Several centuries pass without any notice of Scandinavia in the classical literature. In the still preserved manuscripts of the geographical work by Pomponius Mela, written in the middle of the first century A.D., is found a reference to Codania, a large and fertile island inhabited by Teutons. Codania is likely some scribe’s misspelling of Scandinavia
Pliny the Elder, who himself visited the shores of the Baltic in the first century after Christ, is the first to mention plainly the name of Scandinavia. He says that he has received advices of immense islands “recently discovered from Germany.” The most famous of the many islands situated in the Codanian Bay was Scandinavia, of as yet unexplored size; the known parts were inhabited by a people called _hilleviones_, who gave it the name of another world. When he speaks of the British isles, Pliny again gives notice of islands, situated opposite Britain in the Teutonic Sea, without suspecting their identity with Scandinavia. He mentions Scandia, Nerigon, the largest of them all, and Thule. Scandia and Scandinavia are only different forms of the same name, denoting the southernmost part of the peninsula, and is yet preserved in the name of the province of Scania. Nerigon stands for Norway, the northern part of which is mentioned as an island by the name Thule. It is not surprising to find the classical writers ignorant of the fact that Scandinavia was not a group of large islands, but one great peninsula, as the northern parts were as yet uninhabited and their physical connection with Finland and Russia unknown.
Tacitus is the first who mentions the Swedish name. In his work “Germania,” of such great importance for the knowledge of the ancient Teutons, their conditions and institutions, and written about 100 years after Christ, the Baltic is described as an open sea called the Suevian Sea, shut out from the west by the Danish mainland of Jutland, by the Romans called the Cimbric Peninsula. The eastern shore is the country of amber. The Swedes are by Tacitus called Suiones, and he speaks of them thus:
“Next occur the communities of the Suiones, seated in the very sea, who, besides their strength in men and arms, also possess a naval force. The form of their vessels differs from ours in having a prow at each end, so that they are always ready to advance. They make no use of sails, nor have they regular benches of oars at the sides: they row, as is practiced in some rivers, without order, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, as occasion requires. These people honor wealth; for which reason they are subject to monarchial government, without any limitations or precarious conditions of allegiance. Nor are arms allowed to be kept promiscuously, as among the other Teutonic nations: but are committed to the charge of a keeper, and he, too, a slave. The pretext is that the sea defends them from any sudden incursions, and men unemployed, with arms in their hands, readily become licentious. In fact, it is for the king’s interest not to intrust a noble, a freeman, or even an emancipated slave, with the custody of arms.”
