THE HUMAN SPECIES. 315 



greater facility of conquests in the south of Gaul and 

 Spain; for, being inferior in numbers, and less na- 

 tional than the Goths, as subsequent events in the 

 peninsula of Spain attest, they were well advised to 

 pass on, and, when followed, were even then compelled 

 to retire to Mauritania, where Genseric took Carthage 

 in 439, and subsequently being called over to Italy, he 

 plundered Rome in 455, but only to return to Africa. 

 Although, according to Witichindus, Wineta was then 

 flourishing on the Baltic, the Adriatic Veneti began at 

 Venice again to form a central commercial emporium, 

 and their numbers were soon so great at Constan- 

 tinople, that the blue faction in the hippodrome,* re- 

 presenting the manufacturing power, wholly in their 

 hands, gave cause for serious alarm to the government ; 

 even to a degree, that ridiculous measures were re- 

 sorted to, such as secretly enclosing the effigy of a blue 

 Veneta in the brazen hoof of the winged group of 

 Bellerophon, in order that by means of this talisman 

 the Venedic superiority might be counteracted. 



In the Baltic, however, the more recent mixed com- 

 munities of Winetans, now first called Aestii, or Ost- 

 men, began to droop by internal dissension, t and by 

 the revival of trade in the south of Europe, till the 



* Blue was the sacred and still is the most esteemed 

 colour of the Finnic nations of the north, as well as of the 

 Illyrian Veneti. 



t Winni or Wenden, Heneti or southern Wynetse, Su- 

 liones, Slavi, Rossi, Cambrivii Circipanni, Rutheni, Greeks, 

 and Jews, began to fortify separate quarters against or for 

 Christianity. 



