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Updated: June 1, 2025


From the anatomical character of the bones of the urus, or auerochs, found among the relics of the lacustrine population of ancient Switzerland, and from other circumstances, it is inferred that this animal had been domesticated by that people; and it is stated, I know not upon what authority, in Le Alpi che cingono l'Italia, that it had been tamed by the Veneti also.

The turn of the Aremorican cantons came. In the autumn of 697 Publius Crassus was sent thither with a Roman corps; he induced the Veneti who as masters of the ports of the modern Morbihan and of a respectable fleet occupied the first place among all the Celtic cantons in navigation and commerce and generally the coast-districts between the Loire and Seine, to submit to the Romans and give them hostages.

But Caesar's lieutenant, the able Decimus Brutus, the same who had achieved the first naval victory in the Atlantic over the Veneti, managed rapidly to equip a fleet; and in spite of the brave resistance of the enemy's crews consisting partly of Albioecian mercenaries of the Massiliots, partly of slave-herdsmen of Domitius he vanquished by means of his brave marines selected from the legions the stronger Massiliot fleet, and sank or captured the greater part of their ships.

The submission of the confederacy of central Gaul without having struck even a blow; the submission of the Belgic confederacy without having done more than merely shown a wish to strike; the heroic fall on the other hand of the Nervii and the Veneti, the sagacious and successful resistance of the Morini, and of the Britons under Cassivellaunus all that in each case had been done or neglected, had failed or had succeeded spurred the minds of the patriots to new attempts, if possible, more united and more successful.

When we put together and endeavour to fill up the isolated and scanty statements which have reached us regarding the Celtic commerce and intercourse, we come to see why the tolls of the river and maritime ports play a great part in the budgets of certain cantons, such as those of the Haedui and the Veneti, and why the chief god of the nation was regarded by them as the protector of the roads and of commerce, and at the same time as the inventor of manufactures.

And even this fact is not an exception to the general rule; for M. de Penhouet, the greatest antiquarian, perhaps, in Celtic lore in Brittany, has proved that the Veneti of Western Gaul were not really Celts, but rather a colony of Carthaginians, the only one probably remaining, in the time of Caesar, of those once numerous foreign colonies of the old enemies of Rome.

This nation was so celebrated for the building and equipment of their vessels, which were, from all accounts, better able to withstand the fury of the ocean than the ships even of the Greeks and Romans, that Caesar gave orders for the building of vessels, on the Loire, similar to those of the Veneti, large, flat-bottomed, and high at the head and stern.

Nothing certain has yet been ascertained as to the nationality of the latter; but they appear under the name of the Raeti in the mountains of East Switzerland and the Tyrol, and under that of the Euganei and Veneti about Padua and Venice; so that at this last point the two great Celtic streams almost touched each other, and only a narrow belt of native population separated the Celtic Cenomani about Brescia from the Celtic Carnians in Friuli.

The Greeks ascribe this invention to a native of Lydia; but at what period he lived, is not known. Among some nations, leather was almost the only material used in the construction of ships; and even in the time of Caesar, the Veneti, a people of Brittany, distinguished as a maritime and commercial tribe, made their sails of hides, and their tackle of thongs.

"I can testify to some thing not less extraordinary than what you have related," said I, "for in Arcadia I saw with my own eyes a hog which was so fat that not only was it unable to get up but a shrew mouse having eaten a hole in its back had there made its nest and was rearing a family. I have heard that this same thing happened in the country of the Veneti."

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