen titled “The Coins of the Iceni,” discusses the difference between coins with the inscription EC Eversus coins with IECENI. This difference, Allen posits, tells archeologists and historians when Prasutagus started his reign because the coins did not start reading the name of the tribe until around AD 47. Allen suggests that when Antedios was king of the Iceni, the coins did not yet have the name of the tribe on them but instead the name of its ruler, stating, "If so, the coins suggest that the Prasutagus era commenced only after the events of 47" (Allen 16

Tacitus records that the Iceni were not conquered in the Claudian invasion of AD 43, but had come to a voluntary alliance with the Romans. However, they rose against them in 47 after the governor, Publius Ostorius Scapula, threatened to disarm them. D. F. Allen explains in further detail, in his article "The Coins of the Iceni," that Scapula had been "preoccupied with defense against the unconquered Silures in South Wales and Brigantes in Yorkshire." Allen informs readers that this was howPrasutagushad come to gain full control over the Iceni (Allen 2). The Iceni were defeated by Ostorius in a fierce battle at a fortified place, but were allowed to retain their independence.[12]The site of the battle may have beenStonea CampinCambridgeshire.

A second and more serious uprising took place in AD 61.

Prasutagus, the wealthy, pro-Roman Icenian king, who, according to a section in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biographytitled "Roman Britain, British Leaders". was leader of the Iceni between AD 43 and 50 (Todd 4) , had died.

It was common practice for a Roman client king to leave his kingdom to Rome on his death, but Prasutagus had attempted to preserve his line by bequeathing his kingdom — which Allen believes was located in Breckland, near Norwich (Allen  — jointly to the Emperor and his own daughters. The Romans ignored this, and the procurator Catus Decianus seized his entire estate. Prasutagus's widow, Boudica, was flogged, and her daughters were raped. At the same time, Roman financiers called in their loans. While the governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, was campaigning in Wales, Boudica led the Iceni and the neighbouring Trinovantes in a large-scale revolt:

Boadicea and Her Daughters by Thomas Thornycroft

...a terrible disaster occurred in Britain. Two cities were sacked, eighty thousand of the Romans and of their allies perished, and the island was lost to Rome. Moreover, all this ruin was brought upon the Romans by a woman, a fact which in itself caused them the greatest shame.... But the person who was chiefly instrumental in rousing the natives and persuading them to fight the Romans, the person who was thought worthy to be their leader and who directed the conduct of the entire war, was Buduica, a Briton woman of the royal family and possessed of greater intelligence than often belongs to women.... In stature she was very tall, in appearance most terrifying, in the glance of her eye most fierce, and her voice was harsh; a great mass of the tawniest hair fell to her hips; around her neck was a large golden necklace; and she wore a tunic of divers colours over which a thick mantle was fastened with a brooch. This was her invariable attire.

The revolt caused the destruction and looting of

Camulodunum (Colchester),

Londinium (London),

and Verulamium(St Albans)

before finally being defeated by Suetonius Paulinus and his legions.

Although the Britons outnumbered the Romans greatly, they lacked the superior discipline and tactics that won the Romans a decisive victory.[15]The battle took place at an unknown location, probably in the West Midlands somewhere along Watling Street.[16]Today, a large statue of Boudica wielding a sword and charging upon a chariot, called "Boadicea and Her Daughters" , can be seen in London on the north bank of the Thames by Westminster Bridge.

The Iceni are recorded as acivitas of Roman Britain in Ptolemy's Geographia, which names Venta Icenorum as a town of theirs. Venta, which is also mentioned in the Ravenna Cosmography, and the Antonine Itinerary, was a settlement near the village of Caistor St. Edmund, some five miles south of present-day Norwich, and a mile or two from the Bronze Age Henge at Arminghall.

UNIQUE PHOTOGRAPH OF THE DESTRUCTION OF LONDON’S ROMAN WALL

About the year 1880,

when the railway to Southend was being constructed, it was unfortunately necessary for the building of the line that this fine piece of the actual Roman wall as tye see it here, the least altered by medieval and subsequent repair, should be demolished.

Luckily a photograph was secured at the time, so that we can see very clearly w hat the wall looked like. It was about eight feet thick at the i-aat and some fifteen, feet high. A triple course of Roman brick tiles appears amid the mass of ragstone.

To the east of the Walbrook, a line joining the more southerly crossing with a fragment of Roman street found long ago in Eastcheap aligns with the old position of London Stone and cuts through no known Roman building.

A parallel line eastwards from the northern crossing of the Walbrook also cuts no Roman building and coincides with a line of arcading— possibly a Roman shop-front— found a few years ago close to Gracechurch Street.

Streets drawn in the Roman manner at right angles to these in such a way as to pass the ends of the basilica described above produce a large “ insula ” or island about 480 feet square, which is, singularly enough, an exact multiple of a land measurement commonly used by the Romans in laying out their towns.

The conjecture, therefore, that we may recognize here some of the elements of the Roman plan of London is not unlikely, but further evidence is admittedly required.

Jutside the walls of the city lay the cemeteries, which in a properly regulated Roman town were forbidden inside the walls.

Urns, coffins and inscriptions from these cemeteries may be found in several of the museums of London, and not merely are they in many cases of considerable historic interest, but their abundance immediately outside the walls shows that the Roman, like the medieval city, lay almost exclusively within its defences.

A final point demands brief notice.

What was the political position of Roman London within the province ? We have seen that at the time of the Roman conquest Colchester, already the native headquarters, was taken over by the invaders as the new provincial capital.

There is no evidence, however; that Colchester maintained the premier position after its failure in the year 60.

On the other hand, a2 inscription found in London and recording a dedicatica by the Province of Britain to the Divinity of the Emperor suggests that the main centre of Empercr worship, which was normally situated in the capital of a province, was at some period transferred tr:cL Colchester to London.

Moreover the literary recced mentions London as the seat of financial contral and consistent with this is the intermittent issued

coinage from London between 286 and 388, although this privilege may have been shared, perhaps, by other Romano-British cities.

Lastly, the high-sounding title, Augusta, and the use of London, in the fourth century, as a headquarters by officers such as Theodosius, all sue;esc that the great centre of the Romano-British road system was something more than a mere gate way into Britain.

Without, therefore, pressing rat term “ capital ” too closely, we may say that ia a. general sense Roman London became at least the main centre of the Roman civil administration.

Arbury Hill from the west

Highest point

Elevation

225 metres , 738 ft

Coordinates: 52°13′27″N 1°12′36″W

Geography

Arbury Hill

Arbury Hill in Northamptonshire, England OS grid SP540587 Topo map OS Explorer 206

Arbury Hill, at 225 m (738 ft), is the joint highest point in the English county of Northamptonshire. It is 9 km (5.6 mi) southwest of the town of Daventry. The slopes of Arbury Hill are a drainage divide between three major river catchment areas, with theNeneto the north, east and south, theCherwell, a tributary of the Thames to the south-west and the Leam a tributary of the Severn to the west and north-west.

