2753 Now Trikeri.
2754 In the present Chapter.
2755 Now Scangero, or Skantzoura, according to Ansart.
2756 Now the Gulf of Saloniki, mentioned in C. 17. The islands here mentioned have apparently not been identified.
2757 Off the coast of Thessaly, now Piperi.
2758 Now Skiathos. It was famous for its wine.
2759 Now called Embro, or Imru. Both the island and city of Imbros are mentioned by Homer.
2760 This is double the actual circumference of the island.
2761 Now called Stalimene.
2762 Its site is now called Palæo Kastro. Hephæstia, or Vulcan’s Town, stood near the modern Rapanidi. That god was said to have fallen into this island when thrown from heaven by Jupiter.
2763 Now Thaso, or Tasso. Its gold mines were in early periods very valuable.
2765 Ansart says that “forty-two” would be the correct reading here, that being also the distance between Samothrace and Thasos.
2766 Its modern name is Samothraki. It was the chief seat of the mysterious worship of the Cabiri.
2767 Only twelve, according to Ansart.
2768 Barely eighteen, according to Brotier.
2769 Now Monte Nettuno. Of course the height here mentioned by Pliny is erroneous; but Homer says that from this mountain Troy could be seen.
2770 Now called Skopelo, if it is the same island which is mentioned by Ptolemy under the name of Scopelus. It exports wine in large quantities.
2771 Or the Fox Island, so called from its first settlers having been directed by an oracle to establish a colony where they should first meet a fox with its cub. Like many others of the islands here mentioned, it appears not to have been identified.
2773 None of these islands appear to have been identified by modern geographers.
2774 Now generally known as the Palus Mæotis or Sea of Azof.
2775 The modern Caraboa, according to Brotier, stands on its site. Priapus was the tutelary divinity of Lampsacus in this vicinity.
2776 Or “entrance of Pontus”; now the Sea of Marmora.
2777 “Ox Ford,” or “passage of the cow,” Io being said to have crossed it in that form: now called the “Straits of Constantinople.”
2778 Said to have been called ἄξενος or “inhospitable,” from its frequent storms and the savage state of the people living on its shores. In later times, on the principle of Euphemism, or abstaining from words of ill omen, its name was changed to εὔξεινος, “hospitable.”
2779 This was a favourite comparison of the ancients; the north coast, between the Thracian Bosporus and the Phasis, formed the bow, and the southern shores the string. The Scythian bow somewhat resembled in form the figure Σ, the capital Sigma of the Greeks.
2780 Now the Straits of Kaffa or Enikale.
2781 This town lay about the middle of the Tauric Chersonesus or Crimea, and was situate on a small peninsula, called the Smaller Chersonesus, to distinguish it from the larger one, of which it formed a part. It was founded by the inhabitants of the Pontic Heraclea, or Heracleium, the site of which is unknown. See note 2844 to p. 333.
2782 Now Kertsch, in the Crimea. It derived its name from the river Panticapes; and was founded by the Milesians about B.C. 541. It was the residence of the Greek kings of Bosporus, and hence it was sometimes so called.
2783 “Thirty-six” properly.
2784 The Tanais or Don does not rise in the Riphæan Mountains, or western branch of the Uralian chain, but on slightly elevated ground in the centre of European Russia.
2785 Chap. 18 of the present Book. Istropolis is supposed to be the present Istere, though some would make it to have stood on the site of the present Kostendsje, and Brotier identifies it with Kara-Kerman.
2786 Now called the Schwarzwald or Black Forest. The Danube or Ister rises on the eastern side at the spot called Donaueschingen.
2787 So called from the Raurici, a powerful people of Gallia Belgica, who possessed several towns, of which the most important were Augusta, now Augst, and Basilia, now Bâle.
2788 Only three of these are now considered of importance, as being the main branches of the river. It is looked upon as impossible by modern geographers to identify the accounts given by the ancients with the present channels, by name, as the Danube has undergone in lapse of time, very considerable changes at its mouth. Strabo mentions seven mouths, three being lesser ones.
2789 So called, as stated by Pliny, from the island of Peuce, now Piczina. Peuce appears to have been the most southerly of the mouths.
2790 Now called Kara-Sou, according to Brotier. Also called Rassefu in the maps.
2791 Now called Hazrali Bogasi, according to Brotier. It is called by Ptolemy the Narakian Mouth.
2792 Or the “Beautiful Mouth.” Now Susie Bogasi, according to Brotier.
2793 Or the “False Mouth”: now the Sulina Bogasi, the principal mouth of the Danube, so maltreated by its Russian guardians.
2794 Or the “Passage of the Gnats,” so called from being the resort of swarms of mosquitoes, which were said at a certain time of the year to migrate to the Palus Mæotis. According to Brotier the present name of this island is Ilan Adasi, or Serpent Island.
2795 The “Northern Mouth”: near the town of Kilia.
2796 Or the “Narrow Mouth.”
2797 Though Strabo distinguishes the Getæ from the Daci, most of the ancient writers, with Pliny, speak of them as identical. It is not known, however, why the Getæ in later times assumed the name of Daci.
2798 “Dwellers in waggons.” These were a Sarmatian tribe who wandered with their waggons along the banks of the Volga. The chief seats of the Aorsi, who seem in reality to have been a distinct people from the Hamaxobii, was in the country between the Tanais, the Euxine, the Caspian, and the Caucasus.
2799 “Dwellers in Caves.” This name appears to have been given to various savage races in different parts of the world.
2800 There were races of the Alani in Asia on the Caucasus, and in Europe on the Mæotis and the Euxine; but their precise geographical position is not clearly ascertained.
2801 The present Transylvania and Hungary.
2802 The name given in the age of Pliny to the range of mountains extending around Bohemia, and through Moravia into Hungary.
2803 Its ruins are still to be seen on the south bank of the Danube near Haimburg, between Deutsch-Altenburg and Petronell. The Roman fleet of the Danube, with the 14th legion, was originally established there.
2804 In Pliny’s time this migratory tribe seems to have removed to the plains between the Lower Theiss and the mountains of Transylvania, from which places they had expelled the Dacians.
2805 The Lower Theiss.
2806 Now the river Mark, Maros, or Morava.
2807 The name of the two streams now known as the Dora Baltea and Dora Riparia, both of which fall into the Po. This passage appears to be in a mutilated state.
2808 A chief of the Quadi; who, as we learn from Tacitus, was made king of the Suevi by Germanicus, A.D. 19. Being afterwards expelled by his nephews Vangio and Sido, he received from the emperor Claudius a settlement in Pannonia. Tacitus gives the name of Suevia to the whole of the east of Germany from the Danube to the Baltic.
2809 According to Hardouin, Pliny here speaks of the other side of the mountainous district called Higher Hungary, facing the Danube and extending from the river Theiss to the Morava.
2810 This, according to Sillig, is the real meaning of a desertis here, the distance being measured from the Danube, and not between the Vistula and the wilds of Sarmatia. The reading “four thousand” is probably corrupt, but it seems more likely than that of 404 miles, adopted by Littré, in his French translation.
2811 Placed by Forbiger near Lake Burmasaka, or near Islama.
2812 The Dniester. The mountains of Macrocremnus, or the “Great Heights,” seem not to have been identified.
2813 According to Hardouin, the modern name of this island is Tandra.
2814 Now called the Teligul, east of the Tyra or Dniester.
2815 Now called Sasik Beregen, according to Brotier.
2816 The modern Gulf of Berezen, according to Brotier.
2817 Probably the modern Okzakow.
2818 The modern Dnieper. It also retains its ancient name of Borysthenes.
2819 We learn from Strabo that the name of this town was Olbia, and that from being founded by the Milesians, it received the name of Miletopolis. According to Brotier, the modern Zapurouski occupies its site, between the mouths of the river Buzuluk.
2820 This was adjacent to the strip of land called “Dromos Achilleos,” or the ‘race-course of Achilles.’ It is identified by geographers with the little island of Zmievoi or Oulan Adassi, the ‘Serpents Island.’ It was said that it was to this spot that Thetis transported the body of Achilles. By some it was made the abode of the shades of the blest, where Achilles and other heroes of fable were the judges of the dead.
