It is difficult to ascertain exactly the number of the population; yet we may presume, from the contingents furnished by the different states, that it amounted to more than seven millions of souls.[61]
Political Divisions.
II. Gaul, according to Cæsar, was divided into three great regions, distinct by language, manners, and laws: to the north, Belgic Gaul, between the Seine, the Marne, and the Rhine; in the centre, Celtic Gaul, between the Garonne and the Seine, extending from the ocean to the Alps, and comprising Helvetia; to the south, Aquitaine, between the Garonne and the Pyrenees.[62] (See Plate 2.) We must, nevertheless, comprise in Gaul the Roman province, or the Narbonnese, which began at Geneva, on the left bank of the Rhone, and extended in the south as far as Toulouse. It answered, as nearly as possible, to the limits of the countries known in modern times as Savoy, Dauphiné, Provence, Lower Languedoc, and Roussillon. The populations who inhabited it were of different origins: there were found there Aquitanians, Belgæ, Ligures, Celts, who had all long undergone the influence of Greek civilisation, and especially establishments founded by the Phocæans on the coasts of the Mediterranean.[63]
These three great regions were subdivided into many states, called civitates—an expression which, in the “Commentaries,” is synonymous with nations[64]—that is, each of these states had its organisation and its own government. Among the peoples mentioned by Cæsar, we may reckon twenty-seven in Belgic Gaul, forty-three in Celtic, and twelve in Aquitaine: in all, eighty-two in Gaul proper, and seven in the Narbonnese. Other authors, admitting, no doubt, smaller subdivisions, carry this number to three or four hundred;[65] but it appears that under Tiberius there were only sixty-four states in Gaul.[66] Perhaps, in this number, they reckoned only the sovereign, and not the dependent, states.
1. Belgic Gaul. The Belgæ were considered more warlike than the other Gauls,[67] because, strangers to the civilisation of the Roman province and hostile to commerce, they had not experienced the effeminating influence of luxury. Proud of having escaped the Gaulish enervation, they claimed with arrogance an origin which united them with the Germans their neighbours, with whom, nevertheless, they were continually at war.[68] They boasted of having defended their territory against the Cimbri and the Teutones, at the time of the invasion of Gaul. The memory of the lofty deeds of their ancestors inspired them with a great confidence in themselves, and excited their warlike spirit.[69]
The most powerful nations among the Belgæ were the Bellovaci,[70] who could arm a hundred thousand men, and whose territory extended to the sea,[71] the Nervii, the Remi, and the Treviri.
2. Celtic Gaul.[72] The central part of Gaul, designated by the Greek writers under the name of Celtica, and the inhabitants of which constituted in the eyes of the Romans the Gauls properly so named (Galli), was the most extensive and most populous. Among the most important nations of Celtic Gaul were reckoned the Arverni, the Ædui, the Sequani, and the Helvetii. Tacitus informs us that the Helvetii had once occupied a part of Germany.[73]