XIII COMING OF THE "BRITONS" OR ARYAN BRITO-PHOENICIANS UNDER KING BRUTUS-THE-TROJAN TO ALBION ABOUT 1103, B.C. "The Britains almost severed from the came to this island named after him THE historicity of the traditional Ancient British Chronicles which has thus been established in regard to the coming of the Brito-Phoenician king of the Scots, Part-olon, about 400 B.C., to the land of the Picts, by means of his own Newton Stone inscriptions and associated evidence, presumes that the earlier portion of these Chronicles, dealing with the somewhat earlier period, also contains genuine historical tradition. Now this earlier portion of the Chronicles records circumstantially the first arrival of the Britons by sea, in Albion under "King Brut-the-Trojan" about the year 1103 B.C., and his colonization and first civilization of the land, and his bestowal thereon of his "Trojan" (Aryan) language and his own patronymic name "Brit," in the form of "Brit-ain" or "The Land of the Brits or Brit-ons." This tradition, we shall now find, is fully confirmed and established by a mass of new historical facts and associated evidence. These Ancient British Chronicles are nowadays known only through the Latin translations1 made by early British monks, English versions of these by J. Giles and others. Geoffrey's version was first translated into modern English by A. Thompson, Oxford, 1718; and reproduced mostly by Giles. COMING OF ARYAN BRITONS 1103 B.C. 143 Gildas Albanius (fifth century A.D.)1 Nennius (about 822 A.D.)' and Bishop Geoffrey of Monmouth (about 1140 A.D.),' and the Welsh and Irish-Scot fragmentary versions of the same." These Ancient Chronicles are stated by their various editors to have been translated or compiled from earlier versions-" in the (ancient) British tongue" says Geoffrey-which, being presumably on parchment, have now perished. The ancient tradition was thus handed down in writing from generation to generation by the Britons, who, we shall find, were familiar with writing long before their arrival in Britain. And, as usual, it would be modernized from time to time into the vernacular of the period by later transcribers, just as modern writers modernize Chaucer and the early versions of the Arthur Legend. This tradition was universally regarded as genuine history down till about a century ago. The Brut or "Brutus" tradition was current in early Welsh bardic literature and formed a class styled "The Bruts," including Layamon's. And Geoffrey's version was a mine from which our great poets and dramatists have drawn materials and inspiration for many of their romances on British life in the preRoman period, such as Shakespeare's King Lear and Cymbeline. The arbitrary rejection of these traditional Ancient British Chronicles as a source of pre-Roman British History by " 'The title "Gildas " is said to have been borne by two monks, and both princes, sons of King Gawolon or Caw, King of Strathclyde, with capital at Dunbarton. Gil-das" or "Gilli-tasc means" Prince of the Church." (P.A.B. 69). The elder, surnamed Albanus, called his history of Early Britain Cambreis' "" or History of the Cambrias," a title for Britain. Only fragments of it remain. He died at Glastonbury in 512. The younger, surnamed Badonius or "of Bath," wrote a scurrilous and non-trustworthy history commencing only with the Anglo-Saxon period (Ib. 69, etc.). " 'On his date and personality, see P.A.B. 43, etc. Several MSS. are dated 976 A.D. For antiquity of the Nennius tradition before age of Nennius, see H. Zimmer, Nennius Vindicatus, Berlin, 1893; and Mommsen, Mon. German. Hist. Chronica Minora, 3, 14, etc. He became bishop of St. Asaph in 1152. The Irish "Nennius" is ascribed to a British bishop of Ireland named Marcus and dates to 822, see P.A.B. 49, etc. See G.O.C. xi, etc.; S.C.P. clxix, 57, 118, 378, etc. The wide prevalence of the version by Nennius is evident from there being no less than 33 copies of the old MSS. of about the tenth century still existing. modern writers since about a century ago1 is based upon a kind of objection and mere dogmatic assertion which, if applied to early Greek and Roman History and to the Old Testament tradition, would equally entail their total rejection also. The common allegation that there was no higher civilization in Britain before the Roman occupation, and that the Britons were "painted savages roaming wild in the woods" is not supported by any evidence whatever, and certainly not by Cæsar himself, nor by any other authoritative Roman historian. In his remarks upon the people of Britain, based upon his own observations during his few months' campaign in Kent and South Herts, and on what he was told by interpreters, Cæsar describes the people generally as civilized. He states that they were settled agriculturalists, lived under kings, of whom there were no less than four in Kent alone; that "the Kentish men [the only men he passed amongst] were civilized people and their