On the summit of Arbury Hill there are the vestiges of an Iron Age Fort (grid reference SP540587), although this is disputed. The remains are in the form of a square ditch and embankment about 200 metres across. There is a motor-cross track on the east side and top of the hill that is used for competitions about three times a year. The headwater of the River Nene, on the north east slope of Arbury Hill ,

The southern side of the hill in 2008 Reference OS Explorer Map 207: Newport Pagnell & Northampton South (1:25 000) ISBN 0319 46387  'Badby', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the County of Northamptonshire, Volume 3: Archaeological Sites in North-West Northamptonshire (London, 1981), pp. 7-12. British History Online, accessed 25 October 2017. The River Nene is the tenth-longest river in the United Kingdom. From its source at Arbury Hill to Northampton, the river falls a total of 300 feet (91 m) in 17 miles (27 km). For the remainder of its course, the Nene falls less than 200 feet (61 m).

It has a catchment area of 631 square miles (1,630 km2) and a mean flow of 328 cubic feet per second (9.3 m3/s).[7] The final 88 miles (142 km) from Northampton to the Wash is navigable.

The river's most westerly source can be found near the village of Badby, near Daventry. On the eastern slope of Arbury Hill, and in pools between Arbury Hill and Sharmans Hill, there are three tributaries that converge at Dodford mill to form the upper reaches of the Daventry Nene. The two northern streams flow through the villages of Badby and Newnham to the convergence, whilst the southerly stream runs through Fawsley Park and through the village of Everdon before the convergence. From Dodford, the river passes through the village of Weedon where it flows under the main west coast railway line, the Grand Union Canal, and Watling Street. A little west of Weedon, the river converges with its tributary source from Yelvertoft from the north. This tributary, the Yelvertoft Nene, is formed from a great many streams. The river now flows towards Northampton, passing through Flore and Nether Heyford, where it is joined by small streams on either bank. A little past Bugbrooke Mill, the Nene passes under the M1 motorway and falls over a weir towards Kislingbury. M1 Motorway viaduct over the River Nene just south of junction 16

Another tributary merges from the south at Kislingbury. The Nene's course is closely followed by the Grand Union Canal’s Northampton arm at Upton Mill.

Pre-Roman Iron Age

Caesar mentions four kings,

Segovax,

Carvilius,

Cingetorix

andTaximagulus,

who held power in Cantium at the time of his second expedition in 54 BC.

The British leaderCassivellaunus, besieged in his stronghold north of the Thames, sent a message to these four kings to attack the Roman naval camp as a distraction. The attack failed, a chieftain calledLugotorixwas captured, and Cassivellaunus was forced to seek terms.

In the century between Caesar's expeditions and the conquest underClaudius, kings in Britain began to issue coins stamped with their names. The following kings of the Cantiaci are known:

Dubnovellaunus. May have been an ally or sub-king ofTasciovanusof theCatuvellauni, or a son ofAddedomarusof theTrinovantes. Presented himself as a supplicant toAugustusc. 7 BC.

Vosenius, ruled until c. 15 AD.

Eppillus, originally king of theAtrebates. Coins indicate he became king of the Cantiaci c. 15 AD, at the same time as his brotherVericabecame king of the Atrebates.

Cunobelinus, king of the Catuvellauni who expanded his influence into Cantiaci territory.

Adminius, son of Cunobelinus. Seems to have ruled on his father's behalf, beginning c. 30 AD.Suetoniustells us he was exiled by Cunobelinus c. 40 AD, leading toCaligula's aborted invasion of Britain.

Anarevitos, known only from a coin discovered in 2010, probably a descendant ofEppillusand ruling c. 10 BC -20 AD

Sub-Roman period

According to Nennius, Gwrangonwas King of Kent in the time of Vortigern, until Vortigern took away the kingdom and gave it to Hengist; but Nennius is regarded as an untrustworthy source, and "Gwrangon seems to have been transported by the story-teller into Kent from Gwent" and "is turned into an imaginary King of Kent, secretly disposed of his realm in favour of Hengist, whose daughter Vortigern wished to marry".

Catuvellauni

Territory of the Catuvellauni

larger image

Corieltauvi, North East Coast gold stater

larger image

Corieltauvi, North East Coast gold stater Early uninscribed coinage, mid to late 1st century BC:

Obv: Abstract head of Apollo right.

Rev: Disjointed horse right, four armed spiral under chin, sunflower/rosette below.

5.8 grams.

cf. S 28. BMC 188. VA 800 -11 var.

Geography

Capital Verulamium (St. Albans)

Location South East England

Rulers Tasciovanus

Cunobeline

Caratacus

Togodumnus

Epaticcus

Catuvellauni, Tasciovanus, "Hidden Faces" gold stater.

Obv: stylized crescents and wreaths with hidden faces.

Rev: Celtic warrior on horse right, carrying carnyx.

The Catuvellauni were a Celtic tribe or state of southeastern Britain before the Roman conquest, attested by inscriptions into the 4th century.

The fortunes of the Catuvellauni and their kings before the conquest can be traced through ancient coins and scattered references in classical histories. They are mentioned by Cassius Dio, who implies that they led the resistance against the conquest in AD 43. They appear as one of the civitates of Roman Britain in Ptolemy's Geography in the 2nd century, occupying the town of Verlamion (modern St Albans) and the surrounding areas of Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and southern Cambridgeshire.

Their territory was bordered to the north by the Iceni and Corieltauvi, to the east by the Trinovantes, to the west by the Dobunni and Atrebates, and to the south by the Regnenses and Cantiaci.

Contents [hide]

1 Before the Roman conquest

2 Under Roman rule

3 List of leaders of the Catuvellauni

4 See also

5 References

6 External links

Before the Roman conquest[edit]

The Catuvellauni are part of the Aylesford-Swarling archaeological group in Southern England often linked to Belgic Gaul and possibly to an actual Belgic conquest of the region alluded to by Caesar. John T. Koch conjectures that the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains and the modern name of Châlons-en-Champagne.[1] preserves the name of an original continental tribe of Catuvellauni, a name he derives from a compound of the ancient Celtic roots *katu-("battle") and *wer-lo ("better"), thus meaning "excelling in battle", the same source as that of the later British and Breton personal name Cadwallon.[1]

Cassivellaunus, who led the resistance to Julius Caesar's first expedition to Britain in 54 BC, is often taken to have belonged to the Catuvellauni. His tribal background is not mentioned by Caesar, but his territory, north of the Thames and to the west of the Trinovantes, corresponds to that later occupied by the Catuvellauni. The extensive earthworks at Devil's Dyke near Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire are thought to have been the tribe's original capital.

Coin of Tasciovanus, king of the Catuvellauni.

Tasciovanus was the first king to mint coins at Verlamion, beginning ca 20 BC. He appears to have expanded his power at the expense of the Trinovantes to the east, as some of his coins, ca 15–10 BC, were minted in their capital Camulodunum (modern Colchester). This advance was given up, possibly under pressure from Rome, and a later series of coins were again minted at Verulamium.

The Celtic tribes of Southern Britain showing the Catuvellauni and their neighbours.

Coins of Epaticcus, king of the Catuvellauni.

