For having reigned two years he died at York in his last Expedition against the Caledonians and Picts CONSTANTINE his Son hearing of his Fathers sickness escaped from Galerius with whom he was left Hostage and riding Post from Rome on the way lamed and maim'd all the Post-Horses to the end he might not be overtaken or pursued and so arriving at York was with great joy received by his Father who sitting up-right in his Bed in the presence of his Counsellors spake as followeth I have here a large Epitaph and Monument to wit mine own Son whom I leave on Earth to succeed me in the Empire who by Gods assistance shall wipe away the Tears of the Christians and revenge the Tyranny used against them and in this above all things I have placed my felicity which said Constantine received his Fathers last breath whereupon an Ancient Oratour spake thus unto him Thou entredst this Sacred place not as a Competitour of the Empire but as Heir apparent and ordained already and forthwith that Fathers house of thine saw Thee the lawful Successour For there was no doubt but the Inheritance in right belonged unto him whom the Destinies had ordained the first begotten Son to the Emperour Helena was the Wife of Constantius and Mother of Constantine by birth a Britain the Daughter of Coilus a British Prince as Eutropius mentions but Nicephorus is of Opinion that she was of Bithynia and others of her Parentage declare themselves doubtful This HELENA in an Ancient Inscription for purging Jerusalem from Idols building a Temple upon the same ground CHRIST suffered finding his Cross and so holily preserving it building on the same place after diligent search for Christs Cribb or Manger wherein he was born a stately Church dedicated to Christian Devotion and lastly as she was the only cause of her Husbands Conversion to the Christian Faith so likewise many distressed Christians for her sake that had been hid in Caves and dark holes of the Earth to escape the bloody persecution of their Enemies were now freed from that danger and dismal slavery They enjoyed publick liberty in their Devotion and for the better propagating the Christian Faith they had free leave not only to reedifie and repair decayed and demolisht Temples but to build new is called VENERABILIS ET PIISSIMA AUGUSTA a Title no whit unbecoming such eminent Vertues as a venerable and most pious Princess Maximianus perhaps not so much envying her Vertues as desirous to advance his Daughter compelled Constantius without just cause to desert and put her away and to marry his Daughter Theodora The Jews who are Enemies to all such as own any thing Sacred in memory of our Saviour called this pious Helena the deserted Queen of Constantius Stabularia as much as to say an Hostess because she sought out the Manger where Christ was born Bede calls her a Concubine from thence inferring That an Inholdress is usually kind to her Guest all which in matter of truth were reproachful Titles given her by way of derision for her Zeal and Sanctity in the due worship and honour of her Heavenly Father our Saviour for she was a truly Vertuous Queen and worthy of great renown in that Age and this rude and impious way of scoffing her the Gentiles also as unworthily imitated The Funeral Oration made by Ambrosius upon Theodosius rightly Comments upon the desert of her in which he takes occasion to speak as followeth They say that this Lady was at first an Inholder or Hostess c. Well saith Ambrose did not this good Hostess Helena hasten to Jerusalem and find out the place of our Lords Passion and made diligent search for the Lords Crib This good Hostess was not ignorant of that good Guest which cured the Wayfaring-mans heart that was wounded by Thieves This good Hostess chose to be reputed a Stable-sweeper that she might thereby gain Christ. It appeareth out of the Panegyrick spoken to Constantine the Son of Constantius that this Constantius obtained some notable Victory at a Town of the Segontiaci called Vindo now Silcester in Hampshire where in Person he received a wound but against what Enemy is not recorded but it seemeth to have been done about his first Arrival into the Island Basingstoak out of Adolphus Mekurchus writes that the City Brett in Germany took its name from some Britains who attended Constantius and his Queen Helena out of Britain as likewise the City Speizs from a Garrison or Seed-plot of Britains there left by the same Emperour but with what truth I leave to others to judge aslikewise he reporteth that Prince Coilus the Father of Helen was Master of the Horse to the Emperour and upon that very account the Enemies of Queen Helen took occasion to call her Stabularia She is reported to have been born at Colchester and to have built the Walls thereof and it is said that the Arms which that City gives is a Cross enragled between four Crowns in memory of our Saviours Cross which was found by her CONSTANTINE the Great CONSTANTIUS dying at York his Son CONSTANTINE by the last Will and Testament of his Father was designed Emperour but he at first out of modesty refusing so great and weighty an Employment or out of design to sift out the Inclinations of the People for forbearing a while to undertake it was at last constrained by the Souldiers whose affections to him overswayed the fears and jealousies which he had conceived of those powerful Competitors who had already possession of the Empire and of Maximian who although the Empire resigned yet carried on private practices in the State and could not choose but have great Interest therein being not long before Master of the whole Power which by the occasion of Dioclesian and much against his own inclinations he had laid down But the greatest encouragement he received was from Erocus King of the Almanes a powerful Nation which Erocus had attended his Father in Britain as some write as others say was Constantines Companion in his flight from Rome However it seems he was a great lover of that Family and a close and constant adherer to their Interest yet the Panegyrick Oration to our Constantine wholly attributes his unwillingness to accept of the Empire to his Modesty and the deep apprehensions of the weight and care of Government which prove most commonly if not here also the certain signs of more than ordinary desire of Rule and are oftentimes but appearances only attended with most exorbitant Passions and the fore-runner of an arbitrary and bloody Reign But however they write that the Souldiers respecting rather the Publick good than yielding to his private affections forcibly invested him in the Purple Robe he weeping set spurs to his Horse because he would avoid the endeavour and importunity of the Army that called so instantly upon him The felicity of the Common-wealth over-ruled his Modesty and therefore the Panegyrick crieth out
Inscription WE FLY FROM THE FACE OF JOSHUA THE SON OF NAVE THE ROBBER By this it appears that in those daies the Phoenicians began to frequent those Parts And although the Greeks do attribute these Voyages to their Hercules yet the Temple upon the Streights dedicated to that God manifestly proves him to have been a Phoenician for he was worshipt according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Phoenicians and not Graecians The Temple is said to be built by the Tyrians and magnificent Sacrifices performed to him after the manner of that Nation Strabo is particular upon what ground it was built and the occasion which moved the Tyrians to the Work all which may be read in that Author But to return to HERCULES Leaving his own Country and being attended with a multitude who were forced to the same necessity he coasted about Spain and Africa and by the care and diligence of his Followers he built many Towns and Cities conquering all Iberia and those Western Tracts is said at last to come into Gaul and there built Alesia and Nemausus In a Battle against the Ligurians and their two Leaders Bergion and Albion or as others say Alebion and Dercynus when he had no other Weapons left him they feign'd it rained Stones from Heaven in his favour and that all the fields were covered with them The occasion of this Fable is the multitude of Stones lying scatter'd between Arelate and Massilia which to this day is called La Crau He is said also to have passed the Alpes but this is looked upon by Livy as a Fable also for the truth is it is not probable that his occasions would permit him to make too great Inroads into the Continent but by far likelyer that he contented himself with possessing the Sea-coasts the Ports and Havens of those Countries to which he arrived In Liguria there is a Haven that bore his Name at this day it is known by the name of Monaco and was anciently called Herculis Monaeci Portus the Haven of Hercules Monaecus At his first Landing the Ligurians opposed him and of this Fight not only the Poets and Historians make mention but the Astronomers also and they do not only mention it but add that the Remembrance of it is placed in the Heavens in the Sign which Firmicus calls Ingeniculum or the bending of the Knee for by weariness in the fight Hercules it seems was reduced to that posture and so placed in the Heavens Hitherto I have attended HERCULES in his Voyages within the Streights I shall now follow him into the Western Sea and that upon the Authority of Marcellinus who recites Timagines for his Author viz. That the Dorienses followed the Ancient Hercules to inhabit the Sea-coasts of Gaul lying upon the Ocean Let us see now by what Circumstances Marcellinus writes this Voyage of Hercules that the truth of it may more evidently appear First He complains of all former Writers Timagines only excepted namely that in their Histories of Gaul they had delivered down things by halves only and so had given the World a very slender or little or no account of the Original of that Country Secondly He applauds Timagines for his diligence in searching out those things which were unknown to other Authors and that he did it out of many Records Thirdly and lastly He promises out of Timagines to report the truth clearly and distinctly Now these Records that this Timagines searcht into were in all probability Phoenician or Syrian and for that very reason unknown to the Greeks and Latins for this Timagines as Bochartus proves was a Syrian and so understood their Language and Plutarch reports that he wrote a History of Gaul By the Authority therefore of this Timagines we find that this Hercules with his Dorienses ' possest the Sea-coast of that Nation that lies upon this Western Ocean That this Hercules was the Phoenician no doubt is to be made seeing he is called the Ancient and that the Dorienses his Attendants received their name from him as I have in another place evidenced viz. from Dora a City in Phoenicia and not from the Graecians Seeing that Hercules arrived into those Seas why may he not be supposed to be in Britain also Pliny writes that Midacritus first brought Tynn into Greece now it is certain as before has been shewn that Mettal was carried from the Cassiterides long before any Greek had entered the Western Sea This very thing induces Bochartus to think that for Midacritus Melicarthus should be read and that this Hercules first of all shewed the Phoenicians those Mines which afterwards proved so profitable to that Nation As upon the Sea-coast of Belgium there was an Altar inscribed to Hercules so in Devonshire a Country abounding in Tynn there was a Promontory called by his Name which to this day retains something in two little Towns Hartlow or Hertland alias Herton as also in the Promontory it self called Herty-point Add to this the Opinion the Ancients had concerning the Elysian Fields how they were supposed as I have writ in another place to be upon the Coast of Britain or at least in the Western Ocean as likewise the story of Isacius Tzetzes an Author of no small credit with Mr. Cambden concerning Julius Caesar which story though it be a Fable yet it shews the Opinions of the Ancients namely That Caesar was carried by I know not what Spirit from Gaul into a Western Island inhabited by Ghosts only and by the same brought back again We have little reason to doubt but that Hercules his discent into Hell might be grounded upon his Navigation into these parts After his death He was worshipt as a God in all Nations in some places young Youths were sacrificed before him and no Women admitted into his Temple His Bones were preserved in his Temple upon the Streights and Divine Honours performed to them although the main part of his Worship was Phoenician yet the Greeks intruded also hanging up several Trophies of their own inventions He was placed upon a Stone Altar a Hydra on one side and Diomedes his Horse on the other in memory of those two Monsters destroyed by him He was worshipt in Gaul and Britain under the name of OGMIUS and possibly from the Phoenician Og signifying the Compass of the Sea and especially the Western Ocean which Ocean Hercules was the first that discovered it From this Og the Graecians had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying the same thing Bochartus is of opinion that he is to be derived from Agemion signifying a Stranger and Forreigner but I scarcely believe the Britains or Gauls would borrow a Phoenician word to revile one of their own Nation This OGMIUS was represented as may be seen in the foregoing Figure An Old and decrepid Man bald Pated his Hair white a wrinckled Skin and Sun-burnt after the manner of Old Sea-men a Globe in one hand with a Compass in
lessened and judging withal that Superiority was due to him not only from that but other Kingdoms from the priority of time wherein Kent was settled taking up Arms began to invade his Neighbours and by open claim to assert the Right of an universal Monarchy But not well weighing the strength of his Neighbours and measuring his own Power rather by the number of his Levies than the goodness of his Men by long peace unaccustomed to War he was miserably baffled by Keaulin King of the West-Saxons an old experienced Souldier who with Cutha his Son leading an Army trained up in Wars and well fledged with Victories obtained against the Britains twice defeated him and at last drove him into his own Territories The first place of Battel is not mentioned that which seemeth to be the last was at Wiphandun wherein two Kentish Earls Oslave and Cnebban lost their lives And this is the first War the Saxons had among themselves since their entring the Island Ethelbert taught by these defeats that the success of War depends not on the eagerness of desire to conquer but the steady management of the means referred the repairing of his losses to a more convenient time and the event proved accordingly for being come to riper years and Keaulin his grand Opposer removed by death in a short time he stretched his Empire over the most considerable parts of the Island all the Kingdoms on this side Humber either by force or composition being brought entire under his obedience And he is worthily reckoned the sixth Monarch of the English men Thus grown great he takes to wife Bertha the French King Chilperick's Daughter whom St. Gregory as will appear in his Epistle writ to her calls Adelberga she was a Christian and by Covenant of Marriage was to enjoy the exercise of her Religion to that end she brought over with her Letard a Bishop under whose care and instructions he daily exercised the Christian Profession The King as yet and all his People continued in the worship of the Saxon Idolatry and whether by the negligence of Letard who perhaps contented himself in the freedom of private devotion or that the King taken up in Wars had not the leasure to examine into their Faith or lastly that God in his infinite wisdom reserved the Conversion of our Nation to other hands certain it is that neither the example of the Queen nor the preaching of Letard have left any tokens or Records of effects proportionable to such advantages as might be expected from an open and sincere Profession St. Gregory in one of his Epistles following highly taxes the negligence of the French Clergy in not taking care of the Saxons Cenversion and Bede out of Gildas laies it to the charge of the British But in what capacity as to Life and Manners they were in to perform so charitable an office take out of Gildas himself as it is most elegantly translated by Mr. Milton Nothing better were the Clergy but at the same pass or rather worse than when the Saxons came first in unlearned unapprehensive yet impudent subtle Prowlers Pastors in name but indeed Wolves intent upon all occasions not to feed the flock but to pamper and well line themselves not called but seizing on the Ministry as a Trade not as a Spiritual charge teaching the People not by sound Doctrine but by evil Example usurping the Chair of Peter but through the blindness of their own Worldly lusts they stumble upon the Seat of Judas deadly haters of truth broachers of lies looking on the poor Christian with eyes of pride and contempt but sawning on the wickedest Rich men without shame great promoters of other mens Alms with their set exhortations but themselves contributing ever least slightly touching the many vices of the Age but preaching without end their own grievances as done to Christ seeking after preferments and degrees in the Church more than after heaven and so gained make it their whole study how to keep them by any tyranny Yet lest they should be thought things of no use in their eminent places they have their nicities and trivial points to keep in awe the superstitious Multitude But in true saving knowledge leave them still as gross and stupid as themselves bunglers at the Scripture nay