HISTORY

pre-historic gaul. the identity of the earliest inhabitants of gaul is veiled in obscurity, though philologists, anthropologists and archaeologists are using the glimmer of traditions collected by ancient historians to shed a faint twilight upon that remote past. the subjugation of those primitive tribes did not mean their annihilation: their blood still flows in the veins of frenchmen; and they survive also on those megalithic monuments (see stone monuments) with which the soil cf france is dotted, in the drawings and sculptures of caves hollowed out along the sides of the valleys, and in the arms and ornaments yielded by sepulchral tumuli, while the names of the rivers and mountains of france probably perpetuate the first utterances of those nameless generations. iberians and ligurians. the first peoples of whom we have actual knowledge are the iberians and ligurians. the basques who now inhabit both sides of the pyrenean range are probably the last representatives of the iberians, who came from spain to settle between the mediterranean and the bay of biscay. the ligurians, who exhibited the hard cunning characteristic of the genoese riviera, must have been descendants of that indo-european vanguard who occupied all northern italy and the centre and south-east of france, who in the 7th century b.c. received the phocaean immigrants at marseilles, and who at a much later period were encountered by hannibal during his march to rome, on the banks of the rhone, the frontier of the iberian and ligurian territories. upon these peoples it was that the conquering minority of celts or gauls imposed themselves, to be succeeded at a later date by the roman aristocracy. empire of the celts. the roman conquest. when gaul first enters the field of history, rome has already laid the foundation of her freedom, athens dazzles the eastern mediterranean with her literature and her art, while in the west carthage and marseilles are lining opposite shores with their great houses of commerce. coming from the valley of the danube in the 6th century, the celts or gauls had little by little occupied central and southern europe long before they penetrated into the plains of the saone, the seine, and the loire as far as the spanish border, driving out the former inhabitants of the country. a century later their political hegemony, extending from the black sea to the strait of gibraltar, began to disintegrate, and the gauls then embarked on more distant migrations, from the columns of hercules to the plateaux of asia minor, taking rome on their way. their empire in gaul, encroached upon in the north by the belgae, a kindred race, and in the south by the iberians, gradually contracted in area and eventually crumbled to pieces. this process served the turn of the romans, who little by little had subjugated first the cisalpine gauls and afterwards those inhabiting the south-east of france, which was turned into a roman province in the 2nd century. up to this time hellenism and the mercantile spirit of the jews had almost exclusively dominated the mediterranean littoral, and at first the latin spirit only won foothold for itself in various spots on the western coast--as at aix in provence (123 b.c.) and at narbonne (118 b.c.). a refuge of italian pauperism in the time of the gracchi, after the triumph of the oligarchy the narbonnaise became a field for shameless exploitation, besides providing, under the proconsulate of caesar, an excellent point of observation whence to watch the intestine quarrels between the different nations of gaul. political divisions of gaul. these are divided by caesar in his _commentaries_ into three groups: the aquitanians to the south of the garonne; the celts, properly so called, from the garonne to the seine and the marne; and the belgae, from the seine to the rhine. but these ethnological names cover a very great variety of half-savage tribes, differing in speech and in institutions, each surrounded by frontiers of dense forests abounding in game. on the edges of these forests stood isolated dwellings like sentinel outposts; while the inhabitants of the scattered hamlets, caves hollowed in the ground, rude circular huts or lake-dwellings, were less occupied with domestic life than with war and the chase. on the heights, as at bibracte, or on islands in the rivers, as at lutetia, or protected by marshes, as at avaricum, _oppida_--at once fortresses and places of refuge, like the greek acropolis--kept watch and ward over the beaten tracks and the rivers of gaul. political institutions of gaul. these primitive societies of tall, fair-skinned warriors, blue-eyed and red-haired, were gradually organized into political bodies of various kinds--kingdoms, republics and federations--and divided into districts or _pagi_ (_pays_) to which divisions the minds of the country folk have remained faithfully attached ever since. the victorious aristocracy of the kingdom dominated the other classes, strengthened by the prestige of birth, the ownership of the soil and the practice of arms. side by side with this martial nobility the druids constituted a priesthood unique in ancient times; neither hereditary as in india, nor composed of isolated priests as in greece, nor of independent colleges as at rome, it was a true corporation, which at first possessed great moral authority, though by caesar's time it had lost both strength and prestige. beneath these were the common people attached to the soil, who did not count for much, but who reacted against the insufficient protection of the regular institutions by a voluntary subordination to certain powerful chiefs. caesar in gaul. this impotence of the state was a permanent cause of those discords and revolts, which in the 1st century b.c. were so singularly favourable to caesar's ambition. thus after eight years of incoherent struggles, of scattered revolts, and then of more and more energetic efforts, gaul, at last aroused by vercingetorix, for once concentrated her strength, only to perish at alesia, vanquished by roman discipline and struck at from the rear by the conquest of britain (58-50 b.c.). roman gaul. this defeat completely altered the destiny of gaul, and she became one of the principal centres of roman civilization. of the vast celtic empire which had dominated europe nothing now remained but scattered remnants in the farthest corners of the land, refuges for all the vanquished gaels, picts or gauls; and of its civilization there lingered only idioms and dialects--gaelic, pict and gallic--which gradually dropped out of use. during five centuries gaul was unfalteringly loyal to her conquerors; for to conquer is nothing if the conquered be not assimilated by the conqueror, and rome was a past-mistress of this art. the personal charm of caesar and the prestige of rome are not of themselves sufficient to explain this double conquest. the generous and enlightened policy of the imperial administration asked nothing of the people of gaul but military service and the payment of the tax; in return it freed individuals from patronal domination, the people from oligarchic greed or druidic excommunication, and every one in general from material anxiety. petty tyrannies gave place to the great _pax romana_. the julio-claudian dynasty did much to attach the gauls to the empire; they always occupied the first place in the mind of augustus, and the revolt of the aeduan julius sacrovir, provoked by the census of