The Phœnician origin of Britons, Scots & Anglo-Saxons : discovered by Phœnician & Sumerian inscriptions in Britain, by preroman Briton coins & a mass of new history : with over one hundred illustrations and maps

144 PHGNICIAN ORIGIN OF BRITONS & SCOTS

modern writers since about a century ago’ is based upon a kind of objection and mere dogmatic assertion which, if applied to early Greek and Roman History and to the Old Testament tradition, would equally entail their total rejection also. |

The common allegation that there was no higher civilization in Britain before the Roman occupation, and that the Britons were “ painted savages roaming wild in the woods” is not supported by any evidence whatever, and certainly not by Cesar himself, nor by any other authoritative Roman historian. In his remarks upon the people of Britain, based upon his own observations during his few months’ campaign in Kent and South Herts, and on what he was told by interpreters, Cesar describes the people generally as civilized. He states that they were settled agriculturalists, lived under kings, of whom there were no less than four in Kent alone; that “the Kentish men [the only men he passed amongst] were civilized people . . . and their customs are much the same with those of the Gauls ’’—that is to say, a people highly civilized and richly and luxuriously clothed. He also says that Britain “ is well peopled and has plenty of buildings much of the fashion of the Gauls, they have infinite store of cattle, make use of gold money, and iron rings which pass by weight, the midland countries produce some tin, and those nearer the sea iron.’* And many Early British coins have been discovered in France and Belgium‘ attesting pre-Roman Briton international trade. It was only the uncivilized people of the interior—whom he calls the ‘‘ imtevioves,’ and who were, as we have seen, the non-Briton Pictish aborigines—in regard to whom he says that they stain their skins blue and “they seldom trouble themselves with agriculture, living on milk and flesh, and are clad with skins.”’*

1So universal is this capricious attitude of modern writers, the one following the other often presumably without having examined the texts, that even the editor of the commonest English edition of these Chronicles, Mr. Giles, loses no opportunity in preface and footnotes to disparage his text.

? D.B.G.V, 5. Tb. v, 5.

“B.C_B. 38, 51, 95-7- 5 D.B.G., v, 5.