Gallia Comata

Gaul () was a region of Western Europe first clearly described by the Romans, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Northern Italy. It covered an area of . According to Julius Caesar, who took control of the region on behalf of the Roman Republic, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Belgica, and Aquitania. Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture during the 5th to 1st centuries BC. This material culture was found throughout Gaul and as far east as modern-day southern Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.

Warbands led by the Gaul Brennos sacked Rome in 387 BC, becoming the only time Rome was conquered by a foreign enemy in 800 years. However, Gallia Cisalpina was conquered by the Romans in 204 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 103 BC. Julius Caesar finally subdued the largest part of Gaul in his campaigns from 58 to 51 BC. Roman control of Gaul lasted for five centuries, until the last Roman rump state, the Domain of Soissons, fell to the Franks in AD 486.

While the Gauls shifted from a primarily Celtic culture during Late Antiquity, becoming amalgamated into a Gallo-Roman culture, ''Gallia'' remained the conventional name of the territory throughout the Early Middle Ages, until it acquired a new identity as the Capetian Kingdom of France in the high medieval period. ''Gallia'' remains a name of France in modern Greek (Γαλλία) and modern Latin (besides the alternatives ''Francia'' and ''Francogallia'').

Etymology

The Greek and Latin names ''Galatia'' (first attested by Timaeus of Tauromenium in the 4th century BC) and ''Gallia'' are ultimately derived from a Celtic ethnic term or clan ''Gal(a)-to-''. The ''Galli'' of ''Gallia Celtica'' were reported to refer to themselves as ''Celtae'' by Caesar. Hellenistic etymology connected the name of the Galatians (Γαλάται, ''Galátai'') to the supposedly "milk-white" skin (γάλα, ''gála'' "milk") of the Gauls. Modern researchers say it is related to Welsh ''gallu'', , "capacity, power", thus meaning "powerful people".

Despite its superficial similarity, the normal English translation of ''Gallia'' since the Middle Ages, ''Gaul'', has a different origin than the Latin term. It stems from the French ''Gaule'', deriving from the Old Frankish ''*Walholant'' (via a Latinized form ''*Walula''), literally the "Land of the Foreigners/Romans". ''*Walho-'' is a reflex of the Proto-Germanic ''*walhaz'', "foreigner, Romanized person", an exonym applied by Germanic speakers to Celts and Latin-speaking people indiscriminately. It is cognate with the names Wales, Cornwall, Wallonia, and Wallachia. The Germanic ''w-'' is regularly rendered as ''gu-'' / ''g-'' in French (cf. ''guerre'' "war", ''garder'' "ward", ''Guillaume'' "William"), and the historic diphthong ''au'' is the regular outcome of ''al'' before a following consonant (cf. ''cheval'' ~ ''chevaux''). French ''Gaule'' or ''Gaulle'' cannot be derived from Latin ''Gallia'', since ''g'' would become ''j'' before ''a'' (cf. ''gamba'' > ''jambe''), and the diphthong ''au'' would be unexplained; the regular outcome of Latin ''Gallia'' is ''Jaille'' in French, which is found in several western place names, such as, La Jaille-Yvon and Saint-Mars-la-Jaille.''Nouveau dictionnaire étymologique et historique'' (Larousse 1990), p. 336. Proto-Germanic ''*walha'' is derived ultimately from the name of the Volcae.

Also unrelated, in spite of superficial similarity, is the name ''Gael''. The Irish word ''gall'' did originally mean "a Gaul", i.e. an inhabitant of Gaul, but its meaning was later widened to "foreigner", to describe the Vikings, and later still the Normans. The dichotomic words ''gael'' and ''gall'' are sometimes used together for contrast, for instance in the 12th-century book ''Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib''.

As adjectives, English has the two variants: ''Gaulish'' and ''Gallic''. The two adjectives are used synonymously, as "pertaining to Gaul or the Gauls", although the Celtic language group once spoken in Gaul is predominantly known as Gaulish.

History

Pre-Roman

There is little written information concerning the peoples that inhabited the regions of Gaul, save what can be gleaned from coins. Therefore, the early history of the Gauls is predominantly a matter of archaeology, and the relationships between their material culture, genetic relationships (the study of which has been aided, in recent years, through the field of archaeogenetics) and linguistic divisions rarely coincide.

Before the rapid spread of the La Tène culture in the 5th to 4th centuries BC, the territory of eastern and southern France already participated in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture ( to 8th centuries BC) out of which the early iron-working Hallstatt culture (7th to 6th centuries BC) would develop. By 500 BC, there is strong Hallstatt influence throughout most of France (except for the Alps and the extreme north-west).

Out of this Hallstatt background, the La Tène culture arose during the 7th and 6th century BC, presumably representing an early form of Continental Celtic culture and likely under Mediterranean influence from the Greek, Phoenician, and Etruscan civilizations. This culture spread out along the Seine, the Middle Rhine and the upper Elbe. By the late 5th century BC, La Tène influence spread rapidly across the entire territory of Gaul. The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) not only in France but also what is now Switzerland, northern Italy, Austria, southern Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia and Hungary. A major archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain in the Bronze Age, during the 500-year period from 1300 to 800 BC. The newcomers were genetically most closely related to ancient individuals from Gaul. The authors describe this as a "plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain".

The major source of early information on the Celts of Gaul is Poseidonios of Apamea, whose writings were quoted by Timagenes, Julius Caesar, the Sicilian Greek Diodorus Siculus, and the Greek geographer Strabo. In the 4th and early 3rd century BC, Gallic clan confederations expanded far beyond the territory of what would become Roman Gaul (which defines usage of the term "Gaul" today), into Pannonia, Illyria, northern Italy, Transylvania and even Asia Minor. By the 2nd century BC, the Romans described Gallia Transalpina as distinct from Gallia Cisalpina. In his ''Gallic Wars'', Julius Caesar distinguishes among three ethnic groups in Gaul: the Belgae in the north (roughly between the Rhine and the Seine), the Celtae in the center and in Armorica, and the Aquitani in the southwest, the southeast being already colonized by the Romans. While some scholars believe the Belgae north of the Somme were a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements, their ethnic affiliations have not been definitively resolved.

In addition to the Gauls, there were other peoples living in Gaul, such as the Greeks and Phoenicians who had established outposts such as Massilia (present-day Marseille) along the Mediterranean coast. Also, along the southeastern French Mediterranean coast, the Ligures had merged with the Celts to form a Celto-Ligurian culture.

Roman conquest

In the 2nd century BC Mediterranean Gaul had an extensive urban fabric and was prosperous. Archeologists know of cities in northern Gaul including the Biturigian capital of Avaricum (Bourges), Cenabum (Orléans

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