capital of Aunis was in practice Châtelaillon (today Châtelaillon-Plage), designated by its Latin name heard as , . This last theory has found favour with a large number of historians. History In ancient times the region was a long way from civilisation. It was not until the Middle Ages that the province entered history, when La Rochelle sealed its fate and became its capital. The "pays des aulnes" in antiquity In Celtic and Gallo-Roman times, the northern part of Santonie, which became called "Aunis", was a long-neglected region far from civilisation, with no communications. The old "Forest of Argenson" covered the entire region. For many centuries this huge forest made a near-impenetrable natural frontier stretching from the rivers Boutonne and Charente to the east, which kept it apart from the ancient province of the Pictones. This was the (), where the trees had established themselves on riverbanks and in the marshy valleys, but where beeches and oaks also made up a dark and mysterious forest, awe-inspiring and full of superstition. Moreover, the deep sea gulfs (Gulf of Pictones, to the north, Gulf of Santones, to the south) made it a slender peninsula. Its seclusion lent its name as , now Saintonge. This geographic isolation made communications and trade very poor. One can see from a road map of Gallo-Roman times, Aunis is entirely absent. The old Roman road which ran from (now the town of Saintes) to (now the town of Angers) was routed entirely to the east of Aunis. The name of this Roman road remains in some modern place names as ("St Felix's Way") and ("Marshland Way"): this is Route départmentale D.120, which runs from Saint-Jean-d'Angély until the department's border with Deux-Sèvres. This Roman road is found in the "Table de Peutinger", where again no Roman road goes into Aunis. Finally, the valleys of the rivers Curé, Virson, Mignon, and Gères, which were much larger than today, cut deeply through the region's invading forest. But they had the inconvenience of being marshy and prone to floods that turned them into real marshes and bogs, making the region particularly difficult to reach. All these natural phenomena combined, so that it has been said "this region [...], often flooded and marshy, has its riches, is easy to defend, but cannot become the fulcrum for an attack". The coast was occupied by the Celts, even during the time of – they