Julius Caesar, in the first lines of his Commentaries on the Gallic War, sets the stage for all subsequent historic discussion of Gaul in the 1st century BC: "All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, the third, those who in their own language are called Celts, and in ours, Gauls.All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The river Garonne separates the Gauls from the Aquitani; the Marne and the Seine separate them from the Belgae. Of all these people the bravest are the Belgae. They are the furthest away from the culture and civilized ways of the Roman Province, and are least often visited by the merchants who bring luxuries which tend to make people soft; also they are nearest to the Germans across the Rhine and are continually at war with them."
Greek Colonization of Gaul: When Caesar wrote his Commentaries in 52-50 BC, the Graeco-Roman world had already known Gallic peoples for hundreds of years in both warfare and trade. Between 734-580 BC, Ionian Greeks from Phocaea on the northwest Turkish coast established ports in Mediterranean Gaul to acquire metals and other raw materials. Massalia (Marseille), France's oldest city, was founded ca. 600 BC beside marshy lowlands at the Rhône's mouth to conduct trade with Iron Age settlements upriver. By the late 7th century BC, two other Phocaean sites, St.-Blaise and La Couronne, were established near the mouth of the Rhône, with evidence of coins minted at Massalia, and Greek pottery from Rhodes, Ionia, Athens and Corinth as well as Etruscan ware. Other Greek colonies along the Riviera included Tauroention (Le Brusc), Antipolis (Antibes), Nicaea (Nice), and Olbia. The Phocaeans also founded Aléria on the island of Corsica around 560 BC, where refugees from Massalia fled when invaded by Persians in 544 BC.
Iron Age Commerce: Commerce with the Iberian peninsula was largely controlled by the Phoenicians, who in 814 BC had spread westward from the Levant coast (modern Lebanon) to found Carthage. While the Greeks held Sicily, southern Italy, and northern Mediterranean shipping, Phoenicians dominated the south as far as the Straits of Gibraltar, cutting off Greek access to the Atlantic. Thus, to trade with Iberia's east coast, where ports such as Ampurias were then held by Carthage, Greek merchants in Gaul needed overland routes. Between 600 and 450 BC, Western Hallstatt (Early Iron Age) cultures in Gaul traded widely for Greek, Etruscan, and Massalian luxury items, including amphorae, bronze drinking vessels, and small objects of gold, ivory, and amber often found as grave goods. Greek trade also reached inside the native strongholds, with Greek and Etruscan pottery and Massalian coins found at the Celtic hillfort at Ensérune by 550-425 BC.
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