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

146 PHCENICIAN ORIGIN OF BRITONS & SCOTS

making any serious attempt at subjugating Britain. And the later Roman occupation of Britain by overwhelming forces, beginning with Claudius in 43 A.p., may perhaps be more justly paralleled to the present political occupation of the Rhine Valley by the allied forces after their “ civilized ”’ enemy was hopelessly crippled by superior force, than the mere military occupation of an “‘ uncivilized” country.

The objectors to the pre-Roman Civilization in Britainwhose objection merely rests on their credulous acceptance of the dogmatic teaching of some generations of uninformed teachers obsessed with exaggerated notions of Roman influence on Briton—also shut their eyes not only to the inconvenient testimony of the pre-Roman coins of Early Britain, but also to the testimony of the early scientific navigating explorer Pytheas,1 who, about 350 B.c., or about three centuries before Cesar, circumnavigated Britain and first mapped it out scientifically with latitudes. He was a native of Phocea, north of Smyrna in Asia Minor, and a place-name which is obviously a contraction for “ Phenicia,’’ as the adjoining sea-port on the headland on the Agean was called “ Pheenice.” A colony of his countrymen were settled at Marseilles, engaged in the export tin trade from Cornwall, from which the tin was transported overland through Gaul by pack-animals from a Brittany port to save the dangerous sea-passage by the Bay of Biscay and the Pillars of Hercules. Sailing from Marseilles, presumably to exploit the tin-producing country of Britain, which he calls “Pretanic,’’—in series with Aristotle’s reference to it, in 340 B-C., as “ Britannic ’’*—he visited first the Old Phoenician tin export-port of Ictis or St. Michael’s Mount in Penzance Bay (see Fig. 24), then, sailing round the west coast, surveying and landing at several places, he eventually reached Shetland (his Thule). He found the people every-

» Pytheas is cited as a standard scientific authority by ancient geographers and astronomers from Hipparchus down to Strabo. His original work is lost and only known through extracts by the ancient writers. These were collected by Fuhr, 1835; and are summarized by H.4.B., 217-230.

* Aristotle, De Mundo, sec. 3, ‘‘ Beyond the Pillars of Hercules is the ocean which flows round the earth. In it are two very large islands called Britannic ; these are Albion and Terne.”’