2821 A narrow strip of land N.W. of the Crimea and south of the mouth of the Dnieper, running nearly due west and east. It is now divided into two parts called Kosa Tendra and Kosa Djarilgatch. Achilles was said to have instituted games here.
2822 According to Hardouin, the Siraci occupied a portion of the present Podolia and Ukraine, and the Tauri the modern Bessarabia.
2823 According to Herodotus, this region, called Hylæa, lay to the east of the Borysthenes. It seems uncertain whether there are now any traces of this ancient woodland; some of the old maps however give the name of the “Black Forest” to this district. From the statements of modern travellers, the woody country does not commence till the river Don has been reached. The district of Hylæa has been identified by geographers with the great plain of Janboylouk in the steppe of the Nogai.
2824 For Enœchadlæ, Hardouin suggests that we should read Inde Hylæi, “hence the inhabitants are called by the name of Hylæi.”
2825 The Panticapes is usually identified with the modern Somara, but perhaps without sufficient grounds. It is more probably the Kouskawoda.
2826 The Nomades or wandering, from the Georgi or agricultural Scythians.
2827 The Acesinus does not appear to have been identified by modern geographers.
2828 Above called Olbiopolis or Miletopolis.
2829 The Bog or Boug. Flowing parallel with the Borysthenes or Dnieper, it discharged itself into the Euxine at the town of Olbia, at no great distance from the mouth of the Borysthenes.
2830 Probably meaning the mouth or point at which the river discharges itself into the sea.
2831 The modern Gulf of Negropoli or Perekop, on the west side of the Chersonesus Taurica or Crimea.
2832 Forming the present isthmus of Perekop, which divides the Sea of Perekop from the Sea of Azof.
2833 Called by Herodotus Hypacyris, and by later writers Carcinites. It is generally supposed to be the same as the small stream now known as the Kalantchak.
2834 Hardouin says that the city of Carcine has still retained its name, but changed its site. More modern geographers however are of opinion that nothing can be determined with certainty as to its site. Of the site also of Navarum nothing seems to be known.
2835 Or Buces or Byce. This is really a gulf, almost enclosed, at the end of the Sea of Azof. Strabo gives a more full description of it under the name of the Sapra Limnè, “the Putrid Lake,” by which name it is still called, in Russian, Sibaché or Sivaché Moré. It is a vast lagoon, covered with water when an east wind blows the water of the Sea of Azof into it, but at other times a tract of slime and mud, sending forth pestilential vapours.
2836 It is rather a ridge of sand, that almost separates it from the waters of the gulf.
2837 This river has not been identified by modern geographers.
2838 According to Herodotus the Gerrhus or Gerrus fell into the Hypacaris; which must be understood to be, not the Kalantchak, but the Outlouk. It is probably now represented by the Moloschnijawoda, which forms a shallow lake or marsh at its mouth.
2839 It is most probable that the Pacyris, mentioned above, the Hypacaris, and the Carcinites, were various names for the same river, generally supposed, as stated above, to be the small stream of Kalantchak.
2840 Now the Crimea.
2841 It does not appear that the site of any of these cities has been identified. Charax was a general name for a fortified town.
2842 Mentioned again by Pliny in B. vi. c. 7. Solinus says that in order to repel avarice, the Satarchæ prohibited the use of gold and silver.
2843 On the site of the modern Perekop, more commonly called Orkapi.
2844 Or Chersonesus of the Heracleans. The town of Kosleve or Eupatoria is supposed to stand on its site.
2845 After the conquest of Mithridates, when the whole of these regions fell into the hands of the Romans.
2846 The modern Felenk-burun. So called from the Parthenos or Virgin Diana or Artemis, whose temple stood on its heights, in which human sacrifices were offered to the goddess.
2847 Supposed to be the same as the now-famed port of Balaklava.
2848 The modern Aia-burun, the great southern headland of the Crimea. According to Plutarch, it was called by the natives Brixaba, which, like the name Criumetopon, meant the “Ram’s Head.”
2849 Now Kerempi, a promontory of Paphlagonia in Asia Minor. Strabo considers this promontory and that of Criumetopon as dividing the Euxine into two seas.
2850 According to Strabo, the sea-line of the Tauric Chersonesus, after leaving the port of the Symboli, extended 125 miles, as far as Theodosia. Pliny would here seem to make it rather greater.
2851 The modern Kaffa occupies its site. The sites of many of the places here mentioned appear not to be known at the present day.
2852 The modern Kertsch, situate on a hill at the very mouth of the Cimmerian Bosporus, or Straits of Enikale or Kaffa, opposite the town of Phanagoria in Asia.
2853 In C. 24 of the present Book. Clark identifies the town of Cimmerium with the modern Temruk, Forbiger with Eskikrimm. It is again mentioned in B. vi. c. 2.
2854 He alludes here, not to the Strait so called, but to the Peninsula bordering upon it, upon which the modern town of Kertsch is situate, and which projects from the larger Peninsula of the Crimea, as a sort of excrescence on its eastern side.
2855 Probably Hermes or Mercury was its tutelar divinity: its site appears to be unknown.
2856 Probably meaning the Straits or passage connecting the Lake Mæotis with the Euxine. The fertile district of the Cimmerian Bosporus was at one time the granary of Greece, especially Athens, which imported thence annually 400,000 medimni of corn.
2857 A town so called on the Isthmus of Perekop, from a τάφρος or trench, which was cut across the isthmus at this point.
2858 Lomonossov, in his History of Russia, says that these people were the same as the Sclavoni: but that one meaning of the name ‘Slavane’ being “a boaster,” the Greeks gave them the corresponding appellation of Auchetæ, from the word αὐχὴ, which signifies “boasting.”
2859 Of the Geloni, called by Virgil “picti,” or “painted,” nothing certain seems to be known: they are associated by Herodotus with the Budini, supposed to belong to the Slavic family by Schafarik. In B. iv. c. 108, 109, of his History, Herodotus gives a very particular account of the Budini, who had a city built entirely of wood, the name of which was Gelonus. The same author also assigns to the Geloni a Greek origin.
2860 The Agathyrsi are placed by Herodotus near the upper course of the river Maris, in the S.E. of Dacia or the modern Transylvania. Pliny however seems here to assign them a different locality.
2861 Also called “Assedones” and “Issedones.” It has been suggested by modern geographers that their locality must be assigned to the east of Ichim, on the steppe of the central horde of the Kirghiz, and that of the Arimaspi on the northern declivity of the chain of the Altaï.
2862 Now the Don.
2863 Most probably these mountains were a western branch of the Uralian chain.
2864 From the Greek πτεροφορὸς, “wing-bearing” or “feather-bearing.”
2865 This legendary race was said to dwell in the regions beyond Boreas, or the northern wind, which issued from the Riphæan mountains, the name of which was derived from ῥιπαὶ or “hurricanes” issuing from a cavern, and which these heights warded off from the Hyperboreans and sent to more southern nations. Hence they never felt the northern blasts, and enjoyed a life of supreme happiness and undisturbed repose. “Here,” says Humboldt, “are the first views of a natural science which explains the distribution of heat and the difference of climates by local causes—by the direction of the winds—the proximity of the sun, and the action of a moist or saline principle.”—Asie Centrale, vol. i.
2866 Pindar says, in the “Pythia,” x. 56, “The Muse is no stranger to their manners. The dances of girls and the sweet melody of the lyre and pipe resound on every side, and wreathing their locks with the glistening bay, they feast joyously. For this sacred race there is no doom of sickness or of disease; but they live apart from toil and battles, undisturbed by the exacting Nemesis.”
2867 Hardouin remarks that Pomponius Mela, who asserts that the sun rises here at the vernal and sets at the autumnal equinox, is right in his position, and that Pliny is incorrect in his assertion. The same commentator thinks that Pliny can have hardly intended to censure Mela, to whose learning he had been so much indebted for his geographical information, by applying to him the epithet “imperitus,” ‘ignorant’ or ‘unskilled’; he therefore suggests that the proper reading here is, “ut non imperiti dixere,” “as some by no means ignorant persons have asserted.”
