Prehistoric Iberia and Early history of the Iberian Peninsula

The prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula begins with the arrival of the first hominins 1.2 million years ago and ends with the Punic Wars, when the territory enters the domains of written history. In this long period, some of its most significant landmarks were to host the last stand of the Neanderthal people, to develop some of the most impressive Paleolithic art, alongside southern France, to be the seat of the earliest civilizations of Western Europe and finally to become a most desired colonial objective due to its strategic position and its many mineral riches.

Stone Age/Paleolithic : During this period the stone was widely used to make implements with a sharp edge, a point, or a percussion surface. It lasted roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4500 BC and 2000 BC with the advent of metalworking).

Paleolithic tools (Spanish Museum of Antiquities magazine 1872)

Around 200,000 BC, during the Lower Paleolithic period, Neanderthals first entered the Iberian Peninsula. For a time Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted. Neanderthals continued to exist until around 28,000 BC when Neanderthal man faced extinction, their final refuge has been said to be Gibraltar. Some have also suggested that the newer remains in Iberia suggest Neanderthals were driven out of Central Europe by modern man to the Iberian peninsula where they sought refuge.

Humans vs Neanderthal

Iberia has a wealth of prehistoric sites. Many of the best preserved prehistoric remains are in the Atapuerca region (Modern province of Burgos in Spain), rich with limestone caves that have preserved a million years of human evolution. Among these sites is the cave of Gran Dolina, where six hominin skeletons, dated between 780,000 and 1.2 million years ago, were found in 1994. The complex of caves in Atapuerca were discovered when a railway trench was excavated through them in the mid-19th century.

Atapuerca Mountains served as the preferred occupation site of Homo erectus, Homo antecessor (or Homo erectus antecessor), Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis communities. The earliest specimen so far unearthed and reliably dated confirm an age between 1.2 Million and 630,000 years. Some finds are exhibited in the nearby Museum of Human Evolution, in Burgos.

The Cave of Altamira (Spanish: Cueva de Altamira) is located near the historic town of Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, Spain. It is renowned for prehistoric parietal cave art featuring charcoal drawings and polychrome paintings of contemporary local fauna and human hands. In 2008, researchers using uranium-thorium dating found that the paintings were completed over a period of up to 20,000 years rather than during a comparatively brief period.

Reproduction of a bison of the cave of Altamira

The group of over 700 sites of prehistoric Rock art of the Iberian Mediterranean Basin, also known as Levantine art, were collectively declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1998. The sites are in the eastern part of Spain and contain rock art dating to the Upper Paleolithic or (more likely) Mesolithic periods of the Stone Age. The human figure, which is rare in Paleolithic art, acquires great importance in Levantine Art and is frequently the main theme, and when it appears in the same scene as animals, the human figure runs towards them. The painting known as The Dancers of Cogul is a good example of movement being depicted. The most common scenes at the Levantine Art are of hunting, and there are scenes of battle and dancing, and possibly agricultural tasks and managing domesticated animals. In some scenes gathering honey is shown, most famously at Cuevas de la Araña (modern town of Bicorp in Valencia).

The Dancers of Cogul at the Roca dels Moros (aka Caves of El Cogul, in Catalonia). This site is a rock shelter containing paintings of prehistoric Levantine rock art. Since 1998 these paintings have been protected as part of the Rock art of the Iberian Mediterranean Basin, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Inscriptions in Northeastern Iberian script and in Latin alphabet indicate that the place was used as a sanctuary into Iberian and Roman times.

Humans are naked from the waist up, but women have skirts and men sometimes skirts or gaiters or trousers of some sort, and headdresses and masks are sometimes seen, which may indicate rank or status in a way compared by one researcher to North American Plains Indians; figures sometimes seem to have a deliberate element of caricature.