forbidding and silencing them that know but in Worldly matters practiced Cunning jhisters in that only art and symony Great Clerks and Masters bearing their heads high but their thoughts object and low He taxes them also as gluttonous incontinent and daily drunkards And what shouldst thou expect from these poor Laity So he goes on These beasts all belly shall these amend thee who are themselves laborious in evil doings shalt thou see with their eyes who see right forward nothing but gain leave them rather as bids our Saviour left ye fall both blindfold into the same perdition Are all thus Perhaps not all or not so grossly But what availed it Eli to be himself blameless while he connived at others that were abominable Who of them hath been envied for his better life who of them hath hated to consort with these or withstood their entring the Ministery or endeavoured zealously their casting out Yet some of these perhaps by others are legended for great Saints This was the state of the Church among the Britains scarce likely to convert others who were so much perverted among themselves but whether or no they were in a condition among so much hostility to preach the Gospel of Peace supposing they had men well-meaning thereunto amongst them in a thing so far distant is not easily determinable Certain it is that the Conqueror with less prejudice receives Religion from any than the persons conquered And this might be the cause that notwithstanding the Christian Faith shone round about yet the intire Conversion of the Saxons is owing to the See of Rome which at that time was possessed by GREGORY afterwards Sirnamed the Great and for his upright behaviour in this and other like occasions worthily Cannoniz'd for a Saint Now the first occasions of this great work and the methods by which it proceeded because it hath been of so high concern to our Nation as which still bears influence among us I shall not stick more particularly to relate out of faithful Historians and Ancient Records yet extant The Original motives which induced Gregory to this great undertaking Venerable Bede thus relates as he received it down by tradition The Report goeth that on a certain day when upon the coming of Merchants lately arrived great store of Wares was brought together into the Market-place at Rome for to be sold and many Chapinen flocked together for to buy Gregory also himself among others came thither and saw with other things Boyes set to sale for Bodies fair and white of Countenance sweet and amiable having the Hair also of their head as lovely and beautiful whom when he wistly beheld he demanded as they say from what Country or Land they
BRITANNIA ANTIQUA ILLUSTRATA OR THE ANTIQUITIES OF ANCIENT BRITAIN Derived from the Phoenicians Wherein the Original Trade of this ISLAND is discovered the Names of Places Offices Dignities as likewise the Idolatry Language and Customs of the Primitive Inhabitants are clearly demonstrated from that Nation many old Monuments illustrated and the Commerce with that People as well as the Greeks plainly set forth and collected out of approved Greek and Latin Authors TOGETHER With a CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY of this Kingdom from the first Traditional Beginning until the year of our Lord 800 when the Name of BRITAIN was changed into ENGLAND Faithfully collected out of the best Authors and disposed in a better Method than hitherto hath been done with the Antiquities of the Saxons as well as Phoenicians Greeks and Romans The First Volume By AYLETT SAMMES of Christ's Colledge in Cambridge Since of the Inner-Temple Si quid Novisti rectius istis Candidus imperti si non his utere mecum Horatius LONDON Printed by Tho. Roycroft for the Author MDCLXXVI This Book entituled BRITANNIA Antiqua Illustrata c. Is Licensed to be Printed by the Appointment of the Right Honourable Sr. JOSEPH WILLIAMSON Principal Secretary of State to His Sacred MAJESTY March 8 th 1674 5. Roger L'Estrange TO The Right Honourable Heneage Lord Finch BARON OF DAVENTRY AND LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND MY LORD IT was the constant Custome in all Ages that Subjects of this High Nature namely History and Antiquity wherein are preserved and rescued from Time the Acts and Reliques of Great Persons should be Dedicated to the Great and not submitted to any ordinary Protection This Consideration of it self might have carried me in the Publication of these my Labours to make this Humble Address to Your Lordship whose Eminent Vertues though they may be more Illustrious in that High Sphere wherein You are worthily placed yet were they ever highly conspicuous and You have been long since in the eye of the World what You are now in the Court of Honour Let this Work therefore in all Humility be Dedicated to Your Lordship and if my Endeavours have been any thing answerable to the Dignity of the Matter I have undertaken if the Antiquities of this Nation be thereby more illustrated the History cleared and the Methods of former Writers rectified and amended that is if the Work in general be found useful and sound and with its Novelty in some points carries truth along with it I shall esteem it my chiefest glory that I have laid it at Your Lordships feet entreating favour for those things only which Your Lordship out of Your Great Judgment and Goodness shall think some waies commendable But if from my great Labour and Industry I promise to my self more than possibly will be allowed me however the Work it self may serve to stand as a Testimony and Monument of that Publick Spirit eminent in Your Lordship whereby at its first appearance in the World You readily encouraged so promising an Undertaking which if well managed as I hope in some measure it hath been would undoubtedly be to the honour and benefit of Your Country May God Almighty long preserve Your Lordship in that high Station in which You act to the Honour of His MAJESTY the Good of this Nation and the desires of all Honest men So prayeth My Lord Your Lordships most humble and devoted Servant Aylett Sammes THE PREFACE TO THE READER HAving for some years past wholly employed my self in the diligent searching into the Histories of our Nation I found by experience that the words of Livy in his Preface to his Roman Decades were most true where he writeth That the Beginnings of Nations and the times next succeeding those Beginnings as yielding least pleasure both to Writer and Reader were generally neglected and Men naturally hastned to those Ages which being not so far removed yielded a pleasanter prospect and seemed more closely to concern their knowledge For how few are there who have taken the pains faithfully to collect and in a distinct Method to order rightly the scattered Records of Ancient BRITAIN which are only here and there to be pickt out of divers Authors and not to be found much less well disposed with an ordinary diligence or superficial enquiry Most of our Modern Chronicles content themselves with beginning from the Conquest few go beyond it as if with the general sort of Readers they were impatient until they came to the Battels of Cressy and Agencourt the differences of the Houses of York and Lancaster the Insurrections in Kent or something of that nature which being of a later Date hath yet left an uncertain sound in our ears and is expected to be sett off with no small flourishes or vulgar elocution And indeed the design of such Writers is not to be discommended who following the general stream of Mankind consult their own advantages For in subjects of this nature as the Antiquity and Original of Kingdoms the question of the Poet may perhaps be easily asked and as soon resolved in the same verse Quis legit haec nemo hercule nemo Vel duo vel nemo Few there are who will trouble their heads to enquire by what means their first Ancestors possest themselves of those pleasant Lands in the fruitfulness whereof they at present rejoyce but content themselves to derive their knowledg as high as their own Families only and discourse the Chronicles to the Beginning of their Pedigrees as if there Nature and the World was at a stop and all knowledg beyond that was mere Chaos and Confusion But notwithstanding whatever might be objected of this like nature against this present undertaking I have not been discouraged in going through with it For if the Grecians who had the best Historians in the World were nevertheless called Children by their own Neighbours because they knew not or neglected their own Original will it not be a shame for us also to be ignorant in the Antiquites of our own Nation a Nation great in its Infancy and like Hercules one of its first Discoverers deserving an History even in its Cradle But because there have been some who have already handled this Subject and that not without great Commendation I shall not insist farther upon the usefulness of the design in general but only inform the Reader in short what he is to expect in this present work which hath not been already fully discussed by others lest perhaps it may be thought that I have only trod in the steps of other men and like those idle Imitators whom Horace calls a servile sort of Cattel have only jog'd on in the long beaten road of former Antiquities I confess I might with greater security and much more ease in the delivering of the Antiquities of the British Nation have followed Mr. Cambden out of whom merely to collect hath been counted praise-worthy and whom to imitate is esteemed not only safe but honourable As his Learning was great so
is his Authority and his very Name carrieth a certain veneration along with it so that it may be questioned whether his Antiquities add more lustre to him or he to his Antiquities His opinions have been long received and therefore sit deep in the mind and by some it is thought a piece of weakness only to dissent from him however it be I have chose rather to follow that which seems to the best of my judgment to be Truth though never so naked and destitute of all advantages then by taking in with the Common opinion to run on further in a plausible Mistake and to help to guild deeper what to me appeareth at best but a glorious Errour Neither can the followers of Mr. Cambden be displeased with me if they will but inmate his Candour and Ingenuity whose performances they so worthily admire who when he had treated of this Subject concludes in these words which may serve for an Apology for me also Thus you have saith he as touching the Original and Name of BRITAIN mine Error or Conjecture whether you will which if it swerve from the truth I wish it were by the truth it self reformed In this intricate and obscure study of Antiquity it is thought praise-worthy somewhat to erre and remember we should withal that such things as at the first sight being slightly thought upon are deemed false after a better review and further consideration oftentimes seem true Now if any man should summon me to appear before the Tribunal of Verity I have no other answer at all to make And as for our Country-men the Britains such as be of the Learneder sort I do most earnestly beseech and desire them to employ all their labour industry wit and understanding in the searching out hereof so long until at last the Truth with her own clear bright beams may scatter and dissolve all mists of Conjectures whatsoever But I do not arrogate to my self the first discovery of these Antiquities neither would I that the credit of so fair an hypothesis should depend upon so weak an Authority Bochartus a learned Frenchman in this last Age having treated of the Phoenician Voyages through the whole World and out of their Language plainly and easily derived the Names of most Countries and Places especially remarkable at last bringeth them even to Britain and Gaul and discovers their Trade throughout all these Western Coasts But as he is more particular in his own Native Country which he would chiefly seem to illustrate so have I been in mine making use of the same method in laying open the Original and Commerce of the Primitive Inhabitants of this Island as he hath done largely of Gaul For when I considered what Leland writeth of the British or Welch Language namely that the main body of it consisteth of Hebrew and Greek words I began to collect with my self how it should come to pass that the Ancient Britains could have any Commerce with the Jews who where never known to send out Colonies and of all People in the World weremost fond of their own Country Certainly I concluded this could proceed from no other root but the Commerce of the Phoenicians with this Nation who using the same Language with the Children of Israel in Canaan even in those Primitive times were great Traders and skilful Mariners and sent out their Colonies through the World and this Mr. Cambden himself toucheth on where he gives the derivation of the British Caer Eske now Exeter For Caer to tell you once for all saith he with our Britains is as much to say as a City whereupon they use to name Jerusalem Caer Salem Lutetia or Paris Caer Paris Rome Caer Russaine Thus Carthage in the Punick tongue was called as Solinus witnesseth Cartheia that is the New City I have heard likewise that Caer in the Syriack tongue signified a City Now seeing that the Syrians as all men confess peopled the whole World with their Colonies it may seem probable that they left their Tongue also to their Posterity as the Mother of all future Languages What can be more plain than this and yet this is but one example of ten thousand but I hope that in the following discourse I have plainly made out that not only the Name of Britain it self but of most places therein of Ancient denomination are purely derived from the Phoenician Tongue and that the Language it self for the most part as well as the Customes Religions Idols Offices Dignities of the Ancient Britains are all clearly Phoenician as likewise their Instruments of War as Slings and other Weapons their Sithed Chariots and their different Names and several Distinctions Out of the same Tongue I have illustrated several Monuments of Antiquity sound out and still remaining in Britain which can no other waies be interpreted than in the Phoenician Tongue where they have a plain easie and undeniable signification And as to that Concordance which was between the Ancient Britains and Gauls in point of Language and some other Customes I have shewn that it proceeded not from hence that they were the same People but from their joynt Commerce with the Phoenicians and that in most probability Britain was first planted by a German Nation and not by the Gauls Mr. Burton in his Learned Commentary upon Antonine's Itinerary treating of Rutupis now Richborough asks the question how it came to pass if the Modern derivation of that place be true namely from the Welch Rhyd Tufith as Mr. Cambden conjectures that on the Coast of Barbary there should be a Town and Harbour of the very same name mentioned by Pliny Pudet saith he à Britannis Africae nomen mutuari It is a shame to derive the name of a place in Africa from Britain But they who shall seriously read and consider that not only Rhutupis but many other places in Britain have the same Names with others in Africa and that the Phoenicians from Africa traded into Britain they will unquestionably conclude that to derive on the other hand Names in Britain from those in Africa is not only rational but necessary and that it is impossible that such vast and constant similitude could happen by chance or blind fortune For it ever was and will be a Custome in the World and is constantly used in all our Colonies at this day that places receive their Names according to the resemblance they have with other places of those Countries from which the Planters proceeded It is not to be expected that I should have comprehended every thing that might have been produced to the perfection of these Antiquities It is sufficient if there be enough to evidence the truth of them and if any thing be omitted through want of Intelligence or through over-hastiness neglected as who is able at once to make a total discovery It will be a spur for others to make a further progress with greater felicity As for the other Antiquities namely of the Greeks and Romans though