2868 The Attacori are also mentioned in B. vi. c. 20.
2869 Sillig omits the word “non” here, in which case the reading would be, “Those writers who place them anywhere but, &c.;” it is difficult to see with what meaning.
2871 These islands, or rather rocks, are now known as Fanari, and lie at the entrance of the Straits of Constantinople.
2872 From σὺν and πληγὴ, “a striking together.” Tournefort has explained the ancient story of these islands running together, by remarking that each of them consists of one craggy island, but that when the sea is disturbed the water covers the lower parts, so as to make the different points of each resemble isolated rocks. They are united to the mainland by a kind of isthmus, and appear as islands only when it is inundated in stormy weather.
2873 Upon which the city of Apollonia (now Sizeboli), mentioned in C. 18 of the present Book, was situate.
2874 So called because it was dedicated by Lucullus in the Capitol. It was thirty cubits in height.
2876 Mentioned in the last Chapter as the “Island of Achilles.”
2877 From the Greek μακαρῶν, “(The island) of the Blest.” It was also called the “Island of the Heroes.”
2878 Meaning all the inland or Mediterranean seas.
2879 As the whole of Pliny’s description of the northern shores of Europe is replete with difficulties and obscurities, we cannot do better than transcribe the learned remarks of M. Parisot, the Geographical Editor of Ajasson’s Edition, in reference to this subject. He says, “Before entering on the discussion of this portion of Pliny’s geography, let us here observe, once for all, that we shall not remark as worthy of our notice all those ridiculous hypotheses which could only take their rise in ignorance, precipitation, or a love of the marvellous. We shall decline then to recognize the Doffrefelds in the mountains of Sevo, the North Cape in the Promontory of Rubeas, and the Sea of Greenland in the Cronian Sea. The absurdity of these suppositions is proved by—I. The impossibility of the ancients ever making their way to these distant coasts without the aid of large vessels, the compass, and others of those appliances, aided by which European skill finds the greatest difficulty in navigating those distant seas. II. The immense lacunæ which would be found to exist in the descriptions of these distant seas and shores: for not a word do we find about those numerous archipelagos which are found scattered throughout the North Sea, not a word about Iceland, nor about the numberless seas and fiords on the coast of Norway. III. The absence of all remarks upon the local phænomena of these spots. The North Cape belongs to the second polar climate, the longest day there being two months and a half. Is it likely that navigators would have omitted to mention this remarkable phænomenon, well known to the Romans by virtue of their astronomical theories, but one with which practically they had never made themselves acquainted?—The only geographers who here merit our notice are those who are of opinion that in some of the coasts or islands here mentioned Pliny describes the Scandinavian Peninsula, and in others the Coast of Finland. The first question then is, to what point Pliny first carries us? It is evident that from the Black Sea he transports himself on a sudden to the shores of the Baltic, thus passing over at a single leap a considerable space filled with nations and unknown deserts. The question then is, what line has he followed? Supposing our author had had before his eyes a modern map, the imaginary line which he would have drawn in making this transition would have been from Odessa to the Kurisch-Haff. In this direction the breadth across Europe is contracted to a space, between the two seas, not more than 268 leagues in length. A very simple mode of reasoning will conclusively prove that Pliny has deviated little if anything from this route. If he fails to state in precise terms upon what point of the shores of the Baltic he alights after leaving the Riphæan mountains, his enumeration of the rivers which discharge themselves into that sea, and with which he concludes his account of Germany, will supply us with the requisite information, at all events in great part. In following his description of the coast, we find mention made of the following rivers, the Guttalus, the Vistula, the Elbe, the Weser, the Ems, the Rhine, and the Meuse. The five last mentioned follow in their natural order, from east to west, as was to be expected in a description starting from the east of Europe for its western extremity and the shores of Cadiz. We have a right to conclude then that the Guttalus was to the east of the Vistula. As we shall now endeavour to show, this river was no other than the Alle, a tributary of the Pregel, which the Romans probably, in advancing from west to east, considered as the principal stream, from the circumstance that they met with it, before coming to the larger river. The Pregel after being increased by the waters of the Alle or Guttalus falls into the Frisch-Haff, about one degree further west than the Kurisch-Haff. It may however be here remarked, Why not find a river more to the east, the Niemen, for instance, or the Duna, to be represented by the Guttalus? The Niemen in especial would suit in every respect equally well, because it discharges itself into the Kurisch-Haff. This conjecture however is incapable of support, when we reflect that the ancients were undoubtedly acquainted with some points of the coast to the east of the mouth of the Guttalus, but which, according to the system followed by our author, would form part of the Continent of Asia. These points are, 1st. The Cape Lytarmis (mentioned by Pliny, B. vi. c. 4). 2ndly. The mouth of the river Carambucis (similarly mentioned by him), and 3rdly, a little to the east of Cape Lytarmis, the mouth of the Tanais. The name of Cape Lytarmis suggests to us Lithuania, and probably represents Domess-Ness in Courland; the Carambucis can be no other than the Niemen; while the Tanais, upon which so many authors, ancient and modern, have exhausted their conjectures, from confounding it with the Southern Tanais which falls into the Sea of Azof, is evidently the same as the Dwina or Western Duna. This is established incontrovertibly both by its geographical position (the mouth of the Dwina being only fifty leagues to the east of Domess-Ness) and the identity evidently of the names Dwina and Tanais. Long since, Leibnitz was the first to remark the presence of the radical T. n, or D. n, either with or without a vowel, in the names of the great rivers of Eastern Europe; Danapris or Dnieper, Danaster or Dniester, Danube (in German Donau, in Hungarian Duna), Tanais or Don, for example; all which rivers however discharge themselves into the Black Sea. There can be little doubt then of the identity of the Duna with the Tanais, it being the only body of water in these vast countries which bears a name resembling the initial Tan, or Tn, and at the same time belongs to the basin of the Baltic. We are aware, it is true, that the White Sea receives a river Dwina, which is commonly called the Northern Dwina, but there can be no real necessity to be at the trouble of combating the opinion that this river is identical with the Northern Tanais. As the result then of our investigations, it is at the eastern extremity of the Frisch-Haff and near the mouth of the Pregel, that we would place the point at which Pliny sets out. As for the Riphæan mountains, they have never existed anywhere but in the head of the geographers from whom our author drew his materials. From the mountains of Ural and Poias, which Pliny could not possibly have in view, seeing that they lie in a meridian as eastern as the Caspian Sea, the traveller has to proceed 600 leagues to the south-west without meeting with any chains of mountains or indeed considerable elevations.”
2880 It is pretty clear that he refers to the numerous islands scattered over the face of the Baltic Sea, such as Dago, Oesel, Gothland, and Aland.
2881 The old reading here was Bannomanna, which Dupinet would translate by the modern Bornholm. Parisot considers that the modern Runa, a calcareous rock covered with vegetable earth, in the vicinity of Domess-Ness, is the place indicated.
2882 It has been suggested by Brotier that Pliny here refers to the Icy Sea, but it is more probable that he refers to the north-eastern part of the Baltic, which was looked upon by the ancients us forming part of the open sea.
2883 With reference to these divisions of land and sea, a subject which is involved in the greatest obscurity, Parisot states it as his opinion that the Amalchian or Icy Sea is that portion of the Baltic which extends from Cape Rutt to Cape Grinea, while on the other hand the Cronian Sea comprehends all the gulfs which lie to the east of Cape Rutt, such as the Haff, the gulfs of Stettin and Danzic, the Frisch-Haff, and the Kurisch-Haff. He also thinks that the name of ‘Cronian’ originally belonged only to that portion of the Baltic which washes the coast of Courland, but that travellers gradually applied the term to the whole of the sea. He is also of opinion that the word “Cronium” owes its origin to the Teutonic and Danish adjective groen or “green.” The extreme verdure which characterizes the islands of the Danish archipelago has given to the piece of water which separates the islands of Falster and Moen the name of Groensund, and it is far from improbable that the same epithet was given to the Pomeranian and Prussian Seas, which the Romans would be not unlikely to call ‘Gronium’ or ‘Cronium fretum,’ or ‘Cronium mare.’ In the name ‘Parapanisus’ he also discovers a resemblance to that of modern Pomerania.
