south of France, on the other hand, as far as it was once inhabited by Aquitanians, Iberians, and Ligurians, the people speak Provençal, while the north of France, which was once inhabited by Celts, has a different dialect. This Romano-French, which has grown on Celtic ground, extends all over Savoy as far as Aosta, and shows that the country was originally inhabited by Celts. The Alpine tribes in those parts were not completely subdued until the time of Augustus. During the period of the decline of the Etruscans, the Ligurians spread far into the interior of Tuscany; and soon after the Hannibalian war, the Romans came in collision with them, not because they had offended the Romans, but the latter only wanted to gain a passage through their country to Spain. I have already observed that physically we can distinguish the countries once inhabited by Etruscans and Ligurians, and a greater contrast can scarcely exist. In Etruria the powerful cities ruled as sovereigns over all the neighbouring places and extensive territories; the Ligurians, on the other hand, were absolutely democratic, and had scarcely any towns. A port town like Genoa was a small place, but otherwise they lived in villages on the hills and in the valleys; the equality subsisting among them has no parallel anywhere except in modern Europe. They had no slaves; all were thoroughly free, and the Ligurian, working in the sweat of his brow, performed as a free labourer the services which were elsewhere the work of slaves. This difference in character is clearly manifested in the kind of resistance offered to the Romans by the Etruscans and by the Ligurians. For the same reason Charlemagne found it infinitely more difficult to subdue the Saxons and Frisians, for they were free people, and although there were some serfs among them, yet freedom had never been really crushed. The Turingians, on the other hand, who ruled over extensive territories, in which the ancient inhabitants had become serfs, were conquered at a blow; so also the Alemanni, who possessed a large country extending as far as the lower Rhine: they had no basis. As they ruled over serfs, the greater part of the population was foreign and hostile to them. On the other hand, it took centuries to subdue the Obotritae and Slavonians, who defended their own independence. Such, also, was the case of the Ligurians: they consisted of a large number of small tribes, which unfortunately defended themselves each separately. If they had kept together, they would have been invincible, for each of them held out with the most determined perseverance. Their misfortune makes one’s heart ache: they were crushed by the Romans one by one, just as a strong wall is demolished piece by piece. The conquerors were obliged to transplant them into foreign countries; and one of their tribes is said by Pliny to have been transplanted thirty times, in order to break up all connection among them. Many thousands of them were led into southern Italy, and