An enquiry into the history of Scotland: preceding the reign of Malcom III. or the year 1056. Including the authentic history of that period. In two volumes. By John Pinkerton. ... [pt.2]

The progress of the Scythians into Scandinavia especially considered.

SO much has been written, by many of the most learned men whom Europe has produced, upon the imaginary egression of the Scythians or Goths from Scandinavia, that this part of my subject well deserves a particular investigation. The Scythic or Gothic language, mythology, and manners, have also been so much preserved in the wilds of Iceland, which was colonized from Nor∣way in the Ninth century, and have been so ably illustrated by the erudition of different Scandinavian antiquaries, that the progress of the Scythae into Scandinavia becomes a subject extremely curious and interesting. My particular view, which was to illustrate the history of the Piks, a people who proceeded from Norway to the north of Britain, about three centuries before Christ, likewise con∣curs to draw my best attention to this point, upon which i hope extensive reading on the subject, and sedulous and minute research, will enable me to throw new lights.

The reader will please to recollect that, before our proofs that the Germans were Scythae, the BASTERNAE attracted attention, as a people situated between the Getae and the Germans. But this vast race of men, called Basternae, not only reached down to the Alpes Basternicae, or Carpathian moun∣tains, and the Danube, but also extended north to that part of the Baltic where present Prussia now

lyes, and which is nearest to the Euxine, the early seat of the Scythae; the distance beween the Baltic and Euxine seas, being only about 500 miles, little more than the breadth of the interme∣diate country of present Poland. Over this tract of ground, about 500 miles long, from the Danube to the Baltic, and about 150 miles broad from the western boundary of the Vistula, to the Chronus, and Borystenes on the east, were stationed the great BASTERNIC nations. For the Sarmatae were not in possession of Poland, till the German nations began to move into the Roman empire; and the river Nieper or Borystenes, and Chronus now Niemen, were the proper bounds of ancient Sar∣matia on the west. The west of Poland was a gradual acquisition of the Sarmatae, as the Scythae moved into the Roman empire: and in the fourth and fifth centuries, when the German Scythae were still moving into richer countries, the Sarmatians, or Slavia 1.1, seized on Pomerania and Mecklenburg on the north; and Bohemia toward the south; which are held by mixt Sarmatians and Germans to this day. The grand distinctions between the Sarmatians and Germans, as marked by the acute and transcendant mind of Tacitus, toward the close of his Germania, were that the Sarmatians lived always on horseback; their families in cars, or small waggons; and wore flowing robes like the Parthians: while the Germans fought on foot,

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having few cavalry; and had fixt huts; and a close dress; but above all, quite a different language. He also ascribes nastiness to the Sarmatae, tho of this the Germans had their share; as all uncivi∣lized nations must have; and the Celts in particu∣lar were so filthy that even their cleanliness was the extreme of nastinessb 1.2. But the Sarmatians were a great and warlike nation; tho it appears, from the little mention of them in Greek and Roman history, that they yielded much to the Scythians in arms; and, from all ancient accounts, were also inferior in wisdom, and such rude arts, as early society affords, tho the peasantry of Poland and Russia be remarkably sensible and acute.

The BASTERNAE, in this large extent of country, became so remarkable to the ancients, that Strabo, book VII. p. 305, classes them with the enormous names of SCYTHAE and SARMATAE, saying that the Scythae, Basternae, and Sarmatae, beyond the Danube, gradually emigrated north. He also in∣forms us that the Basternae were divided into four great nations, ATMONOI, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉; the Atmoni, Sitones, Peukini, and Roxolani. Some of them, he observes, re∣mained still in Thrace, and their first habitations; while others moved north. The Peukini, tho they sent out vast emigrations, form a remarkable in∣stance of those who remained. Let us briefly confider the BASTERNAE, of whom the Peukini were a part, in order that the reader may see the progressive evidence of the ancients who have mentioned them concerning both. The first mention we find of the Basternae in history is on account of their assisting Perseus, king of Macedon, against the Romans, 166 years before Christ. Polybius, who was cotemporary, men∣tions that Perseus was assisted with 10,000 Basternae

and Gauls, Livy XL. 57. XLI. 19. misunder∣standing Polybius puts the Basternae as Gauls; but says that their speech was the same with that of the Scordisci, who were German Gauls. Upon which Pelloutier follishly concludes them Celts, quite forgetting that the Celts were not Gauls, but only a people of Gaul, and the most distant of all; the whole German Gauls being the people gener∣ally called Gauls by the ancients, and being the nearest to the scene of action, and to Italy. Those French authors who finding the Celts peculiarly and originally in Gaul, and therefore sometimes called Gauls, as we call the Welch, Britons, be∣cause they anciently possessed the whole country; and who from thence gratify their dreams of uni∣versal dominion, by wishing to prove the whole of Europe Celtic, only shew an ignorance and folly beyond all excess. What should we say of him, who, finding the Welch peculiarly called Britons, and that North America was peopled from Britain, should in some future period, dream that all the British inhabitants of North America are Welch? This is exactly the very case.

To return to Perseus and the Basternae. Dio∣dorus Siculus says, Perseus employed Gauls and Celts, not Basternae, if the excerpt be not errone∣ous. Appian in Macedonicis, p. 1223, calls these assistants of Perseus Getae: and Dion Cassius, who is indeed a contemptible and foolish writer, yet, as he long commanded in Pannonia, was on the very confines of the southern Basternae, if not among them, and therefore in this one instance may deserve some credit, says, lib. XXXVIII. that they were Scythae,〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉; and lib. LI. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Dion also informs us, lib. LI. p. 461, 463. that they lived in cars; that is like their neighbours the Sarmatae: but as all the ancients distinguish them from the Sarmatae, and Strabo, lib. VII. inclines to think them Ger∣mans,

mans, which Pliny and Tacitusf 1.3 afterward from complete information establish beyond a doubt, from their speech, &c. and Dio himself calls them Scythae, and Appian Getae, we must conclude that they were a vast German nation, who were most retentive of the ancient Scythic manners, as their neighbours the Getae, people of Little Scy∣thia, or Parental Scythians, were. The other Ger∣mans, being the most distant settlement of the Scythae, and bordering on the Celts, who had by the Greeks of Marseilles been taught many civil arts, had on the contrary advanced one stage fur∣ther in society than their Scythian ancestors: as we observed before that the Greeks, another Scy∣thian settlement, had, from still greater advantages of situation, advanced even to the height of hu∣man perfection, while their ancestors were in pri∣mitive barbarism. We afterward in Justin XXXVIII. 3. find Mithridates solliciting their assistance against the Romans: and i shall proceed to my main object, their northern progress, after just mentioning that in Justin XXXII. 3. we find the Basternae defeating their brethren the Daci, probably from superiority in cavalry: and that Dionysius, who was of Corinth and wrote, as Dodwell shews, about the year of Christ 221, in in his Periegesis, after mentioning the Danube pouring it's five mouths around Peuké,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. v. 301. puts the Basternae between the Getae and Daci.

— 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. —

Tacitus, Ann. ii, mentions Basternas, Scythasqueg 1.4.

Strabo says, that in his time, the Peukini, pro∣per or parental, were that part of the Basternae who lived in the large ile of Peuké in the Euxine sea, at the mouth of the Danube: and Ptolemy remarks the same in his time; and it is likely their descendants still retain their possessions in Piczina, the modern name of Peuke. Mela II. 7. calls Peuké an iland omnium notissima et maxima, the most famous and largest in those parts. The author of the Periplus Ponti Euxini says it equals Rhodes in size. Some think it named from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, picea, a pine tree, because it was perhaps full of such; but it seems as probably to have taken it's name from the Piki a people beyond Colchis, and subject to the Colchian kingdom^c; for the antients agree that a colony from Colchis settled on the Ister, in the time of the Argonauts, and it is most likely that it was at its mouth. For tho Apollonius Rhodius book IV, and Justin xxxii. 3. make the Istri on the Adriatic that colony, which by their own accounts of the Col∣chians sailing up the Danube to the Adriatic, ish 1.5

a complete impossibility, yet Oyid, who lived at Tomi close by the spot, is an undoubted witness in our favour.