2884 Upon this Parisot remarks that on leaving Cape Rutt, at a distance of about twenty-five leagues in a straight line, we come to the island of Funen or Fyen, commonly called Fionia, the most considerable of the Danish archipelago next to Zealand, and which lying between the two Belts, the Greater and the Smaller, may very probably from that circumstance have obtained the name of Baltia. Brotier takes Baltia to be no other than Nova Zembla—so conflicting are the opinions of commentators!
2885 Parisot suggests that under this name may possibly lie concealed that of the modern island of Zealand or Seeland, and that it may have borne on the side of it next to the Belt the name of Baltseeland, easily corrupted by the Greeks into Basilia.
2886 Brotier takes these to be the islands of Aloo, and Bieloi or Ostrow, at the mouth of the river Paropanisus, which he considers to be the same as the Obi. Parisot on the other hand is of opinion that islands of the Baltic are here referred to; that from the resemblance of the name Oönæ to the Greek ὠὸν, “an egg,” the story that the natives subsisted on the eggs of birds was formed; that not improbably the group of the Hippopodes resembled the shape of a horse-shoe, from which the story mentioned by Pliny took its rise; and that the Fanesii (or, as the reading here has it, the Panotii, “all-ears”) wore their hair very short, from which circumstance their ears appeared to be of a larger size than usual.
2887 Tacitus speaks of three great groups of the German tribes, the Ingævones forming the first thereof, and consisting of those which dwelt on the margin of the ocean, the Hermiones in the interior, and the Istævones in the east and south of Germany. We shall presently find that Pliny adds two groups, the Vandili as the fourth, and the Peucini and Basternæ as the fifth. This classification however is thought to originate in a mistake, for Zeuss has satisfactorily shown that the Vandili belonged to the Hermiones, and that Peucini and Basternæ are only names of individual tribes and not of groups of tribes.
2888 Brotier and other geographers are of opinion that by this name the chain of the Doffrefeld mountains is meant; but this cannot be the case if we suppose with Parisot that Pliny here returns south from the Scandinavian islands and takes his departure from Cape Rutt in the territory of the Ingævones. Still, it is quite impossible to say what mountains he would designate under the name of Sevo. Parisot suggests that it is a form of the compound word “seevohner,” “inhabitants of the sea,” and that it is a general name for the elevated lands along the margin of the sea-shore.
2889 Parisot supposes that under this name the isle of Funen is meant, but it is more generally thought that Norway and Sweden are thus designated, as that peninsula was generally looked upon as an island by the ancients. The Codanian Gulf was the sea to the east of the Cimbrian Chersonesus or Jutland, filled with the islands which belong to the modern kingdom of Denmark. It was therefore the southern part of the Baltic.
2890 By Eningia Hardouin thinks that the country of modern Finland is meant. Poinsinet thinks that under the name are included Ingria, Livonia, and Courland; while Parisot seems inclined to be of opinion that under this name the island of Zealand is meant, a village of which, about three-fourths of a league from the western coast, according to him, still bears the name of Heinïnge.
2891 Parisot is of opinion that the Venedi, also called Vinidæ and Vindili, were of Sclavish origin, and situate on the shores of the Baltic. He remarks that this people, in the fifth century, founded in Pomerania, when quitted by the Goths, a kingdom, the chiefs of which styled themselves the Konjucs of Vinland. Their name is also to be found in Venden, a Russian town in the government of Riga, in Windenburg in Courland, and in Wenden in the circle of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg Schwerin.
2892 Parisot remarks that these two peoples were probably only tribes of the Venedi.
2893 Parisot feels convinced that Pliny is speaking here of the Gulf of Travemunde, the island of Femeren, and then of the gulf which extends from that island to Kiel, where the Eider separates Holstein from Jutland. On the other hand, Hardouin thinks that by the Gulf of Cylipenus the Gulf of Riga is meant, and that Latris is the modern island of Oësel. But, as Parisot justly remarks, to put this construction on Pliny’s language is to invert the order in which he has hitherto proceeded, evidently from east to west.
2894 The modern Cape of Skagen on the north of Jutland.
2895 When Drusus held the command in Germany, as we learn from Strabo, B. vii.
2896 It is generally agreed that this is the modern island of Borkhum, at the mouth of the river Amaiius or Ems.
2897 To a bean, from which (faba) the island had its name of Fabaria. In confirmation of this Hardouin states, that in his time there was a tower still standing there which was called by the natives Het boon huys, “the bean house.”
2898 From the word gles or glas, which primarily means ‘glass,’ and then figuratively “amber.” Probably Œland and Gothland. They will be found again mentioned in the Thirtieth Chapter of the present Book. See p. 351.
2899 Now the Scheldt.
2900 In a straight line, of course. Parisot is of opinion that in forming this estimate Agrippa began at the angle formed by the river Piave in lat. 46° 4′, measuring thence to Cape Rubeas (now Rutt) in lat. 54° 25′. This would give 8° 21′, to which, if we add some twenty leagues for obliquity or difference of longitude, the total would make exactly the distance here mentioned.
2901 As Parisot remarks, it is totally impossible to conceive the source of such an erroneous conclusion as this. Some readings make the amount 248, others 268.
2902 As already mentioned, Zeuss has satisfactorily shown that the Vandili or Vindili properly belonged to the Hermiones. Tacitus mentions but three groups of the German nations; the Ingævones on the ocean, the Hermiones in the interior, and the Istævones in the east and south of Germany. The Vandili, a Gothic race, dwelt originally on the northern coast of Germany, but afterwards settled north of the Marcomanni on the Riesengebirge. They subsequently appeared in Dacia and Pannonia, and in the beginning of the fifth century invaded Spain. Under Genseric they passed over into Africa, and finally took and plundered Rome in A.D. 455. Their kingdom was finally destroyed by Belisarius.
2903 It is supposed that the Burgundiones were a Gothic people dwelling in the country between the rivers Viadus and Vistula, though Ammianus Marcellinus declares them to have been of pure Roman origin. How they came into the country of the Upper Maine in the south-west of Germany in A.D. 289, historians have found themselves at a loss to inform us. It is not improbable that the two peoples were not identical, and that the similarity of their name arose only from the circumstance that they both resided in “burgi” or burghs. See Gibbon, iii. 99. Bohn’s Ed.
2904 The Varini dwelt on the right bank of the Albis or Elbe, north of the Langobardi. Ptolemy however, who seems to mention them as the Avarini, speaks of them as dwelling near the sources of the Vistula, on the site of the present Cracow. See Gibbon, iv. 225. Bohn’s Ed.
2905 Nothing whatever is known of the locality of this people.
2906 They are also called in history Gothi, Gothones, Gotones and Gutæ. According to Pytheas of Marseilles (as mentioned by Pliny, B. xxxvii. c. 2), they dwelt on the coasts of the Baltic, in the vicinity of what is now called the Fritsch-Haff. Tacitus also refers to the same district, though he does not speak of them as inhabiting the coast. Ptolemy again speaks of them as dwelling on the east of the Vistula, and to the south of the Venedi. The later form of their name, Gothi, does not occur till the time of Caracalla. Their native name was Gutthinda. They are first spoken of as a powerful nation at the beginning of the third century, when we find them mentioned as ‘Getæ,’ from the circumstance of their having occupied the countries formerly inhabited by the Sarmatian Getæ. The formidable attacks made by this people, divided into the nations of the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, upon the Roman power during its decline, are too well known to every reader of Gibbon to require further notice.
