316 NATUKAL HISTOKY OF 



but now sunk beneath the sea, was the first and greatest 

 emporium of the north, having paved streets, temples, it is said, 

 with brazen gates, and a vast population of strangers and 

 nations of various origin forming the citizens. Wineta, per- 

 haps the typical Vana-land of mythic sagas, was the parent 

 community, whence Arkona, Jomsberg, and Jollin originated. 

 It was the most distant of the Venetic commercial establish- 

 ments; others being at Venta Allobrogum, now Vienne, on the 

 Rhone ; Bienne, at the Vendoni Campi, near Zurich ; at Venda, 

 now Augsburg; Vendobona, now Vienna, on the Danube; 

 Vannes, on the Loire ; Guines, aear Calais, probably also at 

 Gwent or Vennemare, near Ghent; at Vingium, now Bingen, 

 on the Rhine ; Venta Belgarum, now Winchester, and Venta 

 Icenorum, Caer Gwent. They extended even to Ireland, 

 where Ptolemy places the Promontorium Venicinum. They 

 repeated, in this manner, the commercial policy of the Phoeni- 

 cians, whose name may not be unconnected with the Veneti, 

 and anticipated what the Baltic Vandal Lombards again 

 restored, in the middle ages, under the form of Lombard 

 streets, in most commercial cities of mediaeval Europe. 



They had a commercial intercourse through Russia, and 

 with the Greek colony at Olbio, on the Borysthenes. It may 

 even be no chimerical supposition, that it was from the Baltic 

 cities that the Hyperborean annual donation came to Delos, 

 which Herodotus and others have noticed. According to 

 Took, the Permians had a barter trade with the Indo-Persians, 

 by the Volga and Kama, to Tscherdyn, on the Kolva, where 

 they received the goods, and carried them up to Petchora, in 

 exchange for furs. Thus the presence of Hindoo opinions and 

 idols may be accounted for, in the poems and antique remains 

 among the Finnic nations. The entirely foreign commence- 

 ment of the above-named cities is proved, among other indica- 

 tions, by their ha nng alone, of all the Baltic nations, temples 

 for national iiols while other Finns had only sacred hedged 