The last part of the Stone Age is the Neolithic (10,200 BC-4,500 BC) where the beginning of farming commenced. The identifying characteristic of Neolithic technology is the use of polished or ground stone tools, in contrast to the flaked stone tools used during the Paleolithic era. Neolithic people were skilled farmers, manufacturing a range of tools necessary for the tending, harvesting and processing of crops (such as sickle blades and grinding stones) and food production.

Neolithic tools

In the 6th millennium BC, Andalusia experiences the arrival of the first agriculturalists. Their origin is uncertain (though North Africa is a serious candidate) but they arrive with already developed crops (cereals and legumes). The presence of domestic animals instead is unlikely, as only pig and rabbit remains have been found and these could belong to wild animals. The Andalusian Neolithic also influenced other areas, notably Southern Portugal, where, soon after the arrival of agriculture, the first dolmen tombs begin to be built c. 4800 BC, being possibly the oldest of their kind anywhere.

The Dolmen of Menga (Antequera, Spain), a UNESCO heritage, is considered to be the largest megalithic burial in Europe. It is twenty-five metres long, five metres wide and four metres high, and was built with thirty-two megaliths, the largest weighing about 180 tonnes (they are even bigger than thoses in Stonehenge) weighing up to 180 tons and Built in 2500 BC. According to the French author Jean d’ Estienne, in 1878, it could be considered as “the most beautiful and perfect of all known dolmens”.

The Copper Age (The Chalcolithic) was originally defined as a transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. The conventional date for the beginning of Chalcolithic in Iberia is c. 3000 BC. The Chalcolithic or Copper Age is the earliest phase of metallurgy. Copper, silver and gold started to be worked then, though these soft metals could hardly replace stone tools for most purposes. In the Chalcolithic period, copper predominated in metalworking technology. In the following centuries, especially in the south of the peninsula, metal goods, often decorative or ritual, become increasingly common. Because it is characterized by the use of metals, the Copper Age is considered a part of the Bronze Age rather than the Stone Age.

Eventually, c. 2600 BC, urban communities began to appear, again especially in the south. The most important ones are Los Millares in SE Spain and Vila Nova de São Pedro (belonging to modern  Zambujal in Portugal), that can well be called civilizations, even if they lack of the literary component.  Los Millares is the name of a Chalcolithic occupation site 17 km north of Almería, in the municipality of Santa Fe de Mondújar, Andalusia, Spain. The complex was in use from the end of the fourth millennium to the end of the second millennium BC and probably supported somewhere around 1000 people.

A model of the prehistoric town of Los Millares, with its walls.  It was discovered in 1891 during the construction of a railway. It was first excavated by Luis Siret in the succeeding years. Excavations are ongoing.

Bronze Age: During this period it was discovered that adding tin to copper formed bronze (a harder and stronger metal). The center of Bronze Age technology is in the southeast since c. 1800 BC. There the civilization of Los Millares was followed by that of El Argar, initially with no other discontinuity than the displacement of the main urban center some kilometers to the north, the gradual appearance of true bronze and arsenical bronze tools and some greater geographical extension. The Argarian people lived in rather large fortified towns or cities.

El Argar is the type site of an Early Bronze Age culture called the Argaric culture, which flourished from the town of Antas, in what is now the province of Almería, south-east of Spain, between c. 1800 BC and 1300 BC.

Map of Iberian Middle Bronze Age c. 1500 BC, showing the main cultures, the two main cities and the location of strategic tin mines.

The center of the Argaric civilization is displaced to the north and its extension and influence is clearly greater than that of its ancestor. Their mining and metallurgy were quite advanced, with bronze, silver and gold being mined and worked for weapons and jewelry.