the Light or shining Country for I find in a Roman Satyrist minimâ contentos noite Britannos In which words the Poet intimates its derivation for the Britains have but very little Night and in some parts none at all so that the business now is ended and we have a solid and unquestionable derivation of its Name In like manner would they proceed in deriving the Great and Famous Metropolis LONDON I have seen saies one upon this great and noble River but by what name the Thames will be then called God alone knoweth the Ruines of a CITY which extends six miles in length and in breadth not above one quarter of a mile and this I guess was LONDON of the Ancients or Long-Cown so called by the English by reason of its vast disproportion in length to the breadth of it and so you see London is also dispatched But if in truth I may deliver my Opinion there is no way more fallacious and deceitful in deriving of Kingdoms and Cities than from the Language of the People for I scarce think there is a Town or any place in England but by fertile Heads may be derived from some word or other that is now in use among its present Inhabitants every place yielding something either by Scituation Soyl or else Creek of Rivers Prospect of Hills and Valleys Customes and Manners Battles Buildings with thonsands of other Circumstances too tedious to mention from whence they may be deduced Now I leave it to any Rational man to judge whether it be not more proper and consonant to Reason to derive Places from their undoubted Trade by which they were known to all the World as the Isles of SCILLY were by the name of Cassiterides of the Greeks and Barat-anac or Bratanac of the Phoenicians than to deduce them from the uncertain sound and coincidency of a word with some light and trivial Custome among them The Reason that absolutely confirms me in the Opinion the Scilly Islands gave Name at last to this Great ISLAND that now alone keeps the name of Britannia is because Pliny writes that this Island was called ALBION when as all the Islands adjacent were called BRITAIN so that we see the name of Bratanac first took place in the adjacent Islands before it came on the main Land of Albion but in succession of Time the Name gaining footing in Cornwal and Devonshire it prevailed at last over all the Island and the greater part swallowed up at last the Name of the whole although corrupted and distorted by the several Dialects it ran through And that the exported Commodities of Countries gave Names anciently to People by which they were most commonly known although they might have other Names peculiar to themselves will be manifest if we consider how Africk and Ebora part of Spain took their names from Corn Iava called of Old Iabaduc from Barley Carmania Cremetes Sicilia Inychus Anapus Arvisium Arambys from Wine Ruspina and Ebusus from Figgs Zaita and Uzita from Olives Lusitania not from Lysus the Son of Bacchus but from the abundance of Chesnuts called Luza and the delicacy of them a great Merchandize in those daies and brought from those parts of Spain Italy and Calabria took their Names from the Pitch they yielded Cythnus from its Cheese Calymna and Alabus from its Hony Caristus Achates from certain Stones found there and the British Islands from its Mettal as also Chasus Chryse Odonis Siphnus Cimese Carcoma Orospeda with many others For considering the many diversities of People and Governments in this Island it is not reasonably to be supposed that they had one common Name among themselves by which the whole Island was known unless they had it from Forreigners who Traded with them If we examine the Original Names of all Nations we shall find that the Name by which they are known to the World differs much from those Names they have from themselves and by which too they do distinguish one another yet the Major part of the World which is ab extra to every particular Kingdom prevails in the denomination therefore it happens that those Kingdoms themselves so denominated are obliged to conform to those Appellations given them by the Major part and therefore that saying of Isidore That the BRITAINS were called so from something within them in my reason as it makes no more for Brit Painting than for King BRUTUS is to be neglected For the same Motives that could make an Historian write so much might have enabled him to have writ more for he that can positively affirm that a NAME comes from within a Kingdom and not from without in my Opinion ought to be particular in valuable Reasons otherwise he had better be silent being against the experience of the World That Nations receive their Names not from themselves but others But if Isidore means that BRITAIN had something within it from whence Strangers gave it that Name then none can deny it for it is true that these Islands took their Name from the TYNN they yielded though not all alike and at the same time And here I cannot but wonder that when Mr. Cambden had laid down that CUMERO was the primitive Name of the Inhabitants by which they called themselves he then in answer to his own Questions Whence then came ALBION Whence came BRITAIN saies that those Names came either from themselves or from others when just before he had given Examples That Countries have different Names some Names by which they called themselves others by which they were called of Strangers for as follows I will set down his own words They that were called Israelites saies he by the Greeks were called Hebrews and Jews by the AEgyptians Huesi as witnesseth Manethon so the Greeks named those Syrians who as Josephus writes called themselves Aramaeans they which named themselves Chusians were by the Graecians for their black Faces called AEthiopians those which after their own Speech were called Celtae the Greeks named Galatae so those that nominated themselves after their own Language Teutsch Numideans and Hellens by the Romans were named Germans Mauri and Graecians even so in these daies not to speak of many others they which in their own Idiom Musselmans Magier Czecchi and Bessermans are by all Nations in Europe named Turks Hungarians Bohemians and Tartarians so even we our selves in England by our Native and natural Speech call our selves English men but by the Welch Irish men and the High-land Scots Saffons that is as much as to say Saxons Now what follows from this but that the Inhabitants of this Island being called CUMERO by themselves were by some others named BRITAINS No for this will destroy all then they could not give themselves Brit c. from their Painting which assisted much to the derivation of BRITANNIA therefore saies he mark I pray you they were upon some other cause by themselves or others named BRITAINS But why by themselves when he had proved before
to be of Phoenician derivation will conduce much to the confirming and proving of what has been said concerning the Original name of BRITAIN For since it is not to be doubted but the Phoenicians Traded into these parts it could not happen by chance that the Names of all these Islands should preserve so entirely as they do in the Phoenician Language the very marks and foot-steps of those things for which they were so taken notice of by all the Ancients so that the consent and harmony of the names of so many Places with their very natures both in sence and sound confirms each others derivation and puts it beyond dispute that Britain was named Bratanac by the Phoenicians for its Tynn for which only thing it was famous to the then known World as Ierue or Iverue was called so from its Western and Thule as shall be shewn from its Northern or Dark scituation Bochartus mentions three Opinions of the Ancients concerning the Position of THULE The first and worst of them makes it Scandia which is Procopius his Judgment but Scandia is not an Island as Thule was supposed to be but a Peninsula I think his Opinion is not so much to be blamed upon that account seeing this was never absolutely defined But his singularity is rather to be condemned in fixing of it in that quarter of the World so remote from those parts others thought it lay upon The second is of Pytheas Massitilensis that it lies six daies Sail northward of Britain and has the Summer Tropick for the Artick Circle and in the Solstice has little or no Nights and no Daies in Winter which agrees exactly with Ireland The third Opinion is of Marinus and Ptolomy by whom THULE is made no great Island scituated in the sixty third Degree where the longest Day is twenty hours and not above two daies Sail from Britain which agrees with Schetland one of the Orcades But I rather believe Bochartus that there was no such particular place as Thule but that the Phoenicians sailing Northward on our Seas and being obliged to return upon the account of the Suns turning from his Tropick they gave the name of Thule to those places which were the Extreamest and by reason of their approaching Darkness put a stop to their further Navigations and that the Tradition of this was delivered by them to the Graecians and by them to the Romans so that they called that THULE which was the Extreamest part of the then known World With this description of Thule agrees exactly the word Tule or Thule of the Phoenicians signifying Darkness for Teth by them is often expressed by Theta as in Cadmus his Alphabet although AEthicus writes it Insula Tilae and Gerirat Thule is with the Phoenicians The Island of Darkness We well know the Northern Climates of the World are taken notice of for their Darkness not so much by reason of their long Nights as their gloomy and obscure Daies for with Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odyss 1. v. 25. to Darkness is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the North and Thule by Statius is called Nigra and Nigras Now the truth of this Derivation will more evidently appear if we consider the vanity of all others hitherto produced Suidas brings the Name of it from Thulis a King of Egypt THULIS saies he reigned over all Egypt to the Ocean and called one of those Islands lying in it Thule from his own Name But of such a King as this we never read of either in Manethon Herodotus Diodorus and Africanus besides it is strangly ridiculous to extend the Dominion of Egypt to the uttermost bounds of the North. Some bring it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but then it would be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And to make it come from the Saxons is worse viz. from Tell which in that Language signifying a Bound to make 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Telle Isidore that makes the Sun to keep his Summer Solstice in it saith that beyond it is no Day derives it from thence very ill if we may judge by his skill in Geography These are the Opinions of THULE so that I leave it to any man to judge whether it be not most probable to be derived from the Phoenician Thule agreeing exactly both in sence and sound with the notions of all Ages concerning this Island and the Appellation of it But to return to BRITAIN The Reason which makes Mr. Cambden in all his Antiquities of Names to have recourse to the Language of the People to the Welch for Britain and to the Irish for Ireland and so looked no higher proceeds from an opinion he took by the mis-understanding of Polybius That Britain was but late known yea not long before the daies of Caesar. The words of Polybius are these faithfully translated out of his Third Book For as concerning Asia and Lybia where they joyn with one another about AEthiopia no one can say perfectly to this day whether it be a Continent running to the South or whether it be encompassed by the Sea So likewise what lies between Tanais and Narbo stretching Northward is unknown to us at this present unless afterwards by diligent Enquiring we learn something of it They that speak or write any thing of these matters are to be thought to know nothing and to lay down Fables These are the words of Polybius by which he only means That as it was doubtful whether the Sea encompast the South parts of Africa so it was unknown whether the North parts of Europe above Narbo were encompast too Now Mr. Cambden understands the words as if they were spoken in general when indeed they related only to that particular Question Whether the North Tract of Europe be environed with the Sea which notwithstanding the great improvement of Navigation stands unresolved even to this day It is manifest Polybius spake not this in General because he himself describes the Fountains of Rhodanus and Corbilo on Ligeris and many other Places of France which all lay above Narbo In his Third Book he promiseth particularly to write of the Outer or West Sea and of the Occurrences that happened in it And which is more to our purpose to write of the Bretanick Islands for so he calls them and of their manner of making of Tynn which promise of his requires more than a Cursory knowledge to perform and urges that the Trade into those Seas was very great Nay this Promise he performed as we gather out of the Second Book of Strabo where Polybius is brought in describing of Europe and comparing the Opinions of Pytheas Dicaearchus and Eratosthenes concerning the Magnitude of BRITAIN This Work of his had it not perished would undoubtedly have made much for the Honour of Our Nation And we might have expected from so Ancient an Author living Three hundred and seventy years before Christ and from so accurate and worthy
the Greeks called them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this People it is they imagine to be of Greek Stock and to be the primitive Planters of this Island being as Caesar and Tacitus write they were of a different Stature and Complexion from those whom they gather to have come out of Gaul besides their similitude of Language and Manners 7. Another Reason they give for their Opinion is that although they do not believe all the History of Brute to be true in every point concerning the Trojans who on the matter may be accounted Graecians if we consider Dardanus their Founder and the vicinity of the two Nations so they cannot imagine but there was some Truth in the ground of that History although so obscured with the Fabulous superstructures of some Writers that not being able to undergo the test of Wise men the whole Story has had the fate to be accounted Idle and Ridiculous For say they if one consider the consonancy of the Greek Language with the British likewise several Manners and Customes the British had which were peculiar to them only and the Greeks and to no other of these Western Nations certainly we may reckon them to be of one Stock or Language yet the first Historian finding this great Probability might be ambitious according to the Customes of those times to derive his Country-men from a Trojan Race and so put this general Truth into a particular dress of his own These are the Reasons given by Wise men by which they verily think the Britains to be primitively of a Greek Original which though it cannot be true considering how I have shewed before that the Phoenicians Traded into these Islands some hundred of years before ever any Greek entered these Seas yet does it plainly shew that they were of longer standing in these Islands than is commonly supposed 1. Now as for the first Reason given That these Islands must be planted by Navigators I think will not hold good unless we call there Navigators who in small Wicker Boats used to row between Britain Gaul and Belgium for from that Continent do I rather believe the first Planters to come than from the Mediterranean through the Streights 2. To the second Reason I answer That the Greeks were not in the first Ages of the World esteemed the best Navigators but that the Phoenicians preceded them both in time and experience in those Arts has been shewn already 3. To the Third That although their Colonies were numerous yet were they not so early as those of the Phoenicians 4. To the Fourth That although their Language was very frequent in Britain and the Welch to this day has very much in it yet cannot we reasonably suppose that it was the only Language of the Country because we find not their Tongue in any Country so soon and so much corrupted so as in Caesar there is no notice taken of it at all which he certainly would have done if he had found the British Tongue only a derivation from the Greek or corruption in Dialect and not a quite different Language As for the similitude that is made between Druids and Roman Clergy at this day I think it holds better if we suppose the Religion and Worship of the Greeks brought hither and preserved in its Native Language than to conjecture that the People understood it at first but by time and ill manners lost the knowledge of it 5. To the Fifth That the Chariots of Greece as well as other Customes of theirs used by the Britains argues the Greeks to have been here indeed but proves not they were the only Planters or brought those Chariots to take possession of an empty Country 6. To the Sixth Although there were two different Nations in this Island yet Caesar and Tacitus takes no notice of the Inland People more than the Gaulish Britains as I may call them as being of a more Greekish extraction 7. To the Seventh That although there may be some Truth couched in the History of Brute yet do not the Histories of Brute prove but that there were others before him in this Island which makes me wonder at Mr. Cambden and Others that think that in adhering to the History of Brute we must cast off the search and enquiry into the Antiquity of the Inhabitants of this Island Mr. Sheringham to prove that the Greeks and Britains had no Commerce together brings in an Ancient Poet in Eustathius who reckoning up all the Greatest Islands known to the Graecians never makes mention of Britain which he would have done in the first place had he ever heard of it The Verses are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of the Seven ISLANDS Nature made SICILY the first place had For Greatness next is SARDO Height Then CYRNUS next Jove's Country CRETE Narrow EUBEA then and CYPRUS last Of all is Little LESBOS placed But to this may be Answered That this Poet as usually all Poets do reckon only the Islands of the Mediterranean which were most obvious to the Greeks and troubled not himself with the exactness of things as we see by his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Besides it may be Answered That although the Islands about Britain and Britain it self were known to the Greeks yet at first they did not know this to be an Island having nothing to do in the more Northern parts It was not long before the Romans time when Thule and six daies say I beyond Britain was discovered of which Pythias makes mention The Graecians as well as the Phoenicians at first contented themselves with the Commodities of the Southern and Western parts of these Islands and no doubt but they secured themselves by little and little of the nature of the People and conveniencies of Ports and all other Provisions before they ventured too far Northward Now in my Opinion this makes nothing against the Greek Voyages into these parts to whom the Cassiterides or the Scilly Islands and Cornwal and Devonshire might be known yet they had not discovered Catness or the extreamest point of Scotland What he saies afterwards That before the Arrival of Caesar into this Island the Name of Britain cannot be found is a great mistake and madvertency for Polybius in his Third Book makes mention of it particularly and by Name where he promises to give an account 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the British Islands and the making and ordering of their Tynn which he performed if we may believe Strabo who brings him in conferring and confuting the Opinions of Pytheas Dicaearcbus and Eratosthenes concerning the Magnitude of Britain Thus Mr. Sherringham ran himself into the same Error of Mr. Cambden I suppose by mistaking of Polybius But granting that we do not find the Name of Britain or very rarely before Caesars time among the Greeks yet the Name of Cassiterides
