Page:Six Old English Chronicles.djvu/175

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CH. 15.]

ORKNEY ISLANDS.

151

Claudius sent to Rome for his daughter, and then, with the assistance of Arviragus, reduced the Orkneys and the provincial islands to his power.^[1]

Chap. XV.—Claudius gives his daughter Genuissa for a wife to Arviragus, and returns to Rome.

As soon as the winter was over, those that were sent for Claudius's daughter returned with her, and presented her to her father. The damsel's name was Genuissa, and so great was her beauty, that it raised the admiration of all that saw her. After her marriage with the king, she gained so great an ascendant over his affections, that he in a manner valued nothing but her alone: insomuch that he was desirous to have the place honoured where the nuptials were solemnized and moved Claudius to build a city upon it, for a monument

↑ Claudius never was in Orkney; he spent only sixteen days altogether in Britain. Of certain sacred isles in the neighbourhood of Britain, Plutarch gives the following account, showing how little the Greeks knew of Britain eighty years after the reign of Claudius:
"A short time before Callistratus celebrated the Pythian games, two holy men from the opposite parts of the habitable earth came to us at Delphos, Demetrius the grammarian from Britain, returning home to Tarsus, and Cleombrotus the Lacedaemonian... But Demetrius said, that there are many desert islands scattered around Britain, some of which have the name of being the islands of genii and heroes: that he had been sent by the emperor, for the sake of describing and viewing them, to that which lay nearest to the desert isles, and which had but few inhabitants; all of whom were esteemed by the Britons sacred and inviolable. Very soon after his arrival there was great turbulence in the air, and many portentious storms; the winds became tempestuous, and fiery whirlwinds rushed forth. When these ceased, the islanders said that the departure of some one of the superior genii had taken place. For as a light when burning, say they, has nothing disagreeable, but when extinguished is offensive to many; so likewise lofty spirits afford an illumination benignant and mild, but there extinction and destruction frequently, as at the present moment, excite winds and storms, and often infect the atmosphere with pestilential evils. Moreover, that there was one island there, wherein Saturn was confined by Briareus in sleep: for that sleep had been devised for his bonds; and that around him were many genii as his companions and attendants.
"Asclepiades asserts, that after their thirtieth year the Ethiopians, being scorched by the sun, quickly grow old, in consequence of their bodies being overheated; whereas in Britain they advance to an hundred and twenty years in consequence of the coldness of the place and theur retaining within themselves the vital heat: for the bodies of the Ethiopians are more slender from their being relaxed in the sun, whereas the inhabitants of the north are thick set in their persons, and on this account longer lived."

[1] Claudius never was in Orkney; he spent only sixteen days altogether in Britain. Of certain sacred isles in the neighbourhood of Britain, Plutarch gives the following account, showing how little the Greeks knew of Britain eighty years after the reign of Claudius:
"A short time before Callistratus celebrated the Pythian games, two holy men from the opposite parts of the habitable earth came to us at Delphos, Demetrius the grammarian from Britain, returning home to Tarsus, and Cleombrotus the Lacedaemonian... But Demetrius said, that there are many desert islands scattered around Britain, some of which have the name of being the islands of genii and heroes: that he had been sent by the emperor, for the sake of describing and viewing them, to that which lay nearest to the desert isles, and which had but few inhabitants; all of whom were esteemed by the Britons sacred and inviolable. Very soon after his arrival there was great turbulence in the air, and many portentious storms; the winds became tempestuous, and fiery whirlwinds rushed forth. When these ceased, the islanders said that the departure of some one of the superior genii had taken place. For as a light when burning, say they, has nothing disagreeable, but when extinguished is offensive to many; so likewise lofty spirits afford an illumination benignant and mild, but there extinction and destruction frequently, as at the present moment, excite winds and storms, and often infect the atmosphere with pestilential evils. Moreover, that there was one island there, wherein Saturn was confined by Briareus in sleep: for that sleep had been devised for his bonds; and that around him were many genii as his companions and attendants.
"Asclepiades asserts, that after their thirtieth year the Ethiopians, being scorched by the sun, quickly grow old, in consequence of their bodies being overheated; whereas in Britain they advance to an hundred and twenty years in consequence of the coldness of the place and theur retaining within themselves the vital heat: for the bodies of the Ethiopians are more slender from their being relaxed in the sun, whereas the inhabitants of the north are thick set in their persons, and on this account longer lived."

[1]