[48] As the total number of the communities recorded on the altar at Lyons, Strabo (iv. 3, 2, p. 192) specifies sixty, and as the number of the Aquitanian communities in the Celtic portion north of the Garonne fourteen (iv. 1, 1, p. 177). Tacitus (Ann. iii. 44) names as the total number of the Gallic cantons sixty–four, and so does, although in an incorrect connection, the scholiast on the Aeneid, i. 286. A like total number is pointed to by the list given in Ptolemy from the second century, which adduces for Aquitania seventeen, for the Lugudunensis twenty–five, for the Belgica twenty–two cantons. Of his Aquitanian cantons thirteen fall to the region between the Loire and Garonne, four to that between the Garonne and the Pyrenees. In the later one from the fifth century, which is well known under the name of Notitia Galliarum, twenty–six fall to Aquitania, twenty–four to the Lugudunensis (exclusive of Lyons), twenty–seven to Belgica. All these numbers are presumably correct, each for its time. Between the erection of the altar in 74212. and the time of Tacitus (for to this his statement is doubtless to be referred), four cantons may have been added, just as the shifting of the numbers from the second to the fifth century may be referred to individual changes still in good part demonstrable.
Considering the importance of these arrangements, it will not be superfluous to exhibit them in detail, at least for the two western provinces. In the purely Celtic middle province the three lists given by Pliny (first century), Ptolemy (second century), and the Notitia (fifth century), agree in twenty–one names: Abrincates—Andecavi—Aulerci Cenomani—Aulerci Diablintes—Aulerci Eburovici—Baiocasses (Bodiocasses Plin., Vadicasii Ptol.)—Carnutes—Coriosolites (beyond doubt the Samnitae of Ptolemy)—Haedui—Lexovii—Meldae—Namnetes—Osismii—Parisii—Redones—Senones—Tricassini—Turones—Veliocasses (Rotomagenses)—Veneti—Unelli (Constantia); in three more: Caletae—Segusiavi—Viducasses, Pliny and Ptolemy agree, while they are wanting in the Notitia, because in the meanwhile the Caletae were put together with the Veliocasses or the Rotomagenses, the Viducasses with the Baiocasses, and the Segusiavi were merged in Lyons. On the other hand, instead of the three that have disappeared, there appear two new ones that have arisen by division: Aureliani (Orleans), a branch from the Carnutes (Chartres), and Autessiodurum (Auxerre), a branch from the Senones (Sens). There are left in Pliny two names, Boi—Atesui; in Ptolemy one, Arvii; in the Notitia one, Saii. For Celtic Aquitania the three lists agree in eleven names: Arverni—Bituriges Cubi—Bituriges Vivisci (Burdigalenses)—Cadurci—Gabales—Lemovici—Nitiobriges (Aginnenses)—Petrucorii—Pictones—Ruteni—Santones; the second and third agree in the 12th of Vellauni, which must have dropped out in Pliny; Pliny alone has (apart from the problematic Aquitani) two names more, Ambilatri and Anagnutes; Ptolemy one otherwise unknown, Datii; perhaps Strabo’s number of fourteen is to be made up by two of these. The Notitia has, besides these eleven, other two, based on splitting up the Albigenses (Albi on the Tarn), and the Ecolismenses (Angoulême). The lists of the eastern cantons stand related in a similar way. Although subordinate differences emerge, which cannot be here discussed, the character and the continuity of the Gallic cantonal division are clearly apparent.
[49] The four represented tribes were the Tarbelli, Vasates, Auscii, and Convenae. Besides these Pliny enumerates in southern Aquitania no less than twenty–five tribes—most of them otherwise unknown—as standing on a legal equality with those four.
[50] Pliny and, presumably here too following older sources of information, Ptolemy know nothing of this division; but we still possess the uncouth verses of the Gascon farmer (Borghesi, Opp. viii. 544), who effected this change in Rome, beyond doubt in company with a number of his countrymen, although he has preferred not to add that it was so:—
Flamen, item dumvir, quaestor pagiq[ue] magister
Verus ad Augustum legato (sic) munere functus
pro novem optinuit populis seiungere Gallos:
urbe redux Genio pagi hanc dedicat aram.
The oldest trace of the administrative separation of Iberian Aquitania from the Gallic is the naming of the “district of Lactora” (Lectoure) alongside of Aquitania in an inscription from Trajan’s time (C. I. L. v. 875: procurator provinciarum Luguduniensis et Aquitanicae, item Lactorae). This inscription certainly of itself proves the diversity of the two territories rather than the formal severance of the one from the other; but it may be otherwise shown that soon after Trajan the latter was carried out. For the fact that the separated district was originally divided into nine cantons, as these verses say, is confirmed by the name that thenceforth continued in use, Novempopulana; but under Pius the district numbers already eleven communities (for the dilectator per Aquitanicae XI populos, Boissieu, Lyon, p. 246, certainly belongs to this connection), in the fifth century twelve, for the Notitia enumerates so many under the Novempopulana. This increase is to be explained similarly to that discussed at [p. 95], note 2. The division does not relate to the governorship; on the contrary, both the Celtic and the Iberian Aquitania remained under the same legate. But the Novempopulana obtained under Trajan its own diet, while the Celtic districts of Aquitania, after as before, sent deputies to the diet of Lyons.
[51] There are wanting some smaller Germanic tribes, such as the Baetasii and the Sunuci, perhaps for similar reasons with those of the minor Iberian; and further, the Cannenefates and the Frisians, probably because it was not till later that these became subjects of the empire. The Batavi were represented.