322 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. ix. 



positions as in Gaul. Just as the Celts pushed back the 

 Iberian population of Gaul as far south as Aquitania, 

 and swept round it into Spain, so they crossed the Chan- 

 nel and overran the greater portion of Britain, until the 

 Silures, 1 identified by Tacitus with the Iberians, were left 

 only in those fastnesses which were subsequently a refuge 

 for the Welsh against the English invaders. And just 

 as the Belgae pressed on the rear of the Celts as far as 

 the Seine, so they followed them ultimately into Britain, 

 and took possession of the Pars Maritima 2 or southern 

 counties. The unsettled condition of the country at the 

 time of Caesar's invasion was due to the struggle then 

 going on. The Iberian population by that time had 

 been driven as far as they could go to the west, not only 

 in Spain and in Gaul, but also in Britain, and were 

 restricted to those areas in which the ethnologist can 

 trace their blood in the present population. Since that 

 time, however, they must have been profoundly affected 

 by the invasions of the various Germanic tribes, who 

 settled in their land, and forced back upon them the 

 Celtic and Belgic peoples, ever pressing them to the 

 west. 



Relation of Iberians to Ligurians and Etruskans. 



Before the Celtic invasion Gaul was inhabited by 

 other tribes than the Iberian. The Ligures dwelt in the 

 district round Marseilles, and held the region between 

 the river Po and the Gulf of Genoa to the western 

 boundary of Etruria, and they extended along the coast 

 of the Mediterranean as far as the Pyrenees, that is to 

 say, over the area included under the name of Iberia in 



1 Agricola, xi. 2 Csesar, i. xii. 



