Sammes, in his "Antiquities of Ancient Britain," published in 1676, narrates that the Scythians, or Cymri, were called the offspring of Magog by Josephus. Pouring out in mighty hordes from Scythia, they sacked Rome and plundered the Temple of Apollo in Greece. Some of them settled down in Sarmatia, Germany, and Northern Gaul, generally adopting the name of the lands in which they settled. Strabo is quoted as saying "that the very youths (of the Cymri) were half a foot taller than the tallest men," and Manlius for declaring "that the Cymri were a race so exceedingly tall that other nations seemed nothing in their eyes." The same authority narrates that "when one of the Cymri stood in the ranks he seemed of the same proportion as the others, but when he stepped out a few paces, and came near to the Romans, they all began to be amazed at the sight." On that account the Roman soldiers, as Caesar admits, were filled with consternation at the giants they were called upon to encounter when he marched against their leader, Ariovistus. The Cymri were also remarkable for their exceeding swiftness. Csesar witnessed that they "could lay their hands on the manes of horses and keep pace with them in the race." Tully testifies that it was "their joy and delight to die on the battlefield, and that nothing so tormented them as to die idly in their beds." "No wonder," says Sammes, "that they conquered many nations; distressed the Romans themselves, and were a constant thorn in the side of the Gauls" ("Antiquities of Ancient Britain," cap. 2). Dr. Smith, in his "History of France," narrates that the Cymri "acquired permanent possession of an extensive territory north of the Loire, including the peninsula of Armorica" (p. 13). Bononia, or Boulogne, St. Patrick's native town, was, therefore, situated in Belgic Gaul during the days of Julius Caesar; but, later on, when the descendants of the Cymri, the Belgic Gauls, were almost annihilated in their fierce contests with the Romans, the same province came to be called Armorica. Sulpicius Severus, as we shall see presently, named the same country Britannia at the time of the Council of Ariminium in the year 359--just fourteen years before St. Patrick was born. In the year 597 Armorica, or Britannia, became absorbed in the province of Neustria, when the kingdom of the Franks was sub-divided into three separate kingdoms, as Dr. Smith relates: "Sigebert became King of Austrasia (in the Prankish tongue, Oster-rike), or the kingdom of the Eastern Franks; Chilperic was recognised as King Neustria (Ne-oster- rike), the land of the Western Franks. The limits of the two kingdoms are somewhat uncertain; but the river Meuse and the Forest of Ardennes may be taken generally as the line of demarcation. Austrasia extended from the Meuse to the Rhine; Neustria extended from the Meuse to the ocean. Gouthran ruled over the division of Gaul which now acquired the name of Burgundy" ("History of France," p. 42).