However, Camulodunum was retaken, either by Tasciovanus or by his son Cunobelinus, who succeeded him ca AD 9 and ruled for about 30 years. Little is known of Cunobelinus's life, but his name survived into British legend, culminating in William Shakespeare's play Cymbeline. Geoffrey of Monmouth says he was brought up at the court of Augustus and willingly paid tribute to Rome. Archaeology indicates increased trading and diplomatic links with the Roman Empire. Under Cunobelinus and his family, the Catuvellauni appear to have become the dominant power in south-eastern Britain. His brother Epaticcus gained territory to the south and west at the expense of the Atrebates until his death ca AD 35. The grave of the "Druid of Colchester" dates to this period, providing evidence of medical practices and technology within the Catuvellauni tribe.[2]

Three sons of Cunobelinus are known to history. Adminius, whose power-base appears from his coins to have been in Kent, was exiled by his father shortly before AD 40 according to Suetonius, prompting the emperor Caligula to mount his abortive invasion of Britain. Two other sons, Togodumnus and Caratacus, are named by Dio Cassius. No coins of Togodumnus are known, but Caratacus's rare coins suggest that he followed his uncle Epaticcus in completing the conquest of the lands of the Atrebates. It was the exile of the Atrebatic king, Verica, that prompted Claudius to launch a successful invasion, led by Aulus Plautius, in AD 43.

Dio tells us that, by this stage, Cunobelinus was dead, and Togodumnus and Caratacus led the initial resistance to the invasion in Kent. They were defeated by Plautius in two crucial battles on the rivers Medway (see Battle of the Medway) and Thames. He also tells us that the Bodunni, a tribe or kingdom who were tributary to the Catuvellauni, switched sides. This may be a misspelling of the Dobunni, who lived in Gloucestershire, and may give an indication of how far Catuvellaunian power extended. Togodumnus died shortly after the battle on the Thames. Plautius halted and sent word for the emperor to join him, and Claudius led the final advance to Camulodunum. The territories of the Catuvellauni became the nucleus of the new Roman province.

Under Roman rule[edit]

Caratacus, however, had survived, and continued to lead the resistance to the invaders. We next hear of him in Tacitus's Annals, leading the Silures and Ordovices in what is now Wales against the Roman governor Publius Ostorius Scapula. Ostorius defeated him in a set-piece battle somewhere in Ordovician territory (see Battle of Caer Caradoc) in AD 51, capturing members of his family, but Caratacus again escaped. He fled north to the Brigantes, but their queen, Cartimandua, was loyal to the Romans and handed him over in chains.

Caratacus was exhibited as a war-prize as part of a triumphal parade in Rome. He was allowed to make a speech to the Senate, and made such an impression that he and his family were freed and allowed to live in peace in Rome.

Verulamium, the Roman settlement near Verlamion, gained the status of municipium ca 50, allowing its leading magistrates to become Roman citizens. It was destroyed in the rebellion of Boudica in 60 or 61, but was soon rebuilt. Its forum and basilica were completed in 79 or 81, and were dedicated in an inscription by the governor, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, to the emperor Titus. Its theatre, the first Roman theatre in Britain, was built ca 140.

An inscription records that the civitas of the Catuvellauni were involved in the reconstruction of Hadrian's Wall, probably in the time of Septimius Severus in the early 3rd century. Saint Alban, the first British Christian martyr, was a citizen of Verulamium in the late 3rd or early 4th century, and was killed there. The city took its modern name from him. The tombstone of a woman of the Catuvellauni called Regina, freedwoman and wife of Barates, a soldier from Palmyra in Syria, was found in the 4th-century Roman fort of Arbeia in South Shields in the north-east of England.

List of leaders of the Catuvellauni[edit]

Cassivellaunus, a military leader and possibly chieftain, often associated with the Catuvellauni c. 54 BC

Tasciovanus, c. 20 BC – AD 9

Cunobelinus, AD 9 – AD 40

Togodumnus

Caratacus

See also[edit]

List of Celtic tribes

References[edit]

^ Jump up to: a b John T. Koch (ed.) Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia, Vol. I, p.357

Jump up ^ Games Britannia -1. Dicing with Destiny, BBC Four, 1:05am Tuesday 8 December 2009

Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico

Tacitus, Annals

Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars

Dio Cassius, Roman History

Ptolemy, Geography

Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae

Sheppard Frere (1998), Britannia: a History of Roman Britain, Pimlico

John Creighton (2000), Coins and power in Late Iron Age Britain, Cambridge University Press

External links[edit]

Catuvellauni at Roman Britain.org

Catuvellauni at Romans in Britain

Verulamium Roman Town

The Roman Theatre of Verulamium

DurobrivaeThe area of theNene valley eastofNorthamptonwas 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.

Durobrivae was a Roman fortified garrison town located at Water Newton in the English county of Cambridgeshire, where Ermine Street crossed the River Nene. More generally, it was in the territory of the Corieltauvi in a region of villas and commercial potteries.

The name is a Latinisation of Celtic or more accurately Brythonic *Durobrīwās, meaning essentially "fort by the bridges".

During the Iron Age Britain was divided into distinct tribal areas.

The area lay between the Catuvellauni to the south and the Corieltauvi to the north, with the Iceni to the east.

The origin of Durobrivae is said to have been as a vicus attached to a "pre-Flavian" fort, established about half a kilometre to the east ofmodern Water Newton, between the Claudian invasion of 43 AD, and the beginning of the reign of Vespasian in 69 AD.

Its first historical mention is in the Antonine Itinerary of the late 2nd century.

Archaeologyof the Roman period shows that Durobrivae was then the production centre for a fine tableware known as Nene Valley Colour Coated Ware, from the 2nd century to the 4th.[2] In Anglo-Saxon times, local settlement came to centre on Medeshamstede, now known as Peterborough.

although in certain cultures Death is perceived as female (for instance,Marzanna in Slavic mythology).

Daedalus, a cunning craftsman, who flew from Crete to Italy with his son Icarus by means of wings fastened to their shoulders with wax. Daedalus arrived safely, but Icarus flew too near the sun, which melted the wax, so that he fell into the sea.

Danae, who was visited by Jupiter in a shower of gold, was the mother of Perseus, Jupiter being the father. Before the birth of Perseus, an oracle predicted that the son that would be born would kill his grandfather, Acrisius, king of Argos, and father of Dana£. To avoid that calamity the mother was immured in a brazen tower, and after the birth of Perseus, she and the child were put in a chest and thrown into the sea, but drifted to the shore of Seriphus and were saved. The oracle’s prediction was afterwards fulfilled, Acrisius being accidentally slain by Perseus.

Danaus, son of Belus, king of Tyre, and twin brother of iEgyptus. iEgyptus had fifty sons, Danaus had fifty daughters, and Danaus, to escape his brother and his sons, fled with his daughters to Argos and became king. Hearing of this the sons of iEgyptus betook themselves to Argos, and demanded their uncle’s daughters for wives. Their aims were frustrated, however, by each wife killing her husband on the wedding night, with a dagger provided by their father. One only escaped, Lynceus, who killed Danaus. Another version says that the uncle and nephew were reconciled, and reigned together for many years.

Daphne, a nymph who was changed into a laurel when being pursued by Apollo. The laurel thus became his favourite tree.

Daphnis, a Sicilian shepherd famous as a flute-player. He was struck with blindness for faithlessness to a Naiad.

Dardanus, son of Jupiter and Electra, w$s the founder of Troy and ancestor of the Trojans. It is his name that is commemorated in the Dardanelles.

