re-appear in a remarkable manner in the time of Sertorius. They were
not all united in their attachment to him, a singular proof of the
clear and rational manner in which those Spaniards viewed their altered
circumstances, although they had very great men for their leaders. They
did not look backwards, and their object was neither to restore the
condition of independence which had existed previously to the Hannibalian
war and which it was impossible to revive, nor yet absolutely to repel
the Romans. They readily availed themselves of the presence of Sertorius
for the purpose of forming themselves into an Hispano-Latin nation and
of acquiring a national existence, which promised a development from
the actual circumstances. This is a very interesting fact, and deserves
to be well pondered over: after great changes of circumstances, light
sometimes dawns on men; they do not look back into the past, but set
before them a fixed object suited to their circumstances, and do not
follow any visionary schemes. Thus the Celtiberians were now ready to do
what their ancestors a hundred years before would not have done. But they
did not succeed. The fall of Sertorius and the victory of the Romans were
things over which they had no control; Providence here decided the issue,
and the failure does not prove that their undertaking was not wisely
calculated.
There now only remains the northern region of Spain, which extends
from the western sea to the Gallic frontier. We there meet with three
principal tribes, viz., the CALLAICI (in modern Galicia), the ASTURES (in
Asturia and the greater part of Leon), and the CANTABRI (in Biscay in
its greatest extent). These three nations had many things in common both
in their national character and in that of the country they inhabited;
though this circumstance does not exclude essential differences. The
Callaici were the first that were conquered by the Romans, which was
accomplished as early as the commencement of the seventh century, by
Dec. Brutus, hence surnamed Callaicus. But still his campaign did not
produce any permanent results in regard to the occupation of Spain, the
consequences being scarcely more lasting than those of the campaign of
Domitius Ahenobarbus on the Elbe. The Astures and Cantabri, on the other
hand, maintaining their independence much longer, were not subdued until
the period from the year 14 to 10 B.C., or 740 of the city. Augustus
himself conducted the war against those little mountain tribes for three
or four years, employing all the resources of the empire which could at
that time send hundreds of thousands into the field. Hence we cannot
think of the national efforts of those Spanish nations without feeling a
high degree of respect for them. But as the Saxons maintained themselves
after the cruel butcheries of Charlemagne, and as the Westphalians and
Lower Saxons are among the most unchanged of the tribes of Germany, and
developed themselves with greater freedom and national individuality than
the nations of southern Germany; so the Cantabri and Astures preserved
their independence and nationality in spite of the Roman conquest. The
Astures, however, did not succeed so completely as the Cantabri; Romans
must have settled among the former, which led them to adopt the Roman
language, whereas the Cantabri at this day speak the ancient Spanish
language, and their present institutions, which have no doubt grown out
of their very ancient customs, might certainly throw light upon their
ancient laws and institutions. But unfortunately, so far as I know,
satisfactory information about these matters is not to be found anywhere.
The Cantabri were afterwards called _Vascones_, and in our days Basque.
The very name of Astorga (_Asturica_), the ancient capital of the
country, shews that Asturia comprised the greater part of Leon.
The Romans divided Spain into _Hispania citerior_ and _ulterior_, which
was quite a matter of accident, as after the Hannibalian war they had
two armies and two praetors in Spain. Gradually Roman settlements were
formed, the armies remained there for a long time, and the soldiers
married native women. Hence, as is the case in India through the English
troops, a half cast people arose, who were foreign to the Romans, but
regarded themselves as Latin, and gradually acquired various kinds of
privileges. This gave rise to the foundation of the town of ITALICA,
where the sons of those Romans assembled; Valentia probably arose in the
same manner. Until the time of Galba, the Spaniards, with the exception
of the Roman colonists, were subjects, but that emperor conferred on some
of them, and Vespasian upon all, the _jus Latii_, in the later sense, in
which Pompeius Strabo had conferred it upon the Transpadani.[69]
Iberian tribes dwelt not only on the south, but also on the north of the
Pyrenees. Caesar, whom Tacitus justly calls _summus auctorum_, in fact,
calls the Aquitanians a people of the Iberian race. They inhabited the
modern Guienne, extending but little beyond the Garonne. It is still
doubtful whether all the tribes south of the Garonne were Iberians;
the Bituriges in Burdigala can scarcely have belonged to them. It was
probably not a compact Spanish population, the basis was Celtic. Hence
Ausonius speaks of Burdigala as a Celtic town, for in one passage he
mentions Celtic as the native language of its inhabitants. In the
districts immediately bordering upon Spain, however, the Spaniards
undoubtedly predominated, and in fact, even at the present day the Basque
language is spoken at Bayonne, and as far as Bearn.