2907 The inhabitants of Chersonesus Cimbrica, the modern peninsula of Jutland. It seems doubtful whether these Cimbri were a Germanic nation or a Celtic tribe, as also whether they were the same race whose numerous hordes successively defeated six Roman armies, and were finally conquered by C. Marius, B.C. 101, in the Campi Raudii. The more general impression, however, entertained by historians, is that they were a Celtic or Gallic and not a Germanic nation. The name is said to have signified “robbers.” See Gibbon, i. 273, iii. 365. Bohn’s Ed.
2908 The Teutoni or Teutones dwelt on the coasts of the Baltic, adjacent to the territory of the Cimbri. Their name, though belonging originally to a single nation or tribe, came to be afterwards applied collectively to the whole people of Germany. See Gibbon, iii. 139. Bohn’s Ed.
2909 Also called Cauchi, Cauci, and Cayci, a German tribe to the east of the Frisians, between the rivers Ems and Elbe. The modern Oldenburg and Hanover are supposed to pretty nearly represent the country of the Chauci. In B. xvi. c. 1. 2, will be found a further account of them by Pliny, who had visited their country, at least that part of it which lay on the sea-coast. They are mentioned for the last time in the third century, when they had extended so far south and west that they are spoken of as living on the banks of the Rhine.
2910 Mentioned by Tacitus as dwelling in the east and south of Germany.
2911 It has been suggested by Titzius that the words “quorum Cimbri,” “to whom the Cimbri belong,” are an interpolation; which is not improbable, or at least that the word “Cimbri” has been substituted for some other name.
2912 This appears to be properly the collective name of a great number of the German tribes, who were of a migratory mode of life, and spoken of in opposition to the more settled tribes, who went under the general name of Ingævones. Cæsar speaks of them as dwelling east of the Ubii and Sygambri, and west of the Cherusci. Strabo makes them extend in an easterly direction beyond the Albis or Elbe, and southerly as far as the sources of the Danube. Tacitus gives the name of Suevia to the whole of the east of Germany, from the Danube to the Baltic. The name of the modern Suabia is derived from a body of adventurers from various German tribes, who assumed the name of Suevi in consequence of their not possessing any other appellation.
2913 A large and powerful tribe of Germany, which occupied the extensive tract of country between the mountains in the north-west of Bohemia and the Roman Wall in the south-west, which formed the boundary of the Agri Decumates. On the east they bordered on the Narisci, on the north-east on the Cherusci, and on the north-west on the Chatti. There is little doubt that they originally formed part of the Suevi. At a later period they spread in a north-easterly direction, taking possession of the north-western part of Bohemia and the country about the sources of the Maine and Saale, that is, the part of Franconia as far as Kissingen and the south-western part of the kingdom of Saxony. The name Hermunduri is thought by some to signify highlanders, and to be a compound of Her or Ar, “high,” and Mund, “man.”
2914 One of the great tribes of Germany, which rose to importance after the decay of the power of the Cherusci. It is thought by ethnographers that their name is still preserved in the word “Hessen.” They formed the chief tribe of the Hermiones here mentioned, and are described by Cæsar as belonging to the Suevi, though Tacitus distinguishes them, and no German tribe in fact occupied more permanently its original locality than the Chatti. Their original abode seems to have extended from the Westerwald in the west to the Saale in Franconia, and from the river Maine in the south as far as the sources of the Elison and the Weser, so that they occupied exactly the modern country of Hessen, including perhaps a portion of the north-west of Bavaria. See Gibbon, vol. iii. 99. Bohn’s Ed.
2915 The Cherusci were the most celebrated of all the German tribes, and are mentioned by Cæsar as of the same importance as the Suevi, from whom they were separated by the Silva Bacensis. There is some difficulty in stating their exact locality, but it is generally supposed that their country extended from the Visurgis or Weser in the west to the Albis or Elbe in the east, and from Melibocus in the north to the neighbourhood of the Sudeti in the south, so that the Chamavi and Langobardi were their northern neighbours, the Chatti the western, the Hermunduri the southern, and the Silingi and Semnones their eastern neighbours. This tribe, under their chief Arminius or Hermann, forming a confederation with many smaller tribes in A.D. 9, completely defeated the Romans in the famous battle of the Teutoburg Forest. In later times they were conquered by the Chatti, so that Ptolemy speaks of them only as a small tribe on the south of the Hartz mountain. Their name afterwards appears, in the beginning of the fourth century, in the confederation of the Franks.
2916 The Peucini are mentioned here, as also by Tacitus, as identical with the Basternæ. As already mentioned, supposing them to be names for distinct nations, they must be taken as only names of individual tribes, and not of groups of tribes. It is generally supposed that their first settlements in Sarmatia were in the highlands between the Theiss and the March, whence they passed onward to the lower Danube, as far as its mouth, where a portion of them, settling in the island of Peuce, obtained the name of Peucini. In the later geographers we find them settled between the Tyrus or Dniester, and the Borysthenes or Dnieper, the Peucini remaining at the mouth of the Danube.
2917 According to Parisot, the Guttalus is the same as the Alle, a tributary of the Pregel. Cluver thinks that it is the same as the Oder. Other writers again consider it the same as the Pregel.
2918 Or Elbe.
2919 Now the Weser.
2920 The modern Ems.
2921 The Meuse.
2922 The ‘Hercynia Silva,’ Hercynian Forest or Range, is very differently described by the writers of various ages. The earliest mention of it is by Aristotle. Judging from the accounts given by Cæsar, Pomponius Mela, and Strabo, the ‘Hercynia Silva’ appears to have been a general name for almost all the mountains of Southern and Central Germany, that is, from the sources of the Danube to Transylvania, comprising the Schwarzwald, Odenwald, Spessart, Rhön, Thuringer Wald, the Hartz mountain (which seems in a great measure to have retained the ancient name), Raube Alp, Steigerwald, Fichtelgebirge, Erzgebirge, and Riesengebirge. At a later period when the mountains of Germany had become better known, the name was applied to the more limited range extending around Bohemia, and through Moravia into Hungary.
2923 This island appears to have been formed by the bifurcation of the Rhine, the northern branch of which enters the sea at Katwyck, a few miles north of Leyden, by the Waal and the course of the Maas, after it has received the Waal, and by the sea. The Waal or Vahalis seems to have undergone considerable changes, and the place of its junction with the Maas may have varied. Pliny makes the island nearly 100 miles in length, which is about the distance from the fort of Schenkenschanz, where the first separation of the Rhine takes place, to the mouth of the Maas. The name of Batavia was no doubt the genuine name, which is still preserved in Betuwe, the name of a district at the bifurcation of the Rhine and the Waal. The Canninefates, a people of the same race as the Batavi, also occupied the island, and as the Batavi seem to have been in the eastern part, it is supposed that the Canninefates occupied the western. They were subdued by Tiberius in the reign of Augustus.
2924 The Frisii or Frisones were one of the great tribes of north-western Germany, properly belonging to the group of the Ingævones. They inhabited the country about Lake Flevo and other lakes, between the Rhine and the Ems, so as to be bounded on the south by the Bructeri, and on the east by the Chauci. Tacitus distinguishes between the Frisii Majores and Minores, and it is supposed that the latter dwelt on the east of the canal of Drusus in the north of Holland, and the former between the rivers Flevus and Amisia, that is, in the country which still bears the name of Friesland. The Chauci have been previously mentioned.
2925 The Frisiabones or Frisævones are again mentioned in C. 31 of the present Book as a people of Gaul. In what locality they dwelt has not been ascertained by historians.
2926 The Sturii are supposed to have inhabited the modern South Holland, while the Marsacii probably inhabited the island which the Meuse forms at its junction with the Rhine, at the modern Dortrecht in Zealand.