Deianira. (See Hercules.)

Delphi, in Central Greece, famous for the temple and oracle of Apollo.

Demeter. (See Ceres.)

Deucalion, a son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha, were the only persons saved when Jupiter destroyed Greece by a deluge. To effect the re-peopling of the earth, they were ordered to throw behind them the bones of their mother, so picking up some stones from “ mother earth,” they flung them from them. The stones cast by Deucalion were transformed into men, and those by Pyrrha into women.

Diana (called Artemis by the Greeks), the chaste goddess of hunting, daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and twin sister of Apollo. She was also the goddess of light, and was worshipped in various guises chiefly in Arcadia, Ephesis, and Tauris.

Dido, founder and queen of Carthage, who fled thither from Tyre. Virgil makes her fall in love with iEneas and kill herself when he left.

Diomedes, king of Argos, and one of the champions of the Grecian army in the Trojan War. He contended even with gods, and is one of the most prominent fighting figures of the Iliad.

Dionysus. {See Bacchus.)

Dioscuri, the name given to Castor and Pollux, twin sons of Tyndareus and Leda. They rescued their sister Helen from Theseus, took part in the Argonautic expedition and performed many great deeds while on earth. Pollux was famed for his skill in boxing, Castor for the management of horses, and they were looked on as the patrons of seafarers. Castor was killed by Idas, but at the request of Pollux, Jupiter allowed them to share alternate days in heaven and the underworld.

Diree, wife of Eycas. Because of her cruelty her step-sons caused a wild bull to drag her about till she died, and then threw her body into a fountain in Bceotia.

Dryades, the nymphs of the trees, were supposed to have their birth with and die with the trees, over which they were the divinities.

E

Echo, a sportful nymph, who diverted the attention of Juno while Jupiter made love to other nymphs. When Juno discovered the deception, she transformed the deceiver into an echo, depriving her of the power of speaking except when spoken to. Subsequently Echo pined away for the love of Narcissus, until only her answering voice remained to perpetuate her name.

Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, seeing the danger that her brother Orestes was in after the murder of her father by her mother Cly-taemnestra, had him sent away to Phocis, where he was protected by King Strophius In revenge for this, Clytaemnestra compelled Electra to marry a peasant, but the peasant never sought to be more than husband in name, so that when later Orestes returned, Clytaem-nestra was put to death, and Electra became the wife of her brother’s friend, Pylades.

Elysium, the abode of the shades of the blessed.

Endymion, a beautiful south whom Selene, the moon-goddess, put into perpetual sleep on a Carian mountain-side that she might kiss him without his knowledge.

Eos. iSee Aurora.)

Erato. {See Muses.)

Erebus, the son of Chaos, and one of the deities of Hades. The name is also used as a synonym for darkness, referring to the region through which departed souls pass to Hades.

Europa, daughter of Phoenix and beloved of Jupiter, who assumed the shape of a white bull and carried her off to Crete, where she became the mother of Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthus.

Eurydice. {See Orpheus.)

Eurystheus. {See Hercules.)

Euterpe. {See Muses.)

Evander, son of Mercury, who led a colony from Arcadia to Italy, which was later incorporated in Rome. He taught his neighbours the blessings of peace.

P

Faunus, an old Italian deity, protector of agriculture and shepherds. He was later identified with the Greek Pan.

Flora, the goddess of flowers (Greek Chloris).

Furies. (See Eumenides.)

Gr

Galatea. (See Acis.)

Ganymede, Jupiter’s cup-bearer, a mortal youth of such grace and beauty that the god had him carried oft* to Olympus on the back of an eagle.

Genius Loci, the special divinity allotted to a particular place or building.

Glaucus, a Boeotian fisherman, who was made a sea deity by Oceanus, and carried off Ariadne from Naxos. Apollo granted him the gift of prophecy.

Golden Fleece (The) forms one of the most entrancing of the legends of mythology. The fleece was that of the ram Chrysomallus and was deposited on a tr,ee at Colchis, being guarded by a terrible dragon. (See Athamas and Jason.

Gorgons, three hideous maidens, whose heads were covered with snakes instead of hair. (See Medusa.)

Graces (Greek Charites) were three in number, Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia, and represented the perfection of grace and beauty of body and mind. They were daughters of Jupiter and are usually shown as attendants on Venus.

H

Hades, or Pluto, was the god of the underworld, son of Saturn, brother of Jupiter and Neptune, and husband of Proserpine.. In classical depictions the god is represented seated on a throne, Cerberus lying at his feet. Hades is also the name given to the infernal regions.

Hsemon, son of Creon and lover of Antigone. He killed himself on hearing of her death.

Hamadryads, tree-nymphs.

Harpies, greedy monsters with female heads and long claws and wings, who were used by the gods to torment mortals.

Hebe, cupbearer to Jupiter and the gods, and

<* daughter of Jupiter and Juno. She is represented as the goddess of youth, and by the Romans was named Juventas.

Hecate, often represented with three heads, was supposed to preside over magic and enchantments, and her dominion extended over hell, heaven, earth, and sea. In heaven she was Luna, on earth Diana, and in Hades Proserpine or Hecate. She dwelt particularly at cross roads and was associated with the howling of dogs.

Hector, son of King Priam and Hecuba, and husband of Andromache, was captain of the Trojan forces and the most valiant of them all. After repeated victories over Grecian leaders he was last slain by Achilles, whom he provoked to fight again by killing Patroclus, and his body was dragged in triumph three times round the walls of Troy. Jupiter interposed and ordered the body to be given up to Priam, after which the warrior was buried with great pomp.

Hecuba, wife of Priam was a dignified and much-enduring mother, whose lot it was to see her husband and her favourite sons killed by the enemy. After the fall of Troy she fell to the lot of Ulysses and accompanied the conquerors on the voyage back to Greece, but while halted in the Thracian Chersonesus, after trying to avenge the murder of her son, Polydorus, she cast herself into the sea at Cyneum.

Helen, daughter of Jupiter and Leda, famed for her beauty. In her youth she was carried off to A ttica by Theseus and Pirithous, but rescued by her brothers Castor and Pollux. Among her suitors were the most celebrated princes of the age, but she ultimately became the wife of Mene-laus, King of Lacedaemon. After three years of happiness, Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy, came on a visit to the court of Menelaus, and persuaded Helen to follow hiqi to Troy. To avenge this outrage the Trojan war was begun.

When Paris was killed, in the ninth year of the war, she married Deiphobus, but afterwards betrayed him in order to regain the favour of Menelaus, which she succeeded in doing, and remained with him until his death. Of her own fate there are numerous varying accounts.

Helenus, son of Priam and Hecuba, famous for his prophetic powers, who deserted from the Trojans to the Greeks. After the Trojan war he settled in Epirus and married Andromache.

Helicon, a range of mountains in Bceotia, sacred to Apollo and the Muses.

Helius, or Sol, the god of the sun, who daily drove his four-horsed chariot across the sky.

Helle. (See Athamas.)

Hephaestus, the Greek name for Vulcan.

Hera, the Greek name for Juno.

Heraclidae, the name given to the descendants of Hercules, who were said to have led the Dorians in the invasion of Peloponnesus.

