Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. The origin of the word Hispania is much disputed and the evidence for the various speculations are based merely upon what are at best mere resemblances (likely to be accidental) and the sketchiest of supporting evidence. One theory holds it to be of Punic derivation, from the Phoenician language of colonizing Carthage. It may derive from the Canaanite Hebrew i-shfania meaning "Island of the Hyrax" or "island of the hare" or "
island of the rabbit".
Others derive the word from Phoenician span, meaning "hidden", and make it indicate "a hidden", that is, "a remote", or "far-distant land".
Roman armies invaded Hispania in 218 BC and used it as a training
ground for officers and as a proving ground for tactics during
campaigns against the
Carthaginians, the
Iberians, the
Lusitanians , the
Gallaecians and other
Celts.
It was not until 19 BC that the Roman emperor Augustus (r. 27 BC-AD 14)
was able to complete the conquest (Cantabrian Wars). Until then, much
of Hispania remained autonomous. The conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans took over 200 years.
The Second Punic war began when the general Hannibal's conquered the Roman Iberian city of Saguntum in 219 BC and marched his army overland from Iberia to cross the Alps and invade Roman Italy. At the
Battle of Cissa (218 BC) near Tarraco the roman general
Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus defeated an outnumbered Carthaginian army under Hanno, thus gaining control of the territory north of the Ebro River that Hannibal had just subdued a few months prior in the summer of 218 BC. The
Cornelii were one of
six major patrician families, along with the gentes
Manlia, Fabia, Aemilia, the Claudia, and Valeria, with a record of successful public service in the highest offices extending back at least to the early Roman Republic. The battle of Cissa was the first battle that the Romans had ever fought in Iberia. Roman prestige was established in Iberia, while the Carthaginians had suffered a significant blow. After punishing the officers in charge of the naval contingent for their lax discipline, Scipio and the Roman army wintered at Tarraco. Hasdrubal Barca, the younger brother of Hannibal, retired to Cartagena after garrisoning allied towns south of the Ebro.
The combined Roman and Massalian fleet and army posed a threat to the Carthaginians. In 217 BC, Hasdrubal Barca moved up to engage them at the
Battle of Ebro River. The 40 Carthaginian and Iberian vessels were severely defeated by the 55 Roman and Massalian ships in the second naval engagement of the war, with 29 Carthaginian ships lost. In the aftermath, the Carthaginian forces retreated, but the Romans remained confined to the area between the Ebro and Pyrenees. Hasdrubal was obliged to march back to Cartagena, fearing seaborne attacks on Carthaginian territories. With the Iberian contingent of the Carthaginian navy shattered, Hasdrubal was forced to either call Carthage for reinforcements or build new ships. He did neither.
In 217 BC reinforcements arrived from Italy under the command of
Publius Scipio,
and he and his brother Gnaeus Cornelius are attributed with the
fortification of
Tarraco and the establishment of a military
port. The first mention of Tarraco city is by Pliny the Elder where he
characterizes the city as scipionum opus, "work of Scipio".
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. He then moved continue moving his army to southern Italy where Hannibal at Cannae annihilated the largest army the Romans had ever assembled.
Hasdrubal Barca received orders from Carthage to move into Italy and join up with Hannibal to put pressure on the Romans in their homeland. Hasdrubal demurred, arguing that Carthaginian authority over the Spanish tribes was too fragile and the Roman forces in the area too strong for him to execute the planned movement. Hasdrubal acted by marching into Roman territory in 215 BC, besieged a pro-Roman town at the
battle at Dertosa (modern Tortosa). In this battle, he used his cavalry superiority to clear the field and to envelop the enemy on both sides with his infantry, a tactic that had been very successfully employed in Italy. However, the Romans broke through the thinned-out line in the centre and defeated both wings separately, inflicting severe losses, but not without taking heavy losses themselves. Hasdrubal now had no chance of reinforcing Hannibal in Italy. This battle also demonstrates the danger of implementing the
double envelopment tactic.