The Treasure of Villena (Alicante Province, Valencia) is one of the greatest hoard finds of gold of the European Bronze Age. It comprises 59 objects made of gold, silver, iron and amber with a total weight of almost 10 kilos, 9 of them of 23.5 carat gold. This makes it the most important find of prehistoric gold in the Iberian Peninsula and second in Europe, just behind that from the Royal Graves in Mycenae, Greece. The iron pieces are the oldest found in the Iberian Peninsula and correspond to a stage in which iron was considered to be a precious metal, and so was hoarded. The gold pieces include eleven bowls, three bottles and 28 bracelets.The hoard was found in December 1963 by archaeologist José María Soler 5 km from Villena, and since then has been the main attraction of Villena's Archaeological Museum.

The Iron Age in the Iberian peninsula has two focuses: the Hallstatt-related Iron Age Urnfields of the North-East and the Phoenician colonies of the South. During the Iron Age, considered the protohistory of the territory, the Celts came, in several waves, starting possibly before 600 BC. The Iron age is defined by archaeological convention, and the mere presence of some cast or wrought iron is not sufficient to represent an Iron Age culture; rather, the "Iron Age" begins locally when the production of iron or steel has been brought to the point where iron tools and weapons superior to their bronze equivalents become widespread.

During the 1st millennium BC, in the Bronze Age, the first wave of migrations into Iberia of speakers of Indo-European languages occurred. These were later (7th  and 5th Centuries BC) followed by others that can be identified as Celts.

- yellow: the core Hallstatt territory, expansion before 500 BC
    - light green: maximum Celtic expansion by the 270s BC
        - very light green: Lusitanian area of Iberia, "Celticity" uncertain
   - intermediate green: the boundaries of the six commonly-recognized 'Celtic nations', which remained Celtic speaking throughout the Middle Ages (viz.Brittany, Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man, Ireland, Scotland)
- dark green: areas that remain Celtic-speaking today

Since the late eighth century BC, the Urnfield culture of North-East Iberia began to develop Iron metallurgy and, eventually, elements of the Hallstatt culture (Hallstatt is a village in nowadays Austria). The earliest elements of this culture were found along the lower Ebro river, then gradually expanded upstream to La Rioja and in a hybrid local form to Alava. The Hallstatt culture was based on farming, but metal-working was considerably advanced, and by the end of the period long-range trade within the area and with Mediterranean cultures was economically significant. Social distinctions became increasingly important, with emerging elite classes of chieftains and warriors, and perhaps those with other skills.

After c. 600 BC the Urnfields (Bronze Culture) of the North-East were replaced by the Iberian culture, in a process that wasn't completed until the 4th century BC. This physical separation from their continental relatives would mean that the Celts of the Iberian peninsula never received the cultural influences of La Tène culture, including Druidism.

Phoenicia was an ancient Semitic Canaanite civilization situated on the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent and centered in Lebanon. Their civilization was organized in city-states, similar to those of ancient Greece, centered in modern Lebanon, of which the most notable cities were Tyre, Sidon, Arwad, Berytus, Byblos, and Carthage. The major Phoenician cities were on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC. During the 10th century BC, the first contacts between Phoenicians and Iberia (along the Mediterranean coast) were made. In Iberia the Phoenicians founded colony of Gadir (modern Cádiz) near Tartessos. The foundation of Cádiz, the oldest continuously-inhabited city in western Europe, is traditionally dated to 1104 BC, although, as of 2004, no archaeological discoveries date back further than the 9th century BC. The Phoenicians continued to use Cádiz as a trading post for several centuries leaving a variety of artifacts, most notably a pair of sarcophaguses from around the 4th century BC or 3rd century BC.

Gadir and Sancti Petri during its foundation

Castle of Sancti Petri on the old ruins of the Temple of Hercules Gaditano. This temple was a sanctuary that existed in the ancient Gadeiras Islands, in the waters near the current Island of Sancti Petri (Province of Cadiz). Strabo refers in his work "Geography" that the Tyrian Phoenician merchants founded Gadeira (Cadiz), raising a sanctuary to Melkart. During the Romans it paid tribute to Hercules. It was said that the temple had been founded at the time of the Trojan War at the beginning of the 12th century BC. Tito Livio narrates that Hannibal arrived on the island to offer the god his vows before embarking on the conquest of Italy. In this sanctuary, Julius Caesar had a dream that predicted the Roman dominance of the world after having cried before the bust of Alexander the Great, for having reached his age without having achieved an important success. 

