CHAPTER I.

EARLIEST TIMES TO B.C. 54.

It is generally admitted by geologists that in prehistoric ages Britain was connected with the continent, and from the remains of mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses, and other extinct specimens of the animal creation, which have been excavated in various places, it is evident that they, at one time, inhabited this part of the world. No human remains of this period have been found, but flints sharpened by chipping have been discovered, which prove that human beings existed here in those days. The name given to these earliest inhabitants is Palæolithic, and during, or after, their occupation of the land these islands were severed from the continent. They were succeeded by a race who presumably crossed to our shores by rafts or rough boats, and who have been named Neolithic, because their implements, although of stone, were polished and generally superior to those of the Pleistocene age. This race of men is variously spoken of as Iberian, Ivernian or Euskarian. The Neolithic invasion was followed by a Celtic one, which, beginning at some unknown spot on the shores of the Mediterranean, gradually spread over the whole of the west of Europe. A secondary wave, Teutonic in its origin, starting from the eastern boundaries, pressed forwards through the centre of the continent, and eventually drove the Celtic

settlers before them to the west and south-west. Whether the Celts had already crossed the channel and occupied Britain, or whether they were driven there by the pressure of the advancing German hordes is unknown. No record has been preserved which enables us to pierce the absolute darkness which covers the history, martial and political, of these earliest settlers in Europe. So far as our islands are concerned this darkness is not dissipated until the Roman invasion, although vague and infrequent references to them may be found in several classical authorities. Herodotus, the Greek historian, who flourished in the fifth century B.C., is generally considered to have had a dim notion of their existence, and to have spoken of them under the name of Cassiterides. He states that they were the chief source from which the Phoenicians drew their supply of tin. It has, however, been recently shown that the Cassiterides were most probably off the coast of Spain. The earliest mention of the British Isles under their own names is to be found in a tractate formerly ascribed to Aristotle, who lived about 350 B.C., who tells us that in the ocean beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, there are "two great islands, Albion and Ierne, called the Britannic Isles"; and Professor Rhys is responsible for the suggestion that the origin of the name is to be traced to a second invasion of our shores by a mass of Celts termed Brythons or Britons. It is now customary to distinguish the earlier Celtic immigrants from the British by speaking of them as Goidels, and the Gaelic of the Highlands, the Manx of the Isle of Man, and the Erse of Ireland may be traced back to them. Most of these early references, however, are connected with the desire of the ancients to discover the secret of the Carthaginian tin trade, and on this account it has been erroneously supposed by some

that no communication existed between England and the continent at any date much anterior to the landing of Julius Cæsar. About 320 B.c. a Greek named Pytheas was sent by the merchants of Massalia to open up, if possible, a trade route for tin between that city and Britain; and there is very little doubt but that he succeeded. The tin was brought by land from Devon and Cornwall to an island called Ictis, which has been identified with the Isle of Thanet. There is some reason, moreover, for supposing that Dover itself was a trading port of considerable importance before his day. The evidence of Cæsar himself, borne out as it is by that of many other writers, clearly proves, not only that the Gauls had a large trade with Britain, but that it was the most important centre of their religious system, and one of the chief recruiting grounds for their military forces. Nearly 350 years before Cæsar's Gallic wars the Celts had first come into conflict with Rome, although as far back as 616 B.C. they had commenced their inroads upon Italian soil. Their attack, under Brennus, upon the city of Clusium, was the primary cause of the first Romo-Gallic war in 390 B.C., which ended, as is well known, in the sacking and burning of Rome itself. According to Livy the army of invasion was "an unknown and terrible enemy from the ocean and utmost verges of the earth," an expression that may very fairly be taken to include the island of Albion, especially when we remember that Pausanias states: "The Iberi and Celti live near an ocean, not a river, but near the farthest sea navigated by man, and this ocean contains the island of Britain". According to an ancient belief Brennus himself was a Briton, and Camden says: "That Brennus, so famous in both Greek and Latin authors, was a Briton, some think may easily be proved; for my part, I only

know thus much in this matter, that the name is not quite lost among the Britons, who in their language call a king Brennin ". The early British historians, moreover, distinctly assert that the dominant part of the invading army was British, and was under the command of Brennus and Belinus, two sons of Molmutius, a king of Britain. It is customary to treat these British historians as worthy of little credit, but in this case the general similarity between their account of the invasion of Rome and the narrative of the Roman authors is sufficiently remarkable, whilst the divergences are only such as might be explained by the fact that the British and Roman writers drew their information from different traditional sources. The whole subject has been carefully considered by the Rev. Francis Vine, in his Cæsar in Kent, who strongly maintains the credibility of the British historians. If their account be true, then the fact that Britain was in close communication with the continent in those early days may be considered as proved. It is equally true that until the days of Cæsar it remained practically unknown to the Roman world. Supposing this close communication to have existed it is impossible not to believe that Dover, as the port nearest to the coast of Gaul, must have been a place of considerable importance. Whatever the amount of communication may have been in those remoter periods, it seems fairly clear from Cæsar's own account that it must have been considerable in his time. It is true that we find an assertion that his endeavours to ascertain what race of men inhabited Britain, and to discover the situation of the most frequented ports, and the readiest means of access were unsuccessful," as the Gauls were ignorant of them". On the other hand, we learn, from the same passage, that