2927 Supposed to be the site of the modern fortress of Briel, situate at the mouth of the Meuse.
2928 Probably the same as the modern Vlieland (thus partly retaining its ancient name), an island north of the Texel. The more ancient writers speak of two main arms, into which the Rhine was divided on entering the territory of the Batavi, of which the one on the east continued to bear the name of Rhenus, while that on the west into which the Masa, Maas or Meuse, flowed, was called Vahalis or Waal. After Drusus, B.C. 12, had connected the Flevo Lacus or Zuyder-Zee with the Rhine by means of a canal, in forming which he probably made use of the bed of the Yssel, we find mention made of three mouths of the Rhine. Of these the names, as given by Pliny, are, on the west, Helium (the Vahalis of other writers), in the centre Rhenus, and at the north Flevum; but at a later period we again find mention made of only two mouths.
2929 Britain was spoken of by some of the Greek writers as superior to all other islands in the world. Dionysius, in his Periegesis, says, “that no other islands whatsoever can claim equality with those of Britain.”
2930 Said to have been so called from the whiteness of its cliffs opposite the coast of Gaul.
2931 Afterwards called Bononia, the modern Boulogne. As D’Anville remarks, the distance here given by Pliny is far too great, whether we measure to Dover or to Hythe; our author’s measurement however is probably made to Rutupiæ (the modern Richborough), near Sandwich, where the Romans had a fortified post, which was their landing-place when crossing over from Gaul. This would make the distance given by Pliny nearer the truth, though still too much.
2932 Probably the Grampian range is here referred to.
2933 The people of South Wales.
2934 The Orkney islands were included under this name. Pomponius Mela and Ptolemy make them but thirty in number, while Solinus fixes their number at three only.
2935 Also called Æmodæ or Hæmodæ, most probably the islands now known as the Shetlands. Camden however and the older antiquarians refer the Hæmodæ to the Baltic sea, considering them different from the Acmodæ here mentioned, while Salmasius on the other hand considers the Acmodæ or Hæmodæ and the Hebrides as identical. Parisot remarks that off the West Cape of the Isle of Skye and the Isle of North Uist, the nearest of the Hebrides to the Shetland islands, there is a vast gulf filled with islands, which still bears the name of Mamaddy or Maddy, from which the Greeks may have easily derived the words Αἱ Μαδδαὶ, whence the Latin Hæmodæ.
2936 The Isle of Anglesea.
2937 Most probably the Isle of Man.
2938 Camden and Gosselin (Rech. sur la Géogr. des Anciens) consider that under this name is meant the island of Racklin, situate near the north-eastern extremity of Ireland. A Ricina is spoken of by Ptolemy, but that island is one of the Hebrides.
2939 This Vectis is considered by Gosselin to be the same as the small island of White-Horn, situate at the entrance of the Bay of Wigtown in Scotland. It must not be confounded with the more southern Vectis, or Isle of Wight.
2940 According to Gosselin this is the island of Dalkey, at the entrance of Dublin Bay.
2941 Camden thinks that this is the same as Bardsey Island, at the south of the island of Anglesea, while Mannert and Gosselin think that it is the island of Lambay.
2942 According to Brotier these islands belong to the coast of Britanny, being the modern isles of Sian and Ushant.
2943 As already mentioned, he probably speaks of the islands of Œland and Gothland, and Ameland, called Austeravia or Actania, in which glæsum or amber was found by the Roman soldiers. See p. 344.
2944 The opinions as to the identity of ancient Thule have been numerous in the extreme. We may here mention six:—1. The common, and apparently the best founded opinion, that Thule is the island of Iceland. 2. That it is either the Ferroe group, or one of those islands. 3. The notion of Ortelius, Farnaby, and Schœnning, that it is identical with Thylemark in Norway. 4. The opinion of Malte Brun, that the continental portion of Denmark is meant thereby, a part of which is to the present day called Thy or Thyland. 5. The opinion of Rudbeck and of Calstron, borrowed originally from Procopius, that this is a general name for the whole of Scandinavia. 6. That of Gosselin, who thinks that under this name Mainland, the principal of the Shetland Islands, is meant. It is by no means impossible that under the name of Thule two or more of these localities may have been meant, by different authors writing at distant periods and under different states of geographical knowledge. It is also pretty generally acknowledged, as Parisot remarks, that the Thule mentioned by Ptolemy is identical with Thylemark in Norway.
2946 Brotier thinks that under this name a part of Cornwall is meant, and that it was erroneously supposed to be an island. Parisot is of opinion that the copyists, or more probably Pliny himself, has made an error in transcribing Mictis for Vectis, the name of the Isle of Wight. It is not improbable however that the island of Mictis had only an imaginary existence.
2947 “White lead”: not, however, the metallic substance which we understand by that name, but tin.
2948 Commonly known as “coracles,” and used by the Welch in modern times. See B. vii. c. 57 of this work, and the Note.
2949 Brotier, with many other writers, takes these names to refer to various parts of the coast of Norway. Scandia he considers to be the same as Scania, Bergos the modern Bergen, and Nerigos the northern part of Norway. On the other hand, Gosselin is of opinion that under the name of Bergos the Scottish island of Barra is meant, and under that of Nerigos, the island of Lewis, the northern promontory of which is in the old maps designated by the name of Nary or Nery. Ptolemy makes mention of an island called Doumna in the vicinity of the Orcades.
2950 Transalpine Gaul, with the exception of that part of it called Narbonensis, was called Gallia Comata, from the custom of the people allowing their hair to grow to a great length.
2951 From the Scheldt to the Seine.
2952 From the Seine to the Garonne.
2953 Lyonese Gaul, from Lugdunum, the ancient name of the city of Lyons.
2954 Said by Camden to be derived from the Celtic words Ar - mor, “by the Sea.”
2955 The provinces of Antwerp and North Brabant.
2956 Inhabiting Western Flanders.
2957 So called, it is supposed, from the Celtic word Mor, which means “the sea.” Térouane and Boulogne are supposed to occupy the site of their towns, situate in the modern Pas de Calais.
2958 D’Anville places them between Calais and Gravellines, in the Pas de Calais, and on the spot now known as the Terre de Marck or Merk.
2959 Boulogne, previously mentioned.
2960 Cluver thinks that “Brianni” would be the correct reading here; but D’Anville places the Britanni on the southern bank of the stream called La Canche in the Pas de Calais.
2961 According to Parisot and Ansart they occupied the department of the Somme, with places on the site of Amiens (derived from their name) and Abbeville for their chief towns.
2962 They dwelt in the modern department of the Oise, with Beauvais (which still retains their name) for their chief town.
2963 D’Anville is of opinion that the place called Haiz or Hez in the diocese of Beauvais, received its name from this people, of whom nothing else is known. The name is omitted in several of the editions.
2964 D’Anville is of opinion that their chief town was situate at the modern Chaours, at the passage of the river Serre, not far from Vervins in the department of the Aisne.
2965 According to Ptolemy their chief town would be on the site of the modern Orchies in the department du Nord, but Cæsar makes it to be Nemetacum, the modern Arras, the capital of the department of the Pas de Calais.
2966 According to Ansart their chief town was Bavai, in the department du Nord. They are called “Liberi,” or free, because they were left at liberty to enjoy their own laws and institutions.
2967 Their capital was Augusta Veromanduorum, and it has been suggested that the place called Vermand, in the department de l’Aisne, denotes its site; but according to Bellay and D’Anville the city of St. Quentin, which was formerly called Aouste, marks the spot.
2968 Nothing whatever is known of them, and it is suggested by the commentators that this is a corrupted form of the name of the Suessiones, which follows.
2969 They gave name to Soissons in the southern part of the department de l’Aisne.
2970 It has been suggested that these are the same as the Silvanectes, the inhabitants of Senlis in the department de l’Oise.
2971 The people of Tongres, in the provinces of Namur, Liège, and Limbourg.
2972 They are supposed to have dwelt in the eastern part of the province of Limbourg.
2973 They probably dwelt between the Sunuci and the Betasi.
2974 They are supposed to have dwelt in the western part of the province of Limbourg, on the confines of that province and South Brabant, in the vicinity probably of the place which still bears the name of Beetz, upon the river Gette, between Leau and Haclen, seven miles to the east of Louvain.
2975 According to Ptolemy the Leuci dwelt on the sites of Toul in the department of the Meurthe, and of Nais or Nays in that of the Meuse.
