Then the Romans passed over the Alps, in vited by the people of Massilia (B.c. 154), who sought assistance against their neighbors; but the invaders (lid not cease to interfere with the affairs of Southern Gaul until the entire region from the Alps to the Pyrenees became a Roman province. This was known as Gallia Provincia (Provence), and Narbo became the capital city. The wars of Julius Cesar, which ended with the eighth campaign, in B.C. 50, in the conquest of Gaul, resulted in the formation of a new prov ince, Aquitania. To this province was given the name Gallia Comata, or long-haired Gaul, just as Cisalpine Gaul had been termed Gallia Togata, and the old province Gallia Braccata, from the word bracers, meaning the trousers (breeches) worn by the people. The third period in the his tory of Gaul dates from the time of Augustus, for in B.c. 27 Gaul became a part of the Roman Empire when that Emperor organized the peoples of Gaul in four provinces: Narbonensis, the old province; Aquitania, with the Liger (Loire) as the northern boundary; Lugdunensis, named from the town of Lugdunum (Lyons), between the Loire, the Seine, and the Saone; and Belgica, be tween the Seine and the Rhine, with the North Sea as the northern boundary. This division was not
changed until the fourth century, when Gaul was divided into two great dioceses, the dicecesis Gal liarum and the dicecesis Viennensis. The former was subdivided into eight provinces, and the latter into seven provinces. The Emperor Clau dius did much toward the complete Romanization of Gaul, and later emperors completed what Augustus had begun. In the history of the Imperial period the Gauls had an important part; their fortunes rose and fell with the fortunes of the Roman people.
In the many contests of later Imperial times their land was the scene of conflicts, and when the races of the north and east fought and overcame those of the south, their land was tra versed again and again by great migrations of the Burgundians, Goths, and Franks, until out of the ruin there arose a new empire, and the history of medieval and modern Europe began. See