GALLIA.
Caesar represents Gaul as bounded by the Pyrenees, the sea, the Alps and
the Rhine. This unfortunate statement about the Rhine has been appealed
to as a reason for separating from Germany the country in which we are
living, an idea which has taken root in the heads of many men, and is
still frequently expressed, especially by Frenchmen, without paying
any regard to the fact that this country was inhabited by Germans. The
expression of Caesar is nothing else than a loose definition of what in
his time was regarded as Gaul, and without making any pretensions to
accuracy. For when he says that Gaul consists of Aquitania, Celtica, and
Belgium, he employs the name in much too extensive a sense, according
to the custom of deriving the name of a country from that of its
inhabitants, for Aquitania was Iberian and did not belong to it. On
the other hand, the greater part of Britain and Hibernia was likewise
inhabited by Gauls, nay, in Caesar’s time, they extended over the
south of Germany, while at a somewhat earlier period, in the time of
the Cimbri, they not only were in possession of southern Germany and
Lombardy, but also of Bohemia and Pannonia, down to the very heart of
Thrace, the country of the Ukraine, beyond the river Dniepr, and even a
portion of Asia Minor. The Tectosagae, in Asia Minor, were as much Gauls
as those on the Rhone. The name Gaul, therefore, is something purely
accidental. The Latin terminology, which at an earlier period correctly
made Picenum the frontier of Gaul, is in this instance very incorrect in
including Belgium as a part of Gaul, whereas it ought to have been called
Cimbria, for the Belgae were essentially different from the Gauls.
What I have here said about the nature of Gaul, is intended as a
justification of Eratosthenes, a great man, who has been unjustly
censured by Strabo, another very distinguished man, whom I never mention
without gratitude and respect. Eratosthenes assigned to the Celts a vast
extent of country: he disliked the common names of the parts of the
earth because they appeared to him erroneous, and instead of them, he
makes other great divisions, calling the north-west of Europe Celtica;
he then places the Scythians in the north, and between these two, the
Celto-Scythians (of course according to the inscription of Olbia, from
which we learn that Celts had settled in the Ukraine),[70] in the
east, the Indians, and again, between the Indians and Scythians, the
Indo-Scythians; then the Ethiopians, and between these latter and the
Indians, probably the Indo-Ethiopians, though they are not mentioned.
Now, Strabo censures this view of the great extension of the Celts; and
modern authors, who have written on the subject, have quietly repeated
the censure, although it is quite unjust. We must not imagine that France
alone was inhabited by Celts; but they occupied the extent of country
described in their tradition, from the Sierra Morena, almost from the
mouth of the Baetis, that is, from Lusitania in Spain to the country
about the Tanais in the East; I do not, of course, here specify any
particular time, but I speak in general.
To confound the Germans with the Celts is an error, which, though now
less common than formerly, still makes its appearance here and there.
