2i8 A. D. 450. 



450 — If we may truft to Joceline, one of the many biographers of 

 St. Patric, the Irifh town called Eblana by the geographers of the Ro- 

 man empire, called at this time Ath-cliath by the Irifli, and afterwards 

 Difflin, Dufelin, Duvelin, and Dublin, was ' a noble city, famoub for 

 • its commerce, and furrounded by woods of oaks and dens of wild 

 ' beads.' But the later part of this defcription does not very well agree 

 with a populous or commercial city. 



452 — The invafion of Italy by Attila, king of the Huns, with his tre- 

 mendous army, confifting of a vafl number of nations aflembled under 

 his vidorious flandard, gave birth to a new city, which in time rofe to 

 fuch commercial eminence, as to rival the antient fame of Tyre and 

 Carthage, and the more recent pre-eminence of Alexandria. The Ve- 

 NETi, a very antient nation, refembling the Gauls in their manners, 

 but of a different language, pofTelled the fertile country w^atered by the 

 Padus {Po), from the confines of the Kenomani (or Cenomani) down 

 to the head of the Adriatic gulf. Their name was famous in the tragic, 

 and in the fabulous, poetry of antiquity : but the firfl hiftoric notice of 

 them, according to Livy, [L. v, c. ^^^^ is their maintaining their pofTef- 

 fions, when all the neighbouring country was over-run by the Tyrrheni- 

 ans, or Tufcans. Many ages afterwards, in the abfence of their neigh- 

 bours the Gauls on their expedition againfl the Romans, wherein, after 

 defeating them and their allies, and chafing them for three days toge- 

 ther, they followed them into Rome, v/hich they took pofl^elfion of, 

 (390 years before the Chriftian sera) the Veneti made an irruption into 

 their country, which was a happy circumftance to the Romans, as it 

 obliged the Gauls to abandon Rome, in order to march to the defence 

 of their own territories. [Poijb. Hift. L. ii, cc. 17, 18.] The Veneti, 

 being afterwards iwallowed up in the Roman empire, had a fubordinate 

 fhare of its proiperity ; and they had now an abundant fhare of its mi- 

 fery. Their property was pillaged, their towns were leveled with the 

 ground, and thole who efcaped from the fword were compelled to fly 

 from their native country. Moft of them fled to a numerous clufter of 

 fmall muddy iflands, ieparated from each other only by narrow chan- 

 nels, wherein they found an obfcure and fafe retreat, proteded from 

 the attacks of land forces by a fea, probably then about ten miles 

 broad *, too fliallow and intricate to be navigated by vefle;ls of any 

 force, but too deep to be forded, and fecured againfl naval attacks by 

 a chain of long narrow iflands, which line the coaft for many miles, 

 and render the approach of a hoftile fleet almofl impoilible. There the 



• It 13 not near fo broad now. Everywhere centuries been covered with trees, and is called 



upon this coad the fea has retired conliderably C/;;'(7^, a corruption of the Latin word <,7.^'^x, the 



from the laid Ravenna is now four miles from name of the fubinb adjacent to the harbour, I'c 



the fea, and its liarbonr, in which Auguftus kept called as being the llation of the fleets, cla/fes. 

 t\vo hundred and lifty fliips of war, has for mauy 



