The Spirit of Catalonia [antikvár]

I Astride the Pyrenees The ancestors of the people dealt with in this book were Pyreneans, Iberians, Celts, Greeks, Romans and Visigoths. They lived in the southern part of Gaul and northern part of the Iberian peninsula: that is, the large area between the Loire in the North, the Ebro in the South, the Alps in the East, and the Can-tabric Sea in the West. Its geographical nucleus was the town of Narbonne, centre of the Roman administration for more than five centuries; in the extreme South was the town of Tarraco, the capital of the Roman province of Tarraconensis. Later, when the barbarians of the North invaded the decrepit Roman Empire, they made Toulouse—farther West—their capital. As for the more remote ancestors of this people, we know that the races which migrated from Africa, Europe, or Asia always spread very evenly over the South of Gaul and the North of the Iberian peninsula. In fact there was no geographical obstacle to their great invasions; this calls for an explanation, since the reader may think of the Pyrenees as a barrier between the middle and the southern parts of the area with which we are concerned. The Pyrenees may be divided into three sections: the centre of the range which is very difficult of access, and the two sections at the ends with passes open even in the coldest winter. Towards the Mediterranean end of the mountains, there are four routes linking the plains on either side. Iberians, Greeks, Celts, Carthaginians, Romans and Goths—none of them were ever checked by the Mediterranean Section of the Pyrenees; rather is it probable that the passes lured them on to the plains i