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
Britain (place name) is not synonymous with "Britain", "Great Britain", or "United Kingdom". The classical writer, Ptolemy, referred to the larger island as "great Britain" ("megale Bretannia") and to Ireland as "little Britain" ("mikra Brettania") in his work, "Almagest" (147–148 AD). In his later work, "Geography" (c. 150 AD), he gave these islands the names Ἀλουίωνος ("Alwiōnos"), Ἰουερνίας ("Iwernias"), and "Mona" (the Isle of Man), suggesting these may have been native names of the individual islands not known to him at the time of writing "Almagest". The name "Albion" appears to have fallen out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Great