The predominant stock, however, of Gallia, as is well-known, is the Keltic, still existing, along with its ancient language, and other characteristics in Brittany.
The Iberians belonged chiefly, though not wholly and exclusively, to Aquitania. In the reign of Augustus this term denoted a political, in that of Julius Cæsar, an ethnological area. The province reached from the Pyrenees to the Loire; the Aquitania of the true Aquitani from the Pyrenees to the Garonne.
In the present towns of Bazas, Eauze, and Auch, we have the names of the ancient Vas-ates, Elus-ates, and Ausci; besides which, the Soci-ates, the Tarus-ates, the Garumni, the Bigerriones, the Preciani, the Gari-tes, the Sabuz-ates, the Cocos-ates, the Lector-ates, and the Tarbelli occupied the present provinces of Gascony and Bearn in general. It is usual to say that these names are Iberian. This is scarcely the case. The remarkable peculiarity of them is as follows: the termination -at is Gallic, and probably the sign of the plural number, whilst the radical part is not evidently Gallic, and, probably, not Gallic at all; or (changing the expression) whilst the Gallic inflexion is common amongst the old names of Gascony, the Gallic roots (-magus, tre-, con-, &c.) are rare; from which I infer that the geographical nomenclature of south-western France was Iberic in respect to its roots, but Gallic in respect to its form; so that the words in question are Iberic names taken from Gallic informants. Nothing, however, of great importance depends on this.
In the parts about Baignerres there was a Roman colony, that of the Convenæ; partly Gallic, partly Iberic, and partly Legionary.[4]
As were Gascony and Bearn, so were Rousillon and the greater part of Languedoc—Iberic; for the Iberi extended to the Rhone.
Along the frontier of the Iberian area there was certainly intermixture between the Aquitanians and the true Gauls, and there were also Gallic settlements, such as Hebro-magus, within the Iberian area itself. Nevertheless, Southern Gaul was Northern Spain, and Northern Spain Southern Gaul.
Provence and Dauphiné differ from Gascony and Languedoc in having had a Ligurian rather than an Iberian substratum; in having received Roman influences earlier and more largely, in having been the area of the Phocæan colony of Massilia, or Marseilles, in and around which city there must have been a notable tincture of Greek blood.
Who were the Ligurians?
The Phocæan Greeks founded the colony of Marseilles; and it was not long before the parts along the coast, and to some distance inland, became imperfectly known. When Prometheus gives to Hercules the details of his travels westwards, he says that, “You” (Hercules) “shall reach the fearless people of the Ligyes, where, with all your bravery, you shall find no fault with their warlike vigour. It is ordained that you shall leave your arrows behind. But as all the country is soft, you shall be unable to find a stone. Then Zeus shall see you in distress, and pity you, and overshadow the land with a cloud, whence a storm of round stones shall rain down. With these you shall easily smite and pursue the army of the Ligyes.” Such is the gist of a quotation from a writer so early as Æschylus, in his drama of the “Prometheus Unbound,” as given by Strabo.
These Ligyes are the Ligurians, better known as a people of Italy, and as the coastmen of the Gulf of Genoa. Southwards and eastwards they extended as far as the Arno, and westwards to the Rhone; where (as already stated) they came in contact with the Iberians. So that the ancient Ligurians were a population common to both Gaul and Italy, just as the Iberians were common to Gaul and Spain. Herodotus places Marseilles in the country of the Ligyes.