ABSTRACT
For Strabo, the great geographer (c.64–29 BC), the striking feature of Gaul was its excellent communications. He described it as an isthmus between two seas: the ‘interior’ or Mediterranean Sea and the vast ‘exterior’ Ocean, which could be reached by sailing past Spain and through the gates of Gibraltar, or by crossing Gaul. As he explained,
The riverbeds are by nature so well situated with reference to one another that there is transportation from either sea into the other; for the cargoes are transported only a short distance by land, with an easy transit through the plains, but most of the way they are carried on rivers – on some into the interior, on the others to the sea.
(Strabo, IV, 1, 2)