Solus ad egressus missus septemblicis Istri, Parrhasiae gelido virginis axe prenor. Jazyges, et Colchi, Metereaque turba, Getaeque, Danubii mediis vix prohibentur aquis. Trist. lib. II. el. 1.

The Jazyges Eneocadlae, as above shewn, were a small Sarmatic nation, who lived in peace and union among the Getae, on the north of the Tyras, acting it is likely as cavalry in their armies; and it is probable it was of them that Ovid learned Sarmatic. The other nations were also north of the Danube, to the south of which Tomi, the place of Ovid's banishment, stood: and the Col∣chians here mentioned were, in all probability, the Peukini. For tho the Piki were properly one of the many Scythian tribes between Colchis and the Ceraunian mountains; yet being subject to the great Colchian kingdom they were probably called Colchians, as foreigners call all the natives of Bri∣tain and Ireland, English. But leaving this con∣jecture (for it is little better) to carry it's own weight with the reader, i shall proceed to examine the progress of the Basternae.

The Peukini, or that Basternic nation which emigrated from Peuké, seem to have in process of time transcended all the other Basternic divisions in number. Insomuch that Pliny and Tacitus put the Basternae and Peukini as names of the same nation; tho Strabo, Ptolemy, and others, writing geography and of course more accurately in these points, but the Peukini as only one of the divisions of Basternae. The Roxolani Strabo put by mistake among the Basternae, for it is known to a certainty from Tacitus, Hist. lib. 1. (Roxolani Sarmatica gens, &c.) and many others, that they were Sarma∣tae. Strabo's mistake arose from the Roxolani being the next Sarmatic nation to the Basternae.

The Roxolani were Russians; and that part of Poland on the west, and far from Russia, called Red or Black Russia, took it's name from part of the Roxolani, that pierced to that corner, and set∣tled. Of the other divisions named by Strabo, the Atmoni, if i mistake not, spreading west along the Danube, became the southern Basternae, or those properly and absolutely so called by the ancients: while the Sitonesd 1.6 proceeded northward with the Peukini till they arrived at the Baltic sea and Scan∣dinavia. A progress which we are enabled to trace, as clearly as can be expected, after a remark or two on a few southern colonies of the Peukini.

Ancient geographers speak of different remains of the Peukini in Thrace. Such were the Peukest••, a people north of the Scordisci. Pliny III. 25, tells us, that Callimachus placed a people called Peuketi in Liburnia of Illyricum. In Italy direct∣ly on the opposite shore were the Pikeni: and further south, lay the large country of Peuketia, now Apulia, of which much may be found in Stra∣bo. Pliny, III. 16. says it was so called from Peuketius brother of Oenotrus; and Dionys. Hal. book 1. p. 10, 11, ed. Hudson, says Oenotrus and Peuketius were the two first leaders of colonies from Greece into Italy. It was the custom of the Greeks always to derive names of nations from ancient kings and chiefs. This was easy etymology, and cost nothing, yet cost as much as etymology of names is worth. Thus the Lydians were from Lydus, the Mysians from Mysus, the Scythians from Scythes, the Celts from Celtes, &c. &c. &c. and the Aborigines of the south west shore of Italy Oenotrians, from Oenotrus, who led them from Arcadia, and those of the east, Peuketii, from Peu∣ketius his brother. The fact seems that these

aborigines were Oenotri from the Peloponnesus, who advanced from the south west of Italy, upward along the west shore; while the Peuketii seized on the east side from the opposite shores of Illyricum, where we learn from Callimachus that a part re∣mained. The Pikentii on the west, as they bordered on old Peuketia, were as is likely of the same origin. But these ideas are given as mere conjectures; and i now proceed to examine the northern progress of the PEUKINI and SITONES, which stands upon quite other grounds.

It is allowed that the Peukini received their name, and proceeded, from the iland of Peuké (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) in the Euxine sea, at the mouth of the Danube, now Piczina, or Pics ile. This celebrated iland is finely described by Apollonius Rhodius in his exquisite poem, The Argonautics, written about 250 years before Christ. Thus the Peukini cer∣tainly came from the very heart of Getia, Dacia, and Maesia; and, if not originally a colony of Colchian Scythae, certainly were a Scythic people, issuing from the very heart of a country, which was in possession of the Scythae about 2000 years before Christ. Jornandes, speaking of Galerius Maximinus Caesar, 'Is ergo habens Gothos et Peucenos ab insula Peuce, quae ostio Danubii Ponto mergenti adjacete 1.7.' Zozimus calls the Peu∣kini, Peukai,〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Ammianus Marcellinus names them Pikenses, lib. XVII, as his Ami∣censes seem the Atmoni of Strabo, both above Maesia. He also calls them Peuki, lib. XXII. where he is speaking of Peuké. The ancient author of the Argonautics ascribed to Orpheus, calls the Peukini Pacti, when he describes the Argonauts in their return sailing up some river, from the Palus Maeotis, to the Cronian sea, as he dreams; and ranges the Pacti with the Lelians, Scythians, Hyperboreans, Ripheans.

Let us now briefly consider the Northern Pro∣gress of the Sitones and Peukini, two grand Bas∣ternic divisions. Strabo, who wrote about 20 years after our aera, is certainly well informed con∣cerning the north of Germany, as the Greeks actually traded to Prussia for amber. In particu∣lar the Estii of present Prussia, from whose coasts the amber came, and where it is yet found in such quantities as to yield a large revenue, were in the confines of the Peukini and Sitones, or Basternic nations on the Baltic, so that the intelli∣gence concerning countries so near that to which the Greeks traded, may be regarded as satisfactory. Now he tells us, book VII. p. 294, that "most think the Basternae live beyond the Germans to the Northward, others that there is only ocean." That the later opinion was false need not be told: but that the former was true, namely that the Basternae possessed Scandinavia, is certain; for Ta∣citus, who was procurator of Gallia Belgica and had of course all information relating to Germany, and it's neighbourhood, as his admirable Germania shews, places the SITONES whom Strabo had men∣tioned as one of the three Basternic nations in present Sweden, and finds part of the PEUKINI on the opposite shore, while a part no doubt had passed into Scandinavia with the Sitones their brethren. And it is evident that the Sitones, whom Ptolemy puts on the south of the Baltic between the Viader and Vistula, were a part of the Sitones who re∣mained, while the rest passed into Scandinavia: for migrations of nations were seldom, if ever, complete, a circumstance which enables us to trace their steps.

The PEUKINI in particular, being the largest and most eminent part of the Basternae, as we may judge from their name being often extended to the whole of this vast people, leave such traces behind them from Thrace to the Baltic, that we can fol∣low them step by step. This we are enabled to do

from the geography of Ptolemy, who wrote about 150 years after Christ. As one or two Sarmatic tribes extended beyond the Chronus and Borystenes, he improperly puts the Vistula as the boundary be∣tween the Germans, and Sarmatae; tho Tacitus, who wrote about fifty years before, had specially mentioned German nations beyond the Vistula, and the vast people of Peukini OR Basternae in par∣ticular, whom Pliny puts as one FIFTH part of the Germans. But Ptolemy living at the great dis∣tance of Alexandria in Egypt, and probably not even understanding Latin, seems never to have redd either Pliny or Tacitus; but puts his places according to the maps and Itineraries of the generals, and to the Greek geographers. From the later in particular, who drew from the merchants of amber good intelligence as to the present rout, the informa∣tion seems derived which is to be found in his chapter of Sarmatia Europaea. In his time a part of the Peukini still possessed their original settlement in Peuké while we find another part far north of the Tyras, and above the Getae: and the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or Peukinian Mountains of Ptolemy are, as Cluverius justly observes, on the south west of present Prussia, near the head of the river Bog; that is within about sixty miles of the Baltic sea. Ptolemy places the Peukini on the north of the Basternae: so that of all the Basternae they were nearest to the Baltic. And that the Peukini actually reached to the Baltic, we know from Tacitus, who in the end of his Germania ranges them with the Venedi and Fenni, whom Ptolemy places near the Vistula upon the Baltic. Tacitus also puts the Venedi between the PEUKINI and Fenni, so that the Peukini must have been on the shore of the Baltic, on the east side of the mouth of the Vistula, or in pre∣sent Prussia: from which they extended south to their Basternic brethren in the western part of present Hungary: a tract about 400 miles long, and from 100 to 150 broad. With so large possessions it is no

wonder that Pliny should put the Peukini as a fifth part of the Germans; and that their name should be used as synonymous with the Basternae.