Commercial Network of the Phoenicians

The Phoenicians founded Gadir (modern Cadiz) around 1104 BC, Sexi (modern Almuñecar, Granada) in 800 BC, Malaka (modern Malaga) in 770 BC, Abdera (Adra), Salambina (modern Salobreña), Onuba (modern Huelva) and many other cities.

Phoenicians had great influence on Iberia with the introduction the use of Iron, of the Potter's wheel, the production of olive oil and wine.They were also responsible for the first forms of Iberian writing, had great religious influence and accelerated urban development.

Throughout the Mediterranean coast a large number of fish salting factories of Phoenician origin have been located but they reached its maximum development in Roman domination due to the necessity of consumption of food products in the great cities of the Empire. In Modern Almuñecar (province of Granada,Spain) are the ancient ruins of the Majuelo Fish Salting Factory. It dates from the Phoenician-Punic period of the 4th Century BC and was expanded and revamped during the Roman period. The Majuelo Fish Salting Factory was used by the Romans until the 4th Century AD. The fish salting industry contributed enormously to the Sexi (Almuñecar) economy in these ancient times, where it is often cited in the classical writings. The importance of salting made the production and commercialization of salt one of the priorities of the various powers since the ancient times. The salting fish process consisted of a clearly defined treatment. First the fish was cleaned and torn to pieces, which was done with large knives. The resulting pieces were subsequently salted, an action that was carried out in buckets or large tanks. Once this was done, the product was packaged in amphoraes with a ceramic lid where lime was poured in order to properly sealed. A significant fact for the important of salt is the term "salary" which is derived from the Latin salarium, which in turn comes from "salt" and has its origin in the amount of salt that was given to a worker (particularly the Roman legionaries) to be able to conserve their food (salarium argentum).

As early as 600 BC, Corinthian traders had established a major colony at Massalia (Marseilles) in the south of France, and about 25 years later an offshoot was founded at Emporion (located in the modern province of Girona). Although Emporion was never to acquire the status of Massalia, it became the principal commercial settlement for all the north east, and Greece's major town in the peninsula.  A small settlement called Rhodes (Rosas) across the bay from Emporium played a similar trading role. Like the Phoenicians, the Greeks did not penetrate far inland, but neither did they sail much beyond the straits of Gibraltar. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, apparently after the river Iber (Ebro in Spanish).

Greek (blue) and Phoenician (Red) colonies (wikiwand)

According to Greek mythology adopted by the Etruscans and Romans, when Hercules had to perform twelve labours, one of them (the tenth) was to fetch the Cattle of Geryon of the far West and bring them to Eurystheus; this marked the westward extent of his travels. A lost passage of Pindar quoted by Strabo was the earliest traceable reference in this context: "the pillars which Pindar calls the 'gates of Gades' when he asserts that they are the farthermost limits reached by Heracles.". According to some Roman sources, while on his way to the garden of the Hesperides on the island of Erytheia, Hercules had to cross the mountain that was once Atlas. Instead of climbing the great mountain, Hercules used his superhuman strength to smash through it. By doing so, he connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and formed the Strait of Gibraltar. One part of the split mountain is Gibraltar and the other is either Monte Hacho or Jebel Musa. These two mountains taken together have since then been known as the Pillars of Hercules, though other natural features have been associated with the name. The Pillars appear as supporters of the modern coat of arms of Spain.

Sculpture of Columns of Hercules in Ceuta, Spain. The sculpture is a work by Ginés Serrán Pagán (2007). The two columns are called Ábyla and Calpe, Abyla is the mythological name of Ceuta and Calpe of Gibraltar.

