402 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



Celtic irruption across the Taurine Alps in Italy ; since that 

 event preceded the conquests of the Gauls, B. C. about 600, 

 when tl.ey established themselves in the Cisalpine territory, an 

 event which was said to be the consequence of over population 

 already accumulated in Transalpine Gaul, and therefore at 

 least many generations after their first arrival. Over popula- 

 tion certainly could not well have been the true cause of 

 expatriation ; for several whole tribes of Belgas, and the Allo- 

 brogi, had not yet relinquished the north of the Rhine and 

 Danube. Now these denominations in Theotisk had onlv two 

 meanings; Volke, as before said, denoting a people, in contra- 

 distinction to Geschlecht and Stam, which were applied to 

 homogeneous clans or tribes ; and Gela, Gaul, Gael, by the 

 Celtic nations always understood to designate strangers, 

 foreigners, because most probably they also were partly mixed 

 tribes; the same originally as those who were known by the 

 collective appellations of Belgse, Centomanni, Celtomanni, <Scc, 

 and only bore the general epithet of Gauls among the Celtae 

 properly so called. This appellation was pronounced by them- 

 selves and the Teutonic race, Wael, Welsh, Velsche, only a 

 dialectical variation from Wilci (wolves). If the Gelas of the 

 Caspian coast were of the same stem, we have a geographical 

 indication that the Celto Scythic, or perhaps Cello Finnic 

 tribes, extended so far towards the north-east as the Araxes ; 

 ind though the Phrygian, Gallae, the emasculated priesthood 

 of the Syrian Goddess, renowned for circular dances and 

 "choral songs, may not have been Gallic by race, the presump- 

 tion is, that they, or the institutions they observed, came from 

 the banks of the above named Phrygian rivers, where the 

 whole region was at one time Celtic. To that quarter a Gallic 

 army from the west, having ravaged Greece, was, ages after, 

 again invited, and there the forces, so far from wearing out in 

 a short period, as armies invariably do on all other occasions, 

 they multiplied to a nation, which was still flourishing at the 

 commencement of the Christian era, under the name of Gala- 



