[Illustration: FIG. 170.--Iberian. From Akerman.] Directly opposite Albania, the country of the _Epirotes_--known anciently as _Epirus_--is _Cantabria_ at the heel of Italy, and we meet again with the Cantabares in Iberia where they occupied Cantabria which comprised Alava. It may be noted in passing that in Epirus the olive was a supersacred tree: according to Miss Harrison--some of whose words I have italicised--this Moria, or Fate Tree, was the _very life_ of Athens; the _life_ of the _olive_ which fed her and lighted her was the _very life_ of the city. When the Persian host sacked the Acropolis they burnt the holy olive, and it seemed that all was over. But next day it put forth a new shoot and the people knew that the city's life still _lived_. Sophocles sang of the glory of the wondrous _life-tree_ of Athens:-- The untended, the self-planted, self-defended from the foe, Sea-grey, children-nurturing olive tree that here delights to grow, None may take nor touch nor harm it, headstrong youth nor age grown bold For the round of Morian Zeus has been its watcher from of old; He beholds it, and, Athene, thy own sea-grey eyes behold. From _Epirus_ one is attracted to the river _Iberus_ or _Ebro_ which is bounded by the _Pyrenees_, and had the town of _Hibera_ towards its mouth. Of the Iberian people in general Dr. Lardner states: "They are represented as tenacious of freedom, but those who inhabited the coasts were probably still more so of gain". I am at a loss to know why this offensive suggestion is gratuitously put forward, as the Iberians are said to have been remarkably slender and active and to have held corpulency in much abhorrence.[341] Of the Spanish Cantabres we are told that the consciousness of their strength gave them an air of calm dignity and a decision in their purposes not found in any other people of the Peninsula. "Their loud wailings at funerals, and many other of their customs strongly resemble those of the Irish."[342] _Pere_ and _parent_ are radically the same word, and that the Iberians reverenced their _peres_ is obvious from the fact that _parricides_ were conducted beyond the bounds of the Kingdom and there slain; their very bones being considered too polluted to repose in their native soil.[343] Lardner refers to the unbending resolution, persevering energy, and native grandeur of the Cantabrians, but he contemptuously rejects Strabo's "precious information" that some of the Spanish tribes had for 6000 years possessed writing, metrical poems, and even laws. In view of the superior number of Druidical remains which are found in certain parts of Spain it is not improbable that the Barduti of Iberia corresponded with the Bards or Boreadæ of Britain.