Hercules (Greek, Heracles), son of Jupiter and Alcmena, is the personification of physical strength, and the most wonderful stories are related of his exploits. Even while in his cradle he strangled two serpents which Juno had sent to destroy him. At eighteen he killed the lion of Mount Cithaeon. Afterwards, having been rendered mad by Juno, he killed his own children and those of his brother, and on recovering was so plunged in grief that he exiled himself and went to consult the oracle of Apollo at Adelphi. He was commanded to serve Eurystheus for twelve years, during which period he was to perform twelve “ labours.” The gods equipped him for his tasks and he carried them through successfully. The first was to kill the lion of Nemea, which he choked to death; the second was to destroy the seven-headed Lemean hydra, which he killed with his club of brass, the gift of Vulcan; _ 'The llllli*1Wkk U)-TAi')ltne the Al'CadMn stag, ’ which he caught in a trap; the fourth to destroy the wild boar of Erymanthus; the fifth, to clean the Augean stables; sixth, to kill the carnivorous birds of Stymphalis; seventh, to capture the wild bull of Crete; eighth, to capture the mares of Diomedes; ninth, to obtain the girdle of the Queen of the Amazons; tenth, to capture the oxen of Geryon; eleventh, to obtain some golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides; and twelfth, to bring to earth Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Hades. He was now free from service to Eurystheus and returned to Thebes. He married Deianira, daughter of (Eneus of Calydon, and when Nessus, a Centaur, tried to outrage her, Hercules shot him with a poisoned arrow. The dying Nessus told Deianira to keep his blood, as it would always preserve her husband’s love. Later, fearing that she was being supplanted by Iole, Deianira sent Hercules a garment soaked in the blood of Nessus, and it poisoned him. On his death he was carried to Olympus and endowed with immortality.

Hermes, Greek name for Mercury.

Hero and Leander. (See Leander.)

Hesperides, the three daughters of Atlas and Hesperis, appointed to protect the golden apples which Earth gave to Juno at her marriage to Jupiter. The hundred-headed dragon, Ladon, was always on guard at the foot of the tree, but was slain by Hercules when he seized the apples.

Hesperus, the evening star.

Hippocrene, a fountain at the foot of Mount Helicon, originally set flowing by the ground being struck by the hoofs of Pegasus, the winged horse. It was dedicated to the Muses.

Hippolytus, son of Theseus, who was accused by Phaedra, his stepmother, of attempting to dishonour her. He was accordingly cursed by Theseus and killed in his chariot through the agency of Neptune, but his innocence was later discovered, and Phaedra slew herself.

Horatius, a Roman who, with two others, defended the bridge over the Tiber against the whole Etruscan army while the citizens were cutting it down. When the bridge was destroyed he sprang fnto the river and swam safely back.

Hyacinthus, a beautiful youth, killed by accident by Apollo while playing quoits. From his blood sprang the hyacinth.

Hydra, a monster of seven or more heads, each of

PEARS CYCLOPAEDIA 675* CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY

towards LeucothoS, who had deserted her, Apollo transformed her into a sunflower, so that it might always be turned towards him in his daily journey across the heavens.

Comus, the god of revelry and feasting.

Coriolanus, a Roman exiled because of his haughty bearing towards the people. He joined the Volsci and led them against Rome, but finally his mother and wife, at the head of the Roman matrons, persuaded him to retreat without attacking the city.

Cornucopia, the horn of plenty, was supposed to have its origin as the gift of Jupiter to Amalthea, in return for her having fed him while young with goat’s milk.

Creon, king of Thebes, who gave up the throne to CEdipus and later resumed it. His harshness to Antigone caused the suicide of his son Haemon, her lover.

Cronus. (See Saturn.)

Cupid, god of love, by the Greeks called Eros. He was the son of Venus by Jupiter (or, as some represent, Mercury). (See Psyche.)

Cybele, mother-godciess of Phrygia.

Cyclopes, a race of shepherds of gigantic stature, with only one eye, in the middle of the forehead. They lived near Mount Etna, and assisted Vulcan at his forges. (See Polyphemus.

D

Daedalus, a cunning craftsman, who flew from Crete to Italy with his son Icarus by means of wings fastened to their shoulders with wax. Daedalus arrived safely, but Icarus flew too near the sun, which melted the wax, so that he fell into the sea.

Danae, who was visited by Jupiter in a shower of gold, was the mother of Perseus, Jupiter being the father. Before the birth of Perseus, an oracle predicted that the son that would be born would kill his grandfather, Acrisius, king of Argos, and father of Dana£. To avoid that calamity the mother was immured in a brazen tower, and after the birth of Perseus, she and the child were put in a chest and thrown into the sea, but drifted to the shore of Seriphus and were saved. The oracle’s prediction was afterwards fulfilled, Acrisius being accidentally slain by Perseus.

Danaus, son of Belus, king of Tyre, and twin brother of iEgyptus. iEgyptus had fifty sons, Danaus had fifty daughters, and Danaus, to escape his brother and his sons, fled with his daughters to Argos and became king. Hearing of this the sons of iEgyptus betook themselves to Argos, and demanded their uncle’s daughters for wives. Their aims were frustrated, however, by each wife killing her husband on the wedding night, with a dagger provided by their father. One only escaped, Lynceus, who killed Danaus. Another version says that the uncle and nephew were reconciled, and reigned together for many years.

Daphne, a nymph who was changed into a laurel when being pursued by Apollo. The laurel thus became his favourite tree.

Daphnis, a Sicilian shepherd famous as a flute-player. He was struck with blindness for faithlessness to a Naiad.

Dardanus, son of Jupiter and Electra, w$s the founder of Troy and ancestor of the Trojans. It is his name that is commemorated in the Dardanelles.

Deianira. (See Hercules.)

Delphi, in Central Greece, famous for the temple and oracle of Apollo.

Demeter. (See Ceres.)

Deucalion, a son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha, were the only persons saved when Jupiter destroyed Greece by a deluge. To effect the re-peopling of the earth, they were ordered to throw behind them the bones of their mother, so picking up some stones from “ mother earth,” they flung them from them. The stones cast by Deucalion were transformed into men, and those by Pyrrha into women.

Diana (called Artemis by the Greeks), the chaste goddess of hunting, daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and twin sister of Apollo. She was also the goddess of light, and was worshipped in various guises chiefly in Arcadia, Ephesis, and Tauris.

Dido, founder and queen of Carthage, who fled thither from Tyre. Virgil makes her fall in love with iEneas and kill herself when he left.

Diomedes, king of Argos, and one of the champions of the Grecian army in the Trojan War. He contended even with gods, and is one of the most prominent fighting figures of the Iliad.

Dionysus. {See Bacchus.)

Dioscuri, the name given to Castor and Pollux, twin sons of Tyndareus and Leda. They rescued their sister Helen from Theseus, took part in the Argonautic expedition and performed many great deeds while on earth. Pollux was famed for his skill in boxing, Castor for the management of horses, and they were looked on as the patrons of seafarers. Castor was killed by Idas, but at the request of Pollux, Jupiter allowed them to share alternate days in heaven and the underworld.

Diree, wife of Eycas. Because of her cruelty her step-sons caused a wild bull to drag her about till she died, and then threw her body into a fountain in Bceotia.

