List of Legendary Kings of Britain - First Kings Derived From Pseudo-Berossus

First Kings Derived From Pseudo-Berossus

Annius of Viterbo in the late 15th century claimed to have found fragments from Berossus detailing the earliest settlement of "Celtica" after the flood by Samothes, a son of Japheth, son of Noah. These he published in his Antiquitatum (1498). Samothes' realm was described as the part of Europe between the Pyrrenees and the Rhine. The first five kings of Celtica or Samothea from Viterbo's fragments were also named as the first kings of Britain after the flood by Raphael Holinshed in his Holinshed's Chronicles (1577), with the addition of Albion and Brutus, as follows:

• Samothes, also known as Dis: son of Japheth, son of Noah.
• Magus, son of Samothes
• Saron, son of Magus
• Druis, son of Saron (founder of the Druids)
• Bardus, son of Druis (founder of the bards)
• Albion, son of Neptune, a giant, who overthrows Bardus but is then slain by Hercules.
• A long gap of no king, until Brutus of Troy arrives in Britain.

Viterbo's fragments were later however revealed to be forgeries or fabrications, hence his work has become known as pseudo-Berossus. His list of kings, though, was considered to have a small substratum of truth, since several of the kings' names were already known in literature (e.g. Albion and Brutus) before the publication of Antiquitatum (1498) and many chroniclers accepted his Biblical king figures (e.g. Samothes, son of Japheth) as being rooted in some partial truth based on their preference for Mosaic history. Viterbo's king list later appeared in John Bale's Illustrium majoris Britanniae scriptorum (1548), John Caius' Historia Cantabrigiensis Academiae (1574), William Harrison's Description of England (pp. 3–5, 1577), Holinshed's Chronicles (vol. 2, p. 2, 1587) and Anthony Munday's A briefe chronicle (p. 467, 1611). By the 17th century however Viterbo's king list was no longer popular amongst chroniclers, antiquarians or historians. John Speed, William Camden and Walter Raleigh (The Historie of the World, pp. 112–15, 1614) were among those that rejected Viterbo's king list. John Milton in his The History of Britain (p. 3, 1670) briefly refers to Viterbo's king Samothes, but concludes him to be from a counterfeit or untrustworthy source. A more detailed description and chronology of Viterbo's (pseudo-Berossus') kings can be found just below.