the Romans worshipt the Gods of the Nations they conquered Mr. Cambden makes this a Tutelar God and interprets CAD Cadenorum the Protectour of the Cadeni but it seems the People were called Gadeni so that it should be Gad not Gad but granting time might make this small alteration yet we find not in other Inscriptions to the Tutelar Genius's of particular places that the name of the Place is signified in any neither was it reasonable it should being that such Altars were made for private use only and needed no Inscription to signifie what they were In my opinion the signification of these Inscriptions are to be sought further The God Magon or Mogon to whom these Altars were erected seems to be brought into Britain by the Phoenicians and in all probability may be the God of the Canaanites Baal-Magon the Lord Magon For as from Dag a Fish they made their Idol Dagon so this Idol of the Sun from the melting quality that Planet hath might from Mag which signifies to melt be called Magon and that this Magon the British God was the Sun and so consequently of Phoenician Original this addition of Cad seems to verifie The Assyrians from whom the Phoenicians had his name Belus also called the Sun according to Macrobius Cad and Cadcad by duplication and Macrobius saies that the interpretation of his name signifies One or Only and Cad in the Chaldean and Syrian Tongue signifies One And this Attribute they gave to him because as the same Author reports he was the greatest and almost the only God and all the rest accounted but his Assisters and Coadjutors In the Inscription DEO MOUNO CAD MOUNO is the same in Greek as CAD in the Phoenician Dialect viz. the Only Julian the Apostate after he had revolted from the Christian Religion and forsaken the only true God embraced this Cad viz. the Sun an only God so falsly called In his Oration of the Sun he makes Azizus whom we have proved to be Hesus that is MARS and Monimus whom we will shew to be Theut or Teutates that is MERCURY to be his Assisters His words are these I intend to speak something of the Phoenician Theology They that inhabit Edessa a Place consecrated from all Ages to the Sun make Monimus and Azizus placed or seated with him Jambicus interprets it that Monimus is MERCURY and Azizus MARS Mercury who is called Theut here we find called Monimus and much upon the same account for as Theut was the Inventer of Letters so Monimus was the God of Eloquence both Attributes of Mercury the latter of which names is referred to the Phoenician Minom an elegant and quaint Speaker which we have mentioned in this place because seated with this Belinus or Belus In Palmyra a City of the Phoenicians there was this Inscription which because it refers to this God Belinus I will put down 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To Agli-Belus and Malach-Belus Native or Country Gods that is as some interpret it To the Winter and Summer Sun for upon the Marble on which this Inscription was found He was both waies represented but the Britains represented him with a Harp as may be seen in an Ancient Coyn of Cunobelinus and without question had all the opinions of him as the Greeks and Phoenicians had That this was a God greatly reverenced in Britain we may gather from Cunobelinus and Cassobelinus two great Princes who bear his Name and as in the Eastern Countries it was esteemed a great Honour to be descended of him so a Poet in the commendation of a Bowl saies Belus omnes A Belo That it was the Cup of BELUS and his Race so undoubtedly many Princes in Britain esteemed it an Honour to be called by his Name We will see therefore what is the meaning of CUNO for it is no more the part of Cunobelinus than CASSI is of Cassibelinus who by Ninnius the Britain is called simply Bellinus and by Dio Suellan for Vellan or Mellin which are all corruptions of Belin as Mr. Cambden himself confesseth Cuno therefore being not part of the Name but in all likelyhood some Honourable Office or Title of this Prince let us see what it might signifie among the Britains for seeing this God came from the Phoenicians why might not this Title of Cuno also be derived from them Upon this we may suppose that Cuno Belinus might be as much as Cohen Belinus the Prince of Belinus according to that saying Rex idem Hominum Phoebique Sacerdos The Priest-hood in those daies being worn by the greatest Princes so that Cuno might become upon that account an Honorable title as worn by several Kings as Cuneglasus Cunedaglus Cungetorir the last signifying a High Priest as likewise Hanibal Asdrubal and Maharbal of the same signification among the Carthaginians But all these Names might have very easie Interpretations relating to this way were it not too far beyond my purpose likewise Cuno Belinus may signifie the Son of Belinus for Cuno signifies born or begotten And as the Phoenicians esteemed it their highest Honour and Credit of their Princes to be derived from Bel why may not the Old Britains desire to initiate them in this so that all the significations of Cuno mentioned by Mr. Cambden may very rationally relate to this Original But to return to Belinus or APOLLO he is called by the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yellow and from hence possibly Belinus in the British Language might come to signifie that Colour but that the colour Belinus should give name to this God as Mr. Cambden supposes is impossible for these following Reasons 1. Because he is called Belis as well as Belinus but the Colour Belinus in all its corruptions retains the N as Belyn Melyn Felyn Villan and Suellan To speak the truth Melinus not Belinus is the proper name for Yellow the word of which Colour was also taken from the Romans and Melinus cannot be imagined to give name to Cuno Belinus who lived in the daies of Augustus and Tiberius when Caesar had only visited this Island and no Roman Colonies had been planted here to change the British Language And here I will take notice that Dio calls Cassobelinus Suellan which Suellan Mr. Cambden derives from Gweliw signifying a waterish Colour not a yellow Such confusion hath the Suppositions of divers coloured Paintings among the Britains created 2. In all Inscriptions of this God we find him written BEL not Fel Vel or Mel which might have happened had he received his Name from that Colour Besides in all the Additions to his name this Colour is absolutely excluded as he was entituled Belsamen by the Phoenicians that is Lord of Heaven so possibly in Britain for his Sister the Moon was called Belisama as much as to say Queen of Heaven Not yellow Heaven or yellow Moon which is very absurd but it might happen that Dio not knowing the Original of this
of his Father But it seems the People ill resenting the flight of Lavinia Ascanius was obliged to re-call her and giving to her and her Son the City Lavinium he built Albae Longa where he Reigned At his death he bequeathed his Kingdom to his Son Iulus between whom and Silvius Controversies arose concerning the Right of Government at last it was found that the People inclined rather to Silvius as being descended of Lavinia the Daughter of Latinus and inheriting the blood of the Trojans and Latins the whole Kingdom devolved on him By this Iulus was constrained to take up with the Priest-hood There is great uncertainty in Roman Authors concerning the Line of AEnaeas and Livy doubts whether Iulus was the Son of AEneas by Creusa or Lavinia but this seemeth to be the clearest Genealogy To this Genealogy gathered out of Roman Authors John of Weathamstead Abbot of St. Albaens a right Judicious Man had respect in his Censures long ago upon Brutes History where he saith That Ascanius begat no such Son as had for his proper name SILVIUS but left Issue an only Son Iulus from whom the Family of the IULII afterwards proceeded and that Silvius Posthumus whom perhaps Jeoffery of Monmouth meaneth was the Son of AEneas by his Wife Lavinia who begat AEnaeas Silvius and in the Eight and thirtieth year of his Reign ended his life by a Natural death How therefore could he be slain by his Son Brute or if any such thing had happened how came so memorable an Accident to be omitted This argues the story to be Poetical as he saith rather than Historical and that Jeoffery or whoever compiled it was altogether ignorant of the Genealogy of AEnaeas which will appear more evidently by the sequel Let us see therefore to which Line our supposed Brute can with most reason be referred In this he seems to confound Silvius with Iulus making them the same Persons who indeed were but Competitors in the same Kingdom so that Silvius in the Line of Lavinia is brought into the Line of Creusa Others to mend the matter make Brute descend of AEnaeas and Lavinia but then they bring Ascanius of the Line of Creusa in to the Line of Lavinia and so make him the same with Silvius Posthumus by that to have begotten Iulus the Father of Brute whereas Silvius Posthumus begat Silvius AEnaeas and was the Father of those many Silvii who succeeded in the Kingdom of Alba. Hitherto we see Brute the Grandfather of AEnaeas by a mixt Genealogy but Gyonan Villani cited by Mr. Hollinshead brings his Line absolutely from AEnaeas and Lavinia and seems to make him the Grand-child of AEnaeas by his Son Silvius Posthumus who marrying the Neece of his Mother Lavinia had Issue BRUTE so called because she died in Travail of him I suppose he means Brotus but how ridiculously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is made to signifie any such thing I leave it to the Judicious to determine But how comes it to pass that he should flie his Country fearing as is said his Grandfather Silvius Posthumus when as there is no mention made in Gyonan Villani of another Silvius in this Line the Son of Silvius Posthumus and the Father of Brute However it comes to pass Brute must be the Off-spring of AEneas and we must not be too busie in asking questions for if one demand how the name of Brute which was afterwards given to the first Consul for his feigned Stupidity to be a name of the Princes Son in the same Kingdom it will be answered he was called Brotus not Brutus because his Mother died in Child-bed of him If it be asked why he sted for the accidental killing his Father the Count Palatine saies it is a mistake for it was only a Rumour spread of him and the truth was rather by other discontents that he was moved to flight If enquiry be made how it comes to pass that the Latin Writers who reckon up the Progeny of AEneas and the Silvii make not the least mention of him and Gildas the Ancient Britain hath Altum silentium in this point The Reply is easie That it is not the business of every Author to mention every particular for the Romans contented themselves with what related to their own Nation and Gildas made no mention of it being a thing beyond dispute For the present we will attend this BRUTE the supposed Son of Silvius with the same care and diligence we have done the Celtick Kings Being of the Age of fifteen he left his Country and arriving at Greece he found a number of the scattered Trojans who lived under the Dommion of Pandrasus Finding them a discontented Party he managed his Interest wisely with them often inculcating the Nobility of their Ancestors and the slavery of their present condition he offered himself to be their Head and Leader and so encouraged them to stand upon honourable Terms They willingly embraced this motion and many of them being in Authority under Pandrasus revolted and so brought over great Parties with them BRUTE being thus strengthened great numbers continually flockt to him with encouragements to execute his designs securing himself in Woods and making sure to him many considerable Forts and strong Holds but first writes a smart Letter to Pandrasus wherein he demands the liberty of his Trojans The King amazed at his sudden Imperiousness but considering with calmer thoughts the Paucity of the Rebels resolved by force of Arms to chastise their Arrogance by reducing them to Obedience In all haste he levies a considerable Power and marching against him with greater heat than conduct and supposing his Enemies to be hid in the Woods near a Town called Sparatinum he is set upon by Brute who had three thousand of his well appointed Trojans in Ambuscado for that Expedition so that Pandrasus his Army marching loosely and without order or discipline as if they had not expected an Enemy so near them were quickly routed and put to flight Brute pursues his Victory to the River Akalon in which many of the Graecians miserably perished Neither could the Courage of Antigonus Brother to Pandrasus prevail although he often from small Parties rallyed and made Head against the Enemy for by the general Consternation of his Men he was defeated and taken Prisoner After this success Brute entred Sparatinum and placing a Garrison in it of six hundred Men he returns with the rest of his Body into the Woods bringing them the joyful News of his eminent Victories Pandrasus being overcome with shame and sorrow for the loss of his Brother and this unexpected Defeat resolves at last with a greater Power and more care and circumspection to renew the War To this end he gathers up his dispersed Souldiers and with fresh supplies from all parts of his Kingdom laies Siege to Sparatinum wherein he thought Brute in Person resided This Opinion made him carry on the Siege with more violence storming it at several
but let all die To th' unborn Child that in the Womb doth lie But Antoninus had his thoughts more taken up with contriving his Fathers death than the destruction of his Enemies having once or twice attempted to kill him with his own hands and to gain the affection of the Souldiers he indulged them in all sorts of liberty and loosness so that Severus perceiving the unreclaimable nature of his Son more overcome with Grief than any other malady died at York His last words were these A troubled Common-wealth I found as my entrance every where but now I leave it in peace and quietness even among the Britains An Old man and infirm in my Feet I leave to mine Antonines an Empire if they prove good strong and stable but if bad weak and unsteady When Severus and his Son Bassianus were at York that famous Law was made Touching the Interest and right that Masters have to the Goods and Possessions of their Servants Signed by Severus and Antoninus His Body was conveyed to Rome in great pomp and attendance of the Governours of Provinces through which it passed although others report it was burnt here in Britain and the Ashes only carried in a Golden Urne and laid up in the Sepulchre of the Antonines He Reigned seventeen years eight months and odd daies and was made a God by the Romans By reason to some The way of Deifying their Emperours may be unknown I have thought it convenient to give a summary account of it here but first by way of Instruction The Romans were in general a sort of rude and ignorant People made up of the conflux of the worst of the Neighbour People of that State who either out of Guilt having committed some notorious Crimes in their own Cities that deserved death by their Laws or Discontent for want of preferment or promotion among their own People fled out of Revenge to that Asylum or place of Resuge which Romulus had set up for the same purpose to draw People to his new-built City so that they had no Gods in common but every one had his peculiar Deity if such People had any as he received and learnt in his own Country insomuch that the Worship of the City was various and uncertain which with those Gods AEnaeas brought from Troy made up a promiscuous sort of Idolatry but of these Romans we shall speak more fully in the Chapter relating to their Antiquities Thus it continued all Romulus his Reign the People being rather given to War than any Civil exercise of Religion all of them enquiring into the success of their Battles by various and different Auguries which every man had properly to himself Numa succeeding Romulus and being a superstitious Prince much addicted to the Ceremonies of Religion perceived it necessary for the supporting of his Kingdom to introduce some sort of Uniformity in Religion Now this he could not do without pretending to some extraordinary Divine Revelations every man judging that Religion and God to be the best in which he was born and to which he was naturally most devoted to accomplish his private ends and desire Numa feigns himself to have an intimate Communication and interest with the Goddess EGERIA and by the wonderful sanctity of his life fully perswades and possesses the People with the truth of his divine Intercourse with her insomuch that he establisht a set Form of Worship which he had learnt from the Etruscans