Gallia Narbonensis

Moreover, since the Northmen continually overran and laid waste the Gallic and German coasts, he caused watch and ward to be kept in all the harbours, and at the mouths of rivers large enough to admit the entrance of vessels, to prevent the enemy from disembarking.

And in the south, in Narbonensis and Septimania, and along the whole coast of Italy, as far as Rome, he took the same precautions against the Moors, who had recently begun their piratical practices.

Hence Italy suffered no great harm in his time at the hands of the Moors, nor Gaul and Germany from the Northmen, save that the Moors got possession of the Etruscan town of Civitavecchia by treachery, and sacked it, and the Northmen harried some of the islands of Frisia off the German coast.

18.

Under the Lex Vatinia he had Cisalpine Gaul, the northern part of Italy below the Alps, and Illyricum across the Adriatic for five years with three legions.

The governor of Transalpine Gaul, Metellus Celer, died and the Senate added that province too, along with one more legion.

So Caesar left Rome with four legions and a stretch of territory running from the Adriatic to the far side of the Alps.

The Senate's choice there is worth a moment.

The reason sources give us is an odd one, that the senators expected the people to hand Caesar the province anyway if they refused, so they granted it themselves.

If some of them had also hoped a difficult province would keep him busy and far away, it worked for a while and then produced the opposite of what they wanted, because Transalpine Gaul bordered the free tribes of Gaul, and a border with no fixed limit gave an ambitious commander something to do with his legions.

Before he left, Caesar tied the alliance together with a marriage, and his daughter Julia married Pompey in 59.

This is the second Julia in our story, and it's worth keeping her separate from the first.

His allotted province was south of the Alps, what's now northern Italy.

North of the Alps was the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, present-day Provence and Languedoc.

That was the limit of the empire.

Beyond it, the Gaulish tribes were causing trouble.

A new Roman governor had already been appointed for Transalpine Gaul, but unfortunately for Caesar, he died on the journey north.

So it now made perfect sense for Caesar to be given that additional province as well, along with command of its troops, and it was that decision that turned Caesar the politician into Caesar the general.

[thud] [upbeat music] The Asterix stories are probably most people's closest contact with Gaulish culture, a general sense of jolly, mead-swilling Gauls giving the Romans the runaround.

What Caesar had to deal with was a major immigration problem.

Furthermore, they would distribute the Roman provinces among themselves.

Antony was to govern Gallia Cisalpina and Gallia Comata, Lepidus took over Gallia Narbonensis, and the two Spains, while Octavian was put in charge of Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia.

Italy remained neutral ground.

Each of the three also assumed a different task.

His objective was to induce the allegiance of the vacillating Aemilius Lepidus and Lucius Plancus, both Caesarean generals who were already stationed in Gaul and had under their command many legions of veterans.

Eventually, Mark Antony was able to enter Gallia Narbonensis unperturbed, with Brutus failing to achieve his main objective of obstructing his passage.

Lepidus, who had previously been in close communication with Cicero, soon confronted Antony.

The two armies lay against each other while a small river ran between the camps.

And this same gossiping chronicler, not the best of authorities it is true, has left us a striking picture of Charlemagne's first experience with the Scandinavian invaders.

Once Charles arrived by chance at a certain maritime town of Gallia Narbonensis.

While he was sitting at dinner and had not been recognized by the townspeople, some northern pirates came to carry on their depredations in that very port.

When the ships were perceived, some thought they were Jewish merchants, some that they were Africans, some Breton, but the wise king knowing from the shape and swiftness of the vessels what sort of crews they carried said to those about him, These ships bear no merchandise but cruel foes.

As it is, the phrases are so similar that very little doubt can be entertained that she was.

Meister, however, maintains that they do not of necessity indicate this district, and that inter alia, as her language exhibits no trace of a Spanish dialect, but distinct traces of that of Gallia Narbonensis, and as she refers to the river Rhone, on page 31, as if it were familiar both to herself and her readers, she came from south-east Gaul, and that her monastery was perhaps at Marseilles or Arles, where there were well-known religious houses in the sixth century, to which he assigned her pilgrimage, viz.

in the first half of the reign of Justinian, died 565.

A considerable portion of Meister's argument rests upon the language used by Etheria.