Isle of Wight was the Vectis or Ictis of the ancients. The arguments, however, against the passage in Diodorus Siculus,[1] that it would be so much easier for the Phoenicians to have exported the tin from the Cassiterides instead of bringing it by inland transport to the island, and then shipping it to Gaul, is founded upon ignorance. Sea carriage was then far more difficult and dangerous than land conveyance. Ancient mariners were easily frightened, and their vessels put into land every night. As Sir G. C. Lewis further remarks, foreign merchants were always regarded with jealousy and distrust, and the overland route would enable the traffic to be carried out through the whole distance by native traders.[2]
Singularly enough, however, Warner[3] states that a large mass of tin was found on the very site of this old Roman road. Not only, too, was tin brought here from Cornwall, but also lead from the Mendip Hills. Pigs of it have been picked up on a branch of the same Roman road running from Uphill on the Severn to Salisbury, and from thence joining the Leap road. One of them, stamped with the name of Hadrian, is now
- ↑ As the passage is so important, I give it in full:—Ἀποτυποῦντες δ´ εἰς ἀστραγάλων ῥυθμοὺς κομίζουσιν εἴς τινα νῆσον προκειμένην μὲν τῆς Βρεττανικῆς, ὀνομαζομένην δὲ Ἴκτιν· κατὰ γὰρ τὰς ἀμπώτεις ἀναξηραινομένου τοῦ μεταξὺ τόπου ταῖς ἁμάξαις εἰς ταύτην κομίζουσι δαψιλῆ τὸν καττίτερον. Ἴδιον δέ τι συμβαίνει περὶ τὰς πλησίον νήσους τὰς μεταξὺ κειμένας τῆς τε Εὐρώπης καὶ τῆς Βρεττανικῆς· Κατὰ μὲν γὰρ τὰς πλημυρίδας τοῦ μεταξὺ πόρου πληρουμένου νῆσοι φαίνονται, κατὰ δὲ τὰς ἀμπώτεις ἀπορρεούσης τῆς θαλάττης καὶ πολὺν τόπον ἀναξηραινούσης θεωροῦνται χερρόνησοι.—Lib. v., cap. xxii., vol. i., p. 438. Ed. Dindorf. Leipsic, 1828-31. Pliny, as Wesseling remarks, in his note on this passage, quoted by Dindorf, vol. iv. p. 421, by some mistake, makes the Isle of Wight (Mictis) six days' sail from England. See Sir G. C. Lewis's Astronomy of the Ancients, chap, viii., sect. iii. p. 453.
- ↑ As before, sect. iv. p. 462.
- ↑ Topographical Remarks on the South-Western Parts of Hampshire, vol. ii. pp. 5, 6, 1793.
