Galicia, the Switzerland of Spain. Annette M. B. Meakin

in France—Herodotus having written about Spanish Celts, but not about French ones. They believe that the Spanish Celts are a branch of the Cimmerians described by Herodotus as dwelling in the Crimea,[18] who disappeared completely from the neighbourhood of the Black Sea, and were thought to have settled in Wales under the name of Cimbri.[19] There have come down to our own times many geographical names, not only in Britain, but also in Galicia, containing the roots Cam, Camb, Cambr, Cim, and Cimbr.

      The earliest documentary information about Galicia comes to us from the Romans, from the writings of Julius Cæsar, Strabo, and Pliny the Younger, from Justin, Silicus Italicus, and Asclepiades. The last-named writer speaks of Greek colonies in Galicia and Lusitania, but many Spanish writers have discredited their existence, and Barros Sivelo affirms that there is not a single monument in Galicia testifying to the Greeks having settled there. Recent writers have devoted much time to the extraction of imaginary Greek roots from words in daily use among the Gallegan peasantry, but, as far as I can judge, too much free play has been allowed to their imagination; and when one remembers how distinct are the traces left by Greek colonies in other parts of the world, one naturally looks for more substantial proof than that which is afforded by a page or two of strained philological comparisons.[20] The tradition has, however, been handed down to us that several Gallegan towns, notably those of Tuy and Pontevedra, owe their origin to Greek settlers, and certain Greek customs are said to be still extant there.

      There were Phœnician colonies in Galicia in the twentieth century B.C. In Pontevedra I came across an interesting little Spanish book with the title, “A Critical Dissertation, undertaken to prove that William Cambden was wrong in stating that the islands to which the Phœnicians came for tin were the Scilly Islands, and that these islands (known to the ancients as the Cassiterides) are those which are situated on the coast of the kingdom of Galicia”[21] (opposite Vigo harbour). Ptolemy wrote of them as being ten in number, and all inhabited, except one, by a people who clad themselves in long black tunics with a girdle round their waist, who walked staff in hand and wore beards like goats.

      Pliny, quoting Herodotus, owned that he knew nothing about the islands in question, “Nec Cassiterides novi insulas, unde ad nos venit stanum.” The first writer to mention these islands is Herodotus. Himilcon’s expedition is supposed by the Spanish historian Velazquez to have taken place in 400 B.C. Cornide quotes many Spanish writers who believed the Cassiterides to have been situated on the coast of Galicia; he then complains that Cambden only quoted that part of Diodorus Siculus which was favourable to his theory, and passed over in silence the words “supra Lusitanorum provinciam multum stannei est metalli in insulis videlicet occidentalibus Oceano Iberico adjacentibus quas idcirco Cassiterides nuncuparit.” How could this passage possibly refer to the Scilly Islands? Then, too, if the Scilly Islands were once so rich in tin, it surely is strange that they now show traces of nothing but granite and quartz. But what islands are these on the Gallegan coast that may once have contained so rich a supply of tin? Only a group of minute ones opposite the harbour of Vigo. “Perhaps,” say some, “the group contained larger islands once; they may have been swallowed by the sea.”

      The Phœnicians had long held sway over the empire of the sea, and to this they owed their immense wealth. In the Bible they are alluded to as merchant princes. They visited India for their own private interests, and fetched thence gold, precious stones, valuable woods, ivory, monkeys, and peacocks’ feathers. Herodotus tells us that to satisfy the curiosity of Necho, king of Egypt, they sailed round Africa, starting from the Red Sea and taking three years for the voyage. When they explored the coast of Africa they brought away as trophies the skins of some Ethiopian women who had refused to be taken captive alive. The Carthaginians and the Phœnicians were both from the same Semitic stock as the Hebrews. Aguiar, quoting Pliny, says that Midacritus made a voyage to the Cassiterides in 1600 B.C., thus initiating commerce in the famed tin of these islands, and he goes on to say that without doubt the Cassiterides, if they were not on the coast of Galicia, were the British Isles. The Phœnicians even visited Ireland and brought information to the Romans about far-off Thule. If these navigators reached Britain, where vestiges of their language still remain, they must of a certainty have been acquainted with the coast of Galicia, whose mountains contained tin of so fine a quality that where English tin contained six parts per hundred of lead these contained thirty. According to Jubainville, it was from the Phœnicians that the Celts (after their establishment in Gaul) heard of the rich mines in Spain which induced them to conquer that country. The power of the Phœnicians was already in its decline when they came under the sway of Persia about the year 537 B.C. Jubainville believes that the word Cassiterides is derived through the Greek χασσιτερος, from a Celtic root cassi, meaning agreeable—whence also he derives the Irish word caise, meaning esteem, love. He believes that the Celts from what is now Hesse-Darmstadt, being pleased with Great Britain, gave it that name, and he agrees with Reinach’s suggestion that tin came to be called χασσιτερος, because it was found in the country known by that name.[22]

