Ossian Collection > Essay on the authenticity of the poems of Ossian

116 ON THE AUTHENTICITY
" time." Diodorus Siculus* says, " that all
" the nations bordering on the Alps and
" Pyrenees, as far as Scythia, were Celts;"
and Polybius,t " that the Gauls, Germans,
" and the greatest part of Spain, were dis-
" tinguished by the name of Celts."
Adverting, then, to the position of the
learned journalist, which he founds on the
authority of Polybius, " that the Veneti, the
" Semnones, and Boii, who invaded Italy,
" under Brennus, were German tribes," I
observe, —
]. With regard to the Veneti, that we
read, in ancient authors, of two powerful
tribes, who went under that denomination ;
the one were the Veneti of Gaul, who occu-
pied Brittany, in the bosom of the Celtic
territory, and formerly called, by a Celtic
name, Armoric Gaul. With regard to them^
* Lib. V. c. 9.
t Lib. iii.