Vascon

The Vascons (Latin : Vascones) were an ancient people who, before the arrival of the Romans, inhabited the region in what is now Spain, north of the Ebro river (present day Navarre). It is likely that they are ancestors of the present-day Basques.

Having suffered defeats at the hands of Pompey and Augustus, they were absorbed into the Roman Empire, under which they may have prospered.

The Vascons were finally forced to retreat from their lands and head northward by the invasion of the Visigoths in the 5th and 6th centuries and to move into what is today Basque country.

From the 6th to 7th centuries, the Vascons north crossed over the Pyrenees into the Aquitaine region of France where they influenced the Occitan language spoken in that region (Gascon) and gave that region its name : Gascony (French: Gascogne).