The Spanish greyhound is thought by some popular writers to have descended from Egyptian dogs brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Phoenicians nearly 3,000 years ago. However the existence of the Celtic "vertragus" in Roman Iberia 2,000 years ago, as described by Arrian and Martial, suggests that it and its possible descendent the Galgo, may more likely be of Western European type in origin. After it was established in Spain, it is thought to have been cross-bred centuries later with the Sloughi brought from North Africa by the Moors. Some writers suggest that this breed may be ancestral to the English Greyhound.