Having thus shewn that the two Basternic nations of PEUKINI and SITONES extended to the Baltic; and that, as Tacitus and others shew, and all modern geographers agree, a part of the Sitones remained in the neighbourhood of the Peukini, on the south side of the Baltic, while the rest of the Sitones were in Scandinavia; and that Strabo mentions it as the most general opinion in his time that the Basternae were beyond the Germans, or in Scandinavia; i believe it will be granted at once that it is most likely that a part of the Peukini went to Scandinavia with their brethren the Sitones. But, before insisting on this, i shall give the reader some idea of what the Romans and Greeks knew of Scandinavia and the north of Germany.

About 250 years before Christ, Pytheas and others, as we learn from Pliny, spoke of an iland called Baltia in the Cronium mare, or Northern ocean, whence amber was brought. Herodotus had indeed mentioned this 450 years before Christ. The name of the iland was palpably from the Baltic sea very anciently so called; from the Gothic, or old German Belt, a gulf. Amber was never found in Scandinavia, but in Glessaria, a peninsula on the Prussian coast, which afterward received it's name from the appellation which Tacitus tells the Germans gave amber, namely Gles or Glass, which it resembled. Baltia is therefore not Scandinavia but Glessaria. Pomponius Mela, who wrote about 45 years after Christ, mentions the Codanus sinus, and Codanovia, which is in all probability present Zeeland, an ile of the Suiones, in which the capital of Denmark stands; and from whence Dania is by some judged to be contracted. Pliny himself, who wrote about 70 years after Christ, is the first who mentions Scandinavia, tho he tells us, IV. 16. that the iles of Scandia, Dumna, Bergi, and Nerigon,

had been noticed by othersf 1.8. Dumna is by Ptolemy ranged among the Orkneys; Scandia may be Funen; and Bergi the country of Bergen in Norway, inter∣sected from Sweden on the south by the Schager Rack, or westerly division of the Baltic, so as to have to those who knew only the southern coast, the ap∣pearance of an ile. Pliny adds IV. 16. that Ne∣rigon was the largest of these iles: and as he says he derives his information from various preceding au∣thors sunt qui et alia prodeunt, Scandiam, &c. it is well inferred by the northern antiquaries that Nerigon had from later and better information been put for Bergi; but Pliny finding the same country called by two names, thought them different iles: for Nerigon is surely Norway by it's most ancient, and yet indigenous name Norigé, or the Northern kingdom. But ch. 27, he tells us from himself that Scandinavia is an ile in the Sinus Codanus of undiscovered size, and that the known parts are possessed by the Hilleviones in five hundred pagi, or districts. They are well thought to be of Halland in the south-west corner of Scandinavia.

Being now come to Tacitus, whose Germania is so important to modern history, it will be proper to dwell a little upon the geography of that work, which is in many points grossly misunderstood; and especially that part which concerns our subject, his description of the northern nations. Cluverius, who wrote near two centuries ago, is universally and blindly followed, while his faults are enormous. He was a man of laudable industry; but of con∣tracted and indistinct judgment. If errors be ad∣mitted into any branch of science, they commonly

remain for centuries, owing to the indolence of mankind, who are ever ready to resign their minds to any guide, and would rather sleep and go wrong, than examine and go right; while in fact they have only to trust themselves more, and others less. Let us lay Tacitus before us, with a map of modern Germany; and put aside Cluverius, Cellarius, and the able D'Anville, who has so often corrected their eastern geography, but has trusted them with Germany, their own country, and thus left Europe in darkness to enlighten Asia. Tacitus, after em∣ploying two thirds of his work in describing the manners of the Germans, passes to a description of the nations; and first mentions two colonies which had returned from Gaul into Germany, the Helvetii and Boii. He then puts the Vangiones, &c. on the west side of the Rhine; and the Batavi in the ile formed by its outlets. Beyond the people between the head of the Danube, and the Rhine, he places the Catti, a large nation; and further up on the the Rhine the Uspii, &c.; next the Bructeri; be∣hind them, the Dulgibini; in front, the Frisii, who spred along the north bank of the Rhine and the ocean: and among whom was the Zuyder Zee, ambiuntque immensos insuper lacus, et Romanis classi∣bus navigatos. Tacitus adds, Hactenus in Occidentem Germaniam novimus. In Septentrionem ingenti flexu re∣dit. 'Thus far we know of the west of Germany. It now returns to the north with a great bend;' meaning that it's shore, formerly west, now fronts north, as it does at present Friezland and Gronin∣gen. Next is the very large nation of the Chauci: then the Cherusci, and Fosi, the last of whom are foolishly taken for the Saxons by Cluverius, who forgot that the Saxons were an alliance of many nations which like the Franks and Allmans had taken one name. Here in a spot which answers to the mouth of the Elbe, proximi Oceano, dwelled the small and only remains of the Cimbri: parva nunc civitas. This parva civitas geographers spread over all the large peninsula of Jutland, which after Ptolemy,

(who only puts a few Cimbri in it, and no less than Six German nations) they call the Cimbric Cher∣sonesus. It was doubtless once inhabited by the Cimbri, but they were reduced to a parva civitas at its southwest corner, long before Roman geography commences.

Tacitus next proceeds to the Suevi, who, he tells us, were not one nation, but many under one title, who held the greatest part of Germany, to wit, all from the Danube to the ocean south and north, and from the Elbe to the vistula east and west. The first are the Semnones, a people of a hundred districts, who are rightly placed in Brandenburg. Proceeding to the north, as is clear from his expression when he passes to the Hermunduri•• (ut quo modo paulo ante Rhenum, sic nunc Danubium sequar, for the Rhine runs north, the Danube east) next to the Semnones are the Langobardi, about present Lunenburg. Then follow no less than seven nations, all of which Cluverius has heaped upon one another in present Mecklenburg! The poor man forgot that the whole vast peninsula of Jutland was just in the road of Tacitus, as his text bears that he proceeds north; and that he adds haec quidem pars Suevorum in SECRETIORA Germaniae PORRIGITUR, a description which can only apply to this vast and rich penin∣sula; and that the Cimbri with whom he fills that large Chersonese were, as Tacitus says, only a small state on the ocean near the Cherusci and Fosi, or at the mouth of the Elbe! Seven nations are piled upon one another in a small province; and a parva civitas is spred over a territory 220 miles long, and from 63 to 95 broad! If this be not absurdity, i know not what absurdity is. But such is human science! Let us place these nations as Tacitus meaned, and all is well. The Reudigni first, and Aviones above them, in present Holstein; the Angli in Sleswick, where the fertile province of Anglen spreads around Lunden it's ancient capital: the Varini above the Angli, for the river Warne is

nothing; the Eudoses next; then the Suardones and Nuithones in present North Jutland, the later reaching to it's utmost point where the promontory of Scagen braves the northern ocean. As to the Angli we are certain. The Suardones were perhaps the Swathedi, whom the English historians Henry of Huntingdon, Roger Hoveden, Matthew of West∣minster, commemorate among the Danish invaders of England in the ninth and tenth centuries. The Nuithones are, as is likely, the Huithoni of Ponta∣nus in his Descriptio Daniae, that is, the inhabitants of the furthest point of Jutland, the Witland of Bleau's Atlas. The Eudoses are the Yeuton, or people of Yeutland, as the Danes pronounce Jutland, who seem to have been the largest nation holding the middle of the Chersonese, and who now give a general name to the whole peninsula of Northern and Southern Jutland. Let me add, that it is impossible that the whole of this peninsula, as nearer the Roman provinces of Upper and Lower Germany, should not have been far better known to the Romans, than the southern shores of the Baltic.