Dryades, the nymphs of the trees, were supposed to have their birth with and die with the trees, over which they were the divinities.

E

Echo, a sportful nymph, who diverted the attention of Juno while Jupiter made love to other nymphs. When Juno discovered the deception, she transformed the deceiver into an echo, depriving her of the power of speaking except when spoken to. Subsequently Echo pined away for the love of Narcissus, until only her answering voice remained to perpetuate her name.

Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, seeing the danger that her brother Orestes was in after the murder of her father by her mother Cly-taemnestra, had him sent away to Phocis, where he was protected by King Strophius In revenge for this, Clytaemnestra compelled Electra to marry a peasant, but the peasant never sought to be more than husband in name, so that when later Orestes returned, Clytaem-nestra was put to death, and Electra became the wife of her brother’s friend, Pylades.

Elysium, the abode of the shades of the blessed.

Endymion, a beautiful south whom Selene, the moon-goddess, put into perpetual sleep on a Carian mountain-side that she might kiss him without his knowledge.

Eos. iSee Aurora.)

Erato. {See Muses.)

Erebus, the son of Chaos, and one of the deities of Hades. The name is also used as a synonym for darkness, referring to the region through which departed souls pass to Hades.

Eros. {See Cupid.)

Eteocles, a son of CEdipus and Iocasta. After his father’s death, he and his brother Polynices agreed to reign in alternate years, Eteocles, as the elder, taking the first turn. At the end of his year he refused to relinquish the crown to Polynices, and Adrastus, king of Argos, was appealed to. Adrastus, whose daughter had become the wife of Polynices, sent an army and s.even of his bravest generals (the Seven against Thebes) to his son-in-la^s aid, and a severe conflict ensued. In the end the two brothers agreed to settle their differences by single combat, and both were slain.

Eumenides, or Furies, were the avenging deities, three hideous winged maidens who pursued and punished the guilty.

Euphrosyne, one of the three Graces.

Europa, daughter of Phoenix and beloved of Jupiter, who assumed the shape of a white bull and carried her off to Crete, where she became the mother of Minos, Sarpedon, and Rhadamanthus.

Eurydice. {See Orpheus.)

Eurystheus. {See Hercules.)

Euterpe. {See Muses.)

Evander, son of Mercury, who led a colony from Arcadia to Italy, which was later incorporated in Rome. He taught his neighbours the blessings of peace.

P

Faunus, an old Italian deity, protector of agriculture and shepherds. He was later identified with the Greek Pan.

Flora, the goddess of flowers (Greek Chloris).

Furies. (See Eumenides.)

Gr

Galatea. (See Acis.)

Ganymede, Jupiter’s cup-bearer, a mortal youth of such grace and beauty that the god had him carried oft* to Olympus on the back of an eagle.

Genius Loci, the special divinity allotted to a particular place or building.

Glaucus, a Boeotian fisherman, who was made a sea deity by Oceanus, and carried off Ariadne from Naxos. Apollo granted him the gift of prophecy.

Golden Fleece (The) forms one of the most entrancing of the legends of mythology. The fleece was that of the ram Chrysomallus and was deposited on a tr,ee at Colchis, being guarded by a terrible dragon. (See Athamas and Jason.

Gorgons, three hideous maidens, whose heads were covered with snakes instead of hair. (See Medusa.)

Graces (Greek Charites) were three in number, Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia, and represented the perfection of grace and beauty of body and mind. They were daughters of Jupiter and are usually shown as attendants on Venus.

H

Hades, or Pluto, was the god of the underworld, son of Saturn, brother of Jupiter and Neptune, and husband of Proserpine.. In classical depictions the god is represented seated on a throne, Cerberus lying at his feet. Hades is also the name given to the infernal regions.

Hsemon, son of Creon and lover of Antigone. He killed himself on hearing of her death.

Hamadryads, tree-nymphs.

Harpies, greedy monsters with female heads and long claws and wings, who were used by the gods to torment mortals.

Hebe, cupbearer to Jupiter and the gods, and

<* daughter of Jupiter and Juno. She is represented as the goddess of youth, and by the Romans was named Juventas.

Hecate, often represented with three heads, was supposed to preside over magic and enchantments, and her dominion extended over hell, heaven, earth, and sea. In heaven she was Luna, on earth Diana, and in Hades Proserpine or Hecate. She dwelt particularly at cross roads and was associated with the howling of dogs.

Hector, son of King Priam and Hecuba, and husband of Andromache, was captain of the Trojan forces and the most valiant of them all. After repeated victories over Grecian leaders he was last slain by Achilles, whom he provoked to fight again by killing Patroclus, and his body was dragged in triumph three times round the walls of Troy. Jupiter interposed and ordered the body to be given up to Priam, after which the warrior was buried with great pomp.

Hecuba, wife of Priam was a dignified and much-enduring mother, whose lot it was to see her husband and her favourite sons killed by the enemy. After the fall of Troy she fell to the lot of Ulysses and accompanied the conquerors on the voyage back to Greece, but while halted in the Thracian Chersonesus, after trying to avenge the murder of her son, Polydorus, she cast herself into the sea at Cyneum.

Helen, daughter of Jupiter and Leda, famed for her beauty. In her youth she was carried off to A ttica by Theseus and Pirithous, but rescued by her brothers Castor and Pollux. Among her suitors were the most celebrated princes of the age, but she ultimately became the wife of Mene-laus, King of Lacedaemon. After three years of happiness, Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy, came on a visit to the court of Menelaus, and persuaded Helen to follow hiqi to Troy. To avenge this outrage the Trojan war was begun.

When Paris was killed, in the ninth year of the war, she married Deiphobus, but afterwards betrayed him in order to regain the favour of Menelaus, which she succeeded in doing, and remained with him until his death. Of her own fate there are numerous varying accounts.

Helenus, son of Priam and Hecuba, famous for his prophetic powers, who deserted from the Trojans to the Greeks. After the Trojan war he settled in Epirus and married Andromache.

Helicon, a range of mountains in Bceotia, sacred to Apollo and the Muses.

Helius, or Sol, the god of the sun, who daily drove his four-horsed chariot across the sky.

Helle. (See Athamas.)

Hephaestus, the Greek name for Vulcan.

Hera, the Greek name for Juno.

Heraclidae, the name given to the descendants of Hercules, who were said to have led the Dorians in the invasion of Peloponnesus.

