Columbia (name) taken directly from Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels while" a few others were classical or neoclassical in style. Such were Ierne for Ireland, Iberia for Spain, Noveborac for New York (from Eboracum, the Roman name for York) and Columbia for America—at the time used in the sense of "European colonies in the New World". The name was perhaps first coined by Samuel Johnson, thought to have been the author of an introductory essay (in which Columbia already appears) which explained the conceit of substituting Lilliputian for English names; Johnson also wrote down the "Debates" from 1740 to 1743. The name continued
Eboracum the area known as the Brigantes by the Romans became a Roman client state. When their leadership changed becoming more hostile to Rome, Roman General Quintus Petillius Cerialis led the Ninth Legion north from Lincoln across the Humber. Eboracum was founded in 71 AD when Cerialis and the Ninth Legion constructed a military fortress (castra) on flat ground above the River Ouse near its junction with the River Foss. In the same year Cerialis was appointed Governor of Britain. A legion at full strength at that time numbered some 5,500 men, and provided new trading opportunities for enterprising local people,