Accordingly we find Ptolemy, fifty years after Tacitus, places no less than six nations in it, the Sigulones, Sabelingii, Cobandi, Chali, Phundusiii, Charudes, besides the Saxons at it's south part: and the Cimbri, whom Ptolemy ignorantly places at it's northern extremity. Ignorantly, for no man can prefer Ptolemy's testimony, who lived at Alexandria, to that of Tacitus, who lived in Bel∣gic Gaul, and who expressly puts the Cimbri on the seaside of the Fosi, at the mouth of the Elbe. The reader need not be told that the text of Ptolemy is rightly deemed the most corrupt of all antiquity; as indeed a constant series of unknown names, and numbers, must have been lyable to great vitia∣tions of copiers. His account of the names of the German nations often differs from Tacitus; yet Strabo confirms Tacitus, tho he wrote before him, for Strabo's work was not so lyable to vitiation,

being narrative, while Ptolemy's only contains geographic tables. The Phundusii seem the Eudoses; the Charudes, the Suardones: the others are yet more corrupt, for those given by Tacitus can be traced in the spot, and in history, but of those assigned by Ptolemy, not one. Yet Ptole∣my places none of the nations above mentioned elsewhere, save the Angili Suevi, and it is doubt∣ful if these were the Anglig 1.9. Tacitus observes of these nations that they are divided by rivers and woods; a description most applicable to Jutland, now so well wooded, and intersected by fine streams. Perhaps it may be said that Tacitus would have mentioned this great Chersonese expressly, had he meant it; but it is doubtful if it was called a Chersonese, save by Ptolemy only; and it's size is so great, that we should as well think of calling Ptolemy's Caledonia, bending to the east, a Cher∣sonese of Britain. Nor does Tacitus name Scandi∣navia, tho he describes nations in it, as shall pre∣sently be seen.

Having thus proceeded to the utmost north of the west parts of Germany, or those commencing from the Rhine as a boundary, Tacitus passes to follow the Danube, as he says, or an east course, and places the nations regularly one after another as Cluverius well puts them in this tract. After mentioning the utmost nations this way, Tacitus returns northward, telling that a large chain of mountains divides Suevia, that is a chain running north and south: beyond which are the Lygii con∣sisting of many nations, the chief being the Arii, Helveconae, Manimi, Elysii, Naharvali. The Ly∣gii are rightly put by Cluverius, in present Silesia. Above the Lygii were the Gotthones rightly put in Pomerellia, at the mouth of the Vistula or Weissel. Protinus deinde ab Oceano Rugii et Lemo∣vii, 'next from thence on the ocean the Rugii,' rightly put in Rugen; 'and Lemovii,' whom

Cluverius makes the same with the Heruli, and puts in Pomerania. But the account of Tacitus bears that the Lemovii were west of the Rugii, for he is coming deinde from the Gotthones and Lygii; and Ptolemy expressly shews that three other na∣tions dwelled in present Pomerania, namely the Ruticlii, Sideni, and Pharudini. So that the Lemovii were doubtless west of the Rugii or Rugen, as the text of Tacitus bears, who seems to include the three other nations mentioned by Ptolemy in the general name of Gotthones, and thus to extend them over Pomerania as well as Pomerellia. The Lemovii were of course in present Lubec and Wagerlant.

After this Tacitus proceeds to the Suiones; Suio∣num hinc civitates ipso in oceano, &c. Modern geographers, following Cluverius, who is by no means accurate, have made the Suiones the pre∣sent Swedes; and the northern antiquaries seem to allow this, tho to me nothing is more doubtfuli 1.10. For the Sitones, whom Tacitus puts beyond the Suiones, Suionibus Sitonum gentes continuantur; and, after describing them, says, hic Sueviae finis; and passes to the Peukini, Venedi, and Fenni, seem to me infallibly the present Swedes: and the name bears more resemblance to Suitiod, the old name of Sweden. Whereas Suiones resembles more Zee-woners, or dwellers in the sea, whence the noble and fertile iland, which forms the best part of the Danish dominions, is now called Zee∣land; the Su appearing to be merely a Roman way of expressing the German sound of Z. in Knytlinga Saga, and other Icelandic books, Zee∣land is called Sio-land, a name preserving affinity with Suiones; as Suitiod, the old name of Swedes and Sweden, in these works, does with Sitones. Perhaps Sitones sprung from Sictuna, the old name of the chief civitas in Sweden, near Birca, as Adam

of Bremen and others testify. Add to this, that only the most southern part of Scandinavia was ever known to the ancients; and the vast Wener Lake, in present Westroguland, or as the Swedes affect to call it Westrogothia, seems the utmost bound of their real knowlege; they thinking that beyond was the Cronium Mare, or Frozen Ocean; the sea beyond the Suiones, mentioned by Tacitus, which was looked on as the end of the world. I have perused, and re-perused, with indefatigable and minute attention, all that the ancients have said of Scandinavia, and am convinced that the nar∣rower bounds we confine their knowlege of it to, we shall be the nearer to the truth. The Suiones, after the most mature consideration, appear to me infallibly the people of present Zeeland, and the iles around it, civitates in oceano, and part of the Danish territory on the opposite shore of the sound; now Schonen, Halland, and Westrogo∣thia. For, can any man believe that Tacitus should pass to Scandinavia, and take no notice of the noble and rich iland of Zeeland, and the large and fertile iles around it? should fly at once, as is dreamed, to present Norway and Sweden, of which he knew as much as he did of Greenland, as every one, the least verst in ancient geography, must know? should join all Scandinavia, a coun∣try, when really known, as large as Germany it∣self, to a few small states? Was Tacitus utterly absurd, or are his commentators so?

After the Suiones, Tacitus passes to the Aestii, who are rashly enough, from similarity of names, placed in present Estonia, tho Glessaria, the iland of the Aestii, is confessed to be in present Prussia, two hundred miles south-west of Estonia; and it is on the coast of Prussia alone, that such quantities of amber are found to this day. Estonia con∣fessedly means merely east country; and may be a late name, nothing being so common as names of countries from the points in which they lye; as

Aestsexia, or Essex in England, &c. &c. &c.k 1.11. The Aestii were certainly in the peninsula beyond pre∣sent Dantzic, that is, as Tacitus describes, on the right hand as you sailed up the Suevicum mare, or south part of the Baltic, that was on the north of the Suevi. And he mentions the Aestii before he passes to the Sitones, or Swedes, of the opposite shore, and the Peukini, Venedi, and Fenni; be∣yond whom he had faintly heard of a people who were covered with skins of beasts, and thence went for beasts with a human face. The Fenni were infallibly, from the account of Tacitus, that they were divided from the Peukini, only by woods and hills, inhabited by Venedi, not the people of Finland, as dreamed, but the FINS, a great abo∣riginal people, of whom see Mr. Tooke's Russia. The language of Lithuania, or the north of Po∣land, Samogitia, Courland, Estonia, Livonia, is at this day Finnish, not Slavonic. The Fenni of Tacitus were in Livonia and Estonia. Ptolemy, book III. places Fenni at the Vistula.

From the Aestii Tacitus passes to the Sitones, or Swedes of Smaland, on the opposite shore: and as the Suiones were unquestionably the people of present Zeeland and surrounding iles, with a small part of southern Scandinavia, along the west shore up to the Wener lake, so the Sitones were only a very small part of the Swedes, or Suitiod, namely, those of present Smaland and Easter Gothia. Tacitus, tho he appears to have redd Pliny, from his copying that writer's account of the origin of amber, takes no notice of Scandinavia, but pal∣pably implies it to be partly inhabited by the Suiones and Sitones, and is universally so under∣stood.

