Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/461

 416 THE HISTORY BoQk.fc 1287 and Richard p. 53. — " Offian v. i. p. 96. — V Richard .p. 59, Dio p. 1209 and 1260, and Herodian 1. iii. c. 46. — ''Am** nrianus 1. xxvii. c. 8. and Richard p. 53. III. THE Saxons have been derived by aur critics from various regions of the globe, from India, from the north of Afia, and from the forefts of Germany. And their appellation has. been equally referred to various caufes, to the name of their Indian progenitor, to the plundering difpofition of their Afiatic fathers, and to the fhort hooked weapons of their warriors. But the ge- nuine origin of the Saxons and the genuine derivation of their name feems clearly to be this. In the earlier period of the Gallic hiftory, the Celtae of Gaul crolfed the Rhine in confiderable numbers and planted various colonies in Germany Thus the Volcse Te&ofages fettled on One fide of the Hercynian foreft and about the banks of the Nec- kar, the Helvetii upon another fide of the foreft and about the Rhine and the Maine, the Boii beyond both, and the Sencnes in the heart of Germany Thus we fee the Treviri, the Nervii, the Suevi, the Marcomanni, the Quadi, the Venedi, and others, in Germany, all plainly betrayed to be Gallic nations by the Gallic appellations which they bear, and all together pofleffiug the greateft part of Germany And thus, even as late as the con- clufion of the firft century, we find one nation on the eaftern fide of this great continent aftually fpeaking the language of Gaul, and another upon the northern fide of it a&ually fpeaking a language nearly related to the Britifh But as all the various tribes of the Germans are considered by Strabo to be ynp-w Tak£(ou or genuine Gauls in their origin 5, fo thofe nations particularly that lived immediately beyond the Rhine, and that arei aflerted by Tacitus to be indubitably native Germans % are exprefsly de- nominated T*k£[*i> or Gauls by Diodorus, and are exprefsly de- clared