History of the Isle of Wight seek an alternative to bronze. It has been suggested that a 1st century BCE reference to "Ίκτιν" ("Ictin") by the Graeco-Sicilian Diodorus Siculus might refer to the Isle of Wight, although St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall is now considered more likely. A century later, Pliny the Elder uses its Latin name "Vectis" and in the mid 2nd century Ptolemy confirms the position of Vectis as ""...below Magnus Portus"" (probably the port near Bosham). The Roman historian Suetonius calls the island "insula Vecta" in his account of its capture in year 43, referring to the future emperor Vespasian, who ""proceeded to
History of the Isle of Wight the Proto-Germanic word "*wextiz", which would have been "Vectis" in Latin, and survives in various modern-language forms, including Modern English "whit" "something small" (English "wight" is considered a revival from Middle English), German "wicht" "dwarf, imp", Dutch "wicht" "little girl" and Norwegian "vette" "being, creature (especially supernatural)". This might suggest that the meaning is something like "daughter island" or "little companion"; however if Germanic languages were not widely spoken in Britain during the Roman era, as has been the consensus, then they would be an unlikely source for the Latin "Vectis". However more recently it has been argued that the