[1302] Viz. that the Cassiterides are farther removed from the coasts of Spain than the rest of the southern coasts of England.
[1303] Transalpine Gaul.
[1304] Gaul is properly divided into the four grand divisions of the Narbonnaise, Aquitaine, Keltica, and Belgica. Strabo has principally copied Cæsar, who appears only to have divided Gaul into Aquitaine, Keltica, and Belgica. Cæsar however only speaks of the provinces he had conquered, and makes no mention of the Narbonnaise, which had submitted to the Romans before his time. Strabo seems to have thought that the Narbonnaise formed part of Keltica.
[1305] Lyons.
[1306] The whole of this passage, says Gosselin, is full of mistakes, and it would seem that Strabo quoted from an inexact copy of Cæsar. To understand his meaning, we must remember that he supposed the Pyrenees extended 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. Starting 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 mountains 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 Garonne, and towards the sea of Narbonne and Marseilles, it is clear that he prolonged Keltica into the Narbonnaise, since this last province extended along the Mediterranean from the frontiers of Spain to the Alps. Cæsar had stated that the Gauls (the Kelts of Strabo) _ipsorum lingua Keltæ, 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 Belgæ 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 Belgæ, he was forced to extend them as far as the Alps, near the sources of the Rhine. Cæsar located the Belgæ between the Seine, the ocean, and the Rhine.
[1307] Liger.
[1308] From the ocean to the Mediterranean, and vice versa.
[1309] Alluding to the superiority of the climate on the shores of the Mediterranean.
[1310] We shall see in the course of this book, that under the name of Alps Strabo includes the different mountain-chains separated from the range of Alps properly so called. This accounts for his extending those mountains on the west as far as Marseilles, and on the east beyond Istria.
[1311] The Marseillese.