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"Ligures in terra cubant ut plurimum; plures ad cava, saxa speluncasque ab natura factas ubi tegantur corpora divertunt," "The Ligurians mostly lie on the bare ground; many of them lodge in bare Caves and Caverns where they are sheltered from the inclemency of the weather."
Were the builders of the dolmens Celts or Gauls, Ligures or Cymri? was Henry Martin right in ascribing to the Cimerii of Scandinavia the erection in the Bronze age of the megaliths of Ireland? Was it the Turanians, with their worship of ancestor's, their respect for the tombs of their forefather's, and their desire to perpetuate their memory to eternity, who set up the dolmens of Brittany?
Of these, Nice, or Nicaea, was one of the most remarkable; so called, in all probability, from the Greek word Nike, signifying Victoria, in consequence of some important victory obtained over the Salii and Ligures, who were the antient inhabitants of this country.
The one composed of the Venetes, the Cremonas, and the Ligures of the Alps, gained over to the Roman cause, opposed with vigour every movement in favour of Hannibal. The other, which included the Ligures of the Apennines, the Insubrians, and the people of the Boian confederation, had embraced the Carthaginian side, but without much ardour. The affairs of Gaul had undergone a great change.
It cannot, however, have been the Ligures, a branch of the great Iberian family, who were totally ignorant of culture, and to whom the builders of the most ancient of the TERREMARES were certainly superior; nor can it have been the Etruscans, for all relics of that race, which are moreover easily recognizable, were found quite apart from the deep deposits containing the TERREMARES. Many indications point to the conclusion that when the Celts came down into Italy their knowledge of metallurgy was already more advanced than that of the builders of the TERREMARES. We are therefore disposed to think with Heilbig, that the TERREMARECOLLI were the Itali, of Arian race, who were the ancestors of the Sabini, Umbri, Osci, and Latins.
"The fortune of Hannibal was then consolidated; more than 60,000 Boians, Insubrians, and Ligures flocked in a few days to his standards, and raised his forces to 100,000 men.
M. Thierry opens his history of the second period with an exceedingly interesting account of the state of Gaul during the second and third centuries before our era. Gaul was then inhabited by three distinct families or races. By the Iberian family divided into the Aquitains and the Ligures. By the Gaulish family divided into the Gauls, the Kimry, and the Belgians.
There they took the name of the Ligures, and established themselves along the whole line of sea-coast from the Pyrenees to the mouth of the Arno.
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