The Scipio brothers captured Saguntum in 212 BC. In 211, they hired 20,000 Celtiberian mercenaries to reinforce their army of 30,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry. Observing that the Carthaginian armies were deployed apart from each other, with Hasdrubal Barca and 15,000 troops near Amtorgis, and Mago Barca and Hasdrubal Gisco, both with 10,000 troops, further to the west of Hasdrubal, the Scipio brothers planned to split their forces. Publius Scipio moved 20,000 Roman and allied soldiers to attack Mago Barca near
Castulo, while Gnaeus Scipio took one double legion (10,000 troops) and the mercenaries to attack Hasdrubal Barca. This stratagem resulted in two battles, the
Battle of Castulo and the
Battle of Ilorca, which occurred within a few days of each other, usually combined as the
Battle of the Upper Baetis (211 BC). Both battles ended in complete defeats for the Romans as
Hasdrubal had bribed the Roman mercenaries to desert and return home
without a fight. Publius Cornelius Scipio was killed during the defeat
of his army at the upper Baetis river by the Carthaginians and their
Iberian allies under
Indibilis and
Mandonius. That same year, Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus and
his army were destroyed at Ilorci near Carthago Nova. The details of
these campaigns are not completely known, but it seems that the ultimate
defeat and death of the two Scipiones was due to the desertion of the
Celtiberians, who were bribed by Hasdrubal Barca, Hannibal's brother. Both Scipios were capable commanders, both were consuls, and both were killed in Hispania after their armies had separated.
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| Roman conquest of Spain from 218 to 211 BC |
At the election of a new proconsul for the command of the new army which the Romans resolved to send to Hispania,
Scipio Africanus, the son of Publius Cornelius Scipio, was the only man brave enough to ask for this position, no other candidates wanting the responsibility, considering it a death sentence.
Scipio landed at the mouth of the Ebro and was able to surprise and capture Carthago Nova (New Carthage) in 209 BC, the headquarters of the Carthaginian power in Hispania. He renamed the city from
Qart Hadasht ("
New City") - a name identical to "Carthage" - to
Carthago Nova (literally "
New New City") to distinguish it from the
mother city. He obtained a rich cache of war stores and supplies and an excellent harbour and base of operations. Scipio had the population slaughtered to maximize terror and a vast booty of gold, silver and siege artillery was taken. Scipio's humanitarian conduct toward prisoners and hostages in Hispania helped in portraying the Romans as liberators as opposed to conquerors. Livy tells the story of his troops capturing a beautiful woman, whom they offered to Scipio as a prize of war. Scipio was astonished by her beauty but discovered that the woman was betrothed to a Celtiberian chieftain named Allucius. He returned the woman to her fiancé, along with the money that had been offered by her parents to ransom her. This humanitarian act encouraged local chieftains to both supply and reinforce Scipio's small army. The woman's fiancé, who soon married her, responded by bringing over his tribe to support the Roman armies.
The Roman army then moved south and faced the Punic army of Hasdrubal in the
Battle of Baecula but were not able to prevent him from continuing his march to Italy in order to reinforce his brother Hannibal. This catastrophic defeat sealed the fate of the Carthaginian presence in Iberia. After winning over a number of Hispanian chiefs (namely Indibilis and
Mandonius), Scipio achieved a decisive victory in 206 BC over the full
Carthaginian levy at
Ilipa (now the city of Alcalá del Río, near
Hispalis, now called Seville). It was followed by the Roman capture of
Gades in 206 BC after the city had already rebelled against Carthaginian rule.
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| Roman conquest of Spain from 210 to 206 BC |
A last attempt was made by Mago in 205 BC to recapture New Carthage while the Roman presence was shaken by a mutiny and an Iberian uprising against their new overlords. But the attack was repulsed. So in the same year he left Iberia, setting sail from the Balearic islands to Italy with his remaining forces. With the defeat of Carthage Rome began its conquest and occupation of the peninsula, thus beginning the era of
Hispania.
In 198 BC, the number of Roman praetors was increased from four to six because it was decided to create two new provinces:
Hispania Citerior and
Hispania Ulterior. The two capitals were Tarraco (Tarragona) and Curdoba (Córdoba).
