Since 118, the southern part of the country along the seaboard had been a Roman province, called GALLIA NARBONENSIS, from the colony of Narbo which the Romans had founded.

The rest of Gaul included all modern France, and a part of Switzerland, Holland, and Belgium.

The inhabitants were all of the Celtic race, except a few Germans who had crossed the Rhine and settled in the North, and the AQUITANI, who lived in the Southwest and who are represented by the Basques of to-day.
The Gauls were more or less civilized since they had come into contact with the Romans, but they still had the tribal form of government, like the early Romans.

There were more than fifty of these tribes, which were mostly hostile to one another, as well as divided into factions among themselves.

This condition favored a conquest, for the factions were frequently Roman and non-Roman.