We now know, through archiological findings and a massive amount of research , that no such Brutus ( supposed grandson of Aeneas ) never existed. As for Belinus, no such Briton ever sacked ancient Rome ( there would have been written and archiological proof of that; there isn't ! ), so that's two , so far, that Geoffry's gotten wrong. AS to Arthur, Geoffrey's bio, is far closer to the Arthurian Legends, that were around, at that time, than Nennius's more factual ( nonromatisized , nonfiction ! ) slim pickings on that topic. Don't forget, that Geoffrey gives exact numbers of troops and Arthur's speech to the troops, for the battle between Arthur and Lucius Tiberius. This would make one wonder just how he got this info, if it weren't for the fact that NO SUCH BATTLE EVER TOOK PLACE ! Sooooooooo, three down, re Geoffrey's top three, and three fictions.
Who " founded " LOndon ? What ... you don't read anything about that and the myriad of digs and that have been done , and ask me WHO , as though anyone knows for certain ? Okay, I'll indulge you a wee bit. London, prior to Roman occupation, was a backwater, little, swampy region. The Romans " founded " Londinium, as a " city " . If that isn't a good enough answer, then reword the query. :-)
If you need a book list, you can start off with " PRE-ROMAN AND ROMAN BRITON ", by G.D. Barri Jones, " ROMAN BRITION AND EARLY ENGLAND ", by Peter Hunter Blair, " THE FORMATION OF ENGLAND ", by H.P.R. Finberg, " FROM ALFRED TO HENERY III ", by Christopher Brooke, " THE QUEST FOR MERLIN ", by Nikolai Tolstoy, " THE CELTS ", by Nora Chadwick, " THE CELTS ", by Gerhard Herm, "THE CELTS " , by T.G.E. Powell, THE DRUIDS ", by Stuart Piggott, and " THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A DRUID PRINCE ", by Ann Ross & Don Robins. There are many other books, that I would highly recommend and you've already cited Nennius. Oh, and add " THE ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLES " ( new translation ) to that list.
Yep, Flinders Petrie counts; as do those , like Acton Griscom, who were inspired by Petrie's address to the British Acadamy, on Nov. 7, 1917, and wrote about their own investigations and theories. :-)
Just because you scanned up one book, at B&N, doesn't mean that ALL books ( and there are 100s of 1,000s of them ) about England / Briton , started off with Julius Caesar, doesn't mean that they all do.
Virgil " AENEID ", after all, states that Rome, was founded by Aeneas, a fleeing Trojan, when other , older tradition has it, that Rommulous and Remus, founded Rome. Romantic, fictionalized, revisonistic history, to glorify one's anticedents, goes back father than Geoffrey's stab at it all.
The Hitties ( from their statuary, illumined writings, and representational art of them, by the ancient Egyptians ) don't look anything whatsoever, like those of Germanic tribes. Whether or not there is a connection bewteen Hitties and Phonecians, I can't say. No representaive art forms exist, nor written descriptions ( that I know of ) of Phonecians, which would prove or disprove this claim. About the ONLY known artifact, that the Phonecians left for posterity, is the " Phrygian Cap " and that has been handed down and down and down, through the ages, until it wound up adorning the heads of the French Revolutionaries. LOL
Petrie writes in his address from 11/7/1917: "With regard to the mythical matter in Geoffrey, his own declarations seem to have been disregarded. In all the period that we have been noting there is nothing more than a florid expansion of Tysilio, except in a few fresh passages, mainly from Nennius and Gildas. But at the beginning of book vii he writes: 'I had not got thus far in my history, when the subject of public discourse happening to be concerning Merlin, I was obliged to publish his prophecies at the request of my acquaintance.’ He then gives book vii, which is not in Tysilio; and continues with viii to x, including all the Arthurian French legend, which is based on Tysilio. Not till book xi does he care to vouch for his history again: ‘Of the matter now to be treated of Geoffrey of Monmouth shall be silent; but will . . . briefly relate what he found in the British book above mentioned.’ Thus he very clearly withdraws from vouching as history the whole of books viii - x. This is Herodotean caution."
This fellow Bill Cooper in his work "After the Flood" says the following about Belinus sacking Rome:
But if this portion of the chronicle contains material that can be dated to the middle of the 1st century BC, then there is other material that goes back much further. One such item (on which again Flinders Petrie is surprisingly silent) is the account of two men named Belinus and Brennius in Geoffrey's Latin version, and Beli and Bran in the Welsh. (15) One part of the story records how Bran led an invasion of Italy and sacked Rome. Certain modernist scholars have been quick to point out that Rome has never been sacked by the Britons, and that the story is a nonsensical fiction. However, a reading of Rome's historians might have led them to a different conclusion, for the sack of Rome by the Celts is told in considerable detail by an early historian of Rome, and the early British account of the event is confirmed, and indeed expanded upon, in every point.
The Roman historian in question is Livy (Titus Livius , 59 BC-17 AD), whose History of Rome consisted of no less than 142 books, although only 35 of these have survived to the present day. However, it is Book 5 of Livy's history that contains the rather illuminating account that follows. (16)
According to Livy, the sack of Rome by the Gallic Celts occurred around the year 390 BC, and we shall see precisely how closely this accords with the chronology of events and personages that is contained in the British chronicle. It matches it exactly. But of more interest to us is the fact that Livy has preserved the names of those who were involved in the planning and carrying out of the attack.
The first name is that of the king of the Bituriges, a Gallic (Celtic) people who were to give their name to the modern city of Bourges. The king was Ambitgatus, and Livy tells us that he had two nephews, one named Bellovesus, and the other Segovesus. These two names also appear in the British account where they are given as Beli in the Welsh chronicle and Belinus and Segnius (the king of the Allobroges or Burgundians) in Geoffrey of Monmouth. The Welsh chronicle mentions Segnius as the prince of the Burdundians (i.e. Byrgwin, another term for the Allobroges) but does not name him. Each name, however, must have been given in the original British source-material for them to appear in either Geoffrey or the Welsh chronicle.
It is here, however, that Livy sheds some interesting light upon the Celtic royal families of the early 4th century BC. According to both Geoffrey and the Welsh chronicle, the father and mother of Belinus and Brennius were Dunvall Molmutius (Welsh Dyftial Moel Myd) and Tonuuenna (Welsh Tonwen). We know from the genealogy around which both Geoffrey's and the Welsh account are built (see Appendix 7), that Dunvallo was of British descent. Which means that Tonuuenna, whose genealogy is not given, could easily have been the sister of the Gaulish king, Ambitgatus, as is implied in Livy when he calls Bellovesus (the British Belinus and son of Tonuuenna) the nephew of Ambitgatus. There is nothing at all unlikely or improbable in such a relationship. Indeed, marriage between the British and continental Celtic royal families would have been an entirely natural and expected event.
Which brings us to the name of the leader of the Gallic sack of Rome, whom Livy names as Brennus. (18) This is practically identical to the transposition into Latin of the British name of Bran that Geoffrey gives (Brennius), and the fact that Geoffrey and Livy are such distinct and independent authorities reveals that neither of them were making up the names of their characters as they went along. That neither Geoffrey nor the Welsh chronicle are merely copies or rehashes of Livy's account is abundantly evident when one compares the British account with that of Livy. There are far too many important and fundamental differences between them to suggest that one is dependent on the other. And yet they are all clearly and independently referring to the same historical event, namely the Celtic sack of Rome in ca 390 BC, but viewing that event from different camps.
This seems a reasonable explanation. This Cooper fellow has actually provided a new translation of the whole document Petrie was commenting upon on the web here. I only found it today, so I haven't read it yet.