sated by an accession of territory towards the North.
The confines of Grenada and Andalusia correspond with those of ancient
Baetica. The remainder of Spain, Gallicia, and the Asturias, Biscay, and
Navarre, Leon, and the two Castiles, Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, and
Arragon, all contributed to form the third and most considerable of the
Roman governments, which, from the name of its capital, was styled the
province of Tarragona. [70] Of the native barbarians, the Celtiberians
were the most powerful, as the Cantabrians and Asturians proved the most
obstinate. Confident in the strength of their mountains, they were the
last who submitted to the arms of Rome, and the first who threw off the
yoke of the Arabs.
[Footnote 70: See Strabo, l. ii. It is natural enough to suppose, that
Arragon is derived from Tarraconensis, and several moderns who have
written in Latin use those words as synonymous. It is, however, certain,
that the Arragon, a little stream which falls from the Pyrenees into the
Ebro, first gave its name to a country, and gradually to a kingdom. See
d'Anville, Geographie du Moyen Age, p. 181.]
Ancient Gaul, as it contained the whole country between the Pyrenees,
the Alps, the Rhine, and the Ocean, was of greater extent than modern
France. To the dominions of that powerful monarchy, with its recent
acquisitions of Alsace and Lorraine, we must add the duchy of Savoy,
the cantons of Switzerland, the four electorates of the Rhine, and the
territories of Liege, Luxemburgh, Hainault, Flanders, and Brabant.
When Augustus gave laws to the conquests of his father, he introduced a
division of Gaul, equally adapted to the progress of the legions, to the
course of the rivers, and to the principal national distinctions, which
had comprehended above a hundred independent states. [71] The sea-coast
of the Mediterranean, Languedoc, Provence, and Dauphine, received their
provincial appellation from the colony of Narbonne. The government
of Aquitaine was extended from the Pyrenees to the Loire. The country
between the Loire and the Seine was styled the Celtic Gaul, and soon
borrowed a new denomination from the celebrated colony of Lugdunum, or
Lyons. The Belgic lay beyond the Seine, and in more ancient times had
been bounded only by the Rhine; but a little before the age of Caesar,
the Germans, abusing their superiority of valor, had occupied a
considerable portion of the Belgic territory. The Roman conquerors very
eagerly emb
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