Eventually urban cultures developed in southern Iberia, such as Tartessos, influenced by the Phoenician colonization of coastal Mediterranean Iberia, with strong competition from the Greek colonization. These two processes defined Iberia's cultural landscape - Mediterranean towards the southeast and a Continental in the northwest. The Tartessos developed in the area of modern western Andalusia during the late Bronze age and was characterized by Phoenician influence and using the Tartessian script for its Tartessian language, not related to the Iberian language. The oldest known indigenous texts of Iberia, dated from the 7th to 6th centuries BC, are written in Tartessian.

The Tartessian-Orientalizing culture of southern Iberia actually is the local culture as modified by the increasing influence of Eastern elements, especially Phoenician. Its core area is Western Andalusia, but soon extends to Eastern Andalusia, Extremadura and the Lands of Murcia and Valencia, where a Proto-Orientalizing Tartessian complex, rooted in the local Bronze cultures, can already be defined in the last stages of the Bronze Age (ninth-8th centuries BC), before Phoenician influences can be determined clearly.

Artifacts linked with the Tartessos culture have been found, but the site of the Tartessos' city is lost. In the 6th century BC, Tartessos disappears rather suddenly from history. The Romans called the wide bay the Tartessius Sinus though the city was no more. One theory is that the city had been destroyed by the Carthaginians who wanted to take over the Tartessans' trading routes. Another is that it had been refounded, under obscure conditions, as Carpia. Some believe Tartessos was the source of the legend of Atlantis. The similarities between the two legendary societies certainly make this connection seem possible. Both Atlantis and Tartessos are believed to have been advanced societies who collapsed when their cities were lost beneath the waves.

Approximate extension of the area under Tartessian influence. In blue Greek Colonies, in red phoenician towns

Arganthonios (670 BC - 550 BC) was a king of ancient Tartessos, he ruled Tartessia for 80 years (from about 625 BC to 545 BC) and lived to be 120 years old. This idea of great age and length of reign may result from a succession of kings using the same name or title. Herodotus says that Arganthonios warmly welcomed the first Greeks to reach Iberia, a ship carrying Phocaeans, and urged them fruitlessly to settle in Iberia.  Its reign supposes the apogee of the tartesic culture. The name of Arganthonios (Man of silver) appears in the Greek sources linked to the mining wealth of its kingdom (bronze and silver), with which he gave aid to the Phocians to finance the fortification of Focea against the Persian threat. It is said that he sent up to 1500 kilos of silver to his allies.

In the 6th century BC, the Carthaginians arrived in Iberia, struggling first with the Greeks, and shortly after, with the newly arriving Romans for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).

The Iberians people lived in isolated communities based on a tribal organization. They also had a knowledge of metalworking, including bronze, and agricultural techniques. In the centuries preceding Carthaginian and Roman conquest, Iberian settlements grew in social complexity, exhibiting evidence of social stratification and urbanization.

Ethnology of the Iberian Peninsula c. 300 BC, based on the map by Portuguese archeologist Luís Fraga

Iberian origins are not clear. However it is suggested that they arrived in Spain in the Neolithic period, with their arrival being dated from as early as the 5th millennium BC to the 3rd millennium BC. Most scholars adhering to this theory believe from archaeological, anthropological and genetic evidence that the Iberians came from a region farther east in the Mediterranean (and not from North Africa as other have suggested).

The Turdetani are considered the successors to the people of Tartessos and to have spoken a language closely related to the Tartessian language. They were in contact with their Greek and Carthaginian neighbors. 

In the 1st century BC, Strabo wrote that the northern parts of what are now Navarre (Nafarroa in Basque) and Aragon were inhabited by the Vascones. Despite the evident etymological connection between Vascones and the modern denomination Basque, there is no direct proof that the Vascones were the modern Basques' ancestors or spoke the language that has evolved into modern Basque, although this is strongly suggested both by the historically consistent toponymy of the area and by a few personal names on tombstones dating from the Roman period. 

