Silures
- a warlike people of Britain, Plin. 4, 16, 30, § 103; Tac. A. 12, 32; id. Agr. 11 and 17; cf. Mannert, Britan. p. 53 sq.
SI´LURES (Σίλυρες, Ptol. 2.3.24), a powerful and warlike people in the W. part of Britannia Romana, whose territory was bounded on the S. by the estuary of the Sabrina. The important towns of Isca and Venta belonged to them. Tacitus (Agr. 11) calls them descendants of the Iberi of Spain, and states that they had emigrated from Ireland into Britain; but there seems to be no foundation for this opinion. (Cf. Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 202.) Although subjugated by the Romans, they caused them continual alarm; and they were the only people of Britain who, at a later period, maintained their independence against the Saxons. (Beda, Hist. Ecc. 1.12, seq.; cf. Tac. Ann. 12.2, 31; Plin. Nat. 4.16. s. 30.)
[T.H.D](Σίλυρες). A powerful people in Britain, inhabiting South Wales, who long offered a formidable resistance to the Romans, and afterwards to the Saxons (Tac. Ann. xii. 32). Caractacus (q.v.) was of this nation.