I.] THE MER WINGS AND KARLINGS. 3 ranean seaboard. Cisalpine Gaul was thus the Celtic country' south of the Alps, Transalpine Gaul the lands to the north. The Romans first ioxn&^2i province in Trans- alpine Gaul in B.C. 125, in the land which has ever since kept the name of Provincia or Provence. Like other Roman possessions, it grew, but not very fast, till in B.C. 58 — 51 the conquests of C.Julius Ccesar made the Roman power stretch over the whole country, from the Alps to the Atlantic, from the Pyrenees to the Channel. The staple of the inhabitants was Celtic ; but the south- west was peopled by Iberians, and the north-eastern lands were German. Cisalpine Gaul became part of Italy under Augustus ; so from that time Gaul meant only Transalpine Gaul. This, it must be remembered, is a purely geographical name, taking in so much of Ger- many as lay left of the Rhine. It formed three main divisions, not counting the original province. These were Aquitaine in the south-west, bounded at first by the Garonne and then by the Loire ; Celtic Gaul, the central land, and Belgic Gaul in the north-east, taking in that part of Gaul which was more or less German. 4. The Roman Occupation. — Provence and Aquitaine soon became thoroughly Latin in language and customs. Indeed Latin everywhere overcame the native tongue, except in the north-western peninsula of Armorica, where the Celtic element was aftcnvards increased by a migration from Britain, so that the language has lasted to the present time, while the land took the name of Britajinia Minor, the Lesser Britain or BritajtJiy. Also on the skirts of the Pyrenean range the Iberians kept up their own speech, the Basque speech which is spoken still. Many great Roman cities arose in Gaul, as A?-elate or Aries, Ltcgdunum or Lyons, Augusta Tre- veronan, that is Trier or Treves. In Southern Gaul the cities mostly keep their old names. But in the north the city commonly bore the name of the tribe, and the tribe-name has commonly lived while that of the city itself has been dropped. Thus Lutetia Parisioruni, the city of the Parisii on the Seine, became Paris. Christi- anity came in the -wake of the Roman power, and the Church gained a firm footing. The land was divided into ecclesiastical provinces and dioceses, which followed the civil divisions, and which are our best guides to them. The Archbishop of Lyons was and is Primate of all the Gauls, that is of all the three, Belgic, Celtic, and Aquitanian. B 2