The Aquitanians are also known as the "Proto-Basque people", and included several tribes, such as the Vascones, who were located at both sides of the western Pyrenees. The German linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt proposed, in the early 19th Century, a thesis in which he stated that the Basque people were Iberians, following some studies that he had conducted.

The Iberian language, like the rest of paleohispanic languages, became extinct by the 1st to 2nd centuries AD,  after being gradually replaced by Latin. Iberian seems to be a language isolate. It is generally considered as a non-Indo-European language. The Iberian scripts are derived partly from the Greek alphabet and the Phoenician alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet, which the Phoenicians adapted from the early West Semitic alphabet, is ultimately derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.The alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, is the oldest verified alphabet. It became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it was adopted and modified by many other cultures.

Iberian Links with other languages have been claimed, but they have not been demonstrated. One such proposed link was with the Basque language, but this theory is also disputed. The proto-Basque or ancient Aquitanian and the Iberian must be languages with very close linguistic relationship. From the epigraphic remains of the Iberian, the proto-Basque and the current Euskera, a series of common elements can be observed. 

Both possess the same rare ergative linguistic system.

     They share the five vowels a, e, i, o, u (that Castilian/Spanish has inherited).
     They use the strong r (inherited by Castilian/Spanish)
     Absence in Iberian or Basque of initial f o r
     Absence of consonant after initial s (inherited by Castilian/Spanish)
     Absence of groups of more than two consonants
     Presence of prefixes i_, b_, ba_, da_
     Presence of suffixes _la. _ra, _k, _ik

Urbanism was important in the Iberian cultural area, especially in the south, where Roman accounts mention hundreds of oppida (fortified towns). In these towns (some quite large, some mere fortified villages) the houses were typically arranged in contiguous blocks, in what seems to be another Urnfield cultural influx. The Iberians also had extensive contact with Greek colonists. The Iberians may have adopted some of the Greeks' artistic techniques. The two most famous pieces that we have of Iberian art are two funerary sculptures, the Dama (Lady) de Elche and the Dama (Lady) de Baza, but both are said to have pronounced Hellenistic features, perhaps due to the influence of the Greek colonies.

Archeology shows its considerable artistic development (dama de Elche or dama de Baza, funerary monument of Pozo Moro, etc), economy concentrated in small cities with a very active trade,
own writing - some 2000 inscriptions are preserved deciphered until today, in a non-Indo-European language - and, on the coastal settlements, notable Hellenic and Phoenician influences.

La Dama de Elche (Lady of Elche). The Lady of Elche is believed to have a direct association with Tanit, the goddess of Carthage, who was worshiped by the Punic-Iberians. It is generally known as an Iberian artifact from the 4th century BC, although the artisanship suggests strong Hellenistic influences. The opening in the rear of the sculpture indicates it may have been used as a funerary urn.  The sculpture was found on 4 August 1897 and bought by a French archaeologist, Pierre Paris. For 40 years the Dama de Elche was exhibited at the Louvre. During the World War II the piece was returned to Spain through an exchange of works.

The Celtiberians were Celtic-speaking people of the Iberian Peninsula in the final centuries BC. These tribes or nation spoke the Celtiberian language. Celtic presence in Iberia likely dates to as early as the 6th century BC, when the castros evinced a new permanence with stone walls and protective ditches.

There is no complete agreement on the exact definition of Celtiberians among classical authors, nor modern scholars. The Ebro river clearly divides the Celtiberian areas from non-Indo-European speaking peoples. In other directions, the demarcation is less clear. Most scholars include the Arevaci, Pellendones, Belli, Titti and Lusones as Celtiberian tribes, and occasionally the Berones, Vaccaei, Carpetani, Olcades or Lobetani.