I can speak positively on this subject, because I am to some extent
acquainted with the Celtic language, and because, in my earlier years, I
spent some time in Scotland, where I became intimately acquainted with
the language spoken in the Highlands. I have a distinct recollection of
it, and know a great many of its words. I can positively assert, that
the grammar has not the least resemblance to the German; its conjugation
and declension by changes at the beginning of words is quite foreign to
the German dialects. If, e.g., a word in the nominative begins with _m_,
it forms the genitive by a _w_; conjugation is effected by auxiliary
verbs, but the system is quite different from ours. It is true that
a considerable number of words are German or Scandinavian; but these
can be recognised at once as foreign importations, for they have no
connection with Celtic roots. The Highlanders are not a wild people, and
I am very fond of them, but they are unpolished. Their foreign words
are for the most part such as denote domestic furniture or anything
which presupposes a state of civilisation above the merest elements,
such as a chair, a bench, and the like; words of this kind are generally
of German or Scandinavian origin. Such foreign words can very easily
be recognised in all languages. Many words, on the other hand, have a
manifest affinity with Latin; this is undeniable; but I do not by any
means wish to intimate that they are imported, for how could they have
got into the language of the Scottish Highlanders? I have said in my
history, that there are affinities between languages spoken by different
nations, without their being genealogically traceable to one nation, and
without one nation being descended from the other; but they stand to
each other in the relation of varieties which, owing to certain common
peculiarities, belong to the same species. Such is the case between
the Celtic and Latin. Pliny calls the polar sea _mare Cronium_, which
English and Scotch scholars explain quite simply and correctly as _mar
Cronni_, that is, Frozen sea.
The Celts, so far as we can trace them, differ immensely from the Germans
not only in their language, but in their religion, their manners, and, in
short, in everything. About sixty or seventy years ago, the false belief
in their identity was so general in Germany, that no one entertaining a
different opinion would have been listened to, although the testimonies
of the ancients are clear, and no reader of Caesar can believe him to
be in favour of the identity. The same is the case with Tacitus, who
distinguishes the German, Gallic, and Pannonian languages.
Another erroneous opinion, though less general, is, that, the Gauls and
Belgae were in reality one nation, or at least that the Belgae were
a mixture of Gauls and Germans. It is true that some support of this
opinion may be found in the best ancient writers, but those who maintain
it confound that which is accidental with that which is general. I will
not doubt that the inhabitants of northern Belgium and of the Netherlands
are mixed; the mixture,however, does not consist of Gauls, but of Cymri
and Germans. We must not in any way conceive the relation between Gauls
and Belgae, as if the former were pure, and the latter mixed Celts. Gauls
and Belgae exist at this day, and are different in language and names:
under the name of _Gael_, we find them in Ireland and the Highlands of
Scotland, and under that of _Cymri_ or _Bolgs_ in Wales and Britany.
Formerly they were much more widely spread, all over the west of England,
from Cornwall to Cumberland, and the Picts also belonged to them; they
called themselves _Bolgs_ or _Firbolgs_ (from _fir_, a man, _Belgian
men_). This nation is confounded by the ancients with the Gauls, and in
the accounts of their emigration they are simply called Galli, Γαλάται;
they were however, Cymri, not indeed exclusively, but at least chiefly.
This is clear even from the fact that, both in Macedonia and Italy,
their king is called Brennus; and it has long been known, that _brenin_
both in Welsh and in the language of lower Britany signifies king. The
Romans took it to be a proper name, just as they did in the case of the
Etruscan Lucumo. This Cymrian language has been confounded with the
Gaelic of the Highlands of Scotland, and the two have been spoken of as
dialects of the same language; but this is certainly incorrect. I myself
know little about it, but quite enough to agree with those who maintain,
that they are two different languages, not indeed as different as Basque
and Gaelic, for the Basque has not the least resemblance to either of
them. I once heard an English officer boldly assert, that soldiers from
the Highlands of Scotland conversed with the people of Ireland; but
this is as impossible as it would be for a person unacquainted with
Slavonic to converse with a Slavonian. No native Gael can understand the
smallest Welsh sentence; the whole grammar of the two is different. It
is further said that the two languages have a number of words in common,
and that one fourth of all the words are akin to one another; but this
statement seems suspicious, as it is not confirmed by any glossary.