a People infinitely given to Rites and Ceremonies which took their name from Care a City of Etruria After these proceedings he accomplishes the certain number and order of the Gods built Temples offered and instituted particular sacrifices to them taught them the Lines of Heaven and Earth how to exercise their Augury and having establisht all things in a firm and steady method dies who by the prosperity and felicity of his Reign fixes the People in an absolute belief of the Truth of those things he had before through his great pains and industry taught them Upon the division of these Romans they had a respect to the distinct and different dignities of Gods by Title and Place the better to advance the perpetual remembrance of their own promotions and so claimed a right to particular Gods that others might not own From this they successfully preserved the memory thereof by Images like the Parents and Sons as the most Honourable memorial of their descent from such Mighty and Noble Progenitors For those that were the first Authors of Images to themselves without being promoted to it by Merit were esteemed Upstarts and all such as had no Images were accounted Ignobly born Thus we see how by this strait of difficulty they despaired and some quite pin'd away for want of Honour amongst whom it often happens whose pride and ambition will not admit of content to be born from the loyns of Men but of Gods None therefore could obtain the priviledge of being Dignified after this manner but such as were promoted by the Senate to ride publickly in the Curule Chair which was the primary Dignity appertaining to such lofty Promotions By this 't is evident that the Right of Nobility went by favour of the Senate as well as Merit from whence we may gather how early and from what Root the honour of Antiquity took its first Rice and Original which must be occasioned out of the sence of Gratitude for some worthy Exploit done to the credit of the State or particular respect to such Persons and the benefit of Successours whose zeal to Religion and the eminency of whose Spirit had so fortunately raised them above the ordinary level of Mankind For this very cause Janus Saturn and others who by their several Projects Inventions and Labours had contributed to the improving and augmenting the Comforts of this Life in their perpetual Remembrance after they departed hence were translated under the sublime notion and title of GODS having no other way in those daies of gratifying the Deserts of the deceased or supporting of the honour of their otherwise fading Memories than by Heaven and Immortality But many in successive Ages although they had not so good a Title took upon them the same pretences for as their Merits were less so their Pride and Ambition was greater Flattery making doubtless amends in a considerable manner for the former This made Alexander the Great who was rather destructive and injurious than beneficial to Mankind taking the measure of his Worth from the vain applause of his Followers and the esteem of his own Actions from their greatness not goodness write to the Cities of Greece that they would admit him into the Society of their Gods What entertainment his Follies found may be seen from the scoff of Anaxarchus Eudamonicus who did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deride Alexander for Deifying himself and from the Reply of the Lacedaemonians replied 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If Alexander will be a God let him be a God
Hengists further Advice in hastning speedy Orders for a greater supply of German Forces in pretence of securing the Land more firmly from the rage and power of his Enemies which in truth at last proved but to promote and strengthen his own Greatness which so long he had fore-cast in his head to accomplish esteeming it also to be a great Honour to his Name and Family that he should approve himself to be the only Man that first laid the foundation of a Saxon Monarchy in so Great and Renowned a Kingdom as BRITAIN which was not only so esteemed in those daies but by the Phoenicians Greeks and Romans their Predecessours And we have just cause to believe his Affairs were managed with more than ordinary prudence and policy when in one of his Armies was conveyed hither the comely and most beautiful Rowena on purpose to entice and steal away the Kings heart that her Father might take the better advantage in compleating his Emperial designs The King no sooner saw this Beautiful Virgin at a Banquet unto which he was invited by Hengist but so infinitely admired her Person Beauty and Noble Behaviour that nothing would divert his resolution or quench the heat of so sudden a passion but the deserting his own Queen to obtain Rowena in Marriage but Hengist craftily managing his designs modestly complements the King with humble and submissive Excuses much after this manner That neither his Daughters degree Person or Fortune was suitable to Majesty or the Greatness of his Dominions and Empire yet at last through the earuestness of the Kings Importunities he gave his consent for his speedy Marriage By this Hengist was not only honoured in being Related to a British Prince but firmly received a confirmation of the Kings Gratitude the Kingdom of Kent for his Recompence which formerly had been governed by one Guorongus a Vice-Roy to manage State Affairs in that Province This German Alliance with King Vortigern in a short time made the Saxon Confederates more burthensome to the State than their late Enemies which at first a little startled the King nevertheless the crafty and fortunate inventions of Hengist strengthned by the power of that beloved Rowena so eclipsed the Kings sight yea so weakned his Power that he gained further leave to send into Germany for his Brother Occa and his Son Ebusa The pretence was that the Enemy grew too heady and strong for him and that by such aids and assistance he could better undertake the defence of the South parts when at the same time They if here might preserve the North. Some report although not without contradiction to others that this Occa was the Son of Hengist and Ebusa his Uncles Son but the difference in Opinions in this point is not much material sufficient that the story is true that such Persons by name were called hither by the advice and procurement of Hengist to promote the power of a Saxon Interest The Nobility of the British Nation now sensible of their destruction knew it was too late to reclaim a Luxurious and careless Prince and as to little purpose to endeavour the recalling of a neglected opportunity wherein once they might have stopt the current of such dangerous Events and Accidents For their Consultations now with the King how to prevent Occa and Ebusa from entring the British shoars were wholly rejected through the inseparable affection he bore to the content and happiness of his new Associate The manner of Occa and Ebusa's behaviour after their Arrival is briefly thus After the King had given his consent for the landing of a powerful Army of Germans there came with them as their Generals Occa and Ebusa and coasting towards Britain they struck Sail for the Orkney Isles after whose arrival the Inhabitants received great and unspeakable damages and not long after the Scots and Picts bore an equal share in affliction for after they had sufficiently executed their Tyranny upon the Britains they proceeded to Northumberland where for some time at their first entrance intended only to make a short stay but in process of time too well approving the accommodation of that Country they esteemed it a place worthy of longer residence yet not so fully and absolutely possessing it as to govern it under the title of KINGS but Subjects of Kent till ninety nine years after their first possession Now it is that again we hear how infinitely afflicted and moved the Subjects of King Vortigern were at the increasing Power of the Saxons and because as I said before they could not perswade him into the belief of such great dangers likely to happen they universally agreed in Counsel among themselves to bereave him of his Regal Power and Dignity and in whose stead they placed his Son Vortimer which for the present put the Nation into no small confusion and hubbub besides gave new occasions to the Saxons to revive Insurrections and commit upon the distressed Inhabitants most deplorable spoil and havock Bede and others are silent of Vortimers taking possession of the Crown about this time and consequently that there happened no such fewd and heart-burning between King Vortigern and his Nobility upon the account of the Saxons Arrival into this Land For they say that when the Saxons came into the Land they were received as Friends Aiders and Assisters of the disturbed Britains against their Enemies But I conceive Bede and others might mistake the true Timing of Transactions in that State forgetting the time of the breach of Covenant between them and so might easily mistake one time for another as I find the British History in several other cases are worthy of too great blame and reprehension What Courage the Britains took after all these discouragements in the daies of Aurelius Ambrosius shall be shewn in a following Treatise relating to the transactions in that Princes Reign Hengist by Birth however he dissembled his Quality in that modest behaviour of his in behalf of his Daughter to King Vortigern was of the Princely Blood of the Saxon Race born in Angria in Westphalia the Son of Wiht-Gisil of the Line of Prince Wooden The Kingdom of Kent he obtained by his power and policy not Right which in the daies of Julius Casar was never known to be an intire Province as it was alwaies governed by four Petty Kings of the British Race And although he obtained not the Kingdom by right of Inheritance yet was he to be commended for his Policy Valour and Conduct He possest not the Kingdom above seven years but laid the foundation of the Saxon Government and approved himself an Example yea the first Rule and direction to Egbert afterwards a K. of the West Saxons how to reduce the whole Kingdom into one happy and entire state of Monarchy So that before we proceed to the History and Chronicle of his Successours who after their Arrival bore the greatest sway in this Kingdom and by success of Arms and vast supplies received from the
own minds with what care did they make Gods of Diseases and Corruptions and how diligently did they feign out of their own brains particular Gods to preside over particular Matters When they sate down before a City with their Army they first by Enchantments and Spells conjured the Gods of the place to desert their Enemies and the Roman Priest in the face of the whole Army invited them to Rome promising them better accommodations and statelier Temples than their Native Countries could afford them And lest other Nations should serve them the same trick they constantly concealed the true name of their City that the name of their Tutelar Gods might not be discovered The Athenians had Altars erected to the Unknown Gods lest by leaving any out of the Catalogue they might incur their displeasure The Athenians but especially the Romans had such an opinion of the certainty and infallibility of Soothsaying that the last are said scarce ever to have undertaken any Action of importance either within their City or without before they had first consulted their Augures and if at any time they had been beaten by their Enemies they commonly attributed their Mischance to the omission of some Rite or Ceremony or other when the defeat plainly proceeded from the ill management of their Affairs by their Commanders Of SOOTH-SAYING there are fonr kinds FIrst AUSPICIUM in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a way of Sooth-saying or divining by Birds when such or such Birds flie before or behind on the right or the left to shew what it doth prognosticate sometimes from the number of them whence Romulus had promised to him the Empire before his Brother because he had seen a double number of Vultures and lastly from the nature of them Secondly ARUSPICIUM under which is comprehended what by the Greeks is termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was an observing whether the Beast to be sacrificed came to the Altar willingly or no or whether he died without strugling or bellowing In the next place they made an inspection into his Bowels to see whether they were of a natural Colour whether they were corrrpted or exulcerated whether any parts were wanting this is that part of it which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Latins Extispicium The next thing presented to their consideration at these Sacrifices was the Flame observing whether it presently consumed the Sacrifice whether it were of a pure bright and lively colour whether thick or smoaky whether it burnt without crackling noise or ejaculation of its sparkles This the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the signs by which they foretold events are termed by AEschylus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latins learnt this Art from the Hetrurians and they were instructed in it by one Tages who appearing to certain Plough-men out of a furrow gave them many good and wholsome instructions concerning this kind of Sooth-saying Thirdly TRIPUDIUM was a conjecture of Future success by the dancing or rebounding of Crums cast unto Chickens which was performed after this manner Silence being commanded and to the Coop where the Fowls were opened they cast down crumbs of Bread if the Chicken came slowly or not at all or walked up and down carelessly without minding the Bread then should the business fall out unsuccessful but if they hastily leapt out of the Coop and fed greedily as if some crumbs should fall out of their mouths again it betokened happiness and good success Fourthly AUGURIUM was a fore-telling things from the chattering of Birds or from any sudden or surprizing sounds or voices of which we can give no cause or reason After the destruction and sacking of Rome by the Ganls it was disputed by the Fathers whether they should remove to Veii then a noise of a Centurion being heard told them 'T was best tarrying where they were that immediately they gave over all thoughts of a Removal And the death of CAESAR was divined from the clattering of Armour in his house The Athenians and Romans very much agreed in superstitiously observing good daies and bad making several conjectures from the Weather from the crossing of the way by a Hare or Cat from a Hens crowing from the entring of a black Dog into their Houses c. That which was first adored in the World instead of its Creatour is supposed by some to be the Sun which was occasioned by some broken Traditions conveyed by the Patriarchs to their Children touching the dominion of the Sun by day and by the constant wondring of the Heathens themselves at the glorious constitution and admirable course of that Coelestial body with the infinite advantages it daily bestowed on Mankind Upon the same account soon after ' came the Moon to be worshipped the chief place from whence this poyson dispersed it self over the East is thought by Meade to have been Babylon from Revelations 17. 15. where Babylon is called the Mother-Harlot that is saith he the First parent of Idols for as Babel was the first seat of Temporal Monarchy so is it of Idolatry which is more probable than the Opinion of Diodorus Siculus which makes the AEgyptians the first Inventers of this Superstitious worship This kind of Idolatry was very early brought into Greece if we will give any credit to Plaeto who in his Cratylus speaks thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It seems to me that the Ancient Inhabitants of Greece had the same Gods the Barbarians have now viz. the Sun and Moon And Plutarch affirms in the Life of Pericles That they worshipt the Sun punishing the neglect thereof with death and that this kind of Sun-worship was known to the Romans also in its very Infancy may be proved from the Testimonies of Ter. Varro and Dio Halicarnassaeus who affirm That Tatins King of the Sabines was the first at Rome that consecrated Houses to the Honour of the Sun and Moon Now this as it was the most ancient Theology of the Heathens so was it in it self more reasonable and natural than that which was taught the People by the Poets called Poetick or fabulous Theology For they lighting on some imperfect Relations concerning the Creation and some broken Traditions touching GOD and the Wonders he wrought in the behalf of his People have so strangly inveloped the Truth by delivering it in a dark and mystical sense and by mixing it with divers trumperies and figments of their own brains that the lustre of Moses's Writings could scarce be discovered For they made their Verses and Songs more to please and wheedle the weak Multitude into an opinion of their Wisdom and veneration of their Persons than by any solid reason to satisfie the minds of their Auditors concerning those new-fangled Deities What an infinite number of Gods and strange Legends concerning them did they invent and hammer out from the Attributes and Miracles of the Great and True GOD and from the confused
