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Origin of the Name Britain and the Western Greeks

Pytheas Named Britain before the Romans

By Christopher Gunstone* 

In Atlantic Spain there were Greeks trading at Tartessos 2,400 years ago. According to Herodotus they travelled not in merchant ships but penteconter warships. A new book The Greek Empire of Marseille: Discoverer of Britain, Saviour of Rome shows evidence of Greeks in the West, including three Greek Corinthian helmets 7th and 6th century BC dredged up from the sea between Huelva and Cadiz. Another Corinthian helmet was uncovered from a grave in Malaga, Spain.

In Provence, France a 6th century BC Corinthian helmet was dug up 85 km from Marseille. The city of Marseille (Massalia) was founded by Greeks from Phocaea in Ionia 600 B.C. en route to get silver from Spain. Phocaea was one of the first city-states to use the new invention of money an event which changed the world.

The invasion of Ionia by Persia in 546 BC saw more than half of the Phocaeans leave the city and swell their western settlements of Aléria in Corsica and Marseille. Aléria had a 20,000 population and most moved to Italy to found Elea c. 540 BC. Marseille now led and founded cities of its own some still existing today as Nice, Antibes, Monaco, Le Brusc, Agde, Aléria, and in Spain Sant Marti d’Empúries and Roses. Marseille’s city-wall was extended due to the increase of population estimated around 20,000–40,000. The surrounding rugged land that would have deterred other Greeks was what the Phocaeans were used to. Justin and Strabo wrote that due to the poverty of the soil they turned their attention more to the produce of the sea to make a living. Fortunately olives and grapes can grow on poor soils and were planted and cultivated by them. Wine became in demand among the Celts and Spanish. Marseille’s population was as big as other Greek cities in Magna Graecia (Italy) but without the fertile farmlands; the Massaliotes imported grain just like Athens. Marseille had its first colony at Agde and evidence of cadastration, ample land where grain was planted to supply Marseille and its colonies, produced as much as Metapontum.

The restless spirit and curiosity of the Greeks is evident in the 6th century BC navigation manual Massaliote periplous regarding the Atlantic. Also Euthymenes of Massalia explored the west coast of Africa down to the River Senegal. Carthaginian domination of the Straits of Gibraltar and their destruction of Tartessos left the Greeks to turn their trading up the River Rhone into France. During the 320s BC Pytheas of Massalia searched for the origin of valuable tin and amber. By exploring the North Atlantic, he discovered, circumnavigated, measured and named Britain. His discoveries of lands that became islands then joined to the mainland twice a day: where there was no night only daylight: correcting Eudoxus’s theory on the North Pole: that the earth was a sphere: frozen seas, seemed hard to believe causing controversy except to fellow astronomers. Yet today we know these things to be true. Fortunately Pytheas, an astronomer, took measurements at five points on his journey, which have now been verified and place Pytheas amongst the greatest of explorers extending the knowledge of the world we live in and literally put Britain on the map. Pytheas described Britain as triangular in shape and its three points as Belerion (Land’s End, Cornwall), Orcas (Dunnet Head, Scotland), Kantion (South Foreland, Kent).

The Greek Empire of MarseilePytheas recorded his exploration in a book On the Ocean of which only fragments remain from 18 ancient writers. Centuries later many in Rome still did not believe Britain existed until Caesar invaded it. Caesar correctly stated Britain was ‘triangular in shape’ but never circumnavigated it to know this. He wrote that he got the information from ‘some writers’ and regarding the Hercynian Forest from ‘Eratosthenes and certain Greeks’. Only one explorer had gone to Britain before Caesar and that as many writers including Eratosthenes had recorded was Pytheas of Massalia.

Marseille minted silver and bronze coins and was the main currency in the Rhone Valley. Its coin designs were imitated in Pompeii and by the Celts as far away as North Italy and Britain. Marseille struck bronze coins late 3rd century BC–2nd century BC, laureate head of Apollo/bull, letters ΜΑΣ were found in Kent and models for British cast bronze coins ‘potins’ of the 2nd-1st century BC. Marseille’s colonies in Spain of Emporion and Rhodus also minted silver and bronze coins. Celts and Spaniards learnt the Greek alphabet and stone inscriptions survive in Gallo-Greek 3rd century BC- 1st century AD and Iberian-Greek 4th century BC.

Marseille lasted as an independent Greek city state over 700 years. Aristotle, Strabo and Cicero all praised Marseille’s government system ‘the best ordered’ of all the aristocracies.

A recent genetic study revealed a common marker gene in the samples taken in Provence and Corsica compared with Greeks whose grandparents came from Phocaea and Smyrna in Ionia. Today archaeologists have excavated the Greek Massaliote cities of Emporion in Spain and Olbia in France. Avignon has Greek masonry at the deepest levels of its Roman Forum. See Greek silver drachmas of Avignon and a 2nd century BC life-size bronze statue of Alexander the Great at 16 when Regent of Macedonia found in the river at Agde in France (Marseille’s first colony of Agathe Tyche).

From early times Marseille was an ally of Rome and helped them crucially against the Celts, Carthage and Hannibal. After a long siege Marseille suffered its first defeat by Julius Caesar in the civil war with Pompey losing 90 per cent of its empire. Strabo records Marseille stayed an independent Greek university city of famous schools where ‘notable’ Romans (including the consul Agricola, Governor of Britain) studied if they did not wish to travel to Athens for education. Did Agricola know Marseille’s secrets, as he nearly conquered all of Britain? Quotes from primary sources give the words of the time together with the latest archaeology revealing a remarkable and little known part of our history.

*C. Gunstone,is the author of The Greek Empire of Marseille: Discoverer of Britain, Saviour of Rome, CreateSpace, 2013. ISBN: 978-1481239660, available from Amazon.

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