[1] In modern use we speak of Spain as only one part, though much the larger part, of the peninsula, and of Portugal as another part. But this simply comes from the accident that, for some centuries past, all the other Spanish kingdoms have been joined under one government, while Portugal has remained separate. In speaking of any time till near the end of the fifteenth century of our æra, the word Spain must always be used in the geographical sense, as the name of the whole peninsula.
[2] See the first chapter of his eighth book (vol. ii. p. 139 of the Tauchnitz edition). He makes four peninsulas within peninsulas, beginning from the south with Peloponnêsos, and he enlarges on the general character of the country as made up of gulfs and promontories.
[3] Ἤπειρος is simply the mainland, and came only gradually to mean a particular country. We may compare the use of ‘terra firma’ in South America. In the catalogue (Iliad, ii. 620-635), after the island subjects of Odysseus have been reckoned up, we read: οἵ τ᾽ Ἤπειρον ἔχον, ἠδ᾽ ἀντιπέραι᾽ ἐνέμοντο. This must mean the land afterwards called Akarnania. It was remarked at a later time that the Akarnanians were the only people of Greece who did not appear in the catalogue.
[4] We shall come as we go on to two uses of the name in which Italy, oddly enough, meant only the northern part of the land commonly so called. But in both these cases the name had a purely political and technical meaning, and it never came into common use in this sense.
[5] Some may think that the Cisalpine Gauls ought to be excepted, as the common Roman story represents them as having crossed the Alps from Transalpine Gaul at a time which almost comes within the range of contemporary history. But this is a point about which there is no real certainty; and it seems quite as likely that the Gaulish settlements on the Italian side of the Alps were as old as those on the other side.
[6] In a more minute study of the history it will be found that Latin Africa held out against the Saracens very much longer than Syria and Egypt. But for our purpose the two may be classed together in opposition to those lands in Europe and Asia which always remained Roman or Greek.
[7] The geographical extent of the Frankish dominion before and after the conquest of Charles is most fully marked by Einhard, Vita Karoli, c. 15.
[8] While I was revising this chapter, I became acquainted with C. J. Jireček’s Geschichte der Bulgaren (Prag, 1876), the third chapter of which is devoted to an examination of the early settlements of the Slaves in the Eastern peninsula. He makes it probable that they were there earlier than is generally thought. They seem, exactly like the Teutons, to have first entered the Empire as captives and colonists, a process which may have begun as early as the second and third centuries. He shows also that the march of Theodoric into Italy had the effect of laying a large region open to their settlements. But he leaves my general propositions untouched. It is not till the sixth century that those Slavonic movements began which are of real importance to historical geography.