The Hilleviones, and iles, mentioned by Pliny, as he had procured no intelligence of, he passes in silence. If the reader will with these views read the work of Tacitus, he will find all clear. As commonly understood, nothing but a confusion, unknown to the luminous mind of Ta∣citus, arises. For he is supposed to pass from the Lemovii about Lubec, up to Sweden, with Suio∣num hinc civitates (whereas Zeeland is just oppo∣site hinc to the Lemovii as above placed); then flies back to the Estii of Prussia; then flies back toto coelo to Norway, of whose existence he knew nothing; then closes a description of Norway with bie Sueviae finis (his Suevi being but a division of Germans); then flies back again to the Peukini and Venedi and Fenni, nations as remote from Not∣way as the south-east is from the north-west. Take his text as here stated; and all is clear, and accu∣rate. He passes from the Lemovii about Lubec to Zeeland; thence to the Aesti possessors of Glessaria an opposite peninsula: then crosses the Baltic to the opposite Swedes of Smaland; thence in a right line to the Peukini, Venedi, and Fenni. Add to this, that the remains of the Sitones in Ptolemy, &c. are exactly on the coast opposite to Smaland; and it is certainly more likely that they should move to the opposite shore, than into Norway, a country near 300 miles off, without leaving a trace behind. These cogent reasons may, it is believed, for ever fix the Suiones in Zeeland, and circling iles, with Schonen, Halland, and Westrogothia, their real civitates in oceano: and the Sitones, a part of the Suitiod, or Swedes, in the south-east corner of Sweden, now Smaland and Eastergothia.

Ptolemy, who wrote about 150 years after Christ, is the last ancient worthy to be adduced con∣cerning Scandinavia, for the sickly dreams of Jor∣nandes and Procopius, the last of whom was so ignorant as to take Scandinavia for Thule, tho Pliny and Ptolemy 400 years before might have

told him quite the contrary, shall be left to their deluded followers.

Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum aere lavantur. Juv.

Ptolemy mentions four Scandias; three small, perhaps Funen, Zeeland, and Laland: and one large, or Scandinavia, which he describes, and Agathadaemon lays down in the map, as just of a size to reach to the Wener lake, as Ptolemy's latitudes and longitudes ascertainl 1.12. It is above mentioned that, beyond this, the ancients imagined there was only ocean, with a few iles in it, as Eningia a part of Finland, Bergi, Nerigon, all however quite unknown to Ptolemy. In the west of Ptolemy's Scandinavia are the Chaedini; in the east the Phavonae, and Phiraesi; on the south the Gutae, and Dauciones; in the middle the Levoni. These names must all have belonged to tribes south of the lake Wener. The Gutae were surely the Gutones of Pliny, the Gothones of Tacitus, who had passed from the opposite shore; and their country is now Eastergothia, which Swedish vision∣aries imagine the Ostrogothia of the ancients, and Westergothia the Visogothia, tho Jornandes, the god of their idolatry, tells, cap. XIV. that those names originated from the position of the Goths on the Pontus Euxinus, or Euxine seam 1.13.

After this we find little or nothing concerning Scandinavia, till the sixth century, when Jor∣nandes was to tell his fables about it, knowing that it's distance prevented detection. For tho he quotes Ablavius, who is thought by Grotius to be one living under Constantius II. about the year 340, as mentioned by Ammianus, yet it is only AFTER he describes the Goths as settled in Little Scythia; and we do not even know that Ablavius was not his cotemporary, and as ignorant as himself. Jornandes, and Procopius, who wrote at the same time, mention the Danes; and Scritfinni, or swift Fins, which shews that the south of Finland was now known. As to the other nations placed in Scandinavia, by Jornandes and Procopius, allow∣ing their existence, they only belonged to the south parts. Eginhart, who wrote in the Ninth century, is the first i find, after the Sitones of Tacitus, who mentions the Swedes: and the Normans also began to be well known in this century, when Harold Harfagre rising first sole king of Norway, expelled many petry princes, who with their little armies took refuge in the Orkneys, and Iceland: and one of them Ganga Hrolf, or Rollo the Walker, was after some abode in the Hebudes, to found the dukedom of Normandy.

Could reason account for the ideas of folly, it were a matter of curiosity to enquire how Jornan∣des came to dream of all the nations in Europe proceeding from a distant and unpopulous country, and to pass Germany and Getia, or Little Scythia,

countries overflowing with population? It can only be said that the Goths coming gradually from the north into the empire, it might naturally be imagined that the extreme north, or Scandinavia, was their point of progression: tho indeed it may be suspected that a love of the marvellous and false, so natural to man, might be the sole spring of a fiction, so opposite to common sense, and to all ancient authority.

Having thus shewn what the ancients knew of Scandinavia, let us consider the progress of the Scythians or Goths into it. We have already traced two Basternic nations, the SITONES and PEUKINI, up to the shores of the Baltic. On these shores, close by them, we find the Gotthones, Guttones, or Gythones, as called by Tacitus, Pliny, Ptolemy. How this nation came to hold a name so near that of all the Goths, were difficult to say, were not the name of Gut or Good given to ground, people, &c. supposed the origin of the Scandinavian Gudske latinized Gothlandia: and our Gotthones probably took their name from the same fountain, if not from Gote, a horseman, for they bordered on the Basternae, who like the Sar∣matae were mostly cavalry, and it is likely the Gothones were laso cavalry, and so called by the other Germans who had little or none. We also find the Gothini a Gallic nation in the south of Germany; and, as Tacitus says their speech was Gallic, they were probably an original Celtic tribe inhabiting a mountainous country, as the map of Cluverius shews, and allowed to dwell on condition of work∣ing the mines, and paying heavy tribute, as Tacitus says they did. Their name Gothini, being pro∣bably ironical, good people. Herodotus, book IV. places most of his Scythians in Germany. The Ister or Danube he calls the largest river of Scy∣thia. The Maris or Marus ran into the Ister from the country of the Agathyrsi, ch. 37. His Hyperborei are in Germany, for he makes their presents to Delos

come down to the Adriatic sea, and thence to Do∣dona. In ch. 21. he tells us, that beyond the Ta∣nais are the Sarmatae; and his Scythian nations are chiefly in Germany and Poland: ch. 23. he places far to the north some Scythae who revolted and left the rest. However this be, it is certain from Pliny, that the ancient Greeks extended Scythia even to the Baltic, where amber was alone found: and we learn from Strabo, that it was the general opinion that the Basternae (a Scythic di∣vision) held the parts beyond the Germans, or Scandinavia. The Gythones, or Gothones, Pto∣lemy places on the Baltic shore, between the Sideni, or Sidones, and Peukini, two Basternic nations; and it is most likely that the Gythones were also Basternae. The Sidones, or Sitones, we find in the south of Sweden on the opposite coast; and the Gythones, or Guttones, are surely the Gutae, of the south of Scandinavia, as put by Ptolemy, who had passed over to the ground for∣merly held by the Sitones on their moving north∣east: for on, as Grotius observes, is merely the old German plural, which is sometimes given, sometimes omitted; thus Gutae, Gutones; Bur∣gundi, Burgundiones; Lugii, Lugiones, &c. &c. &c.

It is believed, that no one, the least versed in the subject, will object that the voyage from pre∣sent Prussia to Scandinavia, was too far, for a people in the rudest state of society. Some mo∣dern writers deny early population by sea; as Ta∣citus and other ancients reject progress by land. As the later forgot that men have feet, so the former forget that they have hands. Sea, far from checking intercourse, makes it easier even to barbarians. Wherever men are found, canoes are found; even when huts, nay cloths are want∣ing. The Greenlanders and Fins navigate hun∣dreds of miles: and no nation, however savage, has been discovered in any maritime corner of the

globe, that was a stranger to navigation. In the South Seas Captain Cook found small iles 400, 500, 600 miles from each other, peopled by the same race of men, speaking the same tongue.

