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

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TASCIO HERCULES ON BRITON COINS 391

~ Son of God,” or “‘ Son of the archangel Tascio’’; and analogous to the Divine Cesar title of the Roman emperors. The reason why no Briton coins bearing obvious kings’ names prior to or of the period of Cassibellan presumably is that the Britons, like the Pheenicians in their early coins, (e.g., of Syracuse and other earlier settlements) impressed on their earlier coins not the name of their sovereign but of their tutelary (or Bel).

This divine sense of the title ‘‘ Tascio’” on these Briton coins appears also clearly evidenced by its form as ‘‘ Tascio Ricon” (Pig. 75) and “ Tasci 4ticon? *’ on four different kinds of coins with the Sun horseman and wheel and Sun circles and a design which seems to be a Sheaf of Corn, and which admittedly have no connection with Cunobelin. The Ric element in this name is clearly the Gothic Rig, or Rik or Reik, “a king”’ (from Rik, “ mighty " or “‘ rich ’’) and cognate with the latin Rex, Regis ; and it thus suggests the great Ancient Briton city-port in Sussex called by the Romans “ Regnum,” the modern Chichester, and its people, ‘‘ the Regni,” a title applied broadly to the men of Sussex, and presuming a Briton form of Ricon. These coins, so far as I am aware, have not been actually found at Chichester ; but coins are made to circulate and these coins are found in Essex, Hunts and Norfolk. Now it is significant that the great Ancient Briton arterial paved highway called “ Stane Street’ ran directly from Regnum or Chichester to the Wash, and connected these three counties. This title of “ Tascio Ricon”’ would mean ‘‘ Tascio of the Regni (confederate state).” It is thus obviously analogous to the numerous coins of Tarsus bearing the legend “ Ral Tarz ”? (with figures of the warrior Father-god) as “ Bel of Tarsus.”

Similarly, the Briton coin stamped “‘ Tascio Sega” (see Fig. 434, p. 261) equally unconnected with Cunobelin,* and bearing the Sun-horseman and wheel and Crosses and circles (of the Sun) is now seen to be obviously of the same tutelary kind. The Sezonti-aci were a tribe of Britons mentioned by Caesar, alongside the Cassi tribe, as submitting to him at his crossing of the Thames at Kew.‘ This tribe occupied North Hants, presumably up to the Thames, with their capital at Silchester (north of Winchester), where, significantly, in addition to numerous early Roman coins and other Roman inscriptions, was found a votive inscription in the foundations of an altar to the Phoenician god ‘‘ Hercules of the Saegon”’;> and Hercules, as we have seen, was the warrior type of Tascio. And this Inscription discloses that he was still at the Roman period the recognized local tutelary of that Briton tribe. This coin legend thus obviously means “ Tascio of the Segonti (confederate state)."" Similarly, again, the coins stamped “Tascia Ver," ‘‘ Tasc Vir’ and “Tas V,"6 obviously mean “ Tascio of the Verulam (or St. Alban confederate states).”’

tn the light of this tutelary use of this prefixed title of ‘‘ Tascio”’ it now becomes evident that the legends on several coins of Cunobelin, reading Tasci-iovantis,? Tasci-iovanii,? Tasci-ovan,® etc., are possibly contractions for “ Tascio of the Tri-Novantes (or Londoners’ confederate state) ” and Cunobelin’s capital was at ‘ Tri-Novantum,’’ or London, though minting also at Verulam. This now discloses the divine tutelary meaning of the title “ Tasciiovanti” ‘and “ Tasciovani,” the hitherto supposititious so-called “ Tasciovanus, son of Cassivellaunus.”’

All this strikingly attests the widespread prevalence in Ancient Britain

" See Evans, op. cit., Pl. 8, Nos. 6-9.

* Hill, Greek Coins of Cilicia, Pl. 28, etc.; and Ramsay, Cities of St. Paul, 128, etc.

* The coin is in the Hunterian Museum of Glasgow University, see for Fig. Evans, op. cit., Pl. 8,11. Several other Briton coins with the legend “ Sego ” are known.

* Cesar, De B. Gall., 5, 21.

‘Camden, Britannia, Gough's second ed., I, 204. The inscription reads ‘* Deo Her[culi] Saegon[-tiacorum],” ete. See Gough for full text and translation.

Evans, op. cit., Pl. 7, Nos. 1, 7and rr. 7 [bid., Pl. 12, 3. ® Tbid., Pl, 10, Nos, r2 and 13, * [bid., Pl. 10, No. 10.