Ptolemy’s Map of Ireland – Part 47

~ Part 1~

Eblanoi

In his description of Ireland, Geography 2:2 §§ 1-10, Claudius Ptolemy records the disposition of sixteen Irish tribes. Beginning, as before, in the southeast corner of the island and proceeding in a counterclockwise direction, the fifth of these are the Eblanoi (Latin: Eblani). These people are listed among the tribes dwelling on the east coast, after [ie south of] the Volountioi and before the Kaukoi.

Four variant readings of this ethnonym were recorded by Karl Wilhelm Müller in his 1883 edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, while Friedrich Wilhelm Wilberg included a fifth variant in his 1838 edition:

Source	Greek	English
X, Σ, Φ, Ψ	Ἐβλανοι	Eblanoi
B	Ἐβλανιοι	Eblanioi
A, D, L, M, N, O, ב	Βλανοι	Blanoi
C, P, V, W, α	Βλανιοι	Blanioi
Ulm, Mannert, Arg	Ἐβδανοι	Ebdanoi
R	Κρανιοι	Kranioi

Curiously, Müller chose Ἐβλανιοι for his critical edition, even though it is only attested in a single manuscript. Wilberg opted for the more popular Ἐβλανοι, while Karl Friedrich Nobbe settled on Βλανιοι for his 1845 edition.

• X is Vaticanus Graecus 191, which dates from about 1296. It is believed that this manuscript preserves a very ancient tradition. Ptolemy’s description of Ireland is on folia 138v–139r.

• Σ, Φ and Ψ are three manuscripts from the Laurentian Library in Florence: Florentinus Laurentianus 28, 9 : Florentinus Laurentianus 28, 38 : Florentinus Laurentianus 28, 42.

• B is one of the Codices Parisini Graeci in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris: Grec 1404.

• A and D are two of the Codices Parisini Graeci in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris: Grec 1401 and (Grec 1402) respectively.

• L is a manuscript from the library at Vatopedi, the ancient monastery on Mount Athos in Greece.

• M is Vindobonensis 1, a codex in the Austrian National Library in Vienna.

• N and O are Oxoniensis Seldanus 2, 46 and Oxoniensis Seldanus 2, 45, two of the Selden Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

• ב is identified by Müller as Scorialensis Ω, I, 1. This is a manuscript in one of the libraries in the royal seat of El Escorial in Spain.

• C is Parisiensis Supplem 119. Presumably this is one of the Codices Parisini Graeci in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, though I have not been able to confirm this.

• P is a Venetian manuscript identified by Müller as Venetus 383. It is 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 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 Latin. Müller’s Cod α refers to Erasmus's editio princeps, which Müller has misidentified as Apian's Ingolstadt edition.

• Ulm is an edition of Ptolemy’s Geography published in Ulm in 1482 by Lienhart Holle, with the assistance of the cartographer Nicolaus Germanus Donis.

• Mannert refers to a pair of Latin manuscripts discovered by the Prussian geographer Konrad Mannert.

• 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 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 the ancient Celtic name for Straßburg, Argentorate.

• R another Venetian manuscript identified by Müller as Venetus 516.

Müller includes the Editio Argentinensis among those sources with the reading Eblani, whereas Wilberg places it among the sources with Ebdani. I have not yet found a copy of the Editio Argentinensis online, but other printed editions of the Geography based on Jacopo d’Angelo’s Latin translation vindicate Wilberg’s reading. See, for example, Lienhart Holle’s Cosmographia of 1482.

The orthographical variation between -νιοι [-nioi] and -νοι [-noi] is trivial and has little bearing on the provenance of this ethnonym. Either of the two could be the original and the other a simple transmissional error. Much more interesting, however, is the variation between Ἐβλ- [Ebl-] and Ἐβδ- [Ebd-]. In Ptolemy’s day, the letters lambda (L) and delta (D) were of similar appearance and could easily be confused. But which was the original and which the corrupted form? According to Wilberg, the only three sources that have the form Ebdani are late Latin editions of the Geography. Two of these are even printed editions, not manuscripts. This may account for the fact that Müller ignores this variant altogether.