Serpents for delivering such impertinent senceless and improper stuff concerning the Gods by which we may guess what opinion the wiser sort of Greeks entertained of the Deity The Romans likewise at first had far modester conceptions and more proportionable to the nature of God than those in the time of Tarquinius Priscus who was the first that introduced Images and Pictures of their Gods into their Temples a thing absolutely forbidden the Romans by Numa who taught them to believe that God had neither form or likeness of Man or Beast which was very consonant to the doctrine of the Pythagoreans who taught the Gods were invisible incorruptible and only intelligible St. Augustine out of Varro affirms that the Romans for above 170 years worshipped the Gods without Images which custom said Varro if it had still continued the Gods had been more purely worshipped The Persians could allow of no Temple deeming it a piece of Impiety and Irreligion to pen up and circumscribe with walls the Majesty of their God the Sun who fill'd the World with its Glory And Tully saith in his second Book De Legibus Non esse parietibus includendos Deos quibus omnia deberent esse patentia ac libera quorumque hic mundus omnis Templum esset ac Domus Numa as it appeared afterwards by his Books that were found at the digging up of his Grave condemned the Superstition that he had establisht as altogether vain and delusive It seems that he saith Sr. Walter Rawleigh did intend to acquit himself to wiser Ages which he thought would follow as one that had not been so foolish as to believe the Doctrine wherein he instructed his own barbarons times And now we have good reason to believe that he lookt upon what he laid down to the Romans concerning Religion rather as a fit way of Policy whereby he might reduce a savage Multitude of Thieves and Outlaws to Civility and direct them into a better course of life than as the true and proper sentiments he had of the Deity Nevertheless the Proetor of the City though Numa cried out of the Grave and gave testimony against himself that the Religion he had instructed them in was false and erronious was so far satisfied in the truth and reasonableness of it that though he strongly credited Numa in one point yet strangly distributed him in the other therefore with a great deal of zeal and vehemency of Spirit acquainting the Senate whither this Opinion tended The Books immediately were commanded immediately to be burnt as contrary to the Religion then in use among them The truth is they had good reason of State for it having prospered better under this than any Nation did before or after them for although their Religion in it self was but a meer Politick-cheat yet the constant Belief and strong Opinion they had of their readiness of their Gods in assisting them if their Sacrifices were rightly performed was the chief thing that rendred them incapable of irresolution and despair This boy'd up their spirits in the unhappiest storms of ill accidents and made the Roman Valour be so highly extoll'd and talkt of beyond that of any other Nation and had not too much prosperity the effect of their valour which brings along with it a Triumvirate of pride luxury and licentiousness satal and destructive to all kind of Government infected the innocency and ingenuity of their natures and unmanned and dispirited their wonted Courage had not Justice been banisht the Commonwealth by which for so many years it had been preserved had not the Introduction of so many Gods which at last justled out of mens minds both Religion and themselves the Commonwealth not having Faith either publick or private to suffice so many made the Commonalty head-strong and saucy and the Governours more intent upon their own pleasure than the good of the Republique this well and stately erected Empire might not only endured far longer than it did but might have been capable of greater enlargements and accessions also Their Order of Sacrificing was after this manner WHEN the Priest had brought the Sacrifice to the Altar he standing laid his hands upon it and pray'd In the beginning of his prayers he made his first addresses to Janus and Vesta believing them to be the chiefest Deities at all Sacrifices and that the first applications of their Vows ought to be made to them if they intended thereby to receive favourable Access to any of their other Gods their Prayer being ended the Priest laid the Corn Meal and Salt with some Frankinsence on the head of the Sacrifice This was called Immolation then he poured upon it Wine but before that was performed he took a little earthen Chalice or Ewer out of which he tasted of the Liquor then giving it to the People that stood about him to do the like This Ceremony was called Libation this being effected the Priest pluckt off the Hair that grew between the Horns of the Sacrifice and committed it to the slames as his first Offering then turning towards the East he drew a crooked Knife along the Beasts back from his forehead to his tayl commanding his Attendants to cut the throat of the Sacrifice so presented and dedicated to the Gods called by some Cultrarii and Victimarii by others Popae or Agones some made haste to catch the Blood in Vessels others to skin the Beast and wash it others to kindle the fire then the South-sayer or Priest with an Iron-knife made diligent inquiry by turning the Entrails whether the Gods were pleased with the Sacrifice not daring to touch them with his hands fearing that if the Sacrifice was polluted his hands would presently rot off After they had made a sufficient inspection those Sub Officers cut from every bowel and part certain pieces which they wrapped up in Meal presenting them in Baskets to the Priest who immediately laid them on the Altar and burnt them which they called litare or reddere that is to please or satisfie by Sacrifice It was not lawful to light this fire with any of the Olive or Lawrel Tree nor with the thick or gross Bark or rotten Root of an Oak being things esteemed to carry mischief and ill Omens in them When that part of the Sacrifice which belonged to the Gods was consumed by the fire then did the People return to their Feastings and Junkettings singing whilest they were at meat songs in praise of their Gods Revelling and dancing to Cymbals about the Altars of their Gods intending that every part of their bodies should be serviceable in its kind to their Religion c. Of their Religious places for Worship THE chiefest of which they called a TEMPLE which word though it has other significations shall be considered by us only as it imports a Church or Building consecrated to the Honour of some God And this differed from the AEdes sacra or Religious house not only as it was sacred to some God but because it was
and clasping upholdeth it self Some call this the Temple of the God TERMINUS and that the Limits of the Roman Empire was near Carron is affirmed by Buchanan in these Verses Roma securigeris praetendit Moenia Scotis Hic spe progressus positd Carronis ad undam Terminus Ausonii signat divertia Regni Rome rais'd a Wall against the Pole ax'd Scot Despairing any further to promote Its weary Eagles for near Carron's sands The utmost Limit of her Empire stands Now according to this description who does not see a great analogy and similitude between Stone-henge and this Building they being both round open and without a Roof and the Stones in either unwrought and tenonted without Mortar or other conglutinous matter Had this in time been surveyed by a judicious and learned Architect it might probably have been found altogether of the like fashion and built for the same purpose As for those signal differences that are now between them we must attribute them to the length of Time and the more injurious rage of those barbarous and savage People that made frequent inroads into this Tract irreconcilable Enemies both to the Romans and Civility looking upon their Buildings rather as Monuments of their Slavery than Ornaments to their Country it having fared otherwise with Stone-henge as scituated amongst a more civilized sort of People Besides these the Caledonian Britains not very long after drave the Romans back as far as the River Tine and although Hadrian came himself in Person into Britain about the fortieth year after Agricola's Expedition and reformed many things in it yet he went no farther forwards but contented himself with the loss of that part of the Province which he found alwaies subject to Incursions and the least defensible So that we may suppose after the Britains had thus far regained upon their Enemies that they made spoil and havock of whatever was Roman Or perhaps this Structure was not designed so stately and Magnificent at first as Stone-henge it being a vain thing to erect Publick buildings with exquisite skill and vast expence in a Country where the Natives would neither admire the one or gratefully look upon and acknowledge the other But whether it was formerly a Building of the like nature with Stone-henge or according to Ninnius a Triumphal Arch erected by Carausius I shall leave to the Readers Judgment to determine Several Arguments I have produced to prove Stone-henge a Roman structure and a Temple dedicated either to Goelius or Terminus Pan Diana or whomsoever different Opinions hath fastned it upon But there are many things which in my Judgment but with submission to better Reason when alleadged that seem to argue this great Pile to be of far higher date than the times of the Romans Neither think I it altogether to be neglected what name the British Writers living in succeeding Ages call it by namely Corea Gigantum and they further add as Giraldus Cambrensis witnesseth though fabulously that it was brought from the farthermost parts of Africa Now to separate Truth from a Fable and to find out an Ancient Tradition wrapt up in ignorant and idle Tales Why may not these Giants so often mentioned upon this and other occasions be the Phoenicians as we have proved upon other occasions and the Art of erecting these Stones instead of the STONES themselves brought from the farthermost parts of Africa the known habitations of the Phoenicians I could never imagine as I have shewn in another place that the Romans in so few years could be taken for Giants in Britain as Mr. Cambden supposeth especially considering that even in those Ages the notion of Giants began to be exploded and the more acquainted the Britains had been with that Nation the more were they taught to cast off such monstrous imaginations If any object That the Structure seemeth of Tuscan order and so purely Italian let them consider that the Tuscans were as Grotius and others prove of Tyrian Original and in all probability brought with them from Phoenicia into Italy that order of building So that what one Colony of the Phoenicians carried into Italy another with the same reason might bring into Britain Moreover it is to be observed what the Restorer of Stone-henge confesseth namely That in all his Travels through Italy and other Countries he found no Structure of like Order exactly with this insomuch that he admires it for its Rarity and especial difference from all others it being properly a mixture of the Tuscan and lonick Order Now that the lonians were immediately derived from a Colony of the Phoenicians Herodotus especially and all Authors with him agree so that seeing this Stonehenge is esteemed in this Age a mixt Building of Tuscan and lonic Order both Phoenician Nations why may not it be accounted a Work of the Ancient Phoenicians In or about that time the Tuscans used one sort of Building the lonians another why might not the Phoenicians use both waies in Britain as being the People from whom both waies were originally derived In the time of King Henry the Eight not far from this Antiquity was found a Table of Mettal made up of Tynn and Lead inscribed with many Letters but of so strange a Character that neither the Antiquaries of that Age nor Mr. Lilly School-Master of Pauls could make any thing of them The Mettals Tynn and Lead seem to shew the Table of Phoenician composure and had it been preserved to this day we might possibly have found the Letters to have been of the same stamp also for had they been Roman Characters they could not have been ignorant of them or if Gothick which at first sight look like Phoenician Letters they also were sufficiently understood in that Age. And herein I accuse not any of those times of the want of knowledge in the Phoenician Tongue they might easily know the Character and yet overlook it as not expecting it in Britain as men oftentimes in looking for things lost miss of the place where they are by too much poring on that spot of ground where in more reason they think they should be found These are Motives that induce me to believe this Monument ancienter than the Romans seeing that neither the Romans who have Recorded things of less moment to their advantage nor succeeding Authors after them have made any mention of so famous a Work but contrary what we find of it is involved in Fables of Giants which in my Judgment more properly belongs to the Phoenicians than Romans And as the Author of Stone-henge Restored without any Authority but the openess of the Roof judgeth the Structure to be consecrated to COELUS who was worshipped in such Temples why may it not be lawful for me to guess to what God the Phoenicians if it were their building dedicated this Magnificent pile We have read that the Phoenician HERCULES first discovered this Nation and to him every where the Phoenicians in following Ages built Altars and erected
yet to look upon all things as fabulous and ridiculous concerning him were perhaps too inconsiderately to wrong the Vertues of so eminent a Person For I cannot choose but look upon him as a Man of excellent parts far beyond any of his Age however rendered by Fables suspected for considering how the British Chronicles and Fame unanimously conspire in setting forth his Actions we may safely believe that his admirable skill especially in Mathematicks was the occasion and ground of those fictitious and impertinent things they make him perform in the behalf of Vortigern and other Princes So that although we allow him not to be so great or rather monstrous as some out of their love would have him yet we may reasonably suppose him wiser and far above those sort of men that lived in his time there being alwaies something of Truth to be found at the bottom of a Fable The greatest disadvantage and unhappiness that can befal a great and generous Spirit is to be born in a dark base and ignorant Age who looking on the Actions of the Brave through the Magnifying-glass of their own fears and simplicities make them swell through a too forward but injurious Zeal to that monstrosity and bulk that their very greatness makes them suspected by Posterity so that the infinite disadvantages that Fame suffers by the suspicion of after Ages can never be recompenced by the overplus allowed in the Age they lived in or in the next succeeding Mr. Milton conjectures that this Merlyn and Ambrosius Aurclianus who is by some supposed to have erected Stone-Henge to be one and the same person his words comparing both together are these Common opinion but grounded chiefly on the British Fables makes this Ambrosius to be a younger Son of that Constantine whose eldest as we heard was Constans the Monk who both lost their Lives abroad usurping the Empire as some will have it But the express words of both Gildas and Bede assure us that the Parents of this Ambrosius having here born equal dignity were slain in these Pictish Wars and Commotions in the Island and that the fear of Ambrosius induced Vortigerne to call in the Saxons it seems Vortigerne usurped his Right I perceive not that Ninnius makes any difference between him and Merlyn for that Child without a Father that Prophecyed to Vortigerne he names not Merlyn but Ambrose makes him the Son of a Roman Consul but concealed by his Mother as fearing that the King therefore sought his Life If so then without question he is likely enough to have raised Stone-henge for being not only of the Roman Race but also living among them 't is undisputable but he soon became acquainted with most of their Customs and Sciences of which they were Masters For although in his time through the Invasion of the Goths Barbarism had so over-run Italy that not only the liberal Sciences and Architecture but the Art Military was so far lost among the Romans that they were ignorant of the very rudiments of War yet this must not be understood universally but of the generality of the People at that time and that there were no publick Professours of those Arts among them and not that all the Gentry or every individual were so ignorant that Ambrosius could learn nothing from their Conversation For if that were true we might by the same Argument prove him no Souldier For in those times Barbarism had so bereaft them of their skill says Procopius even in what manner to sound a Retreat But his frequent Successes in his Wars against the Saxons contradict the one and his often repairing Forts Cittadels and Temples evidently shew not only his willingness but his skill and ability also to have done greater things had his Wars allowed him sufficient leisure and opportunity Besides if there were no skilful Architect in Britain at this time who was it that built Vortigerne's Castle which was made so strange that he thought it was sufficient to entertain the assaults of his enemies if any should dare to oppose him Now though we have supposed him to have skill and ability enough for the accomplishing such a piece of Work yet it will scarce be proved notwithstanding that he was the Author of it for Stone-henge being two miles distant from Ambresbury where the massacred Britains are said to be interred it would be against Reason and Custom to imagine That he should set up a Monument so far from the Graves of those he intended to honour unless we should say that these British Historians taking some things upon report might a little mistake the place as well as good Geographers have done formerly or that more out of Love and Zeal than any relation to truth they delivered to Posterity they were buried in the Church-yard in the Monastery of Ambresbury hard by rather than any vast and wide Plain preferring decent and religious Burying before the magnificentest Interment and consecrated ground more than all the Monuments and Marks of Honour in the World Besides Geff of Monmouth in his Fifth Book says Jussit Vortigernus Cives Saxones Maiis Kalendis quae jam instare incipiebant juxta Ambrii Caenobium convenire Vortigerne commanded both his own People and the Saxons on the Kalends of May then approaching to appear near to to the Monastery of Ambresbury which expression may very well agree with the Place where Stone-henge stands Ambresbury being the nearest place unto it and although the same Author says in his Sixth Book Convenerunt omnes intra nominatam urbem de pace habenda colloquium inceperunt and Matthew of Westminster to confirm it says that they did in pago Ambri convenire yet since they have been suspected in many things I hope it will not be taken ill if with some Reason we here dissent from them also For with what Reason can we suppose Hengist who to our fatal experience we found politick enough in laying the design on a sudden to prove so ill a Statesman as to allow of a Conference at Ambresbury a Town wholly at Vortigern's devotion and of indifferent Concourse as being the usual place of Interrment for the British KINGS rather than two Miles from it on Salisbury-Plain which afforded him greater security for his own Person and the rest of his Company and was more suitable to his own Son he had then in being unless he trusted so much to their Seaxes as to dispatch the business before those of Ambresbury could come up to the relief of their Country-men which cannot reasonably be imagined And though the same Author Geoffery of Monmouth saies that these Massacred Britains were buried in Coemiterio quod est juxta Coenobium yet I question whether he did not speak more after the phrase of those times he wrote in than those that he wrote of For I very much doubt whether Monasteries so early and so near had Church-yards laid out to them Churches I am sure had not for a long time after