After the fall of Phoenicia to the Babylonians and Persians, Carthage became the most powerful Phoenician colony in the Mediterranean and the Carthaginians annexed many of the other Phoenician colonies around the coast of the western Mediterranean, such as Hadrumetum and Thapsus. They also annexed territory in Sicily, Africa, Sardinia and in 575 BC, they created colonies on the Iberian peninsula.

After the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War (264–241 BC), the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca crushed a mercenary revolt in Africa and trained a new army consisting of Numidians along with mercenaries and other infantry and in 236 BC, he led an expedition/conquest to Iberia where he hoped to gain a new empire for Carthage to compensate for the territories that had been lost in the recent conflicts with Rome and to serve as a base for vengeance against the Romans. In eight years, by force of arms and diplomacy, he secured an extensive territory in Hispania, but his premature death in battle (228 BC) prevented him from completing the conquest. According to Appian, Hamilcar was thrown from his horse and drowned in a river, but Polybius says he fell in battle in an unknown corner of Iberia against an unnamed tribe.  Legend tells that Hamilcar founded the port of Barcino (deriving its name from the Barca family), which was later adopted and used by the Roman Empire and is, today, the city of Barcelona. Despite the similarities between the name of the Barcid family and that of the modern city, it is usually accepted that the origin of the name "Barcelona" is the Iberian Barkeno.

Hasdrubal the Fair followed Hamilcar in his campaign against the governing aristocracy at Carthage at the close of the First Punic War, and in his subsequent career of conquest in Hispania. In 237 BC, they parted towards the Peninsula and he extended the newly acquired empire by skillful diplomacy, consolidating it by founding the important city and naval base of Qart Hadasht, which the Romans later called Carthago Nova (Cartagena) as the capital of the new province, and by establishing a treaty with the Roman Republic which fixed the River Ebro (the classical Iberus) as the boundary between the two powers. This treaty was caused because a Greek colony, Ampurias, and also Iberian Sagunto, fearful of the continuous growth of Punic power in Iberia, asked Rome for help. Hasdrubal accepted reluctantly, as Punic dominion in Iberia was not yet sufficiently established to jeopardise its future expansion in a premature conflict.  Seven years after Hamilcar's death, Hasdrubal the Fair was assassinated in 221 BC by a slave of the Celtic king Tagus, who thus avenged the death of his own master.

Next to the city of Carthago the rich mines of La Union provided rich recourses to the Carthaginian. These materials and the esparto were the main resources of Carthaginian economy. In spite of that fact, the mining activities were not more relevant until the Roman Hispania period. In fact the rich mines of La Union provided most of the silver and lead needed by the Late Roman Republic.

Hasdrubal's successor was his brother-in-law and the son of Hamilcar, Hannibal Barca.

Upon the assassination of Hasdrubal in 221 BC, Hannibal (now 26 years old) was proclaimed commander-in-chief by the army and confirmed in his appointment by the Carthaginian government. Hannibal is often regarded as one of the greatest military strategists in history and one of the greatest generals of Mediterranean antiquity, together with Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Scipio Africanus. The classical sources (Polybius and Livy) tell us that one time Hamilcar Barca was preparing his expedition to Iberia and the nine year old Hannibal asked to be allowed to accompany him. Hamilcar, the story goes, asked his son put his hand on the sacrificial animal offered on the altar to Baal, and made him swear that he would never be a friend of Rome (Polybius). Livy’s version changes this to “forever being an enemy of Rome,” and although he later accepted Polybius’s wording, the harm was done. There is only a small step from forever being an enemy to eternal enmity and, consequently, eternal hatred.

Benjamin West - The Oath of Hannibal (1770)

Livy also records that Hannibal married in 221 BC a woman of Castulo (Iberian town near modern Linares), a powerful Spanish city closely allied with Carthage. The Roman epic poet Silius Italicus names her as Imilce.

