APPENDIX. I. PTOLOMY'S ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY OF IRELAND, AMENDED, AND MODERNIZED. N the ESSAY, p. 117, it was stated, upon the IN authority of Tacitus, that "the coasts and harbours of Ireland were better known to [foreign] traders and merchants, than those of Britain." And this statement is conformable to the reports of the ancient Geographers, who wrote before, and about his time. Orpheus, of Crotona in Italy, the friend of the tyrant Pisistratus of Athens, who flourished about B. C. 576, in his Argonautics, describing the voyages of Hercules, says, Пlaqa νησον αμειβεν Ιεςνιδα He coasted along the Island Iernis;" and that he meant Ireland thereby, appears from Aristotle's account of the British Isles, in his book de Mundo, dedicated to his royal pupil, Alexander the Great, about B. C. 330 speaking of the Atlantic or Western Ocean-Ev τούτο γε μεν νησοι μεγισται TE TYY XXVOVTW, ουσαι δύο Βρετανικαι, λεγομεναι Αλβιον και Ιεςνη των προισίορημένων μείζους, υπες τους Κέλτας κείμεναι· ουκ ολίγαι δε μικραι περι τας Βρετανικας και την Ιβηριαν. "In this ocean, there are two islands, the greatest, the British; called Albion and Ierne; greater than the forementioned, lying beyond the Celts (or Gauls), northward; and not a few small ones, (the Scilly Isles), between the British Isles and Iberia (or Spain), southward." This is a remarkably accurate description of their site; much more so than that of Tacitus, noticed in the Essay. Artemidorus of Ephesus, who flourished about B. C. 104, without naming Ireland, thus describes it, as well known at that time:είναι νησον προς τη Βρεττανική, καὶ ἦν ὁμοια τοις εν Σαμοθρακη, περι την Δημητραν και την κόρην, ἱεροποιείται. "He says, there is an island, adjacent to the British, where sacred rites are performed to Ceres and the virgin (Proserpine), similar to those in Samothrace." And Marcianus, of Heraclea in Pontus, who wrote in the third century after Christ, and abridged the works of Artemidorus, professed to correct his errors, not from the modern Roman geographers, but from ancient authors, and of equal credit; thus describes Ireland:-" The British Isle Juvernia, is bounded on the north by the Hyperborean ocean, on the east by the Hibernian, and on the south by the Virginian ocean. It contains sixteen nations, eleven remarkable cities, fifteen remarkable rivers, five remarkable promontories, and six remarkable islands." Festus Avienus also, who wrote a geographical work, De Oris Maritimis, in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius, thus describes its sanctity, and its situation, from the Punic annals of Himilco, the Carthaginian: Ast hinc, duobus, in sacram-sic Insulam Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit : Propinqua rursus Insula Albionum patet. And he thus states his ancient authority for the denomination of the sacred island. Hæc olim, Himilco Panus, oceano super, Himilco is represented by Pliny as contemporary with Hanno, who made a commercial voyage of discovery to the coast of Guinea, in Africa, about B.C. 570, some time after Pharaoh Nicho had caused Africa to be circumnavigated by the Phoenician mariners, as noticed by Herodotus, in the reign of Nekus. |