CHAP, ix.] IBERIC AND CELTIC RACES IN GAUL. 319 



north-west it extended as far as the ocean, but its 

 northern frontier is undefined, as might be expected from 

 the imperfect sources of accurate geographical knowledge 

 possessed by the Greeks. The rich mines of copper, tin, 

 and lead, might have tempted the adventurers of those 

 days to penetrate into the western Pyrenees ; or sailors 

 returning from the amber coast of the Baltic, or the 

 tin-producing districts of Brittany or of Cornwall, may 

 have brought back news of the Iberic tribes on the coast 

 of Aquitaine ; but the region to the south-west of the 

 great trade route from the Phocaean colony of Marseilles, 

 through Celtic Gaul to Britain, inhabited by warring 

 tribes, is not likely to have been well known to the 

 ancient geographers. Their varying statements as to 

 the northern frontier are justly interpreted by Dr. 

 William Smith "to express the fact in ethnography 

 that the Iberian race extended beyond the boundaries of 

 Spain, and that they were to a great extent intermingled 

 with the Celts in western Europe." 1 In the time of 

 Strabo the Pyrenees formed the northern boundary of 

 Iberia. 



When Caesar conquered Gaul, the Iberian Aquitani 

 possessed the region bounded by the river Garonne, the 

 Cevennes, and the Pyrenees. The subsequent addition 

 by Augustus to Aquitania of the fourteen tribes in- 

 habiting the district between the Garonne and the 

 Loire, was probably due to the fact that their manners 

 and 'ii ;toms were more akin to the Aquitani than 

 to the vjelt^, and that therefore they were more easily 

 governed from the same centre as the former, than 

 from that of the latter. They are considered by Dr. 

 Broca, on ethnological grounds, to be a mixed race, like 



1 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, i. 1078 ; Article "Hispania." 