But admitting that the agreement actually exists, it is only a local
affinity, two nations having in some points a resemblance, while their
fundamental characters are nevertheless different; so that they have
either diverged immensely from the same root, or else incline towards
each other, proceeding from totally different races. An investigation of
this subject belongs to general philology, and if it were always entered
upon with sound principles, many prejudices would be dispersed, and much
that is mysterious would be cleared up. According to what I have said, we
cannot conceive the Belgae and Celts to be as nearly allied, as, e.g.,
the Scandinavians and Germans, or the Goths and Saxons, but they are as
foreign to each other as the Persians and Slavonians; in the languages
of the two last nations, many forms, nay, many particles and words, are
the same, but the grammar is different. We must, therefore, be on our
guard not to transfer to the Belgae that which we know of the Gauls; we
know nothing of the institutions of the former, while those of the Celts
are well known. _Gael_ is the root of the old German word _Welsh_, which
signifies anything that is not German.
The Celts may have had much in common with the Cymri, but their
constitution was peculiar to them; we have no proof to show that what
Caesar says about them also applies to the Belgae. The existence of an
aristocratic constitution, which, in the case of many other nations is
assumed only from misinterpreted expressions, cannot be doubted among the
Celts. We find among them two ruling tribes, the knights and the priests,
the well-known Druids; the rest of the people were mere serfs. This
circumstance, as I have observed on other similar occasions, intimates
that the Celts, in the countries where we know them, were conquering
foreigners, and that the power which drove them out of Spain, led them
into a country, where, in their turn, they subdued other people. My
conjecture is, that this latter people, extending over nearly the whole
of France, was no other than the Cymri, who, being pressed by the Celts,
advanced northward, and threw themselves upon German tribes; and this
circumstance produced the mixture of Belgae and Germans in the north.
It is well known that the Druids were a caste,[71] but it is impossible
to ascertain whether the Druids and knights were two different castes,
like the Brahmins and warriors in India, or whether the Druids were only
a branch of the military caste, which occupied itself with matters of
religion. Certain it is, however, that all the power was divided between
these two, while the people lived in a condition which Caesar describes
by the term _clientela_, that is, bondage. It was not exactly what we
call serfdom; for the Celtic people were dependent only in relation to
their feudal lords, whose retinue they formed, but in other respects they
were free; and besides them, slaves are expressly mentioned.
The religion of the Druids was bloody and cruel, and for this reason it
was the only one that was attacked by the Romans; though they may have
done so also because that religion formed an obstacle to the Romanising
of Gaul. Success was not difficult, and the Druids were completely
crushed. It is possible that some of the later commotions of which we
read in Tacitus, as, e.g., those of Sacrovir and Classicus, may have been
connected with religion. The Druids also were the depositories of a kind
of science and literature, for they had poems which it was unlawful to
commit to writing. In the transactions of ordinary life, they used the
Greek alphabet.
In the time of Caesar, it would be erroneous to speak of the Gauls as a
really barbarous nation. It is true that everything connected with the
arts, such as their coins and idols, is detestable, but in other things
they seem to have reached the same stage of civilization at which our
ancestors were in the time of the Othos. The population was very large;
but the Cimbrian war made fearful havoc, and the misery resulting from
it surpasses all our conceptions. In the time of Caesar, they had only
partially recovered from it, and yet they present the appearance of a
pretty strong population: their towns were considerable, the country
was well cultivated; and all we hear of them suggests to us the idea
of a rude rather than a barbarous state of things. The Romans became
acquainted with water-mills and saw-mills in Gaul, nor were manufactures
wanting there; but the Gauls were prevented by their treaties with the
Romans from cultivating vines and olives. Their style of architecture is
very common among ourselves, but was utterly unknown among the Greeks and
Romans: the buildings consisted of wooden frames and wicker work, and
even the walls of their towns were joined by means of beams, a method
which was very surprising to the Romans. This is the reason why there are
so very few remains of the ante-Roman period.