customs are much the same with those of the Gauls "that is to say, a people highly civilized and richly and luxuriously clothed. He also says that Britain " is well peopled and has plenty of buildings much of the fashion of the Gauls, they have infinite store of cattle, make use of gold money, and iron rings which pass by weight, the midland countries produce some tin, and those nearer the sea iron." And many Early British coins have been discovered in France and Belgium attesting pre-Roman Briton international trade. It was only the uncivilized people of the interior-whom he calls the "interiores," and who were, as we have seen, the non-Briton Pictish aborigines-in regard to whom he says that they stain their skins blue and "they seldom trouble themselves with agriculture, living on milk and flesh, and are clad with skins." So universal is this capricious attitude of modern writers, the one following the other often presumably without having examined the texts, that even the editor of the commonest English edition of these Chronicles, Mr. Giles, loses no opportunity in preface and footnotes to disparage his text. ANCIENT BRITON CHARIOTS HITTITE 145 Cæsar also records the high military efficiency of the Briton troops: "the legionary soldiers were not a fit match for such an enemy," and "the enemy's horse and warchariots ... inspired terror into the (Roman) cavalry." And here it is significant to note that the dreaded warchariots of the Briton cavalry (which were peculiar to the Britons and unfamiliar to the Romans), and of which Cassivellaunus, the "Catti," alone retained 4,000 after he disbanded his army were of the same type as those of the Hittites or Catti, as described and sculptured by Ramses II. (c. 1295 B.C.) at the Battle of Kadesh, a port of the Hitto-Phoenicians' (see Fig. 23). FIG. 23.-Hitto-Phoenician War-Chariot as source of Briton War Chariots. (From reliefs of Abydos, after Rosellini, 103.) This unexpected formidable opposition by the civilized Britons, despite the secessions from Cassivelaunus, contrived by the invidious diplomacy of Cæsar, explains why the latter so promptly abandoned his second intended conquest of Britain and retired speedily to Gaul within a few weeks, without 1E.C.B. v, 6. D.B.G. 4.33.2. The popular notion that the Briton War Chariots were armed with scythes has no historical or archæological foundation. Neither Cæsar nor Tacitus mentions such an appendage; nor is such figured on Briton Chariots on coins, and no such scythes exist on War-Chariots which have been found interred with Briton chiefs in their graves, à la Tut-ankh-amen. making any serious attempt at subjugating Britain. And the later Roman occupation of Britain by overwhelming forces, beginning with Claudius in 43 A.D., may perhaps be more justly paralleled to the present political occupation of the Rhine Valley by the allied forces after their “civilized” enemy was hopelessly crippled by superior force, than the mere military occupation of an "uncivilized" country. The objectors to the pre-Roman Civilization in Britainwhose objection merely rests on their credulous acceptance of the dogmatic teaching of some generations of uninformed teachers obsessed with exaggerated notions of Roman influence on Briton-also shut their eyes not only to the inconvenient testimony of the pre-Roman coins of Early Britain, but also to the testimony of the early scientific navigating explorer Pytheas, who, about 350 B.C., or about three centuries before Caesar, circumnavigated Britain and first mapped it out scientifically with latitudes. He was a native of Phocea, north of Smyrna in Asia Minor, and a place-name which is obviously a contraction for "Phœnicia,” as the adjoining sea-port on the headland on the Ægean was called "Phoenice." A colony of his countrymen were settled at Marseilles, engaged in the export tin trade from Cornwall, from which the tin was transported overland through Gaul by pack-animals from a Brittany port to save the dangerous sea-passage by the Bay of Biscay and the Pillars of Hercules. Sailing from Marseilles, presumably to exploit the tin-producing country of Britain, which he calls "Pretanic,"-in series with Aristotle's reference to it, in 340 B-C., as "Britannic " he visited first the Old Phoenician tin export-port of Ictis or St. Michael's Mount in Penzance Bay (see Fig. 24), then, sailing round the west coast, surveying and landing at several places, he eventually reached Shetland (his Thule). He found the people every 'Pytheas is cited as a standard scientific authority by ancient geographers and astronomers from Hipparchus down to Strabo. His original work is lost and only known through extracts by the ancient writers. These were collected by Fuhr, 1835; and are summarized by H.A.B., 217-230. Aristotle, De Mundo, sec. 3," Beyond the Pillars of Hercules is the ocean which flows round the earth. In it are two very large islands called Britannic; these are Albion and Ierne." |