The internal development of the main parts of Transalpine Gaul, during the times when the Cisalpine country was successively Gallicized and Romanized, cannot be traced in historical records. When the Romans, in the last period of their republic, finally entered the northwest, they found the country occupied by various •tribes, ruled by nobles, priests, and chiefs or kings. Caesar, the conqueror of the people and historian of their last struggles for independence, comprehends all of them under the general name of Gauls, dividing them into three large groups: Belgians, in the northeast, between the Rhine, Seine (Sequana), and Marne (Matrona); Celts, or Gauls proper, in the centre and west, between the Seine, Marne, and Garonne (Garum-na); and Aquitanians, in the southwest, between the Garonne and the Pyrenees. In the first of these groups Kymric and Belgic elements seem to have prevailed, in the second Gaelic, in the third Iberic and other non-Celtic elements, though the divisions of Caesar do not fully coincide with the lines of distinction drawn by modern ethnologists.

Among the more important tribes were the Batavi, near the mouths of the Rhine; the Nervii, in the southwest of modern Belgium; the Eburones, about Liege; the Ambiani, about Amiens; the Morini, the remotest of men," about Boulogne; the Atrebates, in Artois; the Bellovaci, about Beauvais; the Suessiones, about Soissons; the Parisii, about Paris (Lutetia); the Remi, in Champagne (Rheims); the Tre-veri, about Treves; the Teutonic Tribocci, Ubii, and Nemetes, on the Rhine; the Eburo-vices, about Evreux; the Cenomani, in Maine; the Armorican Nannetes (Nantes), Veneti (Vannes), and Redones (Rennes), the chief representatives of the Kymric race, in Brittany; the Turones, in Touraine; the Andes or An-degavi, in Anjou; the Carnutes, about Cliartres and Orleans; the Lingones, about Langres; the Senones, about Sens (Agendicum); the Lemo-vices, in Limousin; the Santones, in Saintonge; the Pictones, in Poitou; the Arverni, in Au-vergne; the Helvii, in Vivarais; the Gabali, in Gevaudan; the Aedui, in the region of Autun (Bibracte); the Mandubii, about Alise Ste. Reine (see Alesia); the Insubres, in Lyonnais; the Bituriges, in earlier times a leading tribe, about Bourges (Avaricum); the Sequani, about Besancon (Vesontio); the Helvetii, in Switzerland; the Bituriges Vivisci, about Bordeaux (Burdigala); and the Tarbelli, in Bearn. At the time of Caesar's invasion, the Gauls had towns, and used the art of fortification with success; they had long known the arts of embroidering and working metals, and were regarded as the inventors of various implements of husbandry; the Armoricans possessed a navy; the Gallic country was reputed to be the richest in Europe. But their manners were rude, their speech was rough, milk and swine's flesh were the principal aliments, their villages were disfigured with inhuman trophies, the treatment of captive or slain enemies was barbarous, bloody fights and duels were customary, hounds were used in war, polygamy was not prohibited, and females were little more than slaves; the polytheism which prevailed among the common people, especially among the Gael, was coarse, and human victims were sacrificed to the gods. (See Druids, and Bard.) The remains commemorative of Gallic culture are extremely scanty.

The details of Caesar's conquest of Gaul may be read in his Commentaries." Its chief events are the defeat of the Helvetians near Bibracte, and the expedition against the Suevi under Ariovistus, undertaken on the call of the Aedui, in 58; the conquest of Belgic Gaul, in 57; the invasion of Armorica or Brittany by land and sea, the submission of Aquitania, and the reduction of the wild tribes on the N. W. coast, in 56; the sudden and successful attacks of the Eburones under Ambiorix, and their annihilation, in 54 and 53; the great rising of central Gaul under Vercingetorix, the double blockade at Alesia, and the fall of Avaricum, the last stronghold of the natives, in 52. The loss of the Gauls in these struggles, in which genius and discipline conquered unbridled and tumultuous valor, was little less than a million men. The whole Transalpine country was divided by Augustus into four provinces: Gallia Narbonensis (Narbonne), the former Provincia Romana, Gallia Aquita-nica, Gallia Lugdunensis, and Gallia Belgica, to which were added the later divisions Ger-mania Superior or Prima, and Germania Inferior or Secunda, on the Rhine. Other subsequent divisions are less important.

For more than two centuries after its conquestby Caesar, Gaul remained almost entirely quiet, and its Romanization proceeded rapidly, the national habits and religion retiring by degrees toward the N. W. coast, and eventually finding refuge in the islands beyond it. The history of the country in the times of the Roman emperors, under the latter of whom it was Christianized, belongs to that of Rome. Civil wars and dissensions in the 3d century, and later the invasions of the Alemanni, Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, Huns, and other barbarians, brought about its decay. Clovis made it Frankish. (See France.)-See Desjardins, Geographie de la Gaule, d'apres la table de Peutinger (Paris, 1870.)