Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/208

 174 plint's natueal HISTOET. [Book III. copper, silver, and gold ; in the Nearer Spain there is also found lapis specularis^ ; in Baetica there is cinnabar. There are also quarries of marble. The Emperor Vespasianus Augustus, while still harassed by the storms that agitated the E-oman state, conferred the Latian rights on the whole of Spain. The Pyrenean mountains divide Spain from Graul, their extremities projecting into the two seas on either side. CHAP. 5. (4.) — or THE PEOVINCE OF OALLTA NAEBONENSISc That part of the Grallias which is washed by the inland sea^ is called the province of [Grallia] Narbonensis^, having formerly borne the name of Braccata"*. It is divided from Italy by the river Varus ^, and by the range of the Alps, the great safeguards of the Roman Empire. Erom the remainder of Graul, on the north, it is separated by the mountains Ge- henna "^ and Jura*^. In the cultivation of the soil, the man- ners and civilization of the inhabitants, and the extent of its wealth, it is surpassed by none of the provinces, and, in short, might be more truthfully described as a part of Italy than as a province. On the coast we have the district of the Sordones^, and more inland that of the Consuarani^. The ^ Transparent stone. Further mention is made of it by Pliny in B. XXXV. c. 45. 2 Or Mediterranean. 3 From the cliief city Narbo Martins, and later Narbona, now Nar- bonne, situate on the river Atax, now Aude. It was made a Roman colony by the Consul Q. Martins B.C. 118, and from him received its sur- name. It was the residence of the Roman governor of the province and a place of great commercial importance. There are scarcely any remains of the ancient city, but some vestiges of the canal, by which it was con- nected with the sea at twelve miles' distance. ^ From the linen breeches which the inhabitants wore, a fashion which was not adopted by the Romans till the time of the Emperors. Severus wore them, but the use of them was restricted by Honorius. 5 StiU called the ' Var.' It divides France from Nice, a province of Sardinia. ^ Now the Cevennes. They He as much to the west as the north of GaUia Narbonensis. 7 The range of the Jura, north of the Lake of Geneva. 8 Inhabiting the former Comte de Roussillon, or Departement des Py- renees Orientales. They were said to have been originally a Bebrycian or Thracian colony. the Departement de 1' Arriege.
 * Probably the inhabitants of the present Conserans, on the west of