ceived that it arose' in-the. country of the Célti, where likewise
was Pyrene. “ The river Ister,” says the-father of history,
| beginning from the Celti and the city Pyrene, divides-Mid-
Europe, (the Celti being beyond the Pillars of Hercules and
bordering upon the Cynesians, who live thel^ast of all in
Europe towards the west,) and having measured all Europe,
as far as the Istrians, a colony of, the Milesians, flowing into
the sea of the Euxine Pontus, there terminates.” In another
place he says, “ The Ister measures all Europe, takinglits
beginning from the country of the Celti, who. are the Jis't. of
all in Europe, next to the Cynetæ, towards the setting of. the
sfn ; and haviqg measured all Europe, it enters 4he siidbslof
Scythia.”*
AristotLe.f had nearly the same geographical notions and
errors as Herodotus, in relation to-this usubject. He says,
“ Out of Pyrene, which is a mountain of Celtiea, looking
towards the south-west, flow the Ister and the TartesstCSf.V
These writers appear to have had a correct ideamfithe,&itua;tiqh.
of the Pyrenees and of the Celt® to the northward- of
them, but they erred in supposing the ^fprqe. of &Jhe’
Danube to be much more to the southward, than it^reallytd*
Aristotle, in a different work, speaks of Scythia and Celtiea
as cold, countries where asses cannot exist. “ Neither, 4 hé
repeats, “ among .theCelti who dwelljabove Spain are-api-^
mais of that kind found.”£ He says that “ from Italy they
make a why to extend as far as Celtiea and the iCéltô-Ligu-
rians. They call it Heraclea.§ This is an allusion to th e old
fiction of the joumey of Hercules into Italy. These Celto-Li-
gurians, by the most ancient Greeks, called Ligyes, were, as
Ritson observes, the inhabitants of that part of Transalpine
Gaul, which, in the time of Strabo, belonged to the Massillians.
Diodorus likewise, who, often gives the opinions of times long
antecedent to his own, says that those who hold the interior
parts above the Massillians and the-inhabitants of tile country
* I t is unknown who were the Cynetæ ; some conjecture that they were the Iberians,
of whom the Comsci were a tribe inhabiting the south of Spain.
+ Aristot. Meteor? hb. i. c. 13. Ritson’s Memoirs of the Celts, p. 7 .
$ T>e Generat. Animal. lib. viii. e . 2 8 .
.§ Aristot. de Mirabilibus.
about’the.Alps and on the hither side of the Pyrenean mountains,
are the people named Celts.”*
It appears from these passages, that the original Celtiea of
the Greeks was -the southern tract of Gaul, reaching from
jjfhe Pyrenees and the Bay oof Biscay do the Alps, and
that the region-so termed had afterwards © an indefinite exten-
sion towards the north.
The.Romans .were well acquainted with the Cisalpine Gauls
in thejcourse of the long wars which, commenced with the
j^ta-ck upon, Rome and ^terminated in the subjugation of
ItalianiGaul. Theyowere aware of the identity of these Gauls
wipif tb e i Celti of the - Massilians. <■ The Greek writers
.call both., by. the name of KekroL Polybius says that the
ICfelti inhabit-,dhe neighbourhood; of Narbo and thence to the
»Pyrenees, .and in another.passage thait the Carthaginians had
gpbdued all the;‘c;®aSt-of Iberia or o.f Spain un|p tho'se rocks by
whkh^^ilminate^at the fseatihe Pyrenean mountains: these
; m o i u n t a i n ' s t h e Iberians from the,Celts.+ This re-
ffers/.to the Mediterranean, coast and the extremity of the
Py^a%an<chain adjOmiihg it. We know that-on the northern
part of this'-chUin the Iberi-reaehfedgi-nto Gaul/or rather into
Aquitaine."
Th^ijlgncipal nations-of Gauls known .at. that time and in
the immediately: following^n^fedsM) the Greeks and Romans^
»fere /the., tribes of Vole®* in ;, th;e,,country between Spain
K&d.the Rhone/ and the Salyes or Salluvians, i i ^ , t ^ region
between the Rhone, and Italy. To these nations the name of
Celt® or rather Celti—^ r o ^ a n d Galli appears to have been
Ifirst given. -
*V-C®sar, in dividingthe remaining inhabitants of G a u l|^ yet
»unconquered by the Romans, into three nations, and appropriating
to one of. them the name of Gafli, "identifier, this
particular nation ,.with the previously known Gauls or Celti, in
the* Cisalpine, and, the Province. ■ When l|g* said that the
Romans termed .them Galli and they themselves Celt®, his
statement wduld probabl^have been more correct, had he re-
■ * Diodor. Bibl.-V./c» 32. Ritson’s Memoirs of the Celts:
t Polybvlib^.^n^M