The Ptolemaic Letters Delta and Lambda

Identity

Associated with the Eblanoi is the “city” which Ptolemy calls Ἐβλανα [Eblana]. Because this was a settlement located roughly halfway along the east coast and with -bl-n in its name, it was regarded by most early commentators as a reference to Dublin. Hence, the variant readings with lambda [L] have always been favoured over those with delta [D]. William Camden, for example, did not doubt that Ptolemy’s Eblana referred to Dublin:

For Dublin is ... eminent, and memorable, above all the Cities of Ireland; the same which Ptolemy calls Eblana ... As for the Antiquity of Dublin, I have met with nothing certain concerning it; but, that the City must be very ancient, I am satisfy’d upon Ptolemy’s authority. (Camden 1365)

The Welsh Celticist William Baxter went even further and proposed an etymology of the names Eblana and Eblani to account for the supposed loss of an initial D:

DEBLANA This certainly should be substituted for the truncated form Eblana in Ptolemy. For this, the principal city of Ireland, takes its name from the river known to the Brigantes as the Avon Lif, or Flowing River (which had been known by another name Duv lun). Whence and from the corrupted forms Eblani and Blani, we have with little difficulty constructed Deblani. (Baxter 100)

The Irish antiquary Walter Harris was swayed by this argument, which, however, holds little water today:

Baxter has a Conjecture, not indeed unsatisfactory, that the Word Eblana in Ptolemey has been maimed, and that it ought to be written Deblana, which is a foreign Termination of two British Words, Duv Lhun, i.e. black Water, or a black Channel; and corresponds with the Nature of the Bed of this River, which is boggy and black. It is certain antient Geographers have often truncated the initial Letters of Names; as for Pepiacum and Pepidii in Wales, Ptolemey writes Epiacum and Epidii, and Dulcinium, now called Dolcigno in Dalmatia, was called Ulcinium, and Olcinium. (Ware & Harris 39-40)

This hypothesis retained its standing among scholars for several centuries. Karl Müller even endorsed it in his 1883 edition of the Geography. During that time, only a handful of researchers took issue with it—among them William Beauford (1789) and Goddard Orpen (1894), who asserted that the names Eblana and Dublin could not be equated (Orpen 126). The loss of an initial D is one thing, but the later reinstatement of that initial is quite another.

In the last century, however, scholars have become increasingly reluctant to see any connection between Eblana and Dublin, with the result that the variant readings Ebdana and Ebdani have come back into fashion. The Irish Celticist T F O’Rahilly was one of the first to champion them:

Eblani or Ebdani. Ptolemy places these somewhere about the north of Co. Dublin; but they and their town, Eblana, appear to be unknown to Irish tradition. It is, however, just possible (if no more) that a trace of them may exist in Edmann, an unidentified place or district name which is mentioned occasionally in old documents ... From these references we see that Edmann was located between Mag Muirthemne (which covered the greater part of Co. Louth, and extended as far south as the River Dee) and Druimne Breg, the hilly country in the south of Co. Louth; hence it was probably situated near Dunleer ... Now Mid. Ir. Edmann might possibly stand for an earlier *Edban(n), which in turn might stand for *Ebdan, [Footnote: The tendency to metathesize bd to db was strong ...] from *Ebodano- or the like. All this, however, is highly conjectural; yet it may give some ground for supposing that the variant Ebdani in Ptolemy’s text is more nearly right than Eblani. (O’Rahilly 7-8)

Edmann, County Louth

Although O’Rahilly claims that the tendency to metathesize bd to db was strong, this is not the opinion of Rudolf Thurneysen (at least as far as Old Irish is concerned). In A Grammar of Old Irish, under the heading Metathesis, he writes:

181. Transposition of consonants is rare, and in some forms it does not occur consistently. (Thurneysen § 181)

The contributors to the website Roman Era Names pronounce themselves baffled by the name Eblana, but they still manage to come up with several possible Indo-European etymologies:

There is no easy explanation of the name Εβλανα. The closest parallel is Ebla, near modern Aleppo in Syria, an important trading post and centre of learning in the Bronze Age. Then various Gaulish names contained a Germanic element *iblio- ‘sparrow-hawk’. And -ebla was a suffix that helped to form the future of a few OI verbs. Or maybe PIE *pelə- ‘to fill’, precursor of OI lan ‘full’, led to a word like Latin populus ‘people’, but Celtic speakers could not pronounce the letter P, and turned it into B, as in Welsh ebol ‘foal’. Most appropriate for a trading place is a precursor of OE gebland ‘mixture’ (literally ‘blended’), with a ge- prefix that readily lost its initial G. (Roman Era Names

