I.

BOOK martial trophies, divested of all circumstance or chronology, it is not till they assail the welfare of the civilised, and become a part of their national history, that we have any notice of their transactions; and often not till this period, any indication of their existence. But two intimations have been preserved to us of the Kimmerians, which probably express the general outline of their history. They are stated to have often made plundering incursions 18, and they were considered by Posidonius, to whose geographical works Strabo was often indebted, as a predatory and wandering nation.1

The Cim

bri were Kimmerians.

In the century before Cæsar they became known to the Romans by the harsher pronunciation of Kimbri 20, in that formidable irruption from which Marius rescued the Roman state. At this period a great body of them quitted their settlements on the Baltic, and, in conjunction with other tribes, entered the great Hercynian forest, which covered the largest part of ancient Germany. Repulsed by

18 Strabo, p. 106. This habit no doubt occasioned the word Cimbri to signify robbers among the Germans, as Plutarch remarks in his life of Marius.

19 Posid. ap. Strab. p. 450.

20 That the Kupio of the Greeks were the Kimbroi of the Greeks, and Cimbri (Kimbri) of the Latin writers, was not only the opinion of Posidonius, whom Strabo quotes, lib. vii. p. 293., but of the Greeks generally: 66 quum Græci Cimbros Cimmeriorum nomine afficiant," ib. Diodorus Siculus expressly says, that to those who were called Kuμegions, the appellation of Kupa was applied in process of time, and by the corruption of language, lib. v. p. 309. Plutarch, in his life of Marius, also identifies the Kimbri with the Kimmerioi. He says, "from these regions, when they came into Italy, they began their march, being anciently called Kimmerioi, and in process of time Kimbroi."

.

II.

the Boioi, they descended on the Danube. Pene- CHAP. trating into Noricum and Illyricum, they defeated the Roman consul Narbo; and a few years afterwards, having by their ambassadors to Rome solicited in vain the senate, to assign them lands for their habitation, for which they offered to assist the Romans in their wars, they defeated four other consuls in as many successive battles, and entered Gaul. Having ravaged all the country between the Rhone and the Pyrenees, they spread into Spain, with the same spirit of desolation. Repulsed there by the Celtiberi, they returned to France; and joining with the Teutones, who had also wandered from the Baltic, they burst into Italy with a force, that had accumulated in every region which they had traversed. Rome was thrown into consternation by their progress, and it required all the talents and experience of Marius, Sylla, and the best Roman officers to overthrow them.21

THE great mass of the Kimbric population perished in these conflicts. The Romans are stated to have destroyed, from two to three hundred thousand, in two battles. It is impossible to read of human slaughter without lamenting it, or without feeling some abhorrence of those, however famed as heroes, by whom it has been effected. But in this war, the Kimbri provoked the destruction, by their desolating aggressions: and considering the spirit and customs of barbaric ferocity, which they maintained, and their national restlessness, their disappearance was advantageous to the progress of civilisation,

21 Liv. Epit. 63-67. Florus, lib. iii. c. 3. Oros. lib. v. c. 16. Strabo, lib. v. Plut. Vit. Mar. We have the names of three of their kings from Livy, Plutarch, and Florus: these are Bolus, Bojorisc, and Teutobochus.

I.

BOOK and to the interests of humanity. Marius did not, like Cæsar, go into Gaul in search of a sanguinary warfare. He obeyed the call of his country to rescue it from a calamitous invasion. His successes filled Rome with peculiar joy, and were sung by the poet Archias, whom Cicero's eloquence has made illustrious.22

THE rest of the Kimmerian nation on the continent remained in a feeble and scattered state. They are noticed by Strabo, as existing in his time on the Baltic 23; and are more briefly alluded to by Pliny. Both these writers represent them on the north-western shores of Europe, or on those coasts of the German Ocean, from which the Saxons and Danes made afterwards expeditions into Britain.