We do not find any traces in Ptolemy, or else∣where, of any nations passing from the west of Germany into Scandinavia, except perhaps the Levoni of Ptolemy's Scandinavia be the Lemovii of Tacitus in Lubec and Wagerland, where the passage to Scandinavia is very easy. But from the east, to which the Scythic progress was nearer and speedier, we find the Gutae and Sitones had passed: and Strabo expresses it the general opinion that the Basternae held Scandinavia. These circum∣stances seem to evince, as clearly as the case will bear, that Scandinavia was peopled by the Basternic nations on the east of Germany: and as their pro∣gress was as near from Little Scythia, the punctum saliens, to the extremity of Scandinavia, as was that of their brethren to the extremity of Germany, so there is every reason to conclude that Scandina∣via was peopled with Scythians as soon as Germany. The Northern Fins, including Laplanders, seem to have been infallibly aborigines of their country; for they are so weak, so peaceable, and their soil so wretched, that they could have vanquished no nation, and no nation could envy them their pos∣sessions in climes beyond the solar road.

As we thus find that the Basternae, or those Ger∣mans who lived east of the Vistula, were the Scythic division that peopled Scandinavia, it can hardly be supposed that the Peukini, whose name is put by Tacitus as synonymous with Basternae, and whom we have traced up to the very shore opposite to Scandinavia, should have sent no colonies into it. On the contrary we have every reason to believe that they were the first Scythians who passed into it; and moving on in constant progress, left room for their brethren the Sitones to follow; for we find the steps of the Peukini in Ptolemy from Peuké to the Tyras, from thence to the Peukinian

Mountains in Prussian 1.14, in a direct line; while the Sitones moved round by the westward, for in Ptolemy we find remains of them above the Quadi in the south-east of Germany; and others, still further north-west, on the Baltic shore. The Peukini, on the contrary, never crossed the Vis∣tula, but proceeded strait on to the Baltic shore. There they vanish, while the Sitones are found in Scandinavia, on the opposite coast, which, it is surely reasonable to infer, arose from the progress of the Peukini leaving that possession open to the nation whose population followed them. For as Strabo oserves the general opinion that the Basternae possessed Scandinavia, and the Peukini were the largest and noblest name of the Basternae, it seems likely that Strabo should especially refer to them; seeing that we can trace them to the opposite coast in such full population, as to leave their name to a chain of mountains: and that we know the Sitones another Basternic di∣vision, whose progress was infinitely slower, as more circulative, held a great part of southern Scandinavia. These reasons appear to me so clear and cogent, as fully to confirm the opinion of the ancients, as related by Strabo, that the Basternic Germans peopled Scandinavia; and also to infer, from every ground of cool probability, that the Peukini were the very first Basternae who passed over, and proceeded north-west till they emerged under the name of Picti, the Pehtar, or Peohtar, or Pihtar, of the Saxon Chronicle, Pehiti of Witichind, and Pehts of ancient Scotish poets, and modern natives of Scotland, and the north of England.

It is therefore Historic Truth, that those German Scythians, who peopled Scandinavia, were the Peu∣kini and Sitones, two divisions of the Baslernae.

Before adding a hint or two on the Piks, who are reserved for my Enquiry into Scotish history prior to 1056, i must remark that i do not build on the above progress of the Peukini, as it is sufficient for me to shew from Tacitus and Beda that the Piks were German Scythians from Scandinavia, and to trace them from Norway to Scotland. Facts, and authorities which are facts in history, are the sole grounds upon which a rational historian can proceed. If he contradicts facts and authori∣ties, he writes romance, not history. In my laborious research into early Scotish history, i was shocked to find that, instead of a foundation, i had not even good ground for a foundation, owing to the carelessness with which the origin of nations has been treated. The toil it has cost me to drain my ground of much watry falsehood, has been equal to that of building my fabric, as the reader may judge. I can safely say the truth has been my sole object; for my labour has been too great to waste any part of it in a bauble of an hypo∣thesis, which falls at the first breath, while truth remains for ever. To proceed to a hint on the Piks, it was not to be supposed that the Northern historians could be ignorant of a nation once so celebrated, and who proceeded from Norway. Accordingly we find the vast history of Norway by Torfaeus, compiled from Icelandic Sagas, &c. quite full of them; but under a variation in the initial letter, the cause of which must be explained.

Grammarians observe certain letters which are called labial because pronounced by the lips: they are b, f, m, p, v; of these the b, f, p, v, put at the beginning of words, are pronounced almost with the same motion of the lips, and are thus often interchanged. In Roman inscrip∣tions we find Bita for Vita; in Greek authors Biturius for Viturius, &c. &c. &c. In Spanish V is pronounced B. The F, or Greek digamma, was pronounced V, as all know. But the inter∣change

change of P, and V, which alone concerns my present investigation, seems peculiar to the Germans, and Northern nations of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, for i cannot trace it in Italian, Spanish, or French. Thus the Germans say Vater for the Latin Pater; Picker is Icelandic for a shipbuilder, from Vig, a ship; &c. &c. The Saxons found the sound of P and V so similar, that they actually adopted the Roman letter P to ex∣press V, and W, a modification of V. Thus on coins of William I. and II. of England PILEM is WILEM; and the same occurs in the earliest Saxon coins and MSS, and in the printed Saxon at this day, as all know. Torfaeus observes, in his Series Regum Daniae, that the Vitta of the Saxon genealo∣gists is the Pitta of the Icelandic. I need not produce more instances, but refer the reader, if he wishes for more, to the Glossarium Germanicum of Wachter; the Glossarium Suio-Gothicum (should be Suito-Gothicum) of Ihre; and the Lexicon Islandicum of Andreas. The physical reason of the Northern nations using V for P, or pronouncing P as V, may be, that the cold contracts their organs, for V is only a less open pronounciation of P.

But in the present instance there is no occa∣sion to insist on labial changes, but barely to men∣tion that in the Icelandic, or Old Scandinavian language, there is in fact no such letter as P; and in words of foreign extract the P is always pro∣nounced V, and is from that cause generally so written. Thus papa, a priest, is often written pava. In present Icelandic P is always founded V.

Of the ancient kingdom of VIKAo 1.15, Torfaeus is

full; and it is the Vichia regnum of Olaus Magnus which he puts in the list of the most impor∣tant kingdoms of Scandinavia. Its inhabitants were called VIKVERAR, men of Vik, the Pihtar of the Saxons. It was one of the kingdoms which was reduced by Harold Harfagre, in the ninth century, when he became first king of all Norway. It extended, as Torfaeus informs us, from the Icelandic writers, all over the south of Norway, around Opsloa, an ancient city near the new town Christiania, and opposite the point of the Cimbric Chersonese. It was afterward the large province of Dalvika; and its east side is still known in every map by the name of Viksiden, or the side of Vika, extending down to the north-west outlet of the lake Wener. But of this more elsewhere. It shall only be observed in passing, that this must have been the very progress of the Peukini, if they preceded the Sitones, a part of whose tribes lay con∣tinuous with the Suiones, near the Wener lake: tho, had i formed an hypothesis, i should have as∣sented to Cluverius, and all the modern geogra∣phers, who place the Sitones in Norway; as in that case to suppose the Peukini, their Basternic brethren, in the south of the same country, would have been more plausible. But as facts are the sole subject of my research, i shall leave hypo∣thesis to those who do not grudge to labour in vain; for an hypothesis only stands till another cancels it, while facts and authorities can never be overcome.