The Gauls very quickly adopted the civilisation of the Romans, who
established themselves in the southern province about the year of the
city 630, and thence extended their dominion towards Lyons. In Pliny’s
time that country was so completely changed, that he declares it to
be not a province but a true Italy. The rest of Gaul also soon became
Romanised, though the Latin language did not spread there with equal
facility; and we may probably assume that at the time of the Frankish
conquest the Celtic language had not yet become extinct. Still, however,
a dialect of Latin, different in character from our Latin, was diffused
all over Gaul; and this is the root of the Romance or Provençal language.
The study of Roman literature spread more and more; Gaul always had
men of good abilities, and thus a peculiar literature was formed, of
which Rheims, then called _Durocortorum_, was the seat and centre. I
think I have discovered a new proof of an ancient rustic form of this
name, according to which it was pronounced _Durocortoro_; I allude to
a fragment from Fronto in Consentius:[72] _et illae vestrae Athenae
Durocortoro_, where the corrupt termination is probably intentional,
Fronto sneering at Consentius, because the inhabitants of the country did
not correctly pronounce the name of their own university town.
The inclination of the Gauls to separate from Rome, and to constitute
themselves as a distinct nation, manifests itself as early as the reign
of Tiberius, and then again under Vespasian. Afterwards, we have the
insurrection of Clodius Albinus, in the reign of Septimius Severus, and
another in that of Gallienus, when, for a time, the Gauls had their
own emperors, who resided at Treves, until Tetricus betrayed them to
Aurelian. In all these movements we find, at an early date, considerable
symptoms of a feeling of nationality, which was particularly strong
during the fourth century, when Constantius Chlorus maintained himself
there. Gaul always tried to set up opposition emperors: we must not,
however, assert that this was so easy because those governors were
stationed on the frontier, but it was because the nation met them
in their desire. In the fifth century, a peculiar literary spirit
manifested itself in Gaul, and nearly all the more important productions
of literature during that century, both ecclesiastical and profane,
belong to Gaul. It possessed at that time many men of genius, whose
only disadvantage is the fact of their language being quite rustic,
that is, it is the language of common life. Men of this kind are: the
talented Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop Salvianus of Marseilles, Claudianus
Mamertus, Avitus, Cassianus, who was altogether a theological writer, but
a man of great ability and genius, and Sulpicius Severus, who is even a
very elegant writer, and deserves to be strongly recommended; his diction
is not without faults, but he displays great intellectual worth, sound
understanding, and a singular independence of judgment, at a time which
bordered on a most terrible period. The Gauls, however, were excited
rather than stunned by that unhappy period.
The whole of Gaul, which the Romans describe as their province, consisted
of sixty-four _civitates_. In the time of Tiberius, there existed a
number of separate tribes, each of which governed itself as a distinct
state, and the same also continued afterwards. The Romans then divided
Gaul into _Gallia Narbonensis_, _Aquitania_, and _Gallia Lugdunensis_.
Each of these provinces consisted of a number of such _civitates_,
which accordingly were both towns and states, and that more so than at
present the French departments. They were absolutely subject to the
Romans, but, before they obtained the Roman franchise, they had their own
institutions. A _civitas_ was governed by a senate, of which the members
resided in the capital, and every thing was managed according to their
ancient rights and usages. The Roman franchise was first conferred upon
them under Augustus; but they did not obtain the right of being elected
to high offices or into the Roman senate. This franchise, however, was
confined to the _provincia Romana_, which extended as far north as
Lyons. The particulars are not known, but some _civitates_ within the
Province had only the _jus Latii_. Afterwards many individual Gauls
obtained the full franchise, including the right of being elected into
the Roman senate. Claudius extended the franchise to Gallia Narbonensis,
at the same time conferring upon the inhabitants the right of becoming
members of the senate. Under Galba, the remaining Gauls also obtained the
franchise, but not the Belgae. Tacitus (_Ann._ iii. 44) states that the
sixty-four Gallic _civitates_ revolted, which no doubt is the sum total
of all the Gallic _civitates_, though it is not certain whether Gallia
Narbonensis is included or not.