[275] They leagued with the Osismii (the people of the department of Finistère), the Lexovii (department of Calvados), the Namnetes (Loire-Inférieure), the Ambiliates (on the left bank of the Loire, to the south of Angers), the Morini (the Boulonnais and bishopric of Saint-Omer), the Diablintes (Western Maine), and the Menapii (between the Rhine and the mouths of the Scheldt). (De Bello Gallico, III. 9.)
[276] Orosius (VI. 8) confirms this fact as stated in the Commentaries.
[277] “The Veneti fought at sea against Cæsar; they had made their dispositions to prevent his passage, into the isle of Britain, because they were in possession of the commerce of that country.” (Strabo, IV. iv., p. 162, edit. Didot.)
[278] We must not confound him with M. Junius Brutus, the assassin of Cæsar. Decimus Junius Brutus was the adopted son of A. Postumius Albinus. (See Drumann, IV. 9, and Appendix D.)
[279] Dio Cassius, XXXIX. 40.
[280] We suppose, in this enumeration, that the legion of Galba, cantoned the preceding winter among the Allobroges, had rejoined the army.
[281] I borrow this interpretation of the Roman works from the very instructive book of General de Gœler.
[282] De Bello Gallico, III. 13.—Strabo, IV., p. 162.
[283] The fleet of the Veneti, superior to that of the Romans in number, in the magnitude of their vessels, and in their rigging and sails, must have issued from the river Auray by the Morbihan entrance to the gulf, and met Brutus to fight him, instead of waiting for him at the head of the bay, where retreat would be impossible. This follows from Cæsar’s account: ex portu profectæ, nostris adversæ constiterunt. According to the memoir by M. le Comte de Grandpré, a post-captain, inserted in the Recueil de la Société des Antiquaires de France, tom. II., 1820, the wind must have been east or north-east, for it was towards the end of the summer. It appears that these winds usually prevail at that period, and that, when they have blown during the morning, there is a dead calm towards the middle of the day: it is just what happened in this combat; the calm came, probably, towards midday. It was necessary, indeed, that the wind should be between the north and the east, to allow, on one hand the Roman fleet to leave the Loire and sail towards the Point Saint-Jacques, and, on the other, to permit the fleet of the Veneti to quit the river Auray. These latter, in this position, could, in case of defeat, take refuge in the Bay of Quiberon, or fly to the open sea, where the Romans would not have dared to follow them.
With winds blowing from below, it matters not from what point, the Romans could not have gone in search of their enemies, or the latter come to meet them. Supposing that, in one tide, the Roman fleet had arrived at the mouth of the Loire towards five o’clock in the morning; it might have been towards ten o’clock, the moment when the battle commenced, between Haedik and Sarzeau. Supposing similarly that, as early as five o’clock in the morning, the movement of the Roman fleet had been announced to the Veneti, they could, in five hours, have issued from the river Auray, defiled by the entrance of the Morbihan, rallied and advanced in order of battle to meet the Romans in the part of the sea above described.