GAUL, GALLIA, the country of the Gauls, which extended in the times of the Romans, from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, and on the side of Italy, beyond the Alps to the Adriatic. It was divided into Gaul on this side (the Italian side) of the Alps (Gallia Cisalpina), and Gaul beyond the Alps (Gallia Transalpina).
Gallia Cisalpina, which extended from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea, and consequently com prised all Upper Italy as far as the Rubicon and Macra, on account of its adoption of the Roman toga was called Gallia Togata. It was divided into Liguria; Gallia Transpadana; Gallia Cispa dana. Liguria was inhabited by the Ligurians, Gallia Transpadana principally by the Taurin ians, Insubrians, and Cenomani; Gallia Cispa dana by the Boii, Senones, and Lingones, all of them nations of Gallic descent.
Transalpine Gaul was also called Gallia Comata in distinction from Gallia Togata, be cause the inhabitants wore their hair• (coma) long, or Gallia Braccata, because, particularly in the southern parts, they wore a peculiar kind of Caesar, who conquered Transalpine Gaul at a later period, found it divided into three parts: Aquitania, extending from the Pyrenees to the Garonne, chiefly occu pied by Iberian tribes; Gallia Celtica, from the Garonne to the Seine and Marne; Gallia Belgica, in the north, extending to the Rhine.
The Gauls were the chief branch of the great original stock of Celts. On the whole, a strong resemblance appears to have existed among all the Celts. And although they were divided into numerous tribes, there were but few branches that were perceptibly different from each other. It is probable that coming from the east, they took their way along the south side of the Danube, having the numerous nation of the Thracians in their rear and the Germans on their side; but the period of this event is so re mote that we cannot even venture a conjecture in regard to it.
A too great population (which is not un common in half savage and partly nomadic nations whose means of supplying their wants are very imperfect, and who require a great extent of country), and the pressure of Ger man and Thracian tribes, caused general migra tions among the Gauls about 397 B.C. Colonies from many tribes took their course over the Alps into Italy, and eastward along the Danube. This passage of the Celtic Gauls over
the Alps first brings that nation into the region of history.
Our accounts of the course of the eastern Gauls along the banks of the Danube are very imperfect. This, however, is evident, that their movements occasioned the migrations of whole nations. One hundred years after the burn ing of Rome, the eastern Gauls, from 280-278 B.C., made three destructive irruptions into Macedonia and Greece, which had already been depopulated by former wars. Ptolemy Cerau nus, king of Macedonia, and Sosthenes, . the commander of the army, fell in battle, and Greece trembled. But in an attack on the temple of Apollo at Delphi (which contained immense treasures, but was protected by its situation) the terrors of religion and the as saults of the elements (tempest and hail-storms) came over them; they were defeated, and hunger, cold, and the sword of the Greeks com pleted their destruction. Several tribes pursued their course into Asia, Minor, where, under the name of Galatians, they long retained their na tional peculiarities, and preserved their language even to the latest period of the empire. The reaction of these migrations upon Gaul itself appears to have been considerable. The Gauls along the banks of the Danube and in the south of Germany disappear from that time. Tribes of German origin occupy the whole country as far as the Rhine, and even beyond that river. The Belgae, who were partly Ger man, occupied the northern part of Gaul, from the Seine and Marne to the British Channel and the Rhine, from whence colonists passed over into Britain, and settled on the coast dis tricts. The Celt in Gaul attained a higher degree of cultivation, to which probably their intercourse with the Greeks in Massilia (Mar seilles), whose letters they used in writing their own language, and with the Carthaginians, in whose armies they frequently served as mer cenaries, contributed in a great measure. But they were then hardly able to resist the Ger mans who lived on the other bank of the Rhine. Their kinsmen, the Britons, who fought from chariots, and practised polygamy, were more fierce than the Gauls.