II.

AUTHORITIES FOR THE EARLIEST HISTORICAL PERIOD.--HERODOTUS.--
ARISTOTLE.--POLYBIUS.--ONOMACRITUS.--DIODORUS SICULUS.--STRABO.--
FESTUS AVIENUS.--ULTIMATE SOURCES.--DAMNONII.--PH[OE]NICIAN TRADE.--
THE ORGIES.--SOUTH-EASTERN BRITONS OF CAESAR.--THE DETAILS OF HIS
ATTACKS.--THE CALEDONIANS OF GALGACUS.

The _extant_ writers anterior to the time of Julius Caesar, in whose
works notice of the British islands are to be found, are, at most, but
four in number. They are all, of course, Greek.

Herodotus is the earliest. He writes "of the extremities of Europe
towards the west, I cannot speak with certainty ... nor am I acquainted
with the islands Cassiterides, from which tin is brought to
us."[3]--iii. 115.

Aristotle is the second. "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules," he tells us,
"the ocean flows round the earth; in this ocean, however, are two
islands, and those very large, called Britannic, Albion and Ierne, which
are larger than those beforementioned, and lie beyond the Celti; and
other two not less than these, Taprobane, beyond the Indians, lying
obliquely in respect of the main land, and that called Phebol, situate
over against the Arabic Gulf; moreover not a few small islands, around
the Britannic Isles and Iberia, encircle as with a diadem this earth;
which we have already said to be an island."--_De Mundo_, Sec.. 3.

Polybius comes next. "Perhaps, indeed, some will inquire why, having
made so long a discourse concerning places in Libya and Iberia, we have
not spoken more fully of the outlet at the Pillars of Hercules, nor of
the interior sea, and of the peculiarities which occur therein, nor yet
indeed of the Britannic Isles, and the working of tin; nor again, of the
gold and silver mines of Iberia; concerning which writers, controverting
each other, have discoursed very largely."--iii. 57.

Lastly come half-a-dozen lines of doubtful antiquity, which the editors
of the "_Monumenta Britannica_" have excluded from their series of
extracts, on the score of their being taken from a non-existent or
impossible author--a bard of no less importance than Orpheus. The ship
Argo is supposed to speak, and say--

"For now by sad and painful trouble
Shall I be encompassed, if I go too near the _Iernian Islands_.
For unless, by bending within the holy headland,
I sail within the bays of the land, and the barren sea,
I shall go outward into the Atlantic Ocean."

An important sen