Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/209

 950 GALLIA TRANS. stood the form of the coast, hj saying, " that from the outlet (exitn) of the Garnmna commences that side of the land which runs out into the sea, and the coast opposite to the Cantabiian shores." Pto- lemj^s notion of the coast was also mach more correct than Strabo's. Agrippa (Plin. i v. 17) as- certained hj measurement the whole west const of Gallia to be 1800 M. P.; and the general form of the coast must have been learned when the measure* ments were made. We do not know, however, from what point on the Spanish border he reckoned, nor to what mouth of the Rhine they were carried ; but Gossellin, bj assuming that thej commenced at Oeasso (^Cape MachkaoOy as he names it), which he takes to be the boundary between Gallia and His- pania, *' to the mouth of the Rhine called the passage of the T/k," finds that the Roman measures agree with the truth. But this contains an as- sumption more than many people will allow, wjiicb Walckenaer, who adopts Gossellin's opinion, ex- presses as a fact as follows : — " The measures show that Ptolemy's eastern outlet of the Rhine is that which is known at present under the name of FUe- Stroom^ between the islands of Flidand and of Schdling, which represents the old mouth of the Flerum or of the Yasd, before the great inundations of the 13th century converted into a vast lake the ancient Flevo." (Gtog, Ancienne^ 4^. det Gcadetf ^. vol. ii. p. 291.) However, the true length of the French coast from the Pyrenees to the old Rhine shows that the measurement of Agrippa was a fact The great mass of the Alps that lies between the basin of the Poland the Rhone forms a natural boundary between Italy and France ; hut this moun- tain range, which has a general northern course from near the borders of the Mediterranean to the pass of the Great St. Bernard (Alpis Pennina), covers a great extent of country from west to east, and boundaries can be fixed in such a country only at the heads of the valleys which penetrate the moun- tain mass on each side. The Romans did not trouble themselves with these mountain tribes till they had subdued the people in the lower country. In.B. o. 58, when Caesar passed from Aquileia over the Alps into Ulterior Gallia, he had to fight his way. He crossed the Alpes Cottiae by the pass that leads from Turin ; and he remarks that the last place in Cisalpine Gallia is Occlum, Uxeau or OcellOf in the valley of the Cluso. He was attacked by Centrones, Graioceli, and Caturiges, all of them Alpine tribes, and it was on the seventh day from Ocelum that he reached the Vooontii in the Ulterior Provincia (B. G. i. 10). It is clear that Caesar did not consider these Alpine tribes as beI, to the Summus Penninus (the pass of the Great SL Ber- nard)f was used at a very early period. It leads down to Octodurus (^Martigny)^ where Caesar's troops were attacked in the winter of n. c. 57. Octodurus is at the great bend which the Rhone makes after descending the longitudinal valley which lies between the Pennine Alps and their continua- tion on the south side, and the Bernese Alps, one of the chief Alpine ranges on the north side. The GALLU TRANS. lower part of this valley, between Oetodonis vsA the head of the Lacns Lemanus {Lake o/Geme9a% into which the Rhone flows, was occupied bj the Nantuates. Above Octodurus in thu long valley were the Yeragri and the Seduni, all Gallic tribes, but neither indnded in the Provincia by Caeaar*^ description nor in the country of the Hdvetii. In fact, this long valley is entirely within the Alps. Caesar has not attempted to fix any boondaiy be- tween the Citerior and Ulterior Provincia from the sea to the sources of the Rhine. He heard oC an Alpine people named Lepontii (B. G. iv. 10) in the high valley of the Upper Rhine, and be fband it convenient to define the eastern limit of Helveti* and of Gallia, which was his Provincia, by the course of the Rhine from its source to the German Ocean. After the Lepontii he mentions Vatnantes or Mantuantes (Nantuates in the common texts is s corruption), the Helvetii, Sequani, Mediomatrici, Tribocci. and Treviri, as the nations on the GalUe side post which the river flows. It woald be nsekas to inqnire which of the branches of the Rhine above Chur Caesar meant ; but from Ckur to the Lake of Canstanz he obtained a well-defined boondary in the river. The Rhine within the Aljane region was certainly not the limit of the Gallic monntainecn, who extended along the north face of ihe Alps into the basin of the Danube. The Lake of ComianK and the course of the Rhine in a general western diiectian from the outlet of that lake to Bdle^ formed a wdl- defined boundary of Gallia in this part Caesar's de- scription shows that he excluded from the country at the Helvetii all the parts to the south of the Lcraan lake and of the Bernese Alps ; and he knew that the Rhine where it entered the hill and the jdain country was the disputed boundary between the Germanic and the Celtic nations (iff. (7. L l)u From Bale to the outlets of the Rhine the river was the boundary of the two races, though there were Galli east of the Rhine in the Hercynian forest, and Germans had got to the west side in sevenl parts long before Caesar's time. the Rhine, as Caesar was told (B. G. it. 10), entered the sea by many outlets, between whkJi great islands were formed. Asiniua Pollio (Strab. p. 193), who took a pleasure in finding fiinlt with Caesar, says that the Rhine had only two months. The Batavorum Insula was within the limits of Caesar's Galfia. In the time of Augustus, when Dmsus made his Fossa [FowA Drusiaka], which established a navigation between the Rhenns and the Flevo [Flevo] and thence to the North Sea, this river line became a frontier against the Germans, extending from Amheim on the Rhine along the canal of Drusus to Doe^mrg^ and thence along the Ytsel to the lakes. This new river frontier seems to be Ptolemy's eastern outlet of the Rhine; the middle outlet being that at Leiden, and the western being where the I^eck now is. (Ptol. ii. 9.) This extensive country hes between 42^ 35' and 52° 10' N. lat, if we carry the boundary no further than Lugdunum Batavorum (J>e»den). It lies be- tween the meridians of 4° 45' W. of London and 9° 40' E. of London. The following measurements will give a better notion of its extent. A stndght line from the mouth of the Var to the NV. ex- tremity of Bretagne is about 660 miles long. A line drawn from the Spanish frontier on the west side of the Pyrenees to 489 50' N. hit, 8° 10' £. long, on the Rhine, neu Jiadstadt, is about 615 miles long ; and a line drawn from this point en