Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/278

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BOOK IV.

GAUL.

SUMMARY.

The Fourth Book contains a description of the regions about Gaul, Spain, and the Alps on this side, towards Italy. Likewise of Britain, and of certain islands in the ocean which are habitable, together with the country of the barbarians, and the nations dwelling beyond the Danube.

CHAPTER I.

1. NEXT in order [after Iberia] comes Keltica beyond the Alps,^{[p 1]} the configuration and size of which has been already mentioned in a general manner; we are now to describe it more particularly. Some divide it into the three nations of the Aquitani, Belgæ, and Keltæ.^[1] Of these the Aquitani differ completely from the other nations, not only in their language but in their figure, which resembles more that of the Iberians than the Galatæ. The others are Galatæ in countenance, although they do not all speak the same language, but some make a slight difference in their speech; neither is their polity and mode of life exactly the same. These writers give the name of Aquitani and Keltæ to the dwellers near the Pyrenees, which are bounded by the Cevennes. For it has been “stated that this Keltica is bounded on the west by the mountains of the Pyrenees, which extend to either sea, both the Mediterranean and the ocean; on the past by the Rhine, which is parallel to the Pyrenees; on the north by the ocean, from the northern extremities of the Pyrenees to the mouths

↑ Transalpine Gaul.

↑ Gaul is properly divided into the four grand divisions of the Narbonnaise, Aquitaine, Keltica, and Belgica. Strabo has principally copied Cæsar, who appears only to have divided Gaul into Aquitaine, Keltica, and Belgica. Cæsar however only speaks of the provinces he had conquered, and makes no mention of the Narbonnaise, which had submitted to the Romans before his time. Strabo seems to have thought that the Narbonnaise formed part of Keltica.

[TrGa-1] Transalpine Gaul.

[2] Gaul is properly divided into the four grand divisions of the Narbonnaise, Aquitaine, Keltica, and Belgica. Strabo has principally copied Cæsar, who appears only to have divided Gaul into Aquitaine, Keltica, and Belgica. Cæsar however only speaks of the provinces he had conquered, and makes no mention of the Narbonnaise, which had submitted to the Romans before his time. Strabo seems to have thought that the Narbonnaise formed part of Keltica.

[p 1]

[1]