SAXONY. original; and show them to have been derived from the common stock of the Celtæ, and to be of the same Celtic kindred with the Cimbri of our own Somersethshire, and the Cymbri or Cambrians of our own Wales. The Cimbri are accordingly denominated Celtæ by Strabo and Appian. And they are equally asserted to be Gauls by Diodorus; to be the descendants of that nation which sacked the city of Rome, plundered the temple of Delphi, and subdued a great part of Europe and some of Asia.
Immediately to the south of these were the Saxons, extending from the isthmus of the Cherfonesus to the current of the Elbe. And they were equally Celtic in their origin as their neighbours. They were denominated Ambrones as well as Saxons; and, as such, are included by Tacitus under the general appellation of Cimbri, and comprehended in Plutarch under the equal one of Celta-Scythæ. And the name of Ambrones appears particularly to have been Gallic; being common to the Saxons beyond the Elbe, and the Ligurians in Cisalpine Gaul; as both found to their surprise, on the irruption of the former into Italy with the Cimbri. And, what is equally surprising, and has been equally unnoticed by the critics, the Welsh distinguish England by the name of Loegr or Liguria, even to the present moment. In that irruption these Saxons, Ambrones, or Ligurians, composed a body of more than 30,000 men, and were principally concerned in cutting to pieces the large armies of Manlius and Cæpio. Nor is the appellation of Saxons less Celtic than the other. It was originally the same with the Belgic Sueffones of Gaul; the capital of that tribe being now intitled Soissons by the French, and the name of the Saxons pronounced Saïsen by the Welsh, Sason by the Scotch, and Susenach or Saxsenach by the Irish. And the Sueffones or Saxones of Gaul derived their own appellation from the position of their metropolis on a river, the stream at Soissons being now denominated the Aisne, and formerly the Axon; Ueffon or Axon importing only waters or a river, and S-ueffon or S-ax-on on the waters or the river. The Sueffones, therefore, are actually denominated the Ueffones by Ptolemy; and the Saxones are actually intitled the Axoners by Lucan.
These, with their brethren and allies the Cimbri, having been more formidable enemies to the Romans by land, than the Samnites, Carthaginians, Spaniards, Gauls, or Parthians, in the second century applied themselves to navigation, and became nearly as terrible by sea. They soon made themselves known to the inhabitants of the British isles by their piracies in the northern channels, and were denominated by them Lochlyn or Lochlynach; lued-lyn signifying the people of the wave, and the d being quiescent in the pronunciation. They took possession of the Orkney islands, which were then merely large shoals of sand, uncovered with wood, and overgrown with rushes; and they landed in the north of Ireland, and ravaged the country. Before the middle of the third century they made a second descent upon the latter, disembarked a considerable body of men, and designed the absolute subjection of the island. Before the conclusion of it, they carried their naval operations to the south, infested the British channel with their little vessels, and made frequent descents upon the coasts. And in the fourth and fifth centuries, acting in conjunction with the Picts of Caledonia and the Scots
of Ireland, they ravaged all the eastern and south-eastern shores of Britain, began the formal conquest of the country, and finally settled their victorious soldiery in Lancashire.