BOOK III. iii. 30–iv. 33

The frontier between the Spanish and the Gallic provinces is formed by the mountains of the Pyrenees, with headlands projecting into the two seas on either side.

Southern Gaul: its geography, cities and tribes.

IV. The part of the Gauls washed by the Mediterranean is entitled the province of Narbonne, having previously had the name of Bracata From the linen breeches worn by the natives.. It is divided from Italy by the river Var, and by the ranges of the Alps, a very secure protection for the Roman Empire, and from the rest of Gaul on the north by the Cevennes and Jura mountains. Its agriculture, the high repute of its men and manners and the vastness of its wealth make it the equal of any other province: it is, in a word, not so much a province as a part of Italy.

On the coast there is the district of the Sordones, and more inland that of the Consuarani; the rivers are the Tech and the Verdouble, and the towns Elne, the mere shadow of what was once a mighty city, and Castel Roussillon, which has Latin rights. Then come the river Aude, which flows from the Pyrenees through the lake Rubrensis L'Étang de Sigéan., Narbonne, a colony of the tenth legion twelve miles from the sea, and the rivers Hérault and Lez.

Apart from those mentioned there are but few towns, owing to the marshes that fringe the coast. There is Agde, formerly belonging to Marseilles, the district of the Volcae Tectosages and the former site of Rhoda, a colony of Rhodes, that has given its name to the Rhone, the most fertile river of the two Gauls, which rushes from the Alps through the Lake of Geneva, bringing along the sluggish Saône and the Isère and Durance which are as rapid as itself. Of its mouths the two smaller are called Libiea,