Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/405

 KLGAE. is ft pidki oMuitiy, and contains ■» mountain range except the Vo§ge$. The hiUa that bound the basin of the Motd are inoonaiderable ebvatkns. The tract of the Ardamet (the Arduenaa Silva), is rofq^ bat not monntainona. There is alao the hilly tract along the Moot between Dinant and Liege, and north and east as for as Aix4a~Chapelk, The rest is level, and is a part of the great plain of Korthcm Europe. CacMir (B. G. L 1) makes the Belgae distinct from the Celtae and Aqnitani in nsages, political con- 8titati<Mi, and language; bat litUe weight is due to this general expression, for it appears that those whom Caesar calls Belgae were not all one people; thej had pure Germans auMmg them, and, besides this, thej were mixed with Germans. The Remi told Caernr (A G, ii 4) that most of the Belgae were of German origin, that they had crossed the Khine of old, and, being attracted by the fertility of the snl, had aetUed in the parts ahoat there, and ex- pelled the Galli who were the cultivators of those parts. This is the trae meaning of Caesar^s text: a stoiy of an ancioit invasion £rom the nortii and east of the Rhine by Germanic peofde, of which we have a particular instance in the case of the Batavi [Batavi] ; of the Galli who were disturbed, being at that remote time an agricultural people, and of their being expelled by the Germans. But Caesai^s words do myt admit any farther inference than that these Gennan invaders occupied the parts near the Bhine. The Treviri and Nervii affected a German origin (Tadt. German, 28), which, if it be true, mnst imply that they had soms reason for affecting it; and also that they were not pare Germans, or they might have aaid so^ Strabo (p. 192) makes the Nervii Gennana. The fiuit of Caesar making such a river •9 the i/ams a boundary between Belgic and Celtic peoples, is a proof that he saw some marked distinc- tioo between Belgae and Celtae, though there were many pmnts of resemblance. Now, as most of tibe BelgiM were Germans or of German origin, as the Bemi believed or said, there must have been some who were not Germans or of Gennan origin; and if we exclude the Menapii, the savage Nervii, and the purs Germans, we cannot affirm that any of the remainder of the Belgae were Germans. The Dame of the Morini alone is evidence that they are not Germans; for their name is only a variatian of the form Armorici. Within the time of man's memory, when Caesar was in Gallia, Divitiacus, a king of the Suessiones, was the most powerful prince in all Gallia, and had established his anthority even in Britain {B, G. u. 4). Belgae had also passed into Britam, and settled there in the maritime parts (£. G. v. 12), and they re- tained the names of the peoples from which th^ came. The direct historical <»ndusi<m from the an- cient aathorities as to the Belgae, is this: they were a Celtic peoirie, some of whom in Caesar^s time were mixed with GennanSy without having lost their na- tional characteristics. Caesar, wanting a name under which be could comprehend all the peoples north of the Seme^ took the name of Belgae, which seems to have been the general name of a few of the most powerful peoples bordering on the Seme. Strabo (p. 176), who makes a marked distinction between the Aqnitani ^and the rest of the people of Celtica or Gallia Transalpina, states that the rest have the Gallic or Celtic physical characteristics, but that tbey have not all the same hmguage, some differing a little in tongue, and in their political (brms and BELGAE. 887 faaiSts'a little; all which expresses as great a d^ree cf uniformity among peoples spread over so huge a surface as could by any possibility exist in the state of civilization at that time. Strabo, besides the Com- wmUarU of Caesar, had the work of Posidonius as an authority, who had travelled in Gallia. When Augustus made a fourfold division of Gallia, B. c. 27, wludi in fact subsisted before him in Caesar's time, — for the Provincia is a division ot Gallia indepoident of Caesar's threefold division (£. (r. i. 1), — he enlarged Aquitanla [Aquitania], and he made a division named Lugdunensis, of whidi Lugdunum (Lffon) was the capital. Stnbo*s de- scription of tins fourfold division is not dear, and it is best expluned by considering the new division of Gallia altogether. [Gallia.] Strabo, after de- scribing sooae of the Belgic tribes, says (p. 194), " the rest sre the peoples of the Parooeanitic Belgae, among whom are the Veneti." The word Parooean- itic is the same as Caesar^s Armoric, or the peoples on the sea. He also mentions the O&smi, who wen neighboun of the Veneti. This passage has been used to prove (Thierry, ffiiL des Gavhis, Intrvdy that these Paroceanitic Belgae, the Veneti and their neighbours, and the Belgae north of the Seme, were two peoples or confederations <tf the same race; and as the Veneti were Celts, so must the Belgae north of the Seme be. It might be said that Strabo here uses Belgae in tiie sense of the extended Belgian di- visbn, for he dearly means to say that this division oomprdiended some part of the countiy between the Loire and the jSstns, the western part at least But his account of the divisions of Gallia is so confused that it cannot be relied on, nor does it agree with that of Pliny. It is certain, however, that some changes were made in the divisions of Gallia be- tween tiie time of Augustus and the time of Pliny. [Gallia.] [G. L.] BELGAE. ABriHsh population, is first mentioned under the name of Belgae by Ptolemy (ii. 3. § 28). Caesar's notice extends only to the fact of the into- rior of the island being inhabited ** by those who are recorded to have bem bom in the island itself; whereas the sesrooast is the occupancy of immigranta from the country of the Belgae, brought over for the sake of either war or plunder. All these are called by names nearly the same as those of the states they esme from — names which they have retained in the eoontry upon which they made war, and in the land whereon they settied.** (fi. G, v. 12.) How far do Caesar and Ptdemy notice the same population ? Ptolemy's locality, though the exact extent of the area is doubtful, is, to a certun d^ree, very definitely fixed. The Belgae lay to the south 0^ the Dobuni, whose chief town was Corineum {CireneeHer). They also lay to the east and north of the Durotriges of i>or-8etshire. Venta ( ITm- okeater) was one of the towns, and Aquae Sulis {Bath) snother. Calleva (Sihheeter) was not one of them: on the contrary, it belonged to the AttrebatiL This coinddes nearly with the county of Wilts, parts of Somerset and lUnts being also included. It must be observed that the Belgae of Ptdemy agree with those of Caesar only in bdonging to the southern part of Britain. They are chiefly an inland popula- tion, and touch the sea only en the south and west; not on the oast, or the part more especially opposite Belgium. It must also be observed that Wilts is ihe county where the monumental remains of the andent occupants of Britain are at once the most numerous and characteristic. cc2