The Tin Trade and the Isle of Wight.
From: The History and Antiquiiiesof the Isle of Wight. George Hillier. 1856.

Pp.  6-11
Having thus taken a passing survey of the existing relics of the pre-historic
inhabitants of the Isle of Wight, the next question that presents itself with relation to
this period is the identity of the island with the Ictis, in which the staple for tin was
established by the Phœnicians.
To use the language of a well-known antiquary,* we learn from a few scanty notices in the classical writers, that at a very early period in the history of the world, the merchants of Phœnicia obtained their supply of tin (an article in use as far back as the time of Homer) from Britain, and as this metal is found chiefly in Cornwall and the Scilly Islands, the parts of Britain which would first present themselves to the navigators from the Phœnician port on the coast of Spain (Gadeira or Gades, the modern Cadiz), we are justified in believing that these and the south of Ireland were the only districts visited by that people, who, as we are further assured, kept their knowledge a profound secret, in order that they might, with greater ease, monopolize a lucrative branch of commerce. The geographer, Strabo, tells us that the Romans long attempted in vain to discover the place from whence the Phœnicians obtained their tin, to which at this time were added lead, and perhaps copper; and that on one occasion a Phœnician captain, perceiving that he was followed and watched by Roman vessels, run his own ship intentionally on the rocks rather than let the secret be discovered, and escaping with his crew on a raft, was rewarded by his own government for his patriotism.
It was not until a Roman named Publius Crassus, who is supposed to be the commander sent by Caesar at the end of his first campaign in Gaul, to reduce the Gallic tribes on the shores of the British Channel, discovered the trade of the Phœnicians with Britain, that the Romans became acquainted with the route by which their merchants reached Britain by sea, and with the ease with which the tin was dug up, it being then found at a .very small depth under the surface of the ground. Previous, however, to this, two other commercial states had established an intercourse with the tin districts of Britain.
	                         
*Mr. Wright.

