The Trinobantes, a historical people, or confederation of peoples, to the fore in the resistance to the invasions of Julius Caesar, were defined by him as a `civitas'; `Trinobantum', however, was another invention of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who describes how it was founded by Brutus and named `Troia nova', later corrupted to `Trinovantum' - Historia regum Britanniae, Book I c.17.