2976 From them Trèves or Trier, in the Grand Duchy of the Lower Rhine, takes its name.
2977 Their chief town was on the site of Langres, in the department of the Haute Marne.
2978 They gave name to the city of Rheims in the department of the Marne.
2979 Their chief town stood on the site of the modern Metz, in the department of the Moselle.
2980 Besançon stands on the site of their chief town, in the department of the Doubs, extending as far as Bâle.
2981 The inhabitants of the district called the Haut Rhin or Higher Rhine.
2982 The inhabitants of the west of Switzerland.
2983 Or the “Equestrian Colony,” probably founded by the Roman Equites. It is not known where this colony was situate, but it is suggested by Cluver and Monetus that it may have been on the lake of Geneva, in the vicinity of the modern town of Nyon.
2984 Littré, in a note, remarks that Rauriaca is a barbarism, and that the reading properly is “Raurica.”
2985 Spire was their chief city, in the province of the Rhine.
2986 They are supposed to have occupied Strasbourg, and the greater part of the department of the Lower Rhine.
2987 They dwelt in the modern Grand Duchy of Hesse Darmstadt; Worms was their chief city.
2988 That is, nearer the mouths of the Rhine.
2989 They originally dwelt on the right bank of the Rhine, but were transported across the river by Agrippa in B.C. 37, at their own request, from a wish to escape the attacks of the Suevi.
2990 Now known as the city of Cologne. It took its name from Agrippina, the wife of Claudius and the mother of Nero, who was born there, and who, as Tacitus says, to show off her power to the allied nations, planted a colony of veteran soldiers in her native city, and gave to it her own name.
2991 Their district was in the modern circle of Clèves, in the province of Juliers-Berg-Clèves.
2993 He first speaks of the nations on the coast, and then of those more in the interior.
2994 Dwelling in the west of the department of Calvados, and the east of the department of the Eure. From them Lisieux takes its name.
2995 They occupied the department of the Lower Seine.
2996 They are supposed to have dwelt in the vicinity of Lillebonne, in the department of the Lower Seine.
2997 They gave name to the town of Vannes in the department of Morbihan.
2998 From them the city of Avranches, in the department of La Manche, derives its name.
2999 They occupied the modern department of Finisterre.
3000 The Loire.
3001 This spot is placed by D’Anville near the modern city of Saint Brieuc. He refers here to the peninsula of Brittany, which ends in Finisterre.
3002 Ansart remarks that the circuit of the peninsula from Saint Brieuc to the mouth of the river Vilaine is only 450 miles, but that if taken from the city of Avranches to the mouth of the Loire, it is 650.
3003 Ansart states that from Avranches to the mouth of the Loire, in a straight line, is twenty miles less than the distance here given by Pliny.
3004 Inhabitants of the department of the Lower Loire or Loire Inférieure.
3005 This extensive people inhabited the present departments of the Saone et Loire, Allier, Nievre, Rhone nord, and Loire nord. Autun and Chalons-sur-Marne stand on the site of their ancient towns.
3006 They inhabited the departments of the Eure et Loire, and portions of those of the Seine et Oise, of the Loire et Cher, and of the Loiret. Chartres occupies the site of their town.
3007 They occupied a part of the department of the Allier. Moulins stands on the site of their chief town.
3008 Sens, in the department of the Yonne, stands on the site of their chief town.
3009 The chief town of the Aulerci Eburovices was on the site of the present Passy-sur-Eure, called by the inhabitants Old Evreux, in the department of the Eure.
3010 They dwelt in the vicinity of the city of Le Mans, in the department of the Sarthe.
3011 Meaux, in the department of the Seine et Marne, denotes the site of their principal town.
3012 Paris, anciently Lutetia, denotes their locality.
3013 The city of Troyes, in the department of the Aube, denotes their locality.
3014 Their chief town stood on the site of Angers, in the department of the Maine et Loire.
3015 D’Anville says that their chief town stood on the spot now known as Vieux, two leagues from Caen, in the department of Calvados.
3016 The reading here is not improbably “Vadicasses.” If so, they were a people situate at a great distance from the other tribes here mentioned by Pliny. They dwelt in the department De l’Oise, in the district formerly known as Valois, their chief town or city occupying the site of Vez, not far from Villers Cotterets.
3017 D’Anville assigns to the Venelli, or Unelli, as some readings have it, the former district of Cotantin, now called the department of La Manche.
3018 According to D’Anville, Corseuil, two leagues from Dinan, in the department of the Côtes du Nord, denotes the site of their chief town. Hardouin takes Quimper to mark the locality.
3019 They are supposed by Ansart to have occupied that part of the department of La Mayenne where we find the village of Jublains, two leagues from the city of Mayenne.
3020 D’Anville assigns to them the greater part of the department of the Ile et Vilaine, and is of opinion that the city of Rennes occupies the site of Condate, their chief town.
3021 Tours, in the department of the Indre et Loire, marks the site of their chief town.
3022 They are supposed to have occupied a portion of the department of the Loire.
3023 They probably occupied a part of the department of the Loire, as also of that of the Rhone. Their town, Forum Secusianorum, stood on the site of the present Feurs, in the department of the Loire.
3024 The city of Lyons occupies the site of ancient Lugdunum. It is suggested by Hardouin, that the name Lugdunum is a corruption of “Lucudunum,” a compound of the Latin word lucus, “a grove,” and the Celtic dun, “a hill” or “mountain.”
3025 They are mentioned by Cæsar (B. C. iii. 9), in conjunction with the Nannetes, Morini, and others, but nothing can be inferred as to the precise position they occupied.
3026 Their locality also is unknown, but it is supposed that they dwelt in the vicinity of the department of La Vendée.
3027 From them ancient Poitou received its name. They are supposed to have occupied the department of the Haute-Vienne, and portions of the departments of La Vendée, the Loire Inférieure, the Maine et Loire, the Deux-Sèvres, and La Vienne.
3028 They gave name to the former Saintonge, now the department of Charente and Charente Inférieure. The town of Saintes occupies the site of their chief town.
3029 They occupied the modern department of the Gironde. The city of Bordeaux occupies the site of their chief town.
3030 They gave name to Aquitaine, which became corrupted into Guyenne. Pliny is the only author that makes the Aquitani a distinct people of the province of Aquitanica. The Tarusates are supposed to have afterwards occupied the site here referred to by him, with Atures for their chief town, afterwards called Aire, in the department of the Landes.
3031 Their locality is unknown, but it has been suggested that they occupied the departments of the Basses Pyrénées, or Lower Pyrenees.
3032 So called from the Latin verb convenire, “to assemble” or “meet together.” They are said to have received this name from the circumstance that Ptolemy, after the close of the Sertorian war, finding a pastoral people of predatory habits inhabiting the range of the Pyrenees, ordered them to unite together and form a community in a town or city. From them the present town of Saint Bertrand de Comminges, in the S.W. of the department of the Haute Garonne, derives its Latin name “Lugdunum Convenarum.”
3033 By Cæsar called the Bigerriones. Their name was preserved in that of the district of Bigorre, now the department of the Hautes-Pyrénées. Their chief town was Turba, now Tarbes.
3034 By calling the Tarbelli Quatuorsignani, he seems to imply that their chief town was a place garrisoned by four maniples of soldiers, each with a signum or standard. Aquæ Tarbellicæ was their chief town, the modern Acqs or Dax, in the S.W. of the department of the Landes.
3035 Their chief town was probably garrisoned by six signa or maniples. Cocosa, or Coequosa, as it is written in the Antonine Itinerary, is the first place on a road from Aquæ Tarbellicæ or Dax to Burdegala or Bordeaux, now called Marensin. Their locality was in the southern part of the department of the Landes, the inhabitants of which are still divided into two classes, the Bouges, those of the north, or of the Tête de Buch; and the Cousiots, those of the south.