Imilce was buried in Cástulo, where they erected a funerary statue, probably the one that today stands in the Plaza del Pópulo de Baeza. In 213 BC, Castulo was the site of Hasdrubal Barca's crushing victory over the Roman army with a force of roughly 40,000 Carthaginian troops plus local Iberian mercenaries. Thereafter the Romans made a pact with the residents of city — who then betrayed the Carthaginians — and they became foederati (allied people) of Rome.

After he assumed command, Hannibal spent two years consolidating his holdings and completing the conquest of Hispania, south of the Ebro. In his first campaign, Hannibal attacked and stormed the Olcades' strongest centre, Alithia, which promptly led to their surrender, and brought Punic power close to the River Tagus. His following campaign in 220 BC was against the Vaccaei to the west, where he stormed the Vaccaen strongholds of Helmantice and Arbucala. On his return home, laden with many spoils, a coalition of Spanish tribes, led by the Carpetani, attacked, and Hannibal won his first major battlefield success and showed off his tactical skills at the battle of the River Tagus.

However, Rome, fearing the growing strength of Hannibal in Iberia, made an alliance with the city of Saguntum, which lay a considerable distance south of the River Ebro and claimed the city as its protectorate. Hannibal not only perceived this as a breach of the treaty signed with Hasdrubal, but as he was already planning an attack on Rome, this was his way to start the war. So he laid siege to the city, which fell after eight months.

Campaigns of Hannibal Barca in the central plateau

During Hannibal's assault on Saguntum in 219 BC, he suffered some losses due to the extensive fortifications and the tenacity of the defending Saguntines, but his troops stormed and destroyed the city's defenses one at a time. Hannibal was even severely wounded by a javelin, and fighting was stopped for a few weeks whilst he recovered. Legend says that the Saguntines after not receiving the help of the Romans, refused to surrender and decided to light a large bonfire and throw themselves at it.

Francisco Domingo Marques - The Final Day Of Sagunto in 219BC (1869)

The battle is mainly remembered today because it triggered one of the most important wars of antiquity, the Second Punic War.  Hannibal now had a base of operations from which he could supply his forces with food and extra troops.

In the Second Punic War (218–202 BC), Hannibal marched his armies, which included Iberians, from Africa through Iberia to cross the Alps and attack the Romans in Italy. The Iberians were placed under Carthaginian rule for a short time between the First and Second Punic Wars. They supplied troops to Hannibal's army. Hannibal crossed the Alps, surmounting the difficulties of climate and terrain, and the guerrilla tactics of the native tribes. His exact route is disputed. Hannibal arrived with either 20,000 or 28,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and 37 elephants in the territory of the Taurini, in what is now Piedmont, northern Italy.

Hannibal surprised the Romans by marching his army overland from Iberia to cross the Alps and invade Roman Italy, followed by his reinforcement by Gallic allies and crushing victories over Roman armies at Trebia in 218 and on the shores of Lake Trasimene in 217. Moving to southern Italy in 216, Hannibal at Cannae annihilated the largest army the Romans had ever assembled. After the death or imprisonment of 130,000 Roman troops in two years, 40% of Rome's Italian allies defected to Carthage, giving her control over most of southern Italy.

Hannibals route of invasion

Macedon and Syracuse joined the Carthaginian side after Cannae and the conflict spread to Greece and Sicily. From 215–210 the Carthaginian army and navy launched repeated amphibious assaults to capture Roman Sicily and Sardinia but were ultimately repulsed. The Romans subsequently conquered the Iberian Peninsula and slowly supplanted the local culture with their own.

The second Punic War was one of the deadliest human conflicts of ancient times. Fought across the entire Western Mediterranean region for 17 years and regarded by ancient historians as the greatest war in history, it was waged with unparalleled resources, skill, and hatred. It saw hundreds of thousands killed, some of the most lethal battles in military history, the destruction of cities, and massacres and enslavement of civilian populations and prisoners of war by both sides.