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| Iberic Peninsula after the first administrative division of the Roman province of Hispania |
The
First Celtiberian (181-179 BC) was the first of three major rebellions by the Celtiberians against the Roman presence in Hispania. The Celtiberians were the most influential ethnic group in pre-Roman Iberia, but they had their largest impact on history during the Second Punic War, during which they became the (perhaps unwilling) allies of Carthage in its conflict with Rome, and crossed the Alps in the mixed forces under Hannibal's command. As a result of the defeat of Carthage, the central region of the peninsula, called Celtiberia, was officially conquered in 181 BC by
Quintus Fabius Flaccus. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, a Roman consul, spent the years 182 BC to 179 BC pacifying (as the Romans put it) the Celtiberians (His alliances with the Vascons would facilitate the Roman domination of Celtiberia); however, conflicts between various semi-independent bands of Celtiberians continued.
For
the 24 years from the end of the First Celtiberian War in 179 BC to the
beginning of the Second Celtiberian War in 155 BC, we rely on the work
of Livy only up to 167 BC, up to the end of Book 45. Livy's subsequent
books are lost and we have a gap of twelve years hardly any information.
The epitome, which provides a brief summary of all of Livy's books (the
Periochae) does not mention any conflicts in Hispania in these 12
years. It appears that this was a 24-year period of relative peace in
which battles took place in Hispania in only three years.
The
Lusitanian War, called in Greek Pyrinos Polemos ("the Fiery War"), was a war of resistance fought by the Lusitanian tribes of Hispania Ulterior against the advancing legions of the Roman Republic from 155 to 139 BC. The Lusitanians revolted on two separate occasions (155 BC, and again in 146 BC) and were pacified. In 154 BC, a long war in Hispania Citerior, known as the
Numantine War, was begun by the Celtiberians. It lasted until 133 and is an important event in the integration of what would become Portugal into the Roman and Latin-speaking world.
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| Iberic peninsula 156 BC |
The
Lusitanians (or Lusitani in Latin) were an Indo-European people
living in the west of the Iberian Peninsula centuries before it
became the Roman province of Lusitania (most of modern Portugal,
Extremadura and a small part of the province of Salamanca). They spoke
the Lusitanian language, an Indo-European language which might have been
heavily influenced by Celtic or was closely related to Celtic, if not a
form of archaic Celtic or proto Celtic. Lusitania was probably the area of the peninsula that resisted the Roman invasion for the longest time. Since 193 BC, the Lusitanians had been fighting the Romans. Until the year 155 BC, the Lusitanian chief
Punicus made raids into the
part of Lusitania controlled by Rome, ending with the twenty-year peace
made by the former praetor Sempronius Gracchus. Punicus obtained an
important victory against the praetors Manilius and Calpurnius,
inflicting 6,000 casualties. In 150 BC, they were defeated by Praetor
Servius Galba: springing a clever trap, he killed 9,000 Lusitanians and later sold 20,000 more as slaves in Gaul (modern France). Three years later (147 BC),
Viriathus became the leader of the Lusitanians and severely damaged the Roman rule in Lusitania and beyond. In 139 BC Viriathus was betrayed and killed in his sleep by his companions (who had been sent as emissaries to the Romans), Audax, Ditalcus and Minurus, bribed by Marcus Popillius Laenas. However, when Audax, Ditalcus and Minurus returned to receive their reward by the Romans, the Consul Servilius Caepio ordered their execution, declaring, "
Rome does not pay traitors". After the death of Viriatus, the Lusitanians kept fighting under the leadership of
Tautalus, but gradually, acquiring Roman culture and language; the Lusitanian cities, in a manner similar to those of the rest of the romanised Iberian peninsula, eventually gained the status of "Citizens of Rome". Modern Portuguese people see the Lusitanians as their ancestors.
