In his description of Ireland—Geography, Book 2, Chapter 2—Claudius Ptolemy records the names and coordinates of 15 river mouths, 5 promontories, 11 settlements, 16 tribes, and 9 islands. In the 59 preceding articles in this series, we have discussed every one of these pieces of data. But before taking our leave of Ptolemy, there is one final category of geographical feature that we need to examine: the seas and oceans around Ireland.
| Greek | Latin | English |
|---|---|---|
| Ωκεανος Υπερβορειος | Oceanus Hyperboreus | Hyperborean Ocean |
| Δυτικος Ωκεανος | Oceanus Occidentalis | Western Ocean |
| Ωκεανος Ουεργιονιος | Oceanus Vergionius | Vergionian Ocean |
| Ωκεανος Ἰουερνικος | Oceanus Hibernicus | Irish Ocean |
In his 1883 edition of the Geography, Karl Müller records variant readings of only the last two of these four items. In his 1838 edition of the Geography, Friedrich Wilberg records variants of only the third item. Several manuscripts also include alternative names for the Hyperborean Ocean, though these may be post-Ptolemaic additions.
Hyperborean Ocean
In Greek mythology, Boreas was the god of the North Wind. The Hyperboreans were a fabled race of people who dwelt in the far north, Beyond the North Wind. The etymology of the Greek Βορέας [Boreas] is uncertain. It may go back to the Proto-Indo-European: *gwerH-, to elevate, from which the Proto-Slavic word for mountain, *gora is derived.
The etymology, however, need not concern us, as the name Hyperborean Ocean was clearly a Greek import, and tells us nothing about what the ancient Irish or British inhabitants might have called this northern ocean.
As mentioned above, several manuscripts include alternative names for the Hyperborean Ocean:
| Greek | Roman | English |
|---|---|---|
| Ωκεανος Πεπηγως | Ōkeanos Pepēgōs | Frozen Ocean |
| Ωκεανος Κρονιος | Ōkeanos Kronios | Cronian Ocean |
| Ωκεανος Νεκρος | Ōkeanos Nekros | Dead Ocean |
These are apparently Greek names for the ice-covered northern ocean. Κρονιος [Cronian] usually refers to Κρονος [Cronus], the Greek god known to the Romans as Saturn. We know that the northern ocean was known by this name in the 1st century thanks to Pliny the Elder, who writes in his Natural History:
At one day’s sail from Thule is the frozen ocean, which by some is called the Cronian Sea. (Pliny 353)
The translator John Bostock mentions that according to the French geographer Valentin Parisot, Cronian in fact has nothing to do with Kronos, being derived rather from a Germanic term meaning green (Pliny 342). This seems rather unlikely. According to Plutarch’s essay The Man in the Moon, after Zeus overthrew his father Kronos, he banished him to an island in the western ocean, and this is how the name arose (Plutarch 42).
Today, one must penetrate into the Arctic Ocean to find a “frozen ocean”. Pytheas of Massalia, who is reputed to have voyaged north of the Arctic Circle in the 4th century BCE, was possibly Pliny’s source for this piece of information. Strabo has an almost identical quotation, which he explicitly attributes to Pytheas:
... and thence to the parallel of Thule, which Pytheas says is six days’ sail north from Britain, and near the Frozen Sea ... (Strabo 99)
Is it possible that these names preserve memories of the last Ice Age, when the frozen ocean extended all the way to Ireland and Britain? Probably not—Pytheas says that Thule was merely near the Frozen Sea—but it is an intriguing idea nonetheless.
Western Ocean
This name is pure Greek. Δυτικος comes from the ancient Greek verb to set or to go down—the west being where the Sun sets. The Latin equivalent, occidentalis, means the precisely the same. Again, this name tells us nothing about the ancient inhabitants of these islands or what name they might have bestowed upon the western ocean. It need not detain us any further.
Irish Ocean
Ptolemy’s Ωκεανος Ἰουερνικος [Okeanos Iouernikos] is possibly a Greek transliteration of the name the Romans gave to the Irish Sea in the second half of the 2nd century CE, when Ptolemy compiled his Geography. But what did the Romans call this sea? I have not been able to confirm that the term Hibernicus was actually used by the Romans in the 2nd century. According to Merriam-Webster, this is a Medieval Latin word.
This is all beside the point, however. Clearly, Ptolemy’s Ἰουερνικος [Ivernikos] is an adjective derived from the name he bestows on the island of Ireland, Ἰουερνια [Iouernia, Ivernia], a toponym that we have discussed several times before in this series of articles:
The name ’Ιέρνη, “Ireland”, had probably been picked up by the Massaliot Greeks, from merchants and from their Celtic neighbours, as early as the fifth century B.C. ... The digamma had disappeared from Ionic as early as the seventh century B.C.; and when Massaliot Greeks first heard the name Īvernā [Ireland], they presumably had no means of indicating the -v- and simply dropped it. Later the Greeks adopted the expedient of representing v in foreign names by ου ... We may take it that Pytheas retained the traditional name ’Ιέρνη ... whereas in dealing with other names previously unrecorded, we find him representing Celtic v by Greek ου, as for instance in ... Bouvinda [Βουουινδα] ... Ptolemy, or some near predecessor of his, modernized ’Ιέρνη into ’Ιουερνία [Ivernia] ... (O’Rahilly 41-42)
Müller notes that several manuscripts have the variant reading ’Ιουέρνιος [Ivernios].
