Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/279

 B. iv. c. i. 1. GAUL. 265 of the Rhine ; on the so_uth by the sea of Marseilles, and Narbonne, and Ij^-thc Alps from Liguria to the sources of the Rhine. The Cevennes lie at right angles to the Pyre- nees, and traverse the plains for about 2000 stadia, terminating in the middle near Lugdunum. 1 They call those people Aqui- tani who inhabit the northern portions of the Pyrenees, and tEe Cevennes extending as far as the ocean, and bounded by the ri ver G aronne ; and Keltse, those who dwell on the other side oT the Garonne, towards the sea of Marseilles and Nar- bonne, and touching a portion of the Alpine chain. This is the division adopted by divus Caesar in his Commentaries. 2 But Augustus Caesar, when dividing the country into four parts, united the KeltaB to the Narbonnaise ; the Aquitani he preserved the same as Julius Caesar, but added thereto fourteen other nations of those who dwelt between the Ga- ronne and the river Loire, 3 and dividing the rest into two parts, the one extending to the upper districts of the Rhine he made dependent upon Lugdunum, the other [he assigned] 1 Lyons. 2 The whole of this passage, says Gosselin, is full of mistakes, and it would seem that Strabo quoted from an inexact copy of Caesar. To under- stand his meaning, ve must remember that he supposed the Pyrenees ex- tended from north to south, instead of from east to west ; and since he adds that these mountains divide the Cevennes at right angles, he must have supposed that this second chain extended from east to west, instead of from north to south. He likewise fancied that the Garonne, the Loire, and the Seine ran from north to south like the Rhine. Start- ing from such premises, it was impossible he could avoid confusion; thus we find him describing the Aquitani as north of the Cevennes, when in fact they dwelt north of the Pyrenees, between those moun- tains and the Garonne, and west of the southern portions of the Cevennes. Where he says that the Kelts dwelt on the other side or east of the Ga- ronne, and towards the sea of Narbonne and Marseilles, it is clear that he prolonged Keltica into the Narbonnaise, since this last province ex- tended along the Mediterranean from the frontiers of Spain to the Alps. Caesar had stated that the Gauls (the Kelts of Strabo) ipsorum lingua Kelta, nostri Galli, dwelt between the Garonne, the Seine, the Marne, and the Rhine. Finally, Strabo appears to have assigned the greater part of Gaul to the Belgae in making them extend from the ocean, and the mouth of the Rhine, to the Alps. This considerably embarrassed Xylander, but as we have seen that Strabo transported a portion of the Kelts into the Narbonnaise, it is easy to imagine that, in order to make these people border on the Belgae, he was forced to extend them as far as the Alps, near the sources of the Rhine. Ceesar located the Belgae between the Seine, the ocean, and the Rhine. 3 Liger.