Hercules (Greek, Heracles), son of Jupiter and Alcmena, is the personification of physical strength, and the most wonderful stories are related of his exploits. Even while in his cradle he strangled two serpents which Juno had sent to destroy him. At eighteen he killed the lion of Mount Cithaeon. Afterwards, having been rendered mad by Juno, he killed his own children and those of his brother, and on recovering was so plunged in grief that he exiled himself and went to consult the oracle of Apollo at Adelphi. He was commanded to serve Eurystheus for twelve years, during which period he was to perform twelve “ labours.” The gods equipped him for his tasks and he carried them through successfully. The first was to kill the lion of Nemea, which he choked to death; the second was to destroy the seven-headed Lemean hydra, which he killed with his club of brass, the gift of Vulcan; _ 'The llllli*1Wkk U)-TAi')ltne the Al'CadMn stag, ’ which he caught in a trap; the fourth to destroy the wild boar of Erymanthus; the fifth, to clean the Augean stables; sixth, to kill the carnivorous birds of Stymphalis; seventh, to capture the wild bull of Crete; eighth, to capture the mares of Diomedes; ninth, to obtain the girdle of the Queen of the Amazons; tenth, to capture the oxen of Geryon; eleventh, to obtain some golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides; and twelfth, to bring to earth Cerberus, the three-headed dog of Hades. He was now free from service to Eurystheus and returned to Thebes. He married Deianira, daughter of (Eneus of Calydon, and when Nessus, a Centaur, tried to outrage her, Hercules shot him with a poisoned arrow. The dying Nessus told Deianira to keep his blood, as it would always preserve her husband’s love. Later, fearing that she was being supplanted by Iole, Deianira sent Hercules a garment soaked in the blood of Nessus, and it poisoned him. On his death he was carried to Olympus and endowed with immortality.

Hermes, Greek name for Mercury.

Hero and Leander. (See Leander.)

Hesperides, the three daughters of Atlas and Hesperis, appointed to protect the golden apples which Earth gave to Juno at her marriage to Jupiter. The hundred-headed dragon, Ladon, was always on guard at the foot of the tree, but was slain by Hercules when he seized the apples.

Hesperus, the evening star.

Hippocrene, a fountain at the foot of Mount Helicon, originally set flowing by the ground being struck by the hoofs of Pegasus, the winged horse. It was dedicated to the Muses.

Hippolytus, son of Theseus, who was accused by Phaedra, his stepmother, of attempting to dishonour her. He was accordingly cursed by Theseus and killed in his chariot through the agency of Neptune, but his innocence was later discovered, and Phaedra slew herself.

Horatius, a Roman who, with two others, defended the bridge over the Tiber against the whole Etruscan army while the citizens were cutting it down. When the bridge was destroyed he sprang fnto the river and swam safely back.

Hyacinthus, a beautiful youth, killed by accident by Apollo while playing quoits. From his blood sprang the hyacinth.

Hydra, a monster of seven or more heads, each of

which grew again when cut off. It was killed by Hercules.

Hygeia, the goddess of health.

and Vulcan. She aided the Greeks iu the Trojairwuf.*"

Jupiter (Greek Zeus), son of Saturn and Rhea, was the lord of heaven and presumed father of gods and men. He was brought up in a cave on Mount Ida to hide him from his father, who had eaten the rest of his children, and while a child conquered the Titans. Thus he became master of the world, and after giving the empire of the sea to Neptune, and that of the infernal regions to Pluto, installed himself king of heaven. The story of his adventures and amours occupies a chief part of the mythological legends, and are referred to under the distinctive names of the personages or places concerned. He is usually depicted seated on a throne, with thunderbolts in one hand ready to be hurled against his enemies, and a sceptre of cypress in the other, and wearing a wreath of olive or myrtle.

Hylas, a beautiful youth loved by Hercules, whom he accompanied on the Argo. When on shore drawing water he was carried off by the Naiads.

Hyllus, son of Hercules and Deianira.

Hymen, the god of marriage.

Hyperion, one of the Titans, was father by Thea of the Sun (Helios), the Moon (Selene), and the Dawn (Eos). His father was Heaven (Uranus), his mother Earth (Ge).

Icarus. (See Daedalus.)

Io, a princess of Argos, whom Jupiter loved and changed into a heifer for fear of Juno. But Juno was aware of the change and put Argus to watch Io. When Argus was killed by Mercury Juno tormented the animal with a gadfly from place to place until she reached the Nile, where Io recovered her form and bore a son to Jupiter.

Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytem-nestra. At the outbreak of the Trojan War it was proclaimed by the priest of Apollo that the wrath of the gods, aroused by the killing of the sacred stag by Agamemnon, could not be appeased except by the sacrifice of Iphigenia, and contrary winds detained the fleets until this was performed. Just as the knife of the priest was uplifted, Artemis carried off Iphigenia to Tauris, and a goat that appeared in her place was immolated instead of her. The Greeks then proceeded against Troy. Iphigenia became a priestess, and was afterwards instrumental in saving the life of her brother Orestes when he was about to be sacrificed.

Lachesis. (See Parcse.)

Laertes, King of Ithaca and father of Ulysses.

Laocoon, priest of Apollo, and son of Priam. For the part he took in opposing the entrance into Troy of the wooden horse of the Greeks, Minerva caused two gigantic serpents to issue from the sea and engage Laocoon’s two sons in their toils. The father rushed to the rescue of his sons, and the next moment all three were in the grasp of the serpents, and were crushed to death.

Laodainia, wife of Protesilaus, in answer to whose prayers her husbandwas restoredto life for three hours. When he died a second time, Laodamia died with him.

Laomedon, father of Priam, for whom Neptune built the walls of Troy. Laomedon refused to give the promised reward, so Neptune sent a monster to plague the city. It was killed by Hercules, but when Laomedon again broke his word, he was slain by the hero.

Lapithae. (See Pirithous.)

Lares, the spirits of dead ancestors, who watched over a house.

Latona, or Leto, daughter of a Titan, loved by Jupiter and persecuted by Juno. She wandered from place to place till Jupiter gave her a refuge on Delos, where she bore him Apollo and Diana.

Leander, a youth of Abydos, who swam nightly across the Hellespont to visit Hero, a priestess in Sestos, guided by a lamp which Hero hung out from a tower. The light being blown out one wild night Leander lost his wajrand was drowned, on discovering which Hero threw herself into the sea.

Leda, wife of Tyndarus, king of Sparta, who was loved by Jupiter in the form of a swan, and brought forth two eggs, from one of which sprang Helen, and from the other Castor and Pollux.

[ Iris, messenger of the gods and goddess of the rainbow.

Ixion, king of Thessaly, and husband of Dia, to whose father Deioneus he promised a valuable gift, but being unable to obtain the gift, he put his father-in-law to death to get out of his promise. Jupiter, after a long period of expiation, summoned hfm to Olympus and placed him at the table of the gods. Afterwards Ixion began to make love to Juno, but Jupiter substituted a cloud of the shape of the goddess, and from this the Centaurs were born. Then as a punishment Ixion wras condemned to be bound to a fiery wheel that never ceased to roll through Hades.

Janus, an old Italian god with two faces, facing opposite ways. He was the god of doors, because every door looks both ways. He had a temple at Rome that was open in time of war and closed during peace.

Jason, son of iEson and Alcimede. When iEson was driven from the throne of Ioleus by his half-brother Pelias, Jason was saved and brought up by the Centaur Chiron. When

grown up he demanded his father’s kingdom, JLff

and Pelias promised to hand it over if Jason. would bring him the Golden Fleece {seel Mars (Greek Ares), the god of war, son of Jupiter Athamas) which was kept by King Acetes of and Juno, and lover of Venus.

Colchis in the custody of a dragon. Accordingly Medea. (See Jason.)

