CHAPTER IV
CELTIC BRITAIN UNDER ROME
(55 B.C.-410 A.D.)
When Caesar was conquering the Celts of Western France he found that
one of their strongest tribes, the Veneti, had been joined by two
hundred and twenty vessels manned by their fellow-Celts from southern
Britain. The united fleets of the Celts were bigger than any Roman
force that Caesar could get afloat. Moreover, Caesar had nothing but
rowboats, which he was obliged to build on the spot; while the Celts
had real ships, which towered above his rowboats by a good ten feet.
But, after cutting the Celtic rigging with scythes lashed to poles, the
well-trained Roman soldiers made short work of the Celts. The Battle
of the Loire seems to have been the only big sea fight the Celts of
Britain ever fought. After this they left the sea to their invaders,
who thus had a great advantage over them ashore.
The fact is that the Celts of the southern seaports were the only ones
who understood shipbuilding, which they had learnt from the
Phoenicians, and the only ones who were civilized enough to unite among
themselves and with their fellow-Celts in what now is France but then
was Gaul.
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