or LAYDES, a tribe of Illyria. See ILLYRIA. IBERUS (now the Ebro), in Ancient Geography, a great river of Spain, rising in the Cantabrian Pyrenees, in the country of the Autricones. Flowing in a S.E. direction, it drains the N.E. corner of the peninsula, and falls into the Mediterranean after a course of about 350 miles. On its left bank it receives the Cinca, the Sicoris (Segre), and the Gallicus or Gallego; and on its right the Salo (Xaleno). It is a much disputed point whether the Iberus gave its name to the Iberi, or took its name from them. That people appear to have occupied, at a very remote period, the whole south of Europe from the Rhone westwards. When the Celts crossed the Pyrenees, they amalgamated to some ex- tent with the holders of the soil, and the result was a race known in history as the Celtiberi. W. von Humboldt, maintaining that the people gave name to the river, asserts that remains of their language are to be found in the Basque still spoken in the Biscayan provinces of Spain, and proves, by philological affinities, the identity between many of their proper names and those of the islands of the western Mediterranean, and many parts of Spain and Southern France.

The name of Iberia was also applied to a district of Asia, corresponding to part of modern Georgia. It was first invaded by the Romans under Lucullus, and seems to have paid a kind of homage to some of the emperors, though it was never fairly incorporated with the Roman dominions. An incidental notice of Strabo describes the country as tolerably well cultivated, and its inhabitants as more civilized than most of the surrounding tribes.