Jason gathered a band of heroes and set out in the ship Argo. Acetes agreed to surrender the Fleece if Jason would perform various seemingly impossible feats—yoking the fire-breathing oxen and sowing the dragon’s teeth. Medea, daughter of Acetes fell in love with him, and with her aid he performed the tasks and returned home with the Fleece, taking Medea with him. Medea then tricked the daughters of Pelias into killing their father. For a time Jason and Medea lived happily, but then Jason deserted her for Glauce or Creusa, whereupon Medea killed her children by Jason, sent Glauce a poisoned garment which burned her up, and fled to Athens. Jason slew him--■ self in grief. ^

Medusa, one of the Gorgons, killed by Perseus, whose face turned the gazer to stone.

Meleager, son of (Eneus, king of JStolia, and Althaea, was one of the Argonauts, and led the chase after the Calydonian boar* It had been decreed by the Fates that he should live as long as a certain firebrand should not be burned up, and his mother snatched the brand from the fire and jealously guarded it. When Althaea heard of Meleager’s slaying of the boar she went to the temple to return thanks, but on the way she saw the bodies of her brothers whom Meleager had slain because they protested against the skin being given to Atalanta. This so incensed Althaea that she cast the fatal firebrand on the fire, and when it was consumed Meleager died.

^Melpomene. (See Muses.)

Menelaus, king of Sparta and brother of Aga-I memnon, was the husband of Helen, and after I she left him for Paris, he entered upon the I Trojan war, in which he bore himself with great / bravery. After the war he forgave Helen and

Juno (Greek Hera), daughter of Saturn and Rhea^ sister and wife of Jupiter, and queen of heaven. She was an exacting and jealous wife, and avenged herself with severity upon the numerous mortal maidens of whom Jupiter became enamoured as well as upon their offspring. She was the mother of Mars, Hebe, Lucinia,

Definition of medieval

The adjective medieval literally means “of the Middle Ages,” i.e., the period between antiquity (the Roman world) and the early modern era 

Common chronological range

Historians most often treat the Middle Ages as roughly the 5th century to the 15th century: from the collapse of the Western Roman Empire (commonly dated 476) up to the Renaissance and early modern transitions around 1400–1500 

Standard subperiods and their usual dates

• Early Middle Ages: about 500–1000.
• High Middle Ages: about 1000–1300.
• Late Middle Ages: about 1300–1500.
  These are conventional labels; exact boundaries vary by region and by the historian’s focus 

What authors usually mean when they write “medieval”

• Broad cultural sense: the social, political, religious, and material world shaped by feudal institutions, Christendom, and post‑Roman societies in Europe between Late Antiquity and the Renaissance 
• In specialised works an author may narrow the term (for example, “medieval urban law” might mean 1100–1400), so check the author’s period definition in introductions or captions 

Origin and first use of the word

The English term derives from Latin medium aevum “middle age.” The modern English adjective (often spelled mediaeval earlier) was coined in the 19th century from that Latin phrase; recorded modern forms date from the early 1800s (commonly cited 1825 for the form medieval/mediaeval) 

Quick guidance for reading historical scripts

When you encounter “medieval” in a text, assume 5th–15th centuries unless the author states otherwise; for precise work always look for the author’s explicit chronological scope because usages and boundary years differ by topic and region 

Bronze Age time boundaries overview

The Bronze Age is a cultural-technical phase defined by the pervasive use of bronze (an alloy of copper with tin or arsenic), alongside associated changes in technology, trade, burial practice, and social organisation. Its absolute dates vary widely by region because metallurgy and associated cultural changes spread at different times. Below are commonly used regional ranges and practical guidance for tagging or labelling gazetteer entries.

Common regional date ranges

• Near East and Anatolia
  Early Bronze Age: c. 3300–2100 BCE; Middle Bronze Age: c. 2100–1600 BCE; Late Bronze Age: c. 1600–1200 BCE.
• Aegean (Greece and Cyclades)
  Early Bronze Age: c. 3000–2000 BCE; Middle Bronze Age: c. 2000–1600 BCE; Late Bronze Age: c. 1600–1100 BCE.
• Central and Western Europe
  Broad Bronze Age: c. 2300–800 BCE; subdivided (Early/Middle/Late) roughly as Early c. 2300–1500 BCE, Middle c. 1500–1200 BCE, Late c. 1200–800 BCE.
• British Isles (including Devon and Cornwall)
  Broad Bronze Age: c. 2500–800 BCE; Early Bronze Age often starts c. 2500–2000 BCE (after Late Neolithic/Beaker horizons), Late Bronze Age ends c. 800 BCE.
• South Asia (Indian subcontinent)
  Indus-related Bronze Age/Harappan: c. 3300–1300 BCE (mature Harappan c. 2600–1900 BCE); local Bronze-using traditions continue and overlap with early Iron use.
• East Asia
  Bronze Age in China: roughly c. 2000–771 BCE (Xia-Shang-Zhou sequences; Shang c. 1600–1046 BCE is strongly bronze-rich).
• The Americas and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa
  No true widespread Bronze Age phase comparable to Old World sequences; metallurgy often appears much later and in different forms.

Practical guidance for mapping and gazetteer work

• Use region-specific ranges rather than a single global boundary.
• For ambiguous or single-site reports, prefer relative labels: Early Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age, or Bronze Age (broad)with a numeric range (e.g., Bronze Age c. 2500–800 BCE).
• Where chronology is uncertain, record both: cultural label(Bronze Age) and confidence/precision(e.g., high if radiocarbon dated; low if typological only).
• Include key local markers in metadata: metallurgy present; Beaker/urnfield/bronze-ritual features; radiocarbon dates range; typology links.
• Allow fields for overlapping phases (e.g., “Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age transitional”) and for caveats like reuse or later disturbance.

Why ranges differ and how to communicate that

• Start and end dates depend on: first local alloy production; availability of tin or copper sources and trade; cultural adoption of bronze technologies; and the arrival of ironworking.
• Use wording that communicates variability: “Bronze Age (regional: c. 2500–800 BCE)”or “Bronze Age — British Isles convention: c. 2500–800 BCE”.
• When precision matters, attach dating evidence: radiocarbon ranges, stratigraphic context, or diagnostic artefact types.

Short recommended labels for database fields

• Period label: Bronze Age
• Region qualifier: e.g., British Isles
• Numeric range: e.g., c. 2500–800 BCE
• Subdivision: Early / Middle / Late (if known)
• Dating confidence: High / Medium / Low
• Dating evidence: Radiocarbon; typology; stratigraphy; historical reference

The suffix ‘ton’ constitutes a sort of test word,” says Mr. Isaac Taylor, “ by which we are able to discriminate the Anglo-Saxon settlements.”1 “A tun or ‘ton ’ was a place
surrounded by a hedge, or rudely fortified by a palisade”

The passage you quoted is part of the author’s argument that Plympton’s name is unmistakably Anglo‑Saxon, and that the key to recognising this lies in the suffix ‑ton. The PDF you have open confirms this discussion in its treatment of early Plympton history .

🏰 What ‑tonActually Signifies

The core point is that ‑ton(Old English tūn) originally meant:

• An enclosed place— literally a fenced or hedged area

• A defended homestead or settlement— often with a palisade

• A farmstead that could grow into a village or manor

So when you see a place‑name ending in ‑ton, you are almost always looking at:

• A Saxon foundation, or

• A Saxon renamingof an older site they took over.

This is why Isaac Taylor calls it a “test word”: it reliably marks Anglo‑Saxon occupation or administrative control.