AQUITANIA. This was, in the time of Julius Caesar, the name given to that part of Gallia which lay between the Garumna and the Pyrenees, and was inhabited by a race distinct from the Celtae. According to Bial and Bello-guet, Aquitani is probably a form of Auscetani, a Hispanic lengthening of Ausces (Ausks, Wasks, Basques), and Aquitania would thus be radically identical with Gascony (Wasconia), a word of much later introduction into geographical nomenclature. Though the greater proportion of the Aquitanian tribes made submission to Caesar, it was not till 28 b.c. that the region was fairly brought under the Boman yoke by Μ. Valerius Messala. In keeping with the imperial policy of denationalisation, the term Aquitania was extended, in the division of Gallia under Augustus, to the whole stretch of country south and east of the continuous course of the Loire and the Allier, and thus ceased to be of ethnographical import. In the 3d century after Christ this extended Aquitania was divided into three parts. Aquitania Prima consisted of the eastern portion of the district between the Loire and the Garonne; Aquitania Secunda, of the western part of the same district; and Aquitania Tertia or N^ovempopulania, of the region between the Pyrenees and the Garonne, or the original Aquitania. Like the rest of Gau], Aquitania absorbed a large measure of Roman civilisation which continued to distinguish the district down to a late period. In the 5th century the Visigoths established themselves in Aquitania Secunda, and in some cantons of Narbonensis Prima and Novempopulania. As their power also included Spain, it was usual to speak of their Gallic possessions as Spain likewise. The Merovingian kings extended their authority nominally to the Pyrenees; but as Guizot has remarked {Essais, ...