and therefore without doubt a great Conjurer and knowing all things for there was no Author extant that reached half his Ambition of bringing down the German Nation as he intended evidently and plainly from Noah himself in a right Line and had he taken a Man less than a Caldaean how was it possible that at the same time any but such an One could be supposed to know the Concerns of Noah Japhet and Askenas in Asia and those of Tuisco in Europe Having therefore found out a Man fit for his turn it remained only that he made him speak as himself pleased so that fathering his own Imaginations upon Berosus and putting them out under the colour of so worthy a Name he thought the whole business had been done and the World would never have the wit or leisure to discover the cheat of his lying Oracles That this is true in the case of Tuisco as well as other Imaginary Hero's will evidently appear if we seriously weigh these following Considerations First the true Berosus lived in the daies of Alexander the Great as the aforementioned Syncellus witnesseth but Annius in his Preface tells the World that his Berosus lived long before that time by which it is manifest he took liberty to feign whatever pleased him In the next place it is to be considered the same Syncellus reckoneth to us the order method matter and subject of the true Berosus his Writings namely that in his first Book he treated of the scituation of Babylonia the fruitfulness of its Soyl what Trees and Plants it brought forth and what other Commodities it yielded afterwards how in the same Book he expounded the Fables and Allegories in which the Theology of the Caldaeans according to the custome of those Times was wrapped up This was a work proper for a Caldaean to joyn Natural history with Divinity and this the true Berosus performed Now Annius brings his Berosus into Germany Spain and Gaul and makes him more knowing in forreign Countries than his own nay the Berosus set out by him makes not the least mention of any of the Babylonish writings In the second Book Berosus according to the same Syncellus treateth of Ten Kings the Caldaeans had before the Flood and this was the usual custome of primitive Ages in AEgypt Phoenicia Greece as well as Caldaea for their Authors to fetch high the Antiquities of their particular Countries and by all means if it were possible to equal the Jews therein but no mention is here made that Berosus writ any thing of the Germans how came he to be so much engaged for that Nation of so forreign Concern and to the knowledge whereof he could not in modesty then pretend If he feigned Ten Caldaean Kings before the Flood to advance the Honour of his own Country must he therefore be forced to speak for Germany also and yet it seemeth very much more an unequal proceeding in Annius to make him give a Catalogue of German Princes and yet omit these Kings of his own Nation In the third Book as Syncellus proceeds Berosus treats of Nabuchodonosor and his Actions no mention at all of any Tuisco or Tuiscons as the false Berosus calls the Germans so that we may vndoubtedly conclude that the story of Tuisco depending upon the Authority of Annius his Berosus is a meer Fable The Learned Mr. Sheringham hath collected out of Athenaeu's and Hesychius certain Customes of the Babylonians for which they cite Berosus but in the Berosus set out by Annius there is no such Customes found by which it appears that the Compiler of the New Berosus took not the pains to examine Greek Authors otherwise he might have made the Cheat not altogether so palpable Thus much of the Author upon whose Credit the evidence of this story depends we come now to the Name of Tuisco and the Story it self TUISCO is supposed by some to be the Son of Noah begotten of his Wife Araza or Arezia by others called Tythea after the Flood Others with as much likelyhood make him the Son of Askenas the Grandchild of Noah This Tuisco whom we must for Luck-sake suppose the same with Tacitus his Tuisco after the Confusion of Tongues passed the River Tanais and Peopled all Sarmatia on Europe side and all the tract of Land as far as the Rhine But because some might think so great a compass of Land too large for a single Colony Aventinus joyns others with him Ab orbe inquit Aventinus restituto anno centesimo tricesimo primo Nymbrothus regnum Babyloniorum quod Assyriorum condidit cujus primordio Tuisco gigas pater Germanorum Sarmatarum cum viginti ducibus Semi fratris sui nepotibus ex Armenia venit in Europam amnem Tanaim que transgressus ibidem orientem versus ejusdem frater Scytha priscus tenuit ab hoc Germani Scythae appellati sunt quemadmodum Plinius quoque in libro quarto Naturalis Historiae prodidit Porrò Tuisco lustrato longè latéque eo toto tractu qui est inter Rhenum Pontum Euxinum Tanaim omnem ambitum in regua Toparchias Tetrarchias divisit Regulis distribuit Colonias ubique deduxit regiones habitatvribus implevit anno Regui vicesimo quinte Thus translated In the one hundred thirty first year after the Flood Nymbroth founded the Babylonian or Assyrian Empire in the beginning of whose Reign Tuisco a Giant the Father of the Germans and Sarmatians accompanied with twenty Captains his Brother Sem's Nephews from Armenia came into Europe having passed the River Tanais his Brother Scytha sat down in the Eastermost quarters from whom the Germans were called Scythians as Pliny in his fourth Book of Natural History writes Moreover Tuisco having surveyed far and near all the tract of Land which is between the Rhine and Euxine Sea and Tanais divided the whole Circuit into Kingdoms and small Principalities as Toparchies and Tetrarchies disposing of them to petty Governours likewise to all places he sent Colonies fill'd the whole Countries about with Inhabitants in the twenty fifth year of his Reign The exactness of time observed by the Compiler of this story with the punctual circumstances of Tuisco's setting forth and proceedings would betray an unwary Reader not conversant in such Forgeries to the belief of part at least of so compleat an History But as if it were true it would be more admirable that so distant time should admit so plain Calculation and the Actions of Tuisco be more perspicuous than those of the Conquerour so as it is false it appears more ridiculous and deserves to be so much the more openly exposed by how much it hath confidently pretended not only to truth but to the greatest exactness and faithfulness thereof Hear the same Aventinus in another place Hand abs re suerit inquit Regulos hujusce Tuisconis qui in penetralibus sacrae veritatis à Mose referuntur ordine Commemorare Primus dux fuit Sarmata vir armorum studiosus peritus rei benè
gerendae amorisque popularium conciliandi ab eo apud priscos Sarmatae quoque nuncupantur Princeps secundus Dacus qui Danus Danos condidit quorum Rex nominatissimus est in Germania Latinè vocatur Rex Dacorum qui nobis Rex Danorum est Veteres Graeci Latini Cimbros Cimmerios que appellârunt Geta dux tertius nostro sermone Getus est à quo Gotolandia Insula nomen retinet in sinu l'encdieo è conspectu Vistulae amnis cujus ostia ad austrum spectant ab illo prognati sunt Getae Gothi Thus translated It will not be besides my purpose to declare in order those Princes establisht by Tuisco all which are found in the hidden Mysteries of Sacred truth delivered by Moses the first Captain was Sarmata a great lover of Arms and skilful in the administration of Affairs and in gaining the affection of the People from him according to the Ancients the Sarmatians took Name The second Prince was Dacus called likewise Danus the Father of the Danes whose King is famous in Germany and is called in Latin the King of the Daci by us King of Danes The Old Greeks and Latins called them Cimbri and Cimmerii Geta was the third Leader in our Language Getus from him the Island Gotolandia takes name lying in the Bay called Sinus Venedicus at the mouth of the River Vistula which looketh to the South from him the Getes which are the Goths proceed These two places of Aventinus contain the principal History of Tuisco against which Mr. Sheringham produceth many Arguments some of which are of great moment others as it often happeneth in such cases namely that in discovering of a falshood we often strain Truth and lash out on the other side have no weight and reflect too much upon the Credit of Aventinus who himself confesseth a Learned Man and Tutor to two German Princes First then he wonders at the Ignorance of Aventinus and stands amazed at his blindness in the Scriptures His words are these Quis non stupeat ad tantam Sacrae Scripture ignorantiam atque caecitatem And in another place Quis virum talem in sacris ita caecutiisse attonitus non miretur but it might have been considered that Aventinus saith no where that the names of Tuisco Sarmata Geta and the rest were found in Scripture His words are these In penetralibus sacrae veritatis à Mose referuntur which Penetralia to a candid Reader seem rather to refer to the hidden Cabbala of the Jews supposed to be delivered by Moses as he received it in the Mount and preserved to Posterity by tradition than to the open Writings of Moses where the Progeny of Noah is not mystically but plainly set down Now that the Jews do pretend to a greater knowledge in the Original of Nations than is set down in the Scriptures and ground their knowledge upon a mysterious Tradition none can be ignorant of who are any thing conversant in their Writings And indeed from them and only them I believe the World learnt that confident way of forging Genealogies of Ancient Princes who must be supposed forsooth to give names to Nations to these Penetralia and not to the Scriptures we may if not with some reason I am sure with most candour suppose Aventinus referred But suppose that Aventinus did mean the Scriptures themselves yet is he not allowing favourable construction to his words to be supposed never to have read them as Mr. Sheringham intimates To manifest this I will set down the Genealogy of Noah to King Henry the Second out of the Saxon Writers by which it will appear in the beginning of the Catalogue as far as the Scripture goeth that the Saxon Writers use not the Name as it is literally in Genesis but give another out of the Saxon Language which hath the same signification with the Hebrew and this way of proceeding might have been intimated by Aventinus when he writeth that he found Tuisco and the rest of the Captains in penetralibus sacrae veritatis quae à Mose referuntur in the hidden mysteries of Sacred truth revealed by Moses To evidence this I will shew both Catalogues and their Coherence as they are set down by Saxon Writers and by Moses and how the significations correspond each with other as far as we can go in the Holy Scriptures but in the Saxon it proceedeth to King Henry the Second from whom it may easily be carried to our present Soveraign CHARLES the Second undoubted Heir of this Crown by a lineal succession The Saxon Catalogue Noah Sem Beadwig Wala Hathra Itermond Heremod Celdwa Beu Gearwa Geta. Fingondwelf Frederewelf Ine Eppa Dffa Alchmund Egbricht Adelwolph Alured Edward the Elder Eadmund Edgar the Peaceable Edelred Edmund Edward Margaret Maud. Maud. Henry the Second Freolf Fredewald Woden Bealdag Brand Freodgat Frewiu Wig Gewis Edda Elesa Ceordic Creoda Cheursc Cheusic Cuthwin Cutha Ceoldwald Coented The Scripture Catalogue as far as it goeth Noah Sem. Aram Arphaxad Sala Heber Paleg Reu. Serug Nahor Terah Hull This Catalogue or Genealogy I found in a Manuscript in the Kings Library the Author inscribed Abbas Reivallensis for the truth of it let the Heralds give their Verdict It is sufficient for the justification of Aventinus if the name of Tuisco as well as Beadwig Wala be mystically found under the names of Aram Hull Arphaxad or the like in Scripture Genealogy Beadwig whom the Saxons make the Son of Sem is supposed the same with Aram in the account of Moses for their names signifie the same Aram in the Hebrew denotes an high and excellent Hero so doth Beadwig in the Saxon a great Hero or Demy-God The Son of Beadwig is Wala the Son of Aram Hall Now Wala and Hull are both one Chul or Hull written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is one that delights in slaughter Wale is the same sometimes written Puala and Guala as we find in the Edda Wadeni Wal-hall is Wodens Hall of slaughter Taking the Scripture Line as in goeth down by Arphachshad we shall find it the same 〈◊〉 a powerful Prince so Aram Sala and Wala or Guala are much alike so Heber in Regiment Habra and Hathra Reu follows in Hebrew a Seer or Wise man under his name might be couched Aventinus his Cuisco which in the Teutonick is derived from Cuitsthen to Interpret Sacred things Aventinus in Nomenclat Cuitsthen Cytsthen Cuitzen Cytzen est interpretari unde Cuitstho Cuitzo hoc est Cuisco conditor Germanorum Sarmatarum quem majores nostri uti nuncium interpretem Deoruns venerati sant But if his name be truer written Cuisto according to Tacitus and Caesar then it signifies Contentious from Tuisten in the Teutonick to Contend and he may be supposed to be the same with Hull and this seems most probable for the Saxons delighted to give terrible names to their Ancestors Woden signifies surious Gram grim and Grime angry Grimbald quickly angry Buller tumultuous Thor fierce Thorismund quarrelsome Now whether
