Ictis British tin was shipped from Massalia on the Mediterranean coast of Gaul. Julius Caesar, in his "De Bello Gallico", says of the Veneti: "This last-named people were by far the most powerful on the coast of Armorica: they had a large fleet plying between their own ports and Britain; they knew more about the handling of ships and the science of navigation than anyone else thereabouts." William Camden, the Elizabethan historian, took the view that the name "Ictis" was so similar to "Vectis", the Latin name for the Isle of Wight, that the two were probably the same island. The
Scotland during the Roman Empire as unified ideas until centuries later. In fact, the Roman Empire influenced every part of Scotland during the period: by the time of the Roman withdrawal from Britain around 410, the various Iron Age tribes native to the area had united as, or fallen under the control of, the Picts, while the southern half of the country was overrun by tribes of Romanized Britons. The Scoti (Gaelic Irish raiders) who would give Scotland its English name, had begun to settle along the west coast. All three groups may have been involved in the Great Conspiracy that overran Roman Britain in