      Galicia has traditions reaching back into the remotest antiquity. The name of the famous tower of Hercules, at the entrance to the harbour of Coruña, proves the presence of Phœnicians in Galicia. It was they who named the Straits of Gibraltar the Pillars of Hercules, and they who gave the name of Hercules to a tower they erected in the harbour of Cadiz.

      Local archæologists are, as we have seen, convinced that some other race dwelt in Galicia before it was invaded by the Celts, but they tell us that, so far, no very distinct vestige of such people has been traced, there is nothing sufficiently definite to prove their identity.

      The fact that no iron implements from their time had been discovered till quite recently, leads to the conclusion that they were in absolute ignorance of the use of metals, but I speak with hesitation on this point, awaiting the final decision of Señor Villa Amil at the conclusion of the interesting studies he is engaged in with respect to the iron instruments he has himself excavated in Galicia. Barros Sivelo, quoting Italicus, says that the ancient Celts wore their hair flowing down their backs, and semicircular caps upon their heads, while their women wore high peaked head-dresses covered with black veils which drooped over their foreheads. These people had a strange custom of exposing their sick upon the public highways in order that those who had suffered from the same malady might recommend a cure.

      Florez says that Galicia sent forth the flower of her youth to fight under Hannibal, and he quotes Silius Italicus, “Misit dives Gallaecia pubes,” etc.

      For twenty-four years Rome and Carthage had fought over Sicily. After the Sicilian defeat the Carthaginians, who were (like the Phœnicians) of Semitic extraction, landed at Cadiz with the flower of their army that they might gain in Spain what they had lost in Sicily.[23] Their leader was Hamilcar Barca, whose ambition it was to conquer Italy as well as Spain. Carthage had exploited Spain for four hundred years when, after the second Punic war, Rome took up the cause of the inhabitants of Spain against their Carthaginian oppressors, and Hamilcar found a worthy opponent in Scipio Africanus. The people of Spain, after fighting on the side of Scipio, were also crushed by the Romans in their turn, but they cost Rome every year an army and a consul. The cruelty of Lucullus and Galba made the name of Rome hateful to Spanish ears. Spanish bandits continually attacked the Roman legions; Rome feared insurrection more and more, and at last was not ashamed to buy with gold the life of her enemy.

      When Quintus Fabius had subjugated the greater part of Lusitania,[24] now northern Portugal, the tribes dwelling in Galicia came down against the Roman cities, continually raiding them in flying columns, and fleeing to the mountains for refuge when the Romans gave them chase. Brutus, when he crossed the river Limia, was the leader of an expedition sent out to follow and punish them. In all these skirmishes the Gallegan women played a prominent part, taking the field beside their husbands and brothers, and employing their weapons with the greatest courage and determination. They received their wounds with silent fortitude, and no cry of pain ever escaped their lips, even when the wounds which laid them low were mortal. Both sexes preferred death to loss of liberty, and when taken prisoners they put themselves and their little ones to death that they might not fall into slavery.

      In the year 131 B.C., Brutus, entering Rome in triumph, received the name of Calaicus[25] in honour of his successes in Galicia. Nevertheless, he had not succeeded