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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: GAG-GEO |
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GAUGE, or GAGE (Med. Lat. gauja, jaugia, Fr. jauge, perhaps connected with Fr. jale, a bowl, galon, gallon) , a standard of measurement, and also the name given to various instruments and appliances by which measurement is effected. The word seems to have been primarily used in connexion with the process of ascertaining the contents of wine casks; the name gauger is still applied to certain custom-house officials in the United States, and in Scotland it means an exciseman. Thence it was extended to other measurements, and used of the instruments used in making them or of the standards to which they were referred. In the mechanical arts gauges are employed in great variety to enable the workmen to ascertain whether the object he is making is of the proper dimensions (see Tool), and similar gauges of various forms are employed to ascertain and to specify the sizes of manufactured articles such as wire and screws. A rain gauge is an apparatus for measuring the amount of the rainfall at any locality, and a wind gauge indicates the pressure and force of the wind. The boilers of steam engines are provided with a water gauge and a steam or pressure gauge. The purpose of the former is to enable the attendant to see whether or not there is a sufficient quantity of water in the boiler. It consists of two cocks or taps communicating with the interior, one being placed at the lowest point to which it is permissible for the water to fall, and the other at the point above which it should not rise; a glass tube connects the two cocks, and when they are both open the water in this stands at the same level as in the boiler. The steam gauge shows the pressure of the steam in the boiler. One of the commonest forms, known as the Bourdon gauge, depends on the fact that a curved tube tends to straighten itself if the pressure within it is greater than that outside it. This gauge therefore consists of a curved or coiled tube of. elastic material, and preferably of elliptic section, connected with the boiler and arranged with a multiplying gear so that its bending or unbending actuates a pointer moving over a graduated scale. If the pressure within the tube is less than that outside it, the tube tends to bend or coil itself up further; with a pointer arranged as before, the gauge then becomes a vacuum gauge, indicating how far the pressure in the vessel to which it is attached is below that of the atmosphere. In railway engineering the gauge of a line is the distance between the two rails (see RAILWAY). In nautical Montpellier to the Pyrenees (i.e. all that was not Massiliot) with its port of Narbo (mod. Narbonne) and its trade route by Toulouse to the Atlantic, was formed into the province of Gallia Narbonensis and Narbo itself into a Roman municipality. Commercial motives prompted the step, and Roman traders and land speculators speedily flocked in. Gradually the province was extended north of Massilia, up the Rhone, while the Greek town itself became weak and dependent on Rome. It is not, however, until the middle of the 1st century B.C. that we have any detailed knowledge of pre-Roman Gaul. The earliest account is that contained in the Commentaries of Julius Caesar. According to this authority, Gaul was at that time divided among three peoples, more or less distinct from one another, the Aquitani, the Gauls, who called themselves Celts, and the Belgae. The first of these extended from the Pyrenees to the Garumna (Garonne); the second, from that river to the Sequana (Seine) and its chief
chief
Aedui
Veneti
CELT
The Gallic Wars (5851) of Caesar (q.v.) added all the rest,of Gaul, north-west of the Cevennes, to the Rhine and the Ocean, and in 49 also annexed Massilia. All Gaul was now Roman territory. Now the second period of her history opens; it remained for Roman territory to become romanized. Caesar had no time to organize his conquest; this work was left to Augustus
(i) Narbonensis, that is, the land between Alps, sea and Cevennes, extending up the Rhone to Vienne, was as Augustus
