Caesar represents Gaul as bounded by the Pyrenees, the sea, the Alps and the Rhine. This unfortunate statement about the Rhine has been appealed to as a reason for separating from Germany the country in which we are living, an idea which has taken root in the heads of many men, and is still frequently expressed, especially by Frenchmen, without paying any regard to the fact that this country was inhabited by Germans. The expression of Caesar is nothing else than a loose definition of what in his time was regarded as Gaul, and without making any pretensions to accuracy. For when he says that Gaul consists of Aquitania, Celtica, and Belgium, he employs the name in much too extensive a sense, according to the custom of deriving the name of a country from that of its inhabitants, for Aquitania was Iberian and did not belong to it. On the other hand, the greater part of Britain and Hibernia was likewise inhabited by Gauls, nay, in Caesar’s time, they extended over the south of Germany, while at a somewhat earlier period, in the time of the Cimbri, they not only were in possession of southern Germany and Lombardy, but also of Bohemia and Pannonia, down to the very heart of Thrace, the country of the Ukraine, beyond the river Dniepr, and even a portion of Asia Minor. The Tectosagae, in Asia Minor, were as much Gauls as those on the Rhone. The name Gaul, therefore, is something purely accidental. The Latin terminology, which at an earlier period correctly made Picenum the frontier of Gaul, is in this instance very incorrect in including Belgium as a part of Gaul, whereas it ought to have been called Cimbria, for the Belgae were essentially different from the Gauls.