It may be proper, before concluding, briefly to consider the received opinions concerning the Scan∣dinavian origins. Saxo Grammaticus has founded the Danish monarchy in the person of a king Dan, more than a thousand years before Christ. Tor∣faeus, from Icelandic Sagas, has shewn, that Saxo's

system, drawn from old songs, is false; and that Skiold, son of Odin, was the first king of Denmark, a little before our aera. Mallet has, in his history of Denmark, followed the plan of Torfaeus; and as it is much more rational than Saxo's, it promises to stand as to succession of kings; Torfaeus founding on the sole authorities which remain; and it is not to be supposed that any future historian should be so frantic as to con∣tend against his authorities, or that the public should approve such delusion. In Sweden, the tales of Joannes Magnus, the forger, have, for a century, been in utter contempt; and the history rests upon an author of wonderful merit and judg∣ment for his age, Snorro Sturleson, who wrote in the thirteenth century, and whose history extends to two folio volumes, and also relates to Denmark and Norway. It is in the Icelandic tongue; but a Latin translation is given by Peringskiold. He makes Odin cotemporary with Pompey, from whom he flies into the north; and subduing Scandinavia, keeps Sweden for himself, and com∣mences the line of kings. The Norwegian history rests on the diligence of Torfaeus, who from Ice∣landic chronicles, genealogies, &c. concludes Odin to have come to Scandinavia in the time of Darius Hystaspis, or about 520 years before Christ. Some Northern antiquaries also finding in the Edda that Odin was put as the supreme deity, and that a total uncertainty about his age prevailed in the old accounts, have imagined to themselves another Odin, who lived about 1000 years before our aera; a mere arbitrary date, and which the formers of this system had better have put 500 years before Christ, as Torfaeus the most diligent of Northern antiquaries has done. Mallet, who has taken matters as he found them, supposes two Odins; and looks on the last, who flourished in Pompey's time, as an Asiatic Magician; nay he tells us some believe three Odins! Torfaeus, we have seen, in

his Norwegian history, infers him to have lived 500 years before Christ, whom in his Series Regum Daniae he had thought lived only 50!

O caecas hominum mentes! O pectora caeca!

Here is the secret: ODIN NEVER EXISTED. The whole affair is an allegory. Torfaeus, so pro∣foundly versed in the Icelandic monuments, tells us they abound in allegory, insomuch that it is often impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood in them. Strange that he did not see that they all begin with allegorv! Not one of these Icelandic pieces, nor any monument whatever of Scandina∣vian history, is older than the Eleventh century. What dependence then as to events happening be∣fore Christ? Their chronology down to Harold Harfagre, or the end of the ninth century, is also quite confused, insomuch that you will find one man cotemporary to three or four centuries.

The Later Edda, which was also compiled by Snorro in the thirteenth century, fully confirms the idea that Odin was never in life, but was merely the God of War. In this Edda Thor is the son of Odin. Mallet well observes that, thro this whole Edda, Odin the hero, who led the Goths from Asia, is confounded with Odin the God of War, or supreme god of the Norwegians. True: yet is there no confusion. There was but one Odin, the god. The hero is a non-existence. The whole progress of the Goths from Asia under Odin is so palpable and direct an allegory, that he must have little penetration indeed who cannot pierce it. It was the God of War who conducted the Goths; literally, they fought their way against the Celts and Fins. But it may be said, how then came Snorro (for on him the whole rests) to make Odin cotemporary with Pompey? Be it observed on this, that Snorro lived at a late period, the end of the Thirteenth century, and that not an iota about Pompey could occur, till Christianity introduced

Latin Learning in the 11th age. The fact is merely this. Snorro found even from his strange genealogy, that the earliest kings of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, of whom tradition preserved the names, could not be dated further back than about 50 years before Christ. These kings, as usual with even Greek and Roman genealogists, when the name of their fathers was unknown to tradition, were called sons of some God; and in the present case Odin the Alfader, and the Mars, was the common sire. Snorro, who, as appears from his work, was considerably tinctured with Latin learning, never reflected that Odin could be only an allegorical father; but simply believes him a real human father; and finding his epoch according to his foolish genealogy of Kings cor∣respond, in this view, with that of Pompey, thinks it a proper place to display his Latin, by connecting his history with the Roman. His work is divided into various Sagas, or historic romances; and as the Icelanders had Sagas on Alexander the Great, on Arthur, on Troy, &c. it is likely they had one on Pompey; in which, as all chronology was confounded in these romances, Odin was brought in as fighting with him. Snorro probably had this saga before him, and so gives the tale. But to shew how very little Snorro can be relied on, we have only to reflect that, in the preface to the Edda, he makes Thor the founder of Troy, and Odin his descendant in the 17th generation; that is, allowing 30 years as usual for a generation, Odin lived 510 years after Thor, whom he makes Tros, from mere similarity of names. Now Tros lived, as chronologers mark, 1360 years before Christ; of course Odin lived 850 years before Christ, and yet was cotemporary to Pompey! No wonder that three Odins were necessary! In truth chronology, as might be ex∣pected, is utterly confounded in those romances called Sagas, insomuch that Torfaeus once placed

King Hrolf Krak 500 years before Christ, and was afterward forced to put him 500 years after Christ. The story of Odin flying from Pompey is a mere dream of some silly Saga; and he who builds on it must be weaker than a child. Such an event, as the migration of a whole nation from the Euxine to the Baltic, could never escape the Greeks, who had numerous colonies on the Euxine, and who traded to the Baltic for amber. It is however remarkable that all Scandinavian Sagas mention Odin with his Scythians coming to Scandinavia, but not one hints that a single colony went from it to Scvthia; which is another argu∣ment against the Goths proceeding from Scandi∣navia.

If the Northern antiquaries will therefore open their eyes, and see at last that all concerning Odin is a mere mythologic allegory, they will do well. There was but one Odin, the God of War, who was cotemporary in all ages. The kings of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, nay the whole Anglo-Saxon kings, owned him as first father. That is, they were entitled solely to martial prowess for their thrones. As for the genealogy of Odin himself, in which we find him descended from a line of ancestors, as Geta or the father of the Getae, and Pitta or the father of the Piks, &c. it is also allegorical, as much as the Theogonia of Hesiod, and the genealogies of Greek gods and heroes. Mere poetry all; and not history. Odin's progress, as marked from the Northern histories, by Mallet, in his fourth chapter of the Introduction was round by Germany, the Cimbric Chersonese, and Denmark, into Sweden. How could Mallet be so much asleep, as to dream that this event which, according to him, happened in Caesar's time, could be unknown to Caesar? That Odin should pierce thro all the hundred martial nations of Ger∣many, and not leave a trace behind? Should vanquish the Suevi, to whom, as their neighbours

said, the Gods were not equal? One is sick of such folly; and to confute it is to debase the hu∣man mind. The whole is unchronologic allegory. The Goths by war subdued and peopled Scandina∣via, an event that happened at least 500 years be∣fore Christ; and was accomplished by different nations, under different leaders, but all under the guidance of Odin the god of war. Varro marks three divisions of antiquity, the dark, the mythologic, the historic. The Northern antiquaries to this day; when such great writers as Schoening, Suhm the illustrious patron of Danish literature, Lagerbring the most acute Swedish historian, rank among them; still confound the mythologic with the historic period. Odin is wholly a mythologic personage; and has nothing to do with history, which only faintly dawns at the reigns of his re∣puted sons, as the Roman does with Romulus son of Mars. The tales about him, and his Asae, are all poetical allegories; and have no more to do with history than Greek mythology. If he ever existed, it was in the first Scythian empire, 3000 years before Christ. Romulus was the son of Mars, as the Northern kings of Odin: but no writer has been so foolish as to infer that Mars was the human father of Romulus, and reigned in Latium just before him. The great good sense of the Scandinavian antiquaries has already led them to laugh at Jornandes: but one or two still dream of a migration of Goths to Scandinavia under one Odin, about 1000 years before Christ; a second from it to Getia, about 300 years before Christ; and a return under another Odin 70 years before Christ. So hard it is to eradicate prejudice!

