[Sidenote: Richness of Gaul.]
[Sidenote: Population and cities.]
[Sidenote: Splendor of Gaulish cities.]
Gaul, which was the first of Caesar's most brilliant conquests, and which took him ten years to accomplish, was a still more extensive province. It was inhabited chiefly by Celtic tribes, who, uniting with Germanic nations, made a most obstinate defense. When incorporated with the empire, Gaul became rapidly civilized. It was a splendid country, extending from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, with a sea-coast of more than six hundred miles, and separated from Italy by the Alps, having 200,000 square miles. Great rivers, as in Spain, favored an extensive commerce with the interior, and on their banks were populous and beautiful cities. Its large coast on both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic gave it a communication with all the world. It produced corn, oil, and wine, those great staples, in great abundance. It had a beautiful climate, and a healthy and hardy population, warlike, courageous, and generous. Gaul was a populous country even in Caesar's time, and possessed twelve hundred towns and cities, some of which were of great importance. Burdigala, now Bordeaux, the chief city of Aquitania, on the Garonne, was famous for its schools of rhetoric and grammar. Massolia (Marseilles), before the Punic wars was a strong fortified city, and was largely engaged in commerce. Vienne, a city of the Allobroges, was inclosed with lofty walls, and had an amphitheatre whose long diameter was five hundred feet, and the aqueducts supplied the city with water. Lugdunum (Lyons) on the Rhone, was a place of great trade, and was filled with temples, theatres, palaces, and aqueducts. Nemausus (NOEmes) had subject to it twenty-four villages, and from the monuments which remain, must have been a city of considerable importance. Its amphitheatre would seat seventeen thousand people; and its aqueduct constructed of three successive tiers of arches, one hundred and fifty- five feet high, eight hundred and seventy feet long, and fifty feet wide, is still one of the finest monuments of antiquity, built of stone without cement. It is still solid and strong, and gives us a vivid conception of the magnificence of Roman masonry. Narbo (Narbonne) was another commercial centre, adorned with public buildings which called forth the admiration of ancient travelers. The modern cities of Treves, Boulogne, Rheims, Chalons, Cologne, Metz, Dijon, Sens, Orleans, Poictiers, Clermont, Rouen, Paris, Basil, Geneva, were all considerable places under the Roman rule, and some were of great antiquity.
[Sidenote: Illyricum.]
Illyricum is not famous in Roman history, but was a very considerable province, equal to the whole Austrian empire in our times, and was as completely reclaimed from barbarism as Gaul or Spain. Both Jerome and Diocletian were born in a little Dalmatian town.
[Sidenote: Cultivated face of nature.]
[Sidenote: Agricultural wealth.]
Nothing could surpass the countries which bordered on the Mediterranean in all those things which give material prosperity. They were salubrious in climate, fertile in soil, cultivated like a garden, abounding in nearly all the fruits, vegetables, and grains now known to civilization. The beautiful face of nature was the subject of universal panegyric to the fall of the empire. There were no destructive wars. All the various provinces were controlled by the central power which emanated from Rome. There was scope for commerce, and all kinds of manufacturing skill. Italy, Sicily, and Egypt were especially fertile. The latter country furnished corn in countless quantities for the Roman market. Italy could boast of fifty kinds of wine, and was covered with luxurious villas in which were fish-ponds, preserves for game, wide olive groves and vineyards, to say nothing of the farms which produced milk, cheese, honey, and poultry. Syria was so prosperous that its inhabitants divided their time between the field, the banquet, and the gymnasium, and indulged in continual festivals. It was so rich that Antiochus III. was able to furnish at one time a tribute of 15,000 talents, beside 540,000 measures of wheat. The luxury of Nineveh and Babylon was revived in the Phoenician cities.
[Sidenote: Natural productions of the various provinces.]