          The Carthaginian Himilco, sent by his Government on a voyage of discovery between the years 362 and 350, b. c., visited the tin islands, which he calls Œstrymnides, near Albion, and two days sail from Ierne, by which he is supposed to mean some of the islands on the Cornish coast; and the Phocian colonies of Massalia and Narbona carried on the same commerce overland. We are informed by another Greek writer, Diodorus Siculus, that the tin was carried from the district in which it was found to an island " in front of Britain," named Ictis, where it was purchased by native merchants, who transported it to Gaul, and it was then carried overland on pack horses, a journey of thirty days, to the mouth of the Rhone.
Everything, however, relating to this distant region, almost unconnected with the world as then known, was wrapped in mystery; and Scipio could obtain no satisfactory answer to the anxious inquiries concerning Britain, which he made among the merchants of the great cities of Massalia, Narbona, and Corbelo. The veil was at length drawn aside by the ambition of Julius Caesar.
It has been assumed by some writers that the similarity in the name of Ictis with Vectis, the Roman designation of the Isle of Wight, warrants the belief of its having been the island alluded to by Diodorus Siculus. This conclusion was strongly advocated by Polwhele in his Cornish History, and by Mr. Whittaker in his work on the History of Manchester, whilst as strenuous an opponent to the theory is found in Mr. Borlase.
Mr Whittaker says that the Phœnicians had continued the tin trade to the coasts of Scilly for near three hundred years; that the Greeks of Marseilles first followed the track of the Phœnician voyagers; and that about two hundred years before Christ, and prior to the days of Polybius, the latter began to share with the former in the trade of tin. Such was the effect of this innovation, that in the reign of Augustus the whole current of the British traffic had been gradually diverted to this channel. He tells us that the great staple of tin was no longer settled in a distant corner of the island, but removed from Scilly and fixed in the Isle of Wight, a central part of the coast, and betwixt two roads which had been laid across the country from Carnarvon to Sandwich, and from Dorsetshire to Suffolk, a situation better adapted to the new arrangement of the trade. Mr. Whittaker further states, " that the Isle of Wight, which, as late as the eighth century, was separated from the remainder of Hampshire by a channel no less than three miles in breadth, was now actually a part of the greater island, disjoined from it only by the tide, and united to it always at the ebb. And during the recess of the waters, the Britains constantly passed over the low isthmus of land, and carried their loaded carts of tin across it."
Now it must be evident to the mere casual inquirer, that there is not the slightest authority for these assertions; and the assumption of the Isle of Wight being the Ictis of Diodorus, is now generally believed to be altogether untenable, for it would be as difficult to prove that the vessels of the Phœnician traders found greater facilities for landing on the rocky and dangerous coast of the south side of the island at the period referred to than at the present time, as, it is to imagine that the channel of the Solent admitted of the passage of wheeled vehicles in the manner represented.
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The site of this extraordinary communication is alleged to have been between Leap in Hampshire, and Gurnard in the Isle of Wight, but the current of water caused by the drainage of the New Forest flowing down the Beaulieu and other channels on the western part of the Hampshire coast, would effectually prevent the accumulation of such an entire obstruction; and as the gradual separation of the island from the mainland was probably caused by these very rivulets, it is equally impossible to think that any such reef or sandy ledge remained in the conjectured position after the dismemberment was effected.
Diodorus Siculus observes that the people of the promontory of Belerium (the Bolerium of Ptolemy, and our present Land's End) were much more civilized than the other British nations, in consequence of their intercourse with the great number of foreign traders who resorted thither; and it seems, therefore, impossible to believe otherwise than that the Ictis of Diodorus was an island in the immediate vicinity of this promontory, and not the Isle of Wight, 200 miles distant from it; neither can it be imagined that the people of Bolerium, instead of carrying down their tin to their own coast, would make a practice of transporting it by land carriage to so remote a point. Least of all is it possible to conceive how a journey could be accomplished by wheeled carriages from the Land's End to the Isle of Wight (possibly through hostile tribes), at such a time; it being also necessary to observe that Diodorus makes no mention of any lengthened journey, only stating, after the tin was refined and cast into ingots, that it was conveyed in wheeled carriages over a space dry at low water, to an island which was called Ictis.
Present appearances, together with facts well attested by records and tradition, warrant the conclusion that the distance between the Scilly Islands and the mainland of Cornwall must have been formerly very much less than ft is now. Harrison, in his description of England, compiled in the latter part of the sixteenth century, writes: “ It doth appear yet by good record,  that whereas now  there is a great distance between the Scyllan Isles and point of the Land's End, there was of late years to speak of scarcely a brook or drain of one fathom water between them, if  so much as by these evidences appearerth that are yet to be seen in the hands of the lord or chief owner of these Isles” It has been likewise observed, "that some of these Islands even may have been submerged in the long course of years that have elapsed since Ictis was the mart of the tin trade; and the numerous group of inlets which we now see may very possibly be the only the relics left above the water of much smaller numbers, of a considerable size which are described as forming the ancient Cassiterides; but as nearly thirty miles intervene between these islands and the Lands End  of Cornwall at the present time, there is in that fact one of that fact of great impediment to the idea that Ictis having been one of that group.    If we,  however, examine any maps  or surveys ( whether of this or any preceding century,) of the extremity  of the western coasts  of England we shall find in St. Michael's Mount a description which applies most perfectly to the  Ictis of the  ancients. It is in the immediate neibourhood  of the district, where the tin was found, Mounts Bay in which it was situated, is just such a sheltered anchorage as the early mariners would be likely to select; and what is more, it is an island at high water, but at the recession of the tide a passage is left now as in ages past; whilst it may be finally added that if the south-west coast of Brittany, where the maritime nation of the Veneti dwelt, was, as seems most probable, the part of the Continent from whence the tin ships sailed, the Isle of Wight was as much out of their way as that of the people of Bolerium.*
As the evidences of the early settlers, described to be now existing in the Isle of Wight, have been apportioned to a people anterior to the irruption of the Belgæ, the next stage in the annals of the island will be to render some account of the probable condition of the succeeding possessors, the Belgæ themselves; and as the narrative of Caesar would lead us to infer that the Britons, with whom he came in contact, were not of two distinct races; but that he fought only with the Belgic settlers, having nothing to do with the more ancient Celtic population, we shall be enabled to form some few reasonable conjectures from the written record of their conqueror and other contemporary authors.
The Isle of Wight would be essentially a corn country, for it was the Belgic settlers who first introduced agriculture, and cattle were abundant. Woad was also likely to have been grown and used as it now is, as a dye or pigment, for, says Mela, " the Britons painted their bodies with this material, either as an ornament or for some other purpose, and the British dogs were widely celebrated."
Ivory and other necklaces, bracelets, vessels of glass; and such like small wares, were usually imported from Gaul; and the Britons themselves are described as being tall of stature, and corpulent, but not well made; and polygamy was common amongst them.
With regard to their houses at the period of the Roman invasion, we have the testimony of Caesar that on the southern Coast they were numerous, and nearly of the same description with those of the Gauls. Diodorus Siculus styles them wretched cottages, 
 formed of wood and covered with straw; and those of Gaul are, described by Strabo as being constructed of poles and wattle-work, in the form of a circle, with lofty tapering, or pointed roofs, it being likewise evident that they had nothing answering to the Roman ideas of a city or town.
Of the mode of government which prevailed, it would be idle to attempt more than this brief remark, that the kingly authority was not unknown to them. Its nature was no doubt similar to that of the German chiefs of tribes, deriving its origin most probably from the more ancient patriarchal form which is the intermediate link between a single family and a tribe, for thus in all countries the first rulers were no more than elders or heads of families, to whom succeeded chieftains or heads of clans, who gradually Shifted their authority from their followers to a definite extent of territory, including, of course, its inhabitants, and thus became a species of petty king, or as the Roman writers termed them, kinglets (reguli.}

* On referring to the survey of the coast of Cornwall made by Grenville Collins, hydrographer to Charles II., about 180 years since, lie thus describes Mount's Bay :—
"On the east side of Mount's Bay is an high peaked island called the Mount, on the top of which is an old castle, and on the north west side of the Mount is a small pier, where small vessels lie aground at low water, and lieth from the main about a quarter of a mile; you go over dry at low water."
As it is evident from this extract that no change has taken place in the local peculiarities of St. Michael's Mount for the last two centuries, it is probable that no alteration occurred for many preceding ages; and if we refer to the following passage in Bede, it is clear that the relative positions of the Isle of Wight and the opposite coast are the same at present as they were in his time:—
" Vespasian, who reigned after Nero, being sent into Britain by the same Claudius (the Emperor), also subjected the Isle of Wight, near to the south of Britain, to the Roman power; which island has from east to west about thirty miles, and from south to north, twelve miles.1' - It is distant from the southern shore of Britain, on the east side six miles, on the west side three."—bedes's Eccles. Hist., lib. i.
	
The sketch here given of the possible manners of the Belgic settlers in the Isle of Wight is more brief and meagre than our curiosity would require; but however it might amuse us to possess more extended information, it is not certain that we should derive any very valuable instruction from knowing more of a people who occupied so limited a page in the great book of the history of mankind.most probably from the more ancient patriarchal form which is the intermediate link between a single family and a tribe, for thus in all countries the first rulers were no more than elders or heads of families, to whom succeeded chieftains or heads of clans, who gradually Shifted their authority from their followers to a definite extent of territory, including, of course, its inhabitants, and thus became a species of petty king, or as the Roman writers termed them, kinglets (reguli.}