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

VOYAGE OF BRUTUS TO ALBION 153

where he fell fast asleep. In the night, in his deep sleep, the goddess seemed to appear before him and thus responded :—

‘Brutus! there lies beyond the Gallic bounds An island which the western sea surrounds, By giants once possessed ; now few remain To bar thy entrance, or obstruct thy reign. To reach that happy shore thy sails employ ; There Fate decrees to raise a second Troy, And found an empire in thy royal line Which Time shall ne’er destroy, nor bounds confine,’2

“ Awakened by the vision . . . he called to his companions and related the vision, at which they greatly rejoiced and were urgent to return to their ships and hasten westwards in pursuit of what the goddess had promised.

“Without delay they set sail again and after a course of thirty days came to Africa. From thence they came to the Philenian Altars {volcanic sunken rocks east of Carthage ; see map|? and to a place called Saline [port Selinus in S.W. corner of Sicily], and sailed between Ruscicada [Ras Sidi (ali-el-mekki) Cape at what was later Carthage Bay],* and the mountains of Azara [the Auza Mts. in Algeria], where they underwent great dangers from pirates,whom they nevertheless vanquished and captured their rich booty.

1 Pope's translation.

* These “ Altars ”’ are clearly the dangerous sunken rocks off the Mediterranean Coast of Africa, east of Italy mentioned by Virgil in his account of the yoyage of Aineas to the Tiber, where that hero saw :—

“ Three hapless barks Caught by the southern blast on rocks unseenA ghastly ridge emerging ‘mid the waves, By Tuscan seamen ‘ A/ltays’ called—are hurled.” —Virgil, Axed, i, 129-131.

South of Etna near Malta or Pantellaria, are some sunken volcanic rocks, which still abound in hot springs with jets of steam (see Géographie Universellz i, 571); and this last-named feature would suggest “ Altars.”” But the title “ Philenian ” clearly associates the locality with the African coast of Libya where there was a port of “ Philenon’”’ on the shore of Cyrene. There were also two heroic “ Carthaginian ’’ brothers called ‘ Phileni”’ who submitted to be buried (or drowned ?) alive for the sake of their country, who presumably derived their name from this Libyan port. The title of “ Altar” suggests that they were of the same volcanic formation as those of Pantellaria.

* The rocky cape forming the northern headland of the Bay of Carthage is now called “ Kas Sidi,” wherein the term Ras appears to be the Akkadian Resu or “ Head,” so that Jas or Resu may have been used in remote times for “ head-land”” by Akkadian mariners such as the Phoenicians were.

And significantly Itas is the name for headlands on the coast of Levantine Pheenicia.