The lands within the Alps may be fairly said to have been conquered by Rome in self-defence, and we cannot help looking on the three great islands as natural parts of an Italian dominion. The conquests of the Romans in lands altogether beyond their own borders may be said to have begun in Western Europe with the conquest of _Spain_, which began before that of Transalpine Gaul. ♦Connexion of Spain and Gaul.♦ Spain and Gaul, using the names in the geographical sense, have much which binds them together. ♦Iberians in Spain.♦ On the borders of the two countries traces are still left of the old non-Aryan inhabitants who still speak the Basque language. These represent the old _Iberian_ inhabitants of Spain and Gaul, who, when our history begins, stretched as far into Gaul as the Garonne. ♦Celts.♦ But the _Celts_, the first wave of the Aryan migration in Europe, had pressed into both Gaul and Spain; in Gaul they had, when trustworthy history begins, already occupied by far the greater part of the country. ♦Greek and♦ The Mediterranean coasts of Gaul and Spain were also connected together by the sprinkling of Greek colonies along those shores, of which _Massalia_ was the head. And, beside the primitive non-Aryan element, there was an intrusive non-Aryan element also. ♦Phœnician settlements.♦ In southern Spain several Phœnician settlements had been made, the chief of which was _Gades_ or _Cadiz_, beyond the straits, the one great Phœnician city on the Ocean. And between the first and second Punic wars Carthage obtained a large Spanish dominion, of which _New Carthage_ or _Carthagena_ was the capital. It was the presence of these last settlements which first brought Spain under the Roman dominion. ♦First Roman province in Spain.♦ _Saguntum_ was an ally of Rome, and its taking by Hannibal was the beginning of the second Punic war. ♦B.C. 218-206.♦ The campaigns of the Scipios during that war led to the gradual conquest of the whole country. ♦B.C. 49.♦ The Carthaginian possessions first became a Roman province, while Gades became a favoured ally of Rome, and at last was admitted to the full Roman franchise. ♦B.C. 133.♦ Meanwhile, the gradual conquest of the rest of the country went on, till, after the taking of _Numantia_, all Spain, except the remote tribes in the north-west, had become a Roman possession. ♦Final conquest. B.C. 19.♦ These tribes, the _Cantabrians_ and their neighbours, were not fully subdued till the time of Augustus. ♦Romanization of Spain.♦ But long before that time the Latin language and Roman manners had been fast spreading through the country, and in Augustus’ time southern Spain was altogether Romanized. It was only in a small district close to the Pyrenees that the ancient language held out, as it has done ever since. ♦Transalpine Gaul.♦