The internal evidence is wholly of one sort, viz., that which we collect from the names of geographical localities. One of the common terminations in the map of ancient Gaul is the word -briga (as in Eburo-briga), which takes the slightly different forms of -briva, and -brica—Baudo-brica, Samaro-briva. Now compounds of -briga are exceedingly common in Spain. They occur in all the parts to which Celtici or Celtiberi are referred, and in a great many more besides. Hence the internal evidence—as far, at least, as the compounds in -briga are concerned—gives us a larger Keltic area (or more Keltiberians) than the testimony of authors; indeed it gives us the whole of the peninsula except Andalusia, a fact which explains the import of a previous remark as to absence of compounds ending in -briga south of the Sierra Morena. It is rare, too, in Catalonia—perhaps non-existent.
Tested, however, by the presence of the form in question, Valentia on the west, and all Portugal (the ancient Lusitania) on the east, were Keltiberic—as may be seen by reference to any map of ancient Spain.
But there are serious objections to the usual inference from this compound. It is nearly the only geographical term of which the form is Keltic. And this is a remarkable instance of isolation. The terminations -durum, -magus, and -dunum, all of which are far commoner in Gaul than even -briga itself, are nowhere to be found. Neither are the Gallic prefixes, such as tre-, nant-, ver-, &c. Hence, it is strange that, if Spain were Keltic, only one Keltic form should have come down to us. Where are the rest? I am inclined to believe that the inference as to such a Spanish name as, e.g., Talo-briga, being Keltic, on the strength of such undoubted Gallic words as Eboro-briga, is no better than the assertion that the Jewish name Samp-son was in the same category with the English names John-son and Thomp-son would be. Such accidental resemblances are by no means uncommon. The termination -dun is as common in Keltic, as the termination -tun is in German. Yet they are wholly independent formations. At the same time I cannot deny that the internal and external evidence partially support each other.
But there is another series of facts which goes further still to invalidate the belief in the existence of Kelts in Spain. It is this. Instead of the Kelts of Iberia having been Kelts in the modern sense of the term, the Kelts of Gallia were Iberians. This is an unfortunate circumstance. Writers, speakers, journalists, and orators, Ribbonmen and Orangemen, who neither know nor care much about the Natural History of Man, talk about the Keltic stock, or the Keltic race, with a boldness and fluency that, except in the case of the antagonist term Anglo-Saxon, we meet with nowhere else. To read some of the dissertations on Irish misgovernment, or Welsh dissent, one might fancy that an American of Pennsylvania was writing about the aboriginal Indians, or the enslaved negroes—so much is there made of race, and so familiar are even the non-ethnological part of the world with the term. Men know this when they know nothing else.
Great, then, is the actual and practical currency and general recognition of the word; so great that its historical truth, and its theoretical propriety are matters of indifference. Be it ever so incorrect, the time for changing it has gone by. Nevertheless, I think (nay, I am sure) that the word is misapplied.
I think, that though used to denominate the tribe and nations allied to the Gauls, it was, originally, no Gallic word—as little native as Welsh is British.
I also think that even the first populations to which it was applied were other than Keltic in the modern sense of the term.
I think, in short, that it was a word belonging to the Iberian language, applied, until the time of Cæsar at least, to Iberic populations.
The name came from the Greeks of the Gulf of Lyons—the Greeks of Massilia, or of Emporia, more probably the former. Now, as there is express evidence that a little to the west of Marseilles the Ligurian and Iberian areas met, the likelihood of the word belonging to the latter language is considerable.
It is increased by the circumstance of two-thirds, if not more, of the Keltic portion of Gaul being Iberian. Posidonius places the centre of the Keltic country in Provence, near the spot where the Roman settlement of Narbo was built: an Iberian locality. The Kelts of Herodotus are in the neighbourhood of the city called Pyrene; a word which carries us as far westward as the Pyrenees, although its meaning is different. As far as they extended beyond the present provinces of Roussillon and Languedoc, they extended westwards; beyond—according to Herodotus—the Pillars of Hercules, and as far as the frontier of the extreme Kynetæ. Aristotle knew the true meaning of the word Pyrene, i.e., that it denoted a range of mountains; and he also called Pyrene “a mountain of Keltica.” By the time of Cæsar, however, a great number of undoubted Gauls were included under the name Celtæ: in other words, the Iberian name for an Iberian population was first adopted by the Greeks as the name for all the inhabitants of south-western Gaul, and it was then extended by the Romans so as to include all the populations of Gallia except the Belgæ and Aquitanians. The word Celtæ also passed for a native name—“ipsorum lingua Celtæ, nostra Galli appellantur.” Upon this Prichard reasonably remarks, that Cæsar would have written more accurately had he stated that the people whom the Greeks called Κἑλται were Galli in the eyes of a Roman.
But the Greek form for Galli is Γἁλ-αται, a form suspiciously like Κἑλτ-αι. I admit that this engenders a difficulty, since it shows the possibility of the two words being the same. At the same time it can be explained. The ατ in Γἁλ-αται is non-radical. It is the sign of the plural number, as it is in Irish at the present moment; whereas the τ in Κελτ-αι is a part of the root.
And now I have given the additional reason for believing that the so-called Kelts of Spain were no Kelts at all in the modern sense of the word, but only Iberians; and I further suggest the likelihood of the word meaning mountaineer, or something like it, in which case the Kelts of South Gaul must be supposed to be (as they are made by Herodotus and Aristotle) the Pyrenean Iberians, the Celtiberi and Celtici being also the Highlanders of the great central range of Spain, of Gallicia, and of Alemtejo. This, however, is only a suggestion.
Perhaps the point is not very important. Whether we look to the amount of their civilization, to their national temper as shown in the defence of their independence, or to the extent to which they contributed to the literature of the Latin language, there are no very striking differences between the Gaul and the Iberian. Personal heroes like Viriathus and Vercingetorix occur on both sides; whilst Gaul resisted Cæsar by instances of endurance behind stone walls scarcely inferior to the display of obstinate valour at Numantia.
The Gothic conquest of Spain was succeeded, in the eighth century, by one of equal, perhaps, greater, importance. The line it took was from south to north; so that its direction was different from that of the Goths. It was also made by a southern population. The Arabs who effected the first invasion under Musa, were the Arabs of an army; i.e., almost wholly males; probably, too, they were pretty pure in blood. Afterwards, however, larger swarms came over from Africa; and it cannot be doubted that, along with these there were females and families of mixed African as well as of pure Arab descent. The areas which were successively appropriated by these invaders are not exactly those that we expect, à priori. Murcia, or the March, was less modified by the conquest than Valencia and other countries northwards. It was held in a sort of imperfect independence by Theodemir, and under the name of Tadmor, into which that of the Gothic king was metamorphosed by the Arabs, long continued to be the most Gothic part of south-eastern Spain.
In contrast to Grenada, and in consonance with what we expect from their geographical position, were the northern provinces of Asturias, Biscay, Navarre, and Galicia—Galicia, in respect to its ethnology, belonging almost as much to Portugal as to Spain. Into Asturias the