Ptolemy’s Tribes of Ireland (After Marcian)

Recently, while researching this subject, I came across an article by the independent researcher Martin Counihan, who offers a fresh new approach to the etymology of both the tribal name and the name of their settlement:

Ptolemy recorded a town called Eblana and a tribe called the Ebdani in the region north of the Liffey and south of the Boyne. Presumably because the town was called Eblana, the tribal name itself was written as Eblani in variant manuscripts, but we may be sure that Ebdani is closer to the truth as the tribal name. The suffix -dani refers to people, whereas -lana refers to a gathering-place or religious sanctuary, as for example in the modern Welsh word llan and in the city-name Mediolana, now Milan.

So, Ptolemy’s Ebdani and Eblana were “the Eb-people” and “the Eb-town”. That, however, would make no sense. Almost certainly, the first consonant should have been written instead as a p, giving “the Ep-people” and “the Ep-town”. Ep is simply the Gaulish or Brittonic pronunciation of the Irish word ech, “horse”, so Ptolemy was referring to the “cavaliers”. That the letter b in the name appearing in the Geography should have been a p is not an arbitrary or unreasonable assumption: something rather similar happened to the name of Britain itself, which was originally written with an initial p.

In later times the Epdani remained politically powerful and were known in Irish as the Uí Echach. At one stage they dominated the area to the north of Dublin, including the fertile plain of Meath. Their influence reached across the Irish Sea, their possessions including an area around Kintyre on the west coast of Scotland where Ptolemy recorded the name Epidii, another version of Epdani.

Much later, the dynasty diminished in importance and appears to have been edged to the north. Their name survived in the barony of Iveagh (Uíbh Eachach) in County Down (Counihan 3)

Conclusions

In the previous article in this series, I tentatively endorsed O’Rahilly’s suggestion that the Kaukoi, whom Ptolemy places to the south of the Eblanoi, occupied a territory that reached as far north as the River Liffey. It seems reasonable, therefore, to place the Eblanoi along the coastal plain between the Liffey and the Cooley Peninsula. This would incorporate O’Rahilly’s Edmann, for what it’s worth.

As for the identity of the Eblanoi, the fact that they had become completely extinct before the inception of our written history only goes to confirm the antiquity of Ptolemy’s geography of Ireland. If this tribe had occupied such an extensive and prominent part of the country around 150 CE, when Ptolemy wrote the Geography, we would expect to find clear traces of them in our native records, which began to appear only three centuries later. If, on the other hand, the Geography describes Ireland as it was around 325 BCE (O’Rahilly 39-42), then it is not at all surprising that they have been eclipsed by the lapse of 750 years.

Of course, if Martin Counihan's speculations are correct, then this argument falls.

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References

• William Baxter, Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum, sive Syllabus Etymologicus Antiquitatum Veteris Britanniae atque Iberniae temporibus Romanorum, Second Edition, London (1733)
• William Beauford, Letter from Mr. William Beauford, A.B. to the Rev. George Graydon, LL.B. Secretary to the Committee of Antiquities, Royal Irish Academy, The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, Volume 3, pp 51-73, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin (1789)
• 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)
• Martin Counihan, Researchgate (2019)
• 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)
• Goddard H Orpen, Ptolemy’s Map of Ireland, The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Volume 4 (Fifth Series), Volume 24 (Consecutive Series), pp 115-128, Dublin (1894)
• Claudius Ptolemaeus, Geography, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat Gr 191, fol 127-172 (Ireland: 138v–139r)
• Rudolf Thurneysen, Osborn Bergin (translator), D A Binchy (translator), A Grammar of Old Irish, Translated from Handbuch des Altirischen (1909), Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Dublin (1946, 1998)
• James Ware, Walter Harris (editor), The Whole Works of Sir James Ware, Volume 2, Walter Harris, Dublin (1745)
• 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
• Greek Letters: Wikimedia Commons, Future Perfect at Sunrise (artist), Public Domain