drowned. At that period, there lived among this people, with a numerous
family, a Scythian of noble birth, who had been banished from his
country and did not go to pursue the people of God. The Egyptians who
were left, seeing the destruction of the great men of their nation, and
fearing lest he should possess himself of their territory, took counsel
together, and expelled him. Thus reduced, he wandered forty-two years in
Africa, and arrived, with his family, at the altars of the Philistines,
by the Lake of Osiers. Then passing between Rusicada and the hilly
country of Syria, they travelled by the river Malva through Mauritania
as far as the Pillars of Hercules; and crossing the Tyrrhene Sea, landed
in Spain, where they continued many years, having greatly increased and
multiplied. Thence, a thousand and two years after the Egyptians were
lost in the Red Sea, they passed into Ireland, and the district of
Dalrieta.* At that period, Brutus, who first exercised the consular
office, reigned over the Romans; and the state, which before was
governed by regal power, was afterwards ruled, during four hundred and
forty-seven years, by consuls, tribunes of the people, and dictators.

* North-western part of Antrim in Ulster.

The Britons came to Britain in the third age of the world; and in the
fourth, the Scots took possession of Ireland.

The Britons who, suspecting no hostilities, were unprovided with the
means of defence, were unanimously and incessantly attacked, both by the
Scots from the west, and by the Picts from the north. A long interval
after this, the Romans obtained the empire of the world.

16. From the first arrival of the Saxons into Britain, to the fourth
year of king Mermenus, are computed four hundred and twenty eight years;