(ii.-iv.) Across the Cevennes lay Caesar's conquests, Atlantic in climate, new to Roman ways. The whole area, often collectively styled " Gallia Comata," often " Tres Provinciae," was divided into three provinces, each under a legatus pro praetore appointed by the emperor, with a common capital at Lugudunuin (Lyons). The three provinces were: Aquitania, reaching from the Pyrenees almost to the Loire; Lugudunensis, the land between Loire and Seine, reaching from Brittany in the west to Lyons in the south-east; and Belgica in the north. The boundaries, it will be observed, were wholly artificial. Here also it was found possible to dispense with garrisons, not because the provinces were as peaceful as Narbonensis, but because the Rhine army was close at hand. As befitted an unromanized region, the local government was unlike that of Italy or Narbonensis. Roman municipalities were not indeed unknown, but very few: the local authorities were the magistrates of the old tribal districts. Local autonomy was here carried to an extreme. But the policy succeeded. The Gauls of the Three Provinces, or some of them, revolted in A.D. 21 under Florus and Sacrovir, in 68 under Vindex, and in 70 under Classicus and Tutor (see Ovals, CLAUDIUS). But all five leaders were romanized nobles, with Roman names and Roman citizenship, and their risings were directed rather against the Roman government than the Roman empire: In general, the Gauls of these provinces accepted Roman civilization more or less rapidly, and in due course became hardly distinguishable from the Italian. In particular, they eagerly accepted the worship of " Augustus and Rome," devised by the first emperor as a bond of state religion connecting the provinces with Rome. Each August, despite the heat, representatives from the 6o (or 64) tribes of Gallia Comata met at Lyons, elected a priest, " sacerdos ad aram Augusti et Romae," and held games. The post of representative, and still more that of priest, was eagerly coveted and provided a scope for the ambitions which despotism usually crushes. It agrees with the vigorous development of this worship that the Three Provinces, though romanized, retained their own local feeling. Even in the 3rd century the cult of Celtic deities (Hercules Magusanus, Deusoniensis, &c.) were revived, the Celtic leuga reintroduced. instead of the Roman mile on official milestones, and a brief effort made to establish an independent, though romanized, Gaul under Postumus and his short-lived successors (A.D. 259273). Not only was the area too large and strong to lose its individuality: it was also too rural and too far from the Mediterranean to be romanized as fully and quickly as Narbonensis. It is even probable that Celtic was spoken in forest districts into the 4th century A.D. Town life, however, grew. The chefs-lieux of the tribes became practically, though not officially, municipalities, and many of these towns reached considerable size and magnificence of public buildings. But they attest their tribal relations by their appellations, which are commonly drawn
(v.) The fifth division of Gaul was the Rhenish military frontier. Augustus had planned the conquest of Germany up to the Elbe. His plans were foiled by the courage of Arminius and the inability of the Roman exchequer to pay a larger army. Instead, his successor Tiberius organized the Rhine frontier in two military districts. The northern one was the valley of the Meuse and that of the Rhine to a point just south of Bonn: the southern was the rest of the Rhine valley to Switzerland. Each district was garrisoned at first by four, later by fewer legions, which were disposed at various times in some of the following fortresses: Vetera (Xanten), Novaesium (Neuss), Bonne (Bonn), Moguntiacum (Mainz), Argentorate (Strassburg) and Vindonissa (Windisch in Switzerland). At first the districts were purely military, were called, after the garrisons, " exercitus Germanicus superior " (south) and "inferior " (north). Later one or two municipalities were foundedColonia Agrippinensis at Cologne (A.D. 51), Colonia Augusta Treverorum at Trier (date uncertain), Colonia Ulpia Traiana outside Veteraand about 8o90 A.D. the two " Exercitus " were turned into the two provinces of Upper and Lower Germany. The armies in these districts formed the defence of Gaul against German invaders. They also helped to keep Gaul itself in order and their presence explains why the four provinces of Gaul proper contained no troops. These provincial divisions were modified by Diocletian but without seriously affecting the life of Gaul. The whole country, indeed, continued Roman and fairly safe from barbarian invasions till after 400. In 407 a multitude of Franks, Vandals, &c., burst over Gaul: Roman rule practically ceased and the three kingdoms of the Visigoths, Burgundians and Franks began to form. There were still a Roman general and Roman troops when Attila was defeated in the campi Catalaunici in A.D. 451, but the general, Aetius, was " the last of the Romans," and in 486 Clovis the Frank ended the last vestige of Roman rule in Gaul. For Roman antiquities in Gaul see, beside articles on the modern towns (ARLES, NIMEs, ORANGE, &c.), BIBRACTE
uteel de Coulanges, Histoire des institutions politiques de l'ancienne France (Paris, 1877); for Caesar's campaigns, article CAESAR, End of Article: GAUGE, or GAGE (Med. Lat. gauja, jaugia, Fr. jauge, perhaps connected with Fr. jale, a bowl, galon, gallon) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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