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VENETI (Area of Vannes)

(2nd - 1st century BC)

The Vénètes were an Armorican people who resided in the current department of Morbihan and whose capital was Vannes. They were as good sailors as they were excellent traders and controlled both the pewter trade and its export between Brittany and Rome. They had a powerful fleet and many coastal ports. The Vénètes took the head of the Armorican coalition which opposed Caesar in 57 BC They were submitted by Crassus. The following year, in 56 BC, the Venetian fleet met that of Caesar, in the Loire estuary or in the Gulf of Morbihan and was totally destroyed. They sent a relief contingent to help clear Vercingetorix besieged in Alesia during the second revolt. After the war, the Vénètes lost their political power, but kept an economic role, in particular in the commercial relations with Brittany. Caesar (BG. II, 34; III, 7, 9, 11, 16, 17; VII, 75). Livy (Ep. 104). Strabo (G. IV, 4, 1). Pliny (HN. IV, 107); Ptolemy (G. II, 8).