Vergionian Ocean
This is the most interesting of the names Ptolemy employs to describe the seas around Ireland. Today, this expanse of water to the south of Ireland is called the Celtic Sea. This toponym is thought to be of local origin, though its etymology is still disputed.
At least three variant readings of this name occur in the extant manuscripts of Ptolemy’s Geography:
| Source | Greek | English |
|---|---|---|
| A, B | Ουεργιονιος | Vergionios |
| C, P, R, V, W, α | Ουεργινιος | Verginios |
| Arg | Ουεργιονος | Vergionos |
| Other MSS | Ουεργιουιος | Vergivios |
| Source | Latin |
|---|---|
| Arg | Vergonius |
| 4803, 4805 | Vergivus |
A and B are a pair of the Codices Parisini Graeci in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris: Grec 1401 and Grec 1404 respectively.
C is Parisiensis Supplem 119. Presumably this is also one of the Codices Parisini Graeci in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, though I have not been able to confirm this.
P and R are Venetian manuscripts identified by Müller as Venetus 383 and Venetus 516. They are possibly kept in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, though I have not been able to confirm this.
V and W are two manuscripts in the Vatican Library, Vaticanus Graecus 177 and Vaticanus Graecus 178.
α is identified by Müller as the Codex Ingolstadiensis. He refers to it as the Editio princeps, a term generally reserved for the first printed edition of a work. Today, the editio princeps is usually credited to Desiderius Erasmus, whose complete Greek edition—based on a manuscript provided by Theobald Fettich of Kaiserslautern—was published by Hieronymus Froben in Basel in 1533. Earlier in the same year, however, Peter Apian of Ingolstadt published an incomplete version of the Geography in Greek and Latin. I can only assume that Müller’s Cod α is a copy of this work.
Arg is the Editio Argentinensis, which was based on Jacopo d’Angelo’s Latin translation of Ptolemy (1406) and the work of Pico della Mirandola. Many other hands also worked on it—Martin Waldseemüller, Matthias Ringmann, Jacob Eszler and Georg Übel—before it was finally published by Johann Schott in Straßburg in 1513. Argentinensis refers to Straßburg’s ancient Celtic name of Argentorate.
4803 and 4805 are two of the Codices Parisini Latini in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. They are Latin translations of Ptolemy’s Geography by Jacopo d’Angelo: Latin 4803 and Latin 4805.
I have followed the common practice, explained above by O’Rahilly, of interpreting Ptolemy’s digraph Ου- as equivalent to the Latin V, which was probably still pronounced as the semivowel [w].
Müller believed that that Ουεργιουιος [Vergivios] was a corruption of Ουεργιονιος [Vergionios], and he cited the 4th-century geographer Marcian of Heraclea as transmitting a similarly corrupt form:
... other codices have Ουεργιουιος, which comes from Ουεργιονιος. Similarly, the codex of Marcian 2.42 has: τῷ καλουμένῳ Οὐεγουίῳ (sic) ὠκεανῷ [tōi kaloumenōi Vegviōi (sic) ōkeanōi]. (Müller 78)
Müller suggested that this toponym was related to the name of one of the rivers whose mouths Ptolemy locates on the southern coast of Ireland: the Βιργος [Birgos], which is almost unanimously identified with the River Barrow:
Certainly, this name by which the sea is known, judging by the opinion of the ancients, makes it easy to conjecture that some Bergiones dwelt in the adjacent part of the island, where the River Birgus (Berbha in Irish) is recorded, in place of whose name the better-known name of the Brigantes has been inserted by some scribes. (Müller 78)
The Bergiones seem to be a hypothetical people supposed by Müller to have given their name to the river that flowed through their territory. He goes on to link them with the sons of Neptune (Poseidon):
Perhaps this place is even connected with the sons of Neptune, Alebion and Bergion, whom Hercules is said to have defeated on his journeys, although the place in the legend is recorded not as Ireland but as a region of ancient Liguria, in which the city of Bergine is also said to have been (Avienus, Ora Maritima 690). (Müller 78)
A more recent etymology would connect Vergivius with the Old Irish word for sea, fairrge:
Vergivius
Attested: Ptolemy 2,2,6 Ωκεανος Ουεργιουιος; 2,3,2 Ουεργιουιος/Ουεργιουος/Ουεργινιος
Where: The Celtic Sea (sea area Fastnet) west of Land’s End.
Name origin: The name appears to survive in Irish farraige or fairrge ‘open sea’ from PIE *werg-3 ‘to abound, be very strong’.