24

IN the days of Tacitus, this ancient nation had almost ceased to exist on the continent of Europe; but his expressions imply their former power and | celebrity. When he mentions the Kimbri who, in his time, remained in the peninsula of Jutland, he says, "A small state now, but great in glory; the marks of their antient fame yet remain, far and wide, about the Elbe; by whose extent you may measure the power and greatness of this people, and accredit the reported numbers of their army."

22 Even the illiterate Marius was pleased with this Parnassian effusion. "Ipsi illi C. Mario, qui durior ad hæc studia videbatur, jucundus fuit." Cicer. Or. pro Arch. c. 9.

23 He remarks that, in his time, Kimbri continued to inhabit their former settlements on the Baltic, and had sent a present of one of their sacred cauldrons to Augustus, lib. vii. p. 449. 24 Nat. Hist. lib. iv. c. 27. and 28. The latter passage intimates Inland Cimbri near the Rhine, as well as the Cimbri in the Peninsula. In lib. vi. c. 14. he mentions Cimmerii in Asia, near the Caspian.

They were existing, or their fame continued in CHAP. those parts, in the days of Claudian.25

THUS far we have proceeded upon the authentic authorities, which remain to us in the classical writers, of the primeval population of Europe. From these it is manifest, that the earliest inhabitants of the north of Europe, were the Kimmerians or Kimbri; and that they spread over it from the Kimmerian Bosphorus, to the Kimbric Chersonesus; that is from Thrace and its vicinity, to Jutland and the German Ocean; to that ocean from which the passage is direct to Britain; -the regular voyage in our times from Hamburgh to England or Scotland.

II.

rians and

THE habit of moveable nations in the uncivilised Kimmeor nomadic state, would lead us to infer, as these Cymry in Kimmerii or Kimbri are characterised as a wander- Britain. ing nation, and are shown by all that remains of their history to have been so, that at some early period, after they reached the shores of the German ocean, they crossed it in their rude vessels to Great Britain. This reasonable supposition, analogous to all that we know of the customs of such nations, and of the colonization of other parts of the world, has a remarkable support in the name and traditions of the Welsh, and their ancient British literature. It is agreed by the British antiquaries, that the most ancient inhabitants of our island were called Cymry (pronounced Kumri): they are so named in all that remains of the ancient British literature. The Welsh, who are their descendants, have always called themselves Cymry; and have

25 Tacitus de morib. Germ. Claudian calls the Northern Ocean by their name, " Cimbrica Thetis." Cons. Hon. lib. iv.

BOOK given the same appellation to the earliest colonists

L

Hu Ca

darn.

of our island; and as the authorities already referred to, prove, that the Kuμegios or Kimbri were the ancient possessors of the northern coasts of the Germanic Ocean, and attempted foreign enterprises, it seems to be a safe and reasonable inference, that the Cymry of Britain originated from the continental Kimmerians.26 That a district, in the northern part of England, was inhabited by a part of the ancient British nation, and called Cumbria, whence the present Cumberland, is a fact favourable to this presumption.

THE Danish traditions of expeditions and conquests in Britain, from Jutland and its vicinity, long before our Saviour's birth, which Saxo Grammaticus has incorporated into his history, may here be noticed. He is an authority too vague to be trusted alone; but he is evidence of the traditions of his countrymen, and these may claim that attention, when they coincide with those of the ancient British, which they would not otherwise deserve. They add something to the probability of early migrations, or expeditions from these regions into our islands, although they must not be confounded with historical facts.

THE historical triads of the Welsh connect themselves with these suppositions in a very striking manner. They state that the Cymry were the first

27

26 Tacitus mentions a circumstance favourable to this deduction. He says of the Estii on the Baltic, that their language resembled the British, "lingua Britannica proprior." De mor. Germ. If the opinion maintained in the text be true, the Estii must have been a Kimmerian tribe.

27 The Welsh have several collections of historical triads ; which are three events coupled together, that were thought