Essay Introductory to the Archaeology of the fVest of England. 97 



of the rivers falling into the Mediterranean^ from which side the country 

 appears to have been first peopled. 



The Iberi, the primaeval inhabitants of the country, are supposed to 

 have spoken a language of which the Basque is the only representative. 

 Of their race were probably the Turditani, a cultivated and comparatively 

 polished people, dwelling round the river Boetis or Guadalquivir. The 

 Iberians seem also to have extended themselves along the southern coast 

 of the yet unpeopled Gaul, as far as the Alps and the mouth of the Arno; 

 whence they were subsequently dispossessed by the Ligurians, a people 

 whose origin is lost in its antiquity. The Iberians also are stated by 

 Thucydides to have peopled Sicily. Superimposed upon the Iberi, having 

 wrested a portion of the peninsula from their rule, was a Celtic colony, 

 which, crossing the Pyrenees from Gaul, seems gradually to have oc- 

 cupied the territory between the Tagus and the Anas, and mingling with 

 the natives, to have formed the Celt-Iberi^ and the Boetic Celtse, a portion 

 of them inhabiting Boetica. 



By degrees the Iberian language has vanished from the peninsula, and it 

 is considered only as highly probable that it is represented by the Basque. 

 The Basque, or Vascon, is spoken on the western Pyrenees, and between 

 these mountains and the Garonne, the ancient Aquitania j names ap- 

 parently belonging to it, are also to be found scattered over the whole 

 extent of country which has been stated as forming Iberia. It should be 

 further observed, that the Basque is utterly unconnected with every other 

 European tongue, and that even its connexion with the great Indo-European 

 stock is to a certain degree obscure. 



Such is the presumed origin of the inhabitants of Spain ; and the Iberians 

 are to be considered as the oldest people of Europe, the first great oflfshoot 

 from the Indo-European stock. We next pass on to Gaul. 



Caesar speaks of Gaul as inhabited by three great nations, the Celtae, 

 Belgae, and Aquitani, differing in language and in customs. The territory 

 of the Aquitani, being as we have seen confined to the lands west of the 

 Garonne, occupied but a small portion of Gaul, which may therefore be 

 considered as chiefly inhabited by Celtae and Belgae. 



The Celtse occupied the larger territory, their boundaries were the Seine, 

 the Maine, the Garonne, the Upper Rhine, and the Mediterranean sea. 

 The territory of the Belgae was confined between the Lower Rhine and the 

 Seine, and lay to the north. The Celtae, probably from their central 

 situation, are said to have mingled but little vvith foreign nations; but the 

 Belgae had intermarried with the Trans-Rhenane Germans, and the Aqui- 

 tanians were closely connected with the inhabitants of the peninsula. 



Strabo, who adopted the above division of Caesar, carries the Belgae 

 along the northern coast of Gaul beyond the Seine to tiie Loire, and speaks 

 of those lying between the two rivers as paroceanitic or maritime Belgae. 



The epithet " Celtic," from the great preponderance of the Celtic terri- 



