The names of Samothes (described as the fourth son of Iapetus, or Japheth) and his successors originated in Annius of Viterbo, Berosi sacerdotis Chaldaici antiquitatum Italiae ac totius orbis libri quinque (Antwerp, 1552), but their deeds were almost entirely the creation of John Bale, in his Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytanniae ... Catalogus (Basel, 1559), who on p. 2 describes Samothes as teaching the Britons the rudiments of philosophy and religion.