3036 Their locality is unknown.
3037 D’Anville would read “Onobusates,” and thinks that they dwelt in the district called Nébousan, in the department of the Hautes Pyrénées. He is also of opinion that their town stood on the site of the modern Cioutat, between the rivers Adour and Neste.
3038 They occupied the southern part of the department of the Gironde.
3039 From them Hardouin suggests that Moneins, in the department of the Basses Pyrénées, takes its name.
3040 D’Anville is of opinion that they inhabited and gave name to the Vallée d’Ossun, between the Pyrenees and the city of Oléron in the department of the Basses Pyrénées.
3041 D’Anville places them in the Vallée de Soule, in the department of the Basses Pyrénées.
3042 From them Campon, a place in the department of the Hautes Pyrénées, is supposed to have received its name.
3043 Biscarosse, not far from Tête de Buch in the department of the Landes, is supposed to derive its name from this tribe.
3044 Nothing whatever is known of them.
3045 The more general reading is “Sassumini.” Ansart suggests that the town of Sarrum, between Cognac and Périgueux, in the department of the Dordogne, may have received its name from them.
3046 Ansart suggests that Rieumes, in the department of the Haute Garonne, occupies the site of Ryesium, their chief town, mentioned by Ptolemy.
3047 They are supposed to have given name to Tournay, in the department of the Hautes Pyrénées.
3049 They probably gave name to Auch, in the department of Gers.
3050 Their chief town occupied the site of Euse or Eause, in the department of Gers.
3051 Their locality is marked by Soz, in the department of the Lot-et-Garonne.
3052 Or “Oscidates of the Plains.” They probably gave name to Ossun, two miles from Tarbes, in the department of the Hautes Pyrénées.
3053 From them the village of Cestas, three leagues from Bordeaux, in the department of the Gironde, is supposed to derive its name.
3054 The village of Tursan, in the department of the Landes, probably derived its name from this tribe.
3055 Their town was Cossio, afterwards Vasates, now Bazas, in the department of the Gironde.
3056 The site of the Vassei and the Sennates appears to be unknown.
3057 D’Anville is of opinion that this tribe gave name to Aisenay or Azenay, a village four leagues distant from Bourbon-Vendée, in the department of La Vendée.
3058 They occupied the district formerly known as Berry, but now the departments of the Indre, the Cher, and the west of the department of the Allier. Their chief town was Avaricum, now Bourges.
3059 They inhabited the district formerly known as the Limosin, now the departments of the Creuse, the Haute Vienne, and the Corrèze. Their chief town was Augustoritum, afterwards Lemovices, now Limoges.
3060 They occupied the district formerly known as Auvergne, forming the present department of the Allier, and the southern part of the Puy de Dôme and the Cantal. Augustonemetum was their chief town, now Clermont.
3061 Situate in the district formerly known as Gevaudan, now the department of La Lozère. Their chief town stood on the site of the present small town of Javoulx, four leagues from Mende.
3062 They are supposed to have occupied the former district of Rouergue, now known as the department of Aveyron. Their chief town was Segodunum, afterwards Ruteni, now known as Rhodez.
3063 They occupied the former district of Querci, the present department of Lot and Lot-et-Garonne. Divona, afterwards Cadurci, now Cahors, was their principal town.
3064 According to Ptolemy their town was Aginnum, probably the modern Agen, in the present department of Lot-et-Garonne. “Antobroges,” however, is the more common reading.
3065 They occupied the district formerly known as Périgord, in the department of the Dordogne; their town was Vesanna, afterwards Petrocori, now Périgueux.
3066 Ansart says they are about 200 in number, consisting of Belle Isle, Groaix, Houat, Hoedic, and others. Also probably Morbihan.
3067 The Isle of Oleron, the fountain-head of the maritime laws of Europe.
3068 He means to say that it gradually increases in breadth after leaving the narrow neck of the Pyrenees and approaching the confines of Lusitania.
3070 From Ruscino to Gades.
3071 In the province now known as Guipuzcoa.
3072 Supposed to be the present Cabo de la Higuera.
3073 Probably inhabiting the eastern part of the provinces of Biscay and Alava, the eastern portion of Navarre, and, perhaps, a part of the province of Guipuzcoa.
3074 According to Hardouin the modern San Sebastian occupies the site of their town.
3075 On the same site as the modern Bermeo, according to Mannert. Hardouin thinks, however, and with greater probability, that it was situate at the mouth of the river Orio.
3076 D’Anville considers this to be the site of the city of Bermeo.
3077 Poinsinet thinks that this is Flavio in Bilbao, D’Anville calls it Portugalette, and Mannert thinks that it is the same as Santander, with which opinion Ansart agrees.
3078 According to Ptolemy, the Cantabri possessed the western part of the province of La Montana, and the northern parts of the provinces of Palencia and Toro.
3079 Most probably the present Rio de Suancès, by Mannert called the Saya, into which the Besanga flows. Hardouin however calls it the Nervio.
3080 Ansart suggests that this is the modern San Vicente de la Barquera. If the river Sauga is the same with the Suancès, this cannot be the port of Santander, as has been suggested.
3081 Or Ebro.
3082 According to Ansart, this is either the modern Ensenada de Ballota or else the Puerta de Pô.
3083 According to Ansart, the Orgenomesci occupied the same territory which Ptolemy has assigned to the Cantabri in general. See Note 3078 above.
3084 Hardouin takes this to be Villaviciosa. Ansart thinks that Ria de Cella occupies its site.
3085 They are supposed to have occupied the greater part of the principality of the Asturias and the province of Leon.
3086 Hardouin and Mannert consider this to be identical with Navia or Nava, six miles to the east of Oviedo, an obscure place in the interior. Ansart however would identify it with Villaviciosa.
3087 No doubt the headland now known as the Cabo de Penas.
3088 Now Lugo in Gallicia.
3089 Supposed by Ansart to be the Rio Caneiro, into which the Rio Labio discharges itself.
3090 Supposed by Ansart to have dwelt in the vicinity of the Celtic promontory, now Cabo de Finisterra or Cape Finisterre. Of the Egovarri and Iadoni nothing whatever is known.
3091 Their towns are mentioned by Ptolemy as being situate on a bay near Nerium or the promontory of Cape Finisterre.
3092 Mannert thinks that the Nelo is the same as the Rio Allones; the Florius seems not to have been identified.
3093 The inhabitants of Cape Finisterre.
3094 Dwelling on the banks of the river which from them takes its modern name of Tambre.
3095 Mannert and Ansart are of opinion that this peninsula was probably the modern Cabo Taurinan or Cabo Villano, most probably the latter.
3096 On the occasion probably of his expedition against the Cantabri.
3097 Their towns, Iria Flavia and Lacus Augusti, lay in the interior, on the sites of the present Santiago de Compostella and Lugo.
3098 Probably the modern Noya.
3099 They are supposed to have occupied the district in which the warm springs are found, which are known as Caldas de Contis and Caldas de Rey.
3100 It is suggested by Ansart that the islands here meant are those called Carreira, at the mouth of the river Ulla, and the Islas de Ons, at the mouth of the Tenario.
3102 Inhabiting the vicinity of the modern Pontevedra.
3103 According to Ptolemy also their town was Tudæ, the modern Tuy.
3104 The modern Islas de Seyas or of Bayona.
3105 The town of Bayona, about six leagues from the mouth of the river Minho.
3106 The Minho.
3107 They occupied the tract of country lying between the rivers, and known as Entre Douro y Minho.
3108 Now Braga on the Cavado.
3109 The Lima.
3110 The river Douro.
3112 Both lead, properly so called, and tin.
3113 In a great degree corresponding with modern Portugal, except that the latter includes the tract of country between the Minho and Douro.
3114 To distinguish them from the nation of the same name sprung from them, and occupying the Farther Spain. (B. iii. c. 3.) The Pæsuri occupied the site of the present towns of Lamego and Arouca.
3115 The modern Vouga, which runs below the town of Aveiro, raised from the ruins of ancient Talabrica.
3116 Agueda, which, according to Hardouin, is the name of both the river and the town.
3117 Coimbra, formerly Condeja la Veja.