from the likeness of his Name and History for the Jutes do often put a W before names beginning with a vowel which W the Latins express by a B so that Berig is no more than Erick or Werick His History is almost the same though in some few circumstances he seemeth after in time for Johannes and Olaus Magnus with other Northern Historians write of his coming into Gothland from Seanzia so far it agrees with the story of Erick but then they go farther when they say he went into the Country of the Ulmerugii now part of Pomerania and having subdued the Vandals who were supposed to be so called in the daies of the former Erick to have joyned them to his other acquests But whether these two be the same or different Persons the account of both their Actions is so small and inconsiderable that it is not worth the while to be too serious in the weighing of it When the Getes had increased to great numbers in their new Seats in Germany and began to want room many of them transplanted themselves into Scythia under the Conduct of FILEMAR their King the fifth from Berig This Filemar was the Son of Gudarig but of his Grandfather and Great-Grandfather not a word upon Record From thence they spread themselves even to the Bosphor and all over the Lake of Maeotis by degrees possessing all Thracia Dacia and Maecia and stretching as far as the Pontick Sea About this time next unto Filemar their King they had in special veneration one Xamolxis who taught them Laws and Manners and brought them to the orders of Civil and well governed Common-wealths then two great Families the House of the Amali and that of the Balthi the Ostrogoths were in subjection to the Amali and the Vesegoths to the Balthi both which names seem to signifie no more to me than the Eastern Goths and the West Goths as the Massagetes are derived by many from the Getick Massy which with us signifies great or heavy from the vast proportion of their Bodies and now the Getes being very powerfulin all those parts they took different Names from the different Countries they possessed being called Cimmerians Sarmates Scythians Thracians Dacians Maesians Istrians Ponticks from Cimmeria Sarmatia Scythia Thracia Dacia Maesia Istria and Pontus as in our parts they were called Saxons Angles Sueves Germans Celts upon the same and other like accounts But we must carefully take heed in reading the History of our Ancestours that we confound not their actions with the actions of those People whose Names they afterwards took as for example Because the Getes from the Conquest of Scythia were afterwards called Scythians and from dispossessing the Celtae part of them were called Celtae therefore to think as some have done that the ancient Scythians and Gauls were nothing but a Getick Nation were an opinion absurd and unreasonable The Getes being seated in these parts by FILEMAR and possessed of most Countries about the Bosphor the Pontick Sea the Lake Maeotis and the Euxine now it is that we hear so much of them in the Roman and Greek Historians and indeed this seemeth the full Zenith of their lustre and prosperity whether we measure them by the number of their Nations the glory of their Actions or the Conduct Might and Puissance of their Kings but because these things are fully treated of in Roman and Greek Historians from whence they may be easily fetched and because they seem remote to our purpose who intend only an account of the Getes as they returned again by degrees into these Western parts of Europe and at last into Britain it self I shall not trouble the Reader with the names of their several Kings or their Actions in so forraign parts but begin with WODEN from whom Hengist and Horsa who first made a publick Invasion in Britain derived themselves in the third degree For what hath been briefly yet fully delivered by faithful Collection from those who have read the Gothick Annals and out of the Northern Histories themselves together with what afterwards may be said of the Saxon Customes and Language will be sufficient to convince the Judgment as to points requisite to be known of so Ancient times and People namely that those very People who returned into Germany under the Conduct of Woden and they who afterwards came into Britain with Hengist and Horsa were the Race of the Ancient Getes or Goths so famous in History and from whom the Spaniards at this day though they are least able yet account it the highest Honour to derive themselves Having treated of the Getes or Jutes until their settlement in Scythia Cimmeria and upon the Bosphor I come now to speak of their return into Germany under the Conduct of WODEN their much admired Commander 'T was he that first brought them under the names of Saxons Sueves which Names they are supposed about his time to have taken up into Swedeland Denmark Rislandia and the Countries adjoyning The Gothick Nations according to the variety of Dialect call him variously Sometimes Uoden and Oden and Othen and Godan and Guodan the Saxons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Dutch by transposing a letter Guoden Sometimes in short Wode and Ode and Othe Gode and Guode like wise Woen and Goen hence Wednesday the Dutch call Woensdach and Gorensdach And as his Name is delivered variously so are his Actions like wise some of them in Historical plainess others obscurely in hidden Mythology Parables and Fables which latter way of writing being I know not by what fate the constant delight of Primitive Ages and as I may say the pride of those first times ought not to detract from the truth of those things which are evidently and upon good Tradition distinctly set down For as it would argue lightness of Judgment to give credit to Reports monstrous and impossible though pretending to greatest Antiquity so it too much savours of novel Pride and Conceit if upon reading the works of the Ancients we immediately shut the Book and cry out all is false and ridiculous when indeed we only want the key to unlock those Mysteries which they purposely wrapt up in obscurity to the end they may render the Theology Religions Customes and Manners of their Country therein darkly couched more August and venerable Not to mention how it was the Custome of the Ancient Greeks and Romans we shall find the very same method used in our Northern Writers when they set down the Life and Actions of WODEN and other their Princes which sure may be pardonable in them seeing it is so much admired in the others especially seeing the chief Mythologist of the Northern Writers I mean the Compiler of the Eada which remains the most venerable Monument of Antiquity amongst us or rather the setter forth of it gives this ingenious account of the Work Edda et Ithret aff forndsctudum frodra manna Deemosogum og matgfundnum heitum hlutaima keinnanda Norreenann Skaldskap fyrer Aithiidu
the increase of the Roman Empire many Cities in these parts becoming Tributary to it Othin foreknowing by Magick Art that the fortune of him and his Posterity was to be made in the North left his Government of Asgardia to his Brothers VE and VELIR and went himself into Russia and from thence into Saxony which having conquered he left to his Sons Among the rest he gave to his Son Skiold Denmark who made Lethra the Seat of his Empire Othin after hearing that Gothland the King whereof was Gylvo was a delicious and fruitful Land and had room enough to receive him and his thither he repairs and being kindly received by the King he seated himself upon the River Loger and built Sigtun afterwards he went into the North of Swedeland where he ended his daies Thus Sturlaeson Messaenius in his Antiquities of Sigtun relateth the like of this Woden Cher aff then forsiohtigha man Odhen nar han liika som aff it Wardethoru foresagh at the folckriike Aff gudiske Provincier skalle medh tiidhen komma under the Romards Ook sa sick han them under fine brodhers Regemente Och han 〈◊〉 medh en stoor hoop folck som ock word i Summa Radhoga och Tolf Domare som word the fornamligaste Riiksens Nerreman och kallades Drotner i som ock medh stin hustru frigga och medh sine Barn togh sigh fore till at upleera och intaga sina Forfadhers Riike som wari Norlanden nedhsat Nwatfore drogh han inn i Ryszland medh een stoor Macht och nar han thet lycksamlighen hadhe inkrachtar sick han thet sinom son Bootill at regera Nat nu Oden i Ryszland thetta framgang sick drogh han medh Skep offwer Naaffwet och kom till een Lo i Danmarke Odensoo som ock aff Odhens forra Boning sitt nampn annu i bagh behaller Och nar Odhen'en liiten tiidh hadhe wistus i Schleszwiik uthi 〈◊〉 och hade aff een Trelkones klookheet som heette Gesion grant forfarst Sweriges landz fruchsam heet och de ye lig heet satte han siw sine Soner til at foresta holsten och skyndade sigh hastight til Swerig och satter sigh nedg til at voo en God riidh i Sigtunn After that Woden like a provident Man had foreseen as through a Glass that the populous Countries about him were like to come under the Roman yoak he lest them to his Brothers and himself with a great number of People who feared the same and Twelve Judges thief of the Kingdom called Drotnars attended with his Wife Frigga and his Children he departed to take possession of the Kingdom of his Ancestours which lay in the North. With a great Army he came into Rysland which having happily obtained he gave to his Son Boo. After Affairs happened so fortunately to Woden in Rysland he passed the Sea in Ships to the Island of Denmark Odensoo which to this day from the ancient inhabitation of Woden holdeth its name and also after he had tarried a while in the Dukedom of Sleswick and through the cunning of a Wise woman named Gesion learnt that Swedeland was a fair and fruitful Soyl leaving his Sons to govern Holsatia he hastened his Voyage thither and lived long at Sigtune The very same account hath Messenius given of this Progress of WODEN collected out of various Manuscripts which would be too tedious to recite word for word as varying only in very small and inconsiderable circumstances It is sufficient that out of these forementioned Records and Authors to all which Wormius Stephanius Arngrimas Jonas Messenius Loccenius and other Northern Writers give great credit as authentick for the most part we learn the Procession of our Ancestours from Asia under Woden and those quarters where Busbequius of late years hath found out our Language yet remaining If any one think that the story of WODEN King of Asgardia is fabulous because there is no such place to be found in any Ancient Geographers as Asgardia let them consider that what the Greeks called Aspurg the Goths might call Asgard For this was the way of the Gothes to conform their Names of places to the signification not the sound of words as the Saxons after them have done to many places in England Now we read in Greek Authors namely Stephanus Byzantinus and Strabo of Aspurgians which without doubt are the same with our Asgardians as the name importeth For what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is in Greek that is gard in the Gothick or Saxon namely a Tower or Castle Konings gard was anciently the Castle in which the King of Goths held his Court. Besides that the Name is all one so likewise the place where our Northern Writers place their Asgardia and where Strabo and Stephanus their Aspurgians is the very same exactly namely upon the Lake Maeotic Stephanus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Aspurgians a Nation upon the Lake Maeotis the same is gathered out of Strabo Book the twelfth But that which puts the question beyond dispute is that as this Edda placeth Asgardia in Turkland so doth Mela make the Turcas and Aspurgians all one so that for the truth of the Edda in this particular there cannot be required a greater Testimony Besides the concurrence of these Authors there are other manifest Reasons to prove many of the circumstances true as they are related concerning Woden First That he came out of Asia his very Sirname of aas so much celebrated doth sufficiently witness He is called sometimes Den almegiste aas that is the Almighty Asian and the old form of an Oath among the Norwegians was this Hialpf mier suo Fryer Og Niordur Og hin matke aas So help me Fryer Niordur and that Omnipotent Asian Secondly That Woden was in Rtisland seemeth not improbable because there are so many places which to this day bear his Name in it to instance in a couple In a Province of that Country there is a place called at this day Oden po Mercator calls it Oden poa signifying upon Oden by which dedication the Inhabitants intimated that their whole trust and confidence was upon him About Nerva also upon the same Country lieth a small Island named Wodensholm that is Wodens Island By the Danes it is writ En Odes-holm and Godesholm fra Reffuel til Narfuen er iij. mile fra Narffuen til Surpe er j. mile fra Surpe til Roge er ij mile fra Roge til Wodes-holm er iij. store mile oc Godesholm et it lidet Lautland oc ligger balffanden mile fra laudet From Reffuel to Narsuen 3 miles from Narfuen to Surpe one from Surpe to Roge two from Roge to Wodens Island are three good miles Woden's Island is Low-Land and lies half a mile from the Continent Thus much of the progress of the Getes from Asia into Saxony and these parts under the Conduct of WODEN it remaineth that we treat of his Person and Followers and by what means they came to be reckoned as Gods by the Saxons where also shall be shewn the rest of
cure Chad kann eg 9. eff mig Nauder umm ffendur ad biarga fare mynn aff mynu bind eg kyrre bage a og suesie allan See That 9 I know if I have occasion to save a Ship I still the Winds on the water and calm the Sea Chad kann eg hid thunda eg eff fie tunrider I Ieika Iopte A eg suo bynk ad their biller fara sinna heim hama sinna heim hugo That 10 I know if I see Witches flying in the Air I provide they shall miss their aim and lose their designs Chad kann eg hid ellesta eff eg skall till orusfu Ieida Ianghine under rauder eg giel enn their med Ryke fara heiler hill dat till he let hilde fra Koma their heiler huadan That 11 I know if I send my old Acquaintance to War I enchant their Armour they go safe to War return safe and go every where safe Chad kann eg hid 12. eff eg sie a tre uppe CClafa birgilna suo eg rist eg I Runumm fae at la geingur Gume og meeler bidmig That 12 I know if I see on the top of Wood a Ghost walking so I cut it out and receive it in the Run that that Man shall come and speak with me Thad kann eg hit 13. eff thegnum ungumm berpa skol eg batne a munathet falla thot et hann I folk kome hungrat sath fur fyrer hionum That 13 I know if I sprinkle a young Boy with water he shall not die in War although he goes to Battle that man shall not fall by the Sword Thad kann eg hid fiortanda effeg skal fyrda lide tella tyffa fyrer Asa og Alffa eg kann allra skil far kann ofnetur suo That 14 if I am to tell the kinds of Families I know all the distinctions of the Asi and Fani few of the Vulgar know so much Thad kann eg hid 15. et gol Thyodreyer Duergur fyrer Deliyngs Dyrumm Aff gol hann Alurum eun Alfumm frama hyggio hropto ty That 15 I know what Thiodreyrer sung before the Doors of Delling he sung strength to the Asi promotion to the Fani and wisdom to Woden Thad kann eg hid 16. eff eg bil hins Suinna mans hofa ged allt og gaman huge eg huerss huytarmre konu og sny eg hennar ollumm seffa That 16 I know if I would enjoy the love and society of a fair Virgin I change the mind and alter the affection Thad kann eg hid 17. ad mig mun seynt fyrrask eg man binga man Iioda theirra muntu Lodfaffner banut bera tho sie thier god eff thu getur nyt eff thu nemur thorf eff thu thiggur That 17 I know how he loves to dwell upon his comfortable knowledge that the Maid will not easily for sake me These Verses Lodfaffher are perhaps known to you much good may they do you they are useful if you learn them and necessary if you can get them Thad kann eg hid 18. et eg mefa kennig Men me mauns konu alit ex betra eirn et umm kann thad fyiger Iioda lokumm nema theirre eirure ex mig arme ber eda Myn syster sie That 18 I know I shall teach no Virgin still on the same key or Women every thing is best that but one knows this is the close of the Verses but she that holds me in her Arms or at least she must be my Sister These Runns may be called the delight and pleasure of our Ancestours with which they were so much taken that Wormius observes they gave themselves names from them Hence comes Guthrun or Gothick Runn Sigtrun victorious Runn Runulpher helping Runn Rungeir warlike Run So Womens names Solruna Sigruna Dfruna Auruua Frederuna and such like of different signification according to the different opinions they had of the Runn WODEN as I have intimated before was the Inventer of Poetry and the Father of the Scaldri or Scaldi what they were and how esteemed you may read in Loccenius Although they meaning the Northern Nations were not so well polished as now adaies in humane literature yet at their leisure and oftentimes in the Camp it self they spent no little time in writing the Actions of their Ancestours and singing of them in Verse by which they gained great reputation to their Mother Tongue This was the business of the Scaldi or as others call them Scaldri as the Poets of that Age in Verses now sung about are expressly called from the word Skal as the Bards of the Gauls and Britains To this Custome Sedulius a Christian Poet had respect in the exordium of his Verses Tragicoque boatu Ridiculoque Getae seu qualibet arte canendi Either in Tragick or in Comick verse Or any other songs the Getes reherse Hence among the ancient Scandians Skalving signifies a Poetick rapture and Scalda a Book of the Art of Poetry for it was the custome of those Poets not only with their Pens but their Voices also to celebrate the Actions of their Progenitours to the end to stir up in their Youth and their Posterity an honest emulation of their Vertues The Scaldi were commonly of the chief Blood of their Country oftentimes of the Kings Councel and his attendance in War that with their own eyes they might be witnesses of great Actions and not taking them upon trust might be better able with truth to deliver them to Posterity Those things which in the Verses of the Ancients we find wrapt up in Fables shew only the genius of the Authors who accounted it a piece of Art to hide plain Truths under the shadow of words by which colours as a pleasant bait they thought to recommend their works to the Reader Besides the famous Actions of Kings and Great Persons composed in Verse these Scaldi drew out Genealogies of their Fore-fathers as it appears in the Chronicle of Olaus where there is mention made of one of them Dc taldi han longfeda til Semingh He wrote their Progeny to Seming and again Itui Kuediero Uptald xxx langfedga Rognwals In this Verse are reckoned up thirty descents of Rognwall upon this account these Poets were in great favour with Princes and were liberally provided for in their Courts This Art of Poetry Woden brought from Asia as besides other Arguments the very name of it sufficiently sheweth The ancient Scaldi called it Asamal that is the Language of the Asians Stephanius in his Preface to Saxo Grammaticus gives this account of it The Old Danish Tongue which was used in Rithms the Ancients called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Asamal that is Asian or the Tongue of the Asians because Woden brought it from Asia into Denmark Norway Swedeland and other Northern Countries From its sweetness of its running it was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odins Miod that is Odins Mead and from its copiousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odins AEge that is Odins Sea And as Woden was the Father of Arts among the Saxons so likewise was he their God of War When they went