Notes: Bewilderingly many PIE roots compete to explain this name, like most containing ver-. Rejected candidates include *wergh- ‘to turn’, _werg-1 ‘to enclose’, and _werg-2_ ‘to do, make’. (Roman Era Names)
This theory is, however, not a new one. It was cited in the 16th century by William Camden:
In the Vergivian Sea (so call’d, not as some think, à vergendo, from bending, but from Mor Weridh, which is the British name, or else from Fairgi, which is the Irish name of it,) lies the most famous Isle of Ireland. (Camden 1309)
Yet another etymology derives the name of the sea from an ancient name for St David’s Head in the southwest of Wales:
Oceanus Vergivius or Verginius seems to have denoted antiently the Sea lying between the South Coast of Ireland, and the West Coast of England below St. David’s Point, call’d antiently Prom[ontorium] Octapitarum, and also Verginium, from which last name this Sea took its denomination. (Wells 54)
Οκταπιταρον Ακρον [Oktapitaron Akron] is the name Ptolemy gives for St David’s Head (Geography 2:3:2, Müller 85), but I have not been able to confirm Wells’s claim that this headland was also known as Verginium. The Welsh scholar William Baxter, writing about eighteen years after Wells, repeats the claim, using a variant spelling:
Octopetrarum Promontorium [Promontory of the Eight Rocks] or Vergivium ... these eight rocks, it seems to me, are those known colloquially as the Bishops and Clerks (Baxter 186 ... 187)
In 1933, the French scholar André Berthelot offered yet another explanation for this name, which he transliterated into french as Océan Ouergionien:
The name of the Ouergionian Ocean, which is ascribed to the oceanic region located to the south of Ireland between this island and the Armorican Peninsula of Brittany, it seems to us, must have been related to that of Ouargonion, the port of the Osismians or Ostimians and their city of Ouorgon (the modern Carhaix). This port, which is located on the Abervrach, must have been used for navigation between Finistère and the island of Ireland, navigation attested to by Avienus. The name used by Ptolemy for the sea crossed by these sailors could preserve a memory of these ancient links. (Berthelot 242, fn 3)
In Ptolemy’s description of Gallia Lugdunesis (Geography 2.8), Ouorgon (Latin: Vorgium) is the city of the Osismioi, a Gaulish tribe. Pytheas called them the Ostimioi (“those at the end of the world”), a concept that is reflected in the modern name of Finistère (Latin: Finis Terrae, End of the Earth).
The Aber Wrac’h is a small coastal river, which debouches into the Celtic Sea about 80 km from Carhaix. Ouargonion seems to be a variant reading of Ouargon, and not the port of the Osimioi.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the name of the Vergivian or Vergionian Ocean appears to be Celtic.
References
- Avienus, Ora Maritima, Translated by Ralph B Morley, Topos Texts, Creative Commons License (1992)
- André Berthelot, L’Irlande de Ptolémée, in Revue Celtique, Volume 50, pp 238-247, Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, Paris (1933)
- William Baxter, Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum, sive Syllabus Etymologicus Antiquitatum Veteris Britanniae atque Iberniae temporibus Romanorum, Second Edition, London (1733)
- William Camden, Britannia: Or A Chorographical Description of Great Britain and Ireland, Together with the Adjacent Islands, Second Edition, Volume 2, Edmund Gibson, London (1722)
- Charlton T Lewis, Charles Short, A New Latin Dictionary, Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York (1891)
- Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, Eighth Edition, American Book Company, New York (1901)
- Marcian, Karl Müller (editor), Geographi Græci Minores, Volume 1, Firmin-Didot, Paris (1882)
- Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Müller (editor & translator), Klaudiou Ptolemaiou Geographike Hyphegesis (Claudii Ptolemæi Geographia), Volume 1, Alfredo Firmin Didot, Paris (1883)
- Karl Friedrich August Nobbe, Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia, Volume 1, Karl Tauchnitz, Leipzig (1845)
- Karl Friedrich August Nobbe, Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia, Volume 2, Karl Tauchnitz, Leipzig (1845)
- Thomas F O’Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin (1946, 1984)
- Pliny the Elder, John Bostock, Henry Thomas Riley, The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 1, Henry G Bohn, London (1855)
- Plutarch, On the Face which Appears on the Orb of the Moon, Translated with Notes and an Appendix by Arthur Octavius Prickard, Warren and Son, Ltd, Winchester (1911)
- Claudius Ptolemaeus, Geography, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat Gr 191, fol 127-172 (Ireland: 138v–139r)
- Strabo, Hans Claude Hamilton, William Falconer, The Geography of Strabo, Volume 1, Henry G Bohn, London (1854)
- Edward Wells, A Treatise of Antient and Present Geography, Second Edition, A & J Churchill, London (1706)
- Friedrich Wilhelm Wilberg, Claudii Ptolemaei Geographiae, Libri Octo: Graece et Latine ad Codicum Manu Scriptorum Fidem Edidit Frid. Guil. Wilberg, Essendiae Sumptibus et Typis G.D. Baedeker, Essen (1838)
Image Credits
- Ptolemy’s Map of Ireland: Wikimedia Commons, Nicholaus Germanus (cartographer), Public Domain
- The Frozen Ocean: The Arctic on the Arctic, Charles Hennessey (artist), Collections of the Royal Ontario Museum, Public Domain
- The Celtic Sea from Hook Head: © Mariusz Kalinowski, Fair Use
- St David’s Head, Wales: © Cered, Creative Commons License
