Kantion, we see a reasonable explanation of his remark on the time it took to sail thither from Keltiké.[1]
Such, then, are all the data which we can draw from the ancient literary sources. Let us now see if we can derive any aid towards substantiating this account, and for helping to determine the priority of either the short sea passage or the long sea passage, from the evidence afforded by the numismatic remains of the Greek cities of Massalia, Emporiæ, Rhoda, and from the Gaulish and British imitations of Greek coins.
Now, if we can trace certain well-defined coin-types along these routes from the Greek settlements into Britain, we shall obtain a substantial proof of the lines of early trade: furthermore, if we find that the types along one of those routes are prior in date to those found along the other, we must infer that the former is the more ancient. A short survey of the numismatic history of the regions referred to is here necessary. The famous Phocæan colony of Massalia was founded about 600 B.C. at the mouth of the Rhone, and in its turn it planted many colonies along the coasts of Spain, Gaul, and Liguria, the most important of which was Emporiæ (Ampurias), planted (cir. 400 B.C.) on the Gulf of Lyons, close to the eastern extremity of the Pyrenees. A little to the north of it lay Rhoda, a town originally (according to certain authorities) a colony from Rhodes, but which had long fallen under Phocæan influence. These were the only Greek cities in Spain which issued a coinage.
The earliest coins of Massalia, little coins of archaic appearance, have invariably the incuse square on the
- ↑ Mr. Elton, having assumed that Keltiké only began on the north side of the Loire, seems to make it only comprise the Armorican peninsula, for he explains this passage to mean that “he sailed up the Channel as far as Cantion, the North Foreland, or a port in its neighbourhood”. If Pythias sailed up the Strait he could not have made this statement of the distance between the opposite coasts.
