CHAPTER I.

NOTICES OF BRITAIN AND ITS INHABITANTS IN ANCIENT

GREEK AND ROMAN AUTHORS.

Was Britain the Island ?--If so, Avebury may have been the Temple mentioned in the Fourth Century B.C.-Avebury only made generally known to the British Public in the Eighteenth Century-The Harp in use by the Ancient Inhabitants of Britain-They used Greek Characters, but not the Greek Language-Gold and Gold Ornaments-Torques-In Gaul and Britain the same Religion-Language nearly similar-Lost Country of LionnesseReligious services performed over the supposed Site of the submerged City of Ys-In Brittany, the alleged Site of the Palace and the Burial-Place of King Arthur Launcelot-du-Lac, Merlin, etc.-Cassiterides, Tin Islands, Britain, mentioned by Herodotus in the Fifth Century B.C.; by Aristotle in the Fourth Century B.C.; by Polybius in the Second Century B.C.; by Cæsar, Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo, in the First Century B.C.

HERE is in Diodorus Siculus' a statement which it is im

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portant to examine when the primitive fanes and ancient religion of Britain are objects of inquiry. Some reasons are, therefore, now offered in support of the argument that Britain is the island, and that Avebury may be the temple of which Hecatæus had obtained vague information when he visited Syria in the fourth century B.C.2 The notice which is now to be

1 Booth's Diodorus S., 1814, vol. i. pp. 138-39.

2 I have treated the quotation as from Hecatæus of Abdera, although

VOL. I.

Hecatæus of Miletus may be meant ; in which case the account would not only be more ancient, but be still more valuable.

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