A philosophic dissertation on Scandinavian Chronology is wanted; but philosophy has not yet reached Scandinavia; and it's best writers are full of their domestic tales, but strangers to Greek and Roman learning, and to the general history of ancient Europe. Their histories bear only 24 kings,

(one more or less,) from 70 years before Christ to Ragnar Lodbrog, who flourished, as appears from Old English writers and other certain ac∣counts, in 830. But in the series of Irish, Pikish, and Heptarchic kings of England, the kings reign but eleven years each at a medium; and Sir Isaac Newton has shewn that even in civilized kingdoms they reign but eighteen. Scandinavia was certainly more ferocious than most other countries, and it's kings must have reigned a shorter, and not a longer, time than the kings in England, Scotland, and Ireland: accordingly most of the early Swedish and Danish kings die violent deaths. Not more than eleven years can be allowed to each reign: and 264 years reckoned back from 830 give the year of Christ 566, for the commencement of the series; and period of the mock Odin. The gene∣rations can never be computed by reigns of kings. All history refuses this. Who can believe that the sons regularly succeeded their fathers, and formed generations by reigns? Snorro, &c. are in this respect more fabulous than Saxo. The generations are false; tho the names may be genuine. But even fable ought to bear verisimilitude; and from the year 500 to 900 should be placed the Fabulous part of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian history. All before is dark, and lost even to fable. The total silence of their writers concerning the progress of the Jutes and Angles to England confirms this date, as well as the most certain rules of chronology.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Slava, in the Slavonic, means glorious, noble; hence many Polish names as Ladi slaus, &c. Procopius is, it is believed, the first who mentions the Sclaveni, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or Slavons, II. 15. III. 33. in which last passage they make a great figure, passing the Danube in crouds. It deserves especial remark that the Venedi or Wends have been, by transtators of Northern Sagas, and others, confounded with the Vandali, which last are, it is thought, unknown to Northern writers. The Vans, Wends, Venedi, lay in Odin's supposed way from the Euxine to the Baltic; the Vandals did not. This strange error has got even in∣to a royal title, Gothorum et Vandalorum Rex (for Venedorum), a ti∣tle equal to that of Rex Maris et Terrae!
• b 1.2

  Strabo, lib. III. p. 164, says, that the Celts washed their body, and cleansed their teeth, with urine; and that it was kept long in cisterns to give it more strength.
• f 1.3

  Pliny IV. 13. Tacitus in Germ. Leibnitz well observes on the later, 'Sed cum ipse Tacitus subjiciat Pencinos sermone referre Germanos, quaestio ab ipsomet decisa est. Unde enim illis sermo Germanicus nisi ab origine Germanica?' Apud Tac. Germ. a Dithmar, p. 296.
• g 1.4

  The Basternae lived in cars, that is their wives and chil∣dren did always, whilke the men roved about on foot, or on horseback, and returned to their cars, or little waggons, at night. Herodotus says the same of the Scythae, IV. 121. and Justin. II. Basterna was Francic or Tudesque for a chariot, perhaps covered like a waggon, as we find the chariot of honour on medals of Faustina and others. See Gregor. Turon. III. 26. the word also occurs in Lampridius in Heliogab. Symmachus, and the Capitularia Reg. Franc. and Amm. Marcell. lib. XIV. Vopiscus in Probo, tells that Probus settled no less than 100,000 Basternae in Thrace. In 303 the Basternae are last spoken of as a separate people. Zozim. Orosius, Victor, Eumen. Pan. Const. The Gepidae of later ages seem the Geloni of the former; and from their situation must have been Basternae.
• h 1.5

  Pliny VI. 7. where he treats of the Palus Maeotis, and nations around it, puts the Piki between the Maeotis and Ceraunian Mountains; or in present Circassia. Some editions read Phycari: but Harduin gives us Pici, from four excellent MSS. 1. Reg. 2. Col. 3, 4. Chiffl.—Mela, I. 21, calls them Phicores, Phycari, Phicores, Pici, are but different modifica∣tions of the same name, as Pihti, Phichtiaid, Pihtar, Peohtar, are Cumraig and Saxon names of the Piks. Plautus, in Aulularia calls them Picos.
• d 1.6

  A part of the Sithones remained beneath the ile of Peuke, on the west of the Euxine. 'Ponticum litus Sithonia gens obtinet, quae nato ibi Orpheo vate decus addidit nomini.' Solin. c. 16. Virgil has Sithonias nives: Ovid Sithonium aquilonem.
• e 1.7

  Marsigli, in his magnificent account of the Danube, does not go so far east as Peuke, which is in the Turkish, not the German, territory.
• f 1.8

  He also names Eningia, which some would rashly alter to Finingia, but was in all likelihood the south part of Finland, and taken by the ancients for another ile in the Great Northern Ocean. Pliny says, Scandinavia and Eningia were thought other worlds by the inhabitants: but he uses the same extravagant hyperbole in speaking of Taprobane, or Ceylon! VI. 24.
• g 1.9

  These Anglii of Ptolemy are corrupted from Angrii, or Angrivarii, placed by others just where Ptolemy puts the Anglii.
• i 1.10

  The learned Huet, Commerce des Anc. rightly saw that the Suiones must be on the west, from the account of Tacitus; but he errs in placing them in Norway.
• k 1.11

  In the Periplus Wulfstani of king Alfred, published in the book of Arius De Islandia, edit. Bussaei, Hauniae, 1733, 4to. and elsewhere, we are told, 'the Vistula is a very large river, and near it ly Witland, and Vandalia. Witland belongs to the Esti.' It is hence clear that the Esti of Alfred's time were those of Tacitus, on the mouth of the Vistula, and far re∣mote from Estonia.
• l 1.12

  The southern part of Scandinavia is called Skani in the old Icelandic MSS, and it is still Scania. Hence in all ap∣pearance the Roman Scandia.
• m 1.13

  Ablavius enim historicus refert quia ibi super limbum Ponti, ubi eos diximus in Scythia commanere, pars eorum qui orientalem plagam tenebant..... dicti sunt Ostrogothae; re∣sidui vero Vesigothae in parte occidua. Jorn. de reb. gest. Get. c. 14.

  Tho Grotius seems to quote Baron Herberstein among the earliest writers, for the name Gothland in Sweden, yet that name is mentioned by Adam of Bremen about 1080: and it is highly probable, that the Gutae of Ptolemy were those very people by moderns latinized Gothi. The real indigenal name is Gyllen, Oestergyllen, Westergyllen. But writers of the middle ages were fond of approximating old names to modern ones: thus they called the Danes, Daci; Norway, Noricum; the Swedes Suevi: and some Scandinavian writers of last century, as Lyscander and Wormius, call Scanen, Scythia. But the antiquity of the very names Ostrogothia, Westrogothia, if you will, is out of all question. Certain it is, that the Ostro∣gothi and Visogothi of Roman history came not from that little corner of Sweden, any more than the Franks, Lombards, Heruli, Saxons, went from Scandinavia, as Scandinavian writers dream, Tantus amor patriae! But false history, instead of honouring, disgraces a country; and it is ever seen that the most insignificant countries are the most full of false honours. The Northern kingdoms need not such fame.
• n 1.14

  Paulus Diaconus I, 11, 12. mentions that when the Lom∣bards came to Mauringa, they encountered the AE Pitti or No∣ble Pitti for so As implies in Gothic.
• o 1.15

  Perhaps it may be thought that the kingdom Vik was so called from Vik, a haven. But Torsaeus and Olaus call it Vicha as often as Vik; and the former does not imply a haven. Nor could all the south of Norway receive so vague a name as The Haven. It is a proper name, as distinct from Vik a haven, as Scot is from scot and lot. (Skot, vectigal. Isl.)

  Verelius in his Index Ling. S••yth••-Scand. says Piaekhur is cir∣cumcursitator, 'a wanderer.' The Peukini Basternae were such compared to the Germans; and this may be the origin of the name.