508 Rev. Mr Williams on one Source of the 



Should we therefore wish to discover who were the " Veteres 

 Galli," we must look for them in the natural fortresses of France, 

 where they could defend themselves both from the foreign in- 

 vaders, and the mixed bands of half-bandits, half-warriors, who 

 ceased not to infest the country after the main body of invaders 

 had passed away. 



Such a race were the Veneti of Western Gaul, so similar in 

 their history, at an earlier period, to their kin-tribe in Italy. 

 When the Roman empire was sinking under the repeated as- 

 saults of the northern barbarians, the Italian Veneti sought refuge 

 in their marshes and among their lagoons, where necessity soon 

 compelled them to become a naval and commercial people. This 

 had been the fate of the Gallic Veneti, at a period antecedent 

 to history. For Julius Cesar 1 found them a highly civilized 

 people, intimately connected with Britain, hardy sailors, and mas- 

 ters of practical arts, unknown, or at least unrecorded, among 

 Greek and Roman practices. These Veneti, with their cognate 

 tribes, the Osismii, Lexovii, Nannetes, Ambialites, Morini, Diablin- 

 tes, and Menapii, together with auxiliaries from the opposite coast 

 of Britain, prepared to resist Cesar. Their fleet, consisting of 

 220 vessels of immense size and strength, built entirely of oak, 

 and trusting to their sails alone, was destroyed by the row-galleys 

 of the Romans, more owing to a chance calm than any other 

 cause. The position of their cities, on tongues of land and pro- 

 montories, to which there was no access except by sea, proves that a 

 superior force had driven them for protection into such fortresses, 

 which their naval skill and power could make good against land- 



1 Hujus civitatis est longe auiplissima auctoritas omnis orae maritimae, quod et 

 naves habent Veneti plurimas, quibuscum in Britanniam navigare consueverunt ; et 

 scientia et usu nauticarum rerum caeteros antecedunt ; et in magno impetu maris, 

 atque aperto, paucis portubus interjectis, quos tenent ipsi, omnes fere, qui eodem 

 mari uti consueverunt, habent vectigales. — Com. Bell. Gall. lib. iii. cap. 8. 



2 Especially their chain-anchors and sails of finely tanned leather. 



