See ITALY, ANCIENT; also, ŒNOTRIANS. IAZYGES, OR JAZYGES, The. See LIMIGANTES. IBERA, Battle at. See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND. IBERIANS, The eastern. "The Sapeires [of Herodotus] appear to be the Iberians of later writers. The name is found under the various forms of Saspeires, Sapeires, Sabeires, or Sabeiri, and Abeires, whence the transition to Iberes is easy. They are always represented as adjoining on the Colchians to the east and southeast, so that they must evidently have inhabited the greater part of the modern province of Georgia. … There is reason to believe that the modern Georgians—still called 'Virk' by their neighbours—are their descendants, and preserve, in the original seat of the nation, a name and a nationality which have defied the destroying touch of time for more than twenty-four centuries." _G. Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, book 7, appendix 1._ See, also, ALARODIANS. If these Iberians of the east were connected in race or origin of name with the Iberians of western Europe, the connection does not seem to have been traced. Iberia was devastated and subjugated by the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century. See TURKS (SELJUKS): A. D. 1063-1073. IBERIANS, The western. "The numerous skulls obtained from Basque cemeteries possess exactly those characters which have been remarked … in the Neolithic tombs and caves in Britain and on the Continent, and may therefore be taken to imply that the Basque-speaking peoples are to be looked upon as a fragment of the race which occupied the British isles, and the area west of the Rhine and north of the Alps, in the Neolithic age. … Nor can there be any reasonable doubt as to this small, dark-haired people being identical with the ancient Iberians of history, who have left their name in the Iberian peninsula [Spain] as a mark of their former dominion in the west. … In ancient times they were spread through Spain as far to the south as the Pillars of Hercules, and as far to the north-east as Germany and Denmark. The Iberic population of the British Isles was apparently preserved from contact with other races throughout the whole of the Neolithic age. On the Continent, however, it is not so; a new set of men, differing in physical characteristics from them, make their appearance. … The new invader is identified by Thurnam and Huxley with the Celtæ of history. … These two races were in possession of Spain during the very earliest times recorded in history, the Iberians occupying the north-western region, and the Celts, or Gauls, extending in a broad band south of the Pyrenees along the Mediterranean shore. … In the north the Vascones then, as now, held the Basque provinces of Spain. The distribution of these two races in Gaul is similar to that which we have noted in Spain.