In 154 BC, the Roman senate objected to the Belli town of Segeda building a circuit of walls, and declared war. Thus, the
Second Celtiberian War (154–152 BC) started. At least three tribes of Celtiberians were involved in the war: the
Titti, the
Belli (towns of Segeda and Nertobriga) and the
Arevaci (towns of Numantia, Axinum and Ocilis). After some initial Celtiberian victories, the consul
Marcus Claudius Marcellus inflicted some defeats and made peace with the Celtiberians. The next consul,
Lucius Licinius Lucullus, attacked the Vaccaei, a tribe living in the central Duero valley which was not at war with Rome. He did so without the authorisation of the senate, with the excuse that the Vaccaei had mistreated the Carpetani.
In the year 153 BC during the second Celtiberian war the Roman army commanded by Fifth Fulvio Nobilior, composed of 30,000 men faced the Celtiberian troops of Segedens under the command of Caro de Segeda. The result of this first battle was in favor of the Celtiberians, killing 6,000 Romans. Titus Livius work "
History of Rome" (Ab Urbe Condita) described that after the battle the Roman Senate changed the first day of the
consular year to 1 January in order to allow consul Quintus Fulvius Nobilior to attack the
city of Segeda (province of modern Zaragoza) during the Celtiberian Wars. From the year 153 BC
Roman consuls begin their year on January 1 with the start of the calendar year, something that was maintained until the end of the use of this political institution. However, it is considered that the Roman civil year already began on January 1 from, according to tradition, late eighth century BC when the legendary second King of Rome
Numa Pompilio had established a 12 months calendar instead of the ten months of the Romulean calendar. The month of January became the first of the year and, probably, February was placed in the last position, which remained perhaps until the fourth century BC when it happened to be the second month of the year.
The
Numantine War (from Bellum Numantinum in Appian's Roman History) was the last conflict of the Celtiberian Wars fought by the Romans to subdue those people along the Ebro. It was a twenty-year conflict between the Celtiberian tribes of Hispania Citerior and the Roman government. Numantia an ancient Celtiberian settlement, is famous for its role in the Celtiberian Wars. In the year 153 BC Numantia experienced its first serious conflict with Rome. The first phase of the war ended in 151 BC, but in 143 BC, war flared up again with a new insurrection in Numantia. The
army in Hispania was demoralised and ill-disciplined and in 134 BC, the Romans, who were tired of this war, elected
Publius
Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus (who had defeated Carthage) as consul
because they thought that he was the only man who could win the war. After 20 years of hostilities, in the year 133 BC the Roman Senate gave Publius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus (aka
Scipio Africanus the Younger) the task of destroying Numantia. He laid siege to the city, erecting a nine kilometre fence supported by towers, moats, impaling rods and so on. After 13 months of siege, the Numantians decided to burn the city and die free rather than live and be slaves. The expression "
numantine resistance" is occasionally used to refer to particularly obdurate resistance.
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| Alejo Vera Estaca - Last days of Numantia (1881) |
The stronghold of Numantia then was circumvallated with a ditch and palisade, behind which was a wall ten feet high. Towers were placed every hundred feet and mounted with catapults and ballistae. To blockade the nearby river, logs were placed in the water, moored by ropes on the shore. Knives and spear heads were embedded in the wood, which rotated in the strong current.
Eventually, as their hunger increased, envoys were sent to Scipio, asking if they would be treated with moderation if they surrendered, pleading that they had fought for their women and children, and the freedom of their country. But Scipio would accept only deditio. Hearing this demand for absolute submission, the Numantines, "who were previously savage in temper because of their absolute freedom and quite unaccustomed to obey the orders of others, and were now wilder than ever and beside themselves by reason of their hardships," slew their own ambassadors.
After eight months, the starving population was reduced to cannibalism and, filthy and foul smelling, compelled to surrender. But, "such was the love of liberty and of valour which existed in this small barbarian town," relates Appian, that many chose to kill themselves rather than capitulate. Families poisoned themselves, weapons were burned, and the beleaguered town set ablaze. There had been only about 8,000 fighting men when the war began; half that number survived to garrison Numantia. Only a pitiable few survived to walk in Scipio's triumph. The others were sold as slaves and the town razed to the ground, the territory divided among its neighbors.
After the city of
Numantia was finally taken and destroyed by
Scipio Aemilianus Africanus the younger, Roman cultural influences increased.
The Phoenicians took possession of the Balearic islands in very early times; a
remarkable trace of their colonisation is preserved in the town of Mago
(Maó in Menorca). After the fall of Carthage, the islands seem to have
been virtually independent. The Romans, however, easily found a pretext for charging them with complicity with the Mediterranean pirates, and they were conquered by
Q. Caecilius Metellus, thence surnamed Balearicus, in 123 BC. Metellus settled 3,000 Roman and Spanish colonists on the larger island, and founded the cities of
Palma and
Pollentia
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| Iberian Peninsula circa 100 BC |
The
Sertorian War, 80 - 72 BC, marked the last formal resistance of the Celtiberian cities to Roman domination, which submerged the Celtiberian culture. The Sertorian War was a conflict of the Roman civil wars in which a coalition of Iberians and Romans fought against the representatives of the regime established by Sulla.
The
Optimates (also known as boni, "good men") were a conservative political faction in the late Roman Republic. They formed in reaction against the reforms of the
Gracchi brothers—two tribunes of the plebs between 133 and 121 BC who tried to pass an agrarian law to help the urban poor, and a political reform that would have diminished the influence of the senatorial class. As the Optimates were senators and large landowners, they violently opposed the Gracchi, and finally murdered them, but their program was upheld by several politicians, called the
Populares ("favouring the people"). For about 80 years, Roman politics was marked by the confrontation of these two factions. The Optimates favoured the ancestral Roman laws and customs, as well as the supremacy of the Senate over the popular assemblies and the tribunes of the plebs.
General
Quintus Sertorius was sent to Hispania as propraetor, representing the popular cause in Spain. The governor of the two Spanish provinces (Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior), Gaius Valerius Flaccus did not recognize his authority, but Sertorius had an army at his back and used it to assume control. After gaining control of both provinces Sertorius sought to hold Hispania by sending an army, under
Julius Salinator, to fortify the pass through the Pyrenees; however, Sulla's forces, under the command of Gaius Annius Luscus, broke through after Salinator was assassinated by a traitor. Having been obliged to withdraw to North Africa, Sertorius carried on a campaign in Mauretania, in which he defeated one of Sulla's generals (one Paccianus) and captured Tingis (Tangier).
The North Africa success won him the fame and admiration of the people of Hispania, particularly that of the warlike Lusitanians in the west (in modern Portugal and western Spain), whom Roman generals and proconsuls of Sulla's party had plundered and oppressed. The Lusitanians then asked Sertorius to be their warleader, he accepted and, arriving in the Iberian peninsula with additional forces from Africa, he assumed supreme authority and began to conquer the neighbouring territories. He achieved his first major victory at the battle of the Baetis River where he defeated the governor of Hispania Ulterior a certain Fufidius.
Brave, noble, and gifted with eloquence, Sertorius was just the man to impress the Iberians and Celtiberians favourably, and the native warriors, whom he organized into an army, spoke of him as the "new Hannibal". Sertorius owed some of his success to his prodigious ability as a statesman. His goal was to build a stable government in Hispania with the consent and co-operation of the people, whom he wished to civilize along the lines of the Roman model. He established a senate of 300 members, drawn from Roman emigrants (probably also including some from the highest aristocrats of Hispania) and kept a Hispanian bodyguard. For the children of the chief native families he provided a school at Osca (Huesca), where they received a Roman education and even adopted the dress and education of Roman youths.
Although he was strict and severe with his soldiers, he was particularly considerate to the people in general, and made their burdens as light as possible. It seems clear that he had a peculiar gift for evoking the enthusiasm of the native tribes, and we can understand well how he was able to use a famous
white fawn, a present from one of the natives that was supposed to communicate to him the advice of the goddess Diana, to his advantage.
For years he held sway over Hispania. In 76 BC, after Sertorius had been reinforced by the rebel army of
Marcus Perperna, the Roman Senate resorted to giving an extraordinary command (pro consulibus) to
Gnaeus Pompey Magnus to help out
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius who was doing miserably against Sertorius In 74 and 73 BC, Pompey and Metellus had been slowly grinding down Sertorius's rebellion. Unable to defeat him in battle they had opted for attritional warfare, what had worked against Hannibal a century and a half before would now be brought to bear on Sertorius.
The war was not going well, so the Roman aristocrats and senators who made up the higher classes of his domain became discontent with Sertorius. They had grown jealous of Sertorius's power, and Perperna, aspiring to take Sertorius's place, encouraged that jealousy for his own ends. Perperna invited Sertorius to a feast to celebrate a supposed victory. During the celebration he was assassinated.
The Optimates' cause reached its peak under the dictatorship Sulla. Sulla's administration stripped the assemblies
of nearly all power, raised the number of members of the Senate from 300
to 600, executed an equally large number of Populares via proscription
lists and settled thousands of soldiers in northern Italy.
In 77 BC, the senate sent one of Sulla's former lieutenants,
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus ("
Pompey the Great"),
to put down an uprising in Spain. By 71 BC, Pompey returned to Rome
after having completed his mission. Around the same time, another of
Sulla's former lieutenants,
Marcus Licinius Crassus, had just put
down the Spartacus led gladiator/slave revolt in Italy. Upon their
return, Pompey and Crassus found the populares party fiercely attacking
Sulla's constitution. They attempted to forge an agreement with the
populares party. If both Pompey and Crassus were elected consul in 70
BC, they would dismantle the more obnoxious components of Sulla's
constitution. The two were soon elected, and quickly dismantled most of
Sulla's constitution.
According to Appian, in 61 BC,
Julius Caesar, who was praetor in Hispania Citerior, brought under subjection "
all those [Hispanics] who were doubtful of their allegiance, or had not yet submitted to the Romans". Suetonius specified that Caesar acted against the Lusitanians: "
he not only begged money from the allies, to help pay his debts, but also attacked and sacked some towns of the Lusitanians although they did not refuse his terms and opened their gates to him on his arrival."
In 52 BC Caesar conquered Gaul (very roughly modern France) which became a Roman province.The refusal of the Roman senate to allow Caesar the honour of a triumph for his victory in the Gallic Wars eventually led, in part, to the Roman Civil War of 49–45 BC which he won.
In 49 BC, Julius Caesar invaded the Italian Peninsula, effectively declaring war on the Roman senate. Pompey, the leader of the forces of the senate, fled to Greece. Caesar executed an extraordinary 27-day forced march from Rome to Hispania to confront the legions of Pompey stationed there. He defeated seven Pompeian legions led by Lucius Afranius, Marcus Petreius and Marcus Terentius Varro at the Battle of Ilerda (Lerida), in north-eastern Hispania. There were further battles: one in southern Illyria (Albania) and one in Greece in 49 BC, and three in Africa (Tunisia, one in 49 BC and two in 46 BC). The final battle was between Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeus, the son of Pompey, supported by Titus Labienus and Publius Attius Varus, in 45 BC. It was the
Battle of Munda, which was fought at Campus Mundensis, probably near Lantejuela, in southern Hispania. One year later, Caesar was assassinated.
During the reign of
Caesar Augustus, Rome was obliged to maintain a bloody conflict against the Cantabrian tribes, a warlike people who presented fierce resistance to Roman domination. Those conflicts are named as the
Cantabrian wars (29-19 BC) .
 |
Military campaigns in the Cantabrian WarS:
Yellow, 61 BC campaign
Green 26 BC Campaign
Red, 25 BC campaign |
The
Cantabrian Wars (29 BC –19 BC) were fought between the Romans and the Cantabrians and Astures of northern Hispania. It was a long and bloody war because it was fought on the mountains of Cantabria and Asturia (mountains are difficult to conquer) and because the rebels used guerrilla tactics effectively. The Emperor Augustus himself moved to Segisama, modern Sasamon, (Burgos), to
supervise the campaign personally. The war dragged on for ten years and it ended with the subjugation of these two peoples. With the end of this war, the long
years of civil wars and wars of conquest ended in the territories of the
Iberian Peninsula, beginning a long era of political and economic
stability in Hispania. These wars were also the end of resistance against the Romans in Hispania.
In 29 BC
Legio/
Castra Legionis (modern León) was founded as the military encampment of the Roman legion
Legio VI Victrix which served under Caesar Augustus during the Cantabrian Wars (29-19 BC). The Romans established the site of the city to protect the recently
conquered territories of northwestern Hispania from the Astures and
Cantabri, and to secure the transport of gold extracted in the province
—especially in the huge nearby mines of
Las Médulas— that was taken to
Rome through Asturica Augusta (modern-day Astorga). The Legio VI Victrix stayed in Spain for nearly a century and received the surname
Hispaniensis. Soldiers of this unit and X Gemina numbered among the first settlers of
Caesaraugusta (founded in 14 BC), what became modern-day Zaragoza. The cognomen Victrix (Victorious) dates back to the reign of Nero. But Nero was unpopular in the area, and when the governor of Hispania Tarraconensis,
Servius Sulpicius Galba, said he wished to overthrow Nero, the legion supported him and he was proclaimed Emperor in the VI Victrix legionary camp. Galba created
VII Gemina and marched on Rome, where Nero killed himself (68 AD). The legion remained in Hispania to the end of the 4th century.
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| Las Médulas is a historic gold-mining site near León which was was the most important gold mine, as well as the largest open-pit gold mine, in the entire Roman Empire. The spectacular landscape of Las Médulas resulted from the ruina montium (wrecking of the mountains), a Roman hydraulic mining technique that involved undermining a mountain with large quantities of water. 20,000 Roman pounds (6,560 kg) of gold were extracted each year. The exploitation, involving 60,000 free workers, brought 5,000,000 Roman pounds (1,640,000 kg) in 250 years. |
The Roman colony of
Augusta Emerita (present day Mérida) was founded in 25 BC by Augustus, to resettle emeriti soldiers discharged from the Roman army from two veteran legions of the Cantabrian Wars: Legio V Alaudae and Legio X Gemina. The city was the capital of the Roman province of
Lusitania. In 19 BC Aggripa a Roman general who was employed in putting down a rising of the Cantabrians in Hispania promoted the construction of the
Roman Theatre of Mérida.
 |
| Emerita
Augusta (present Merida) was founded in 25BC. by Publius Carisio, as
the representative of the emperor Octavian Augustus as a resting place
for troops discharged from the Legions V (Alaudae) and X (Gemina). Over
time, this city became one of the most important in Hispania, capital of
the province of Lusitania and an economic and cultural center. |
Augustus annexed the whole of the peninsula to the Roman Empire. The Roman province of Hispania Citerior was significantly expanded and came to include the eastern part of central Hispania and northern Hispania. It was renamed
Hispania Tarraconensis. Due to the sheer size of the annexed territory, a third province was established in the west of the peninsula and the western part of central Hispania. This was
Hispania Lusitania, which covered present day Portugal up to the River Durius (Douro) Hispania Citerior was renamed
Hispania Baetica and its borders were expanded inland only marginally.
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| Hispanic provinces after the reform of Augustus. |
After the wars there was an increase in the Roman presence in Hispania. The Romans deployed eight legions for the wars. Many of the veterans, who had the right to be granted a plot of land to farm on discharge, were settled in Hispania. Several Roman towns were founded, among others:
Augusta Emerita (Merida, Extremadura) in 25 BC (it became the capital of the province of Hispania Lusitania; it was probably founded by Publius Carusius);
Asturica Augusta (Astorga, province of Leon) in 14 BC (it became an important administrative centre); Colonia Caesar Augusta or
Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza, Aragón) in 14 BC; and
Lucus Augusti (Lugo, Galicia) in 13 BC (it was the most important Roman town in Gallaecia).
Strabo (63 BC – c. AD 24), was an educated citizen of the
Roman Empire of Greek descent greek philosopher and historian author of a
greek work called
Geographica ("Geography"), an encyclopedia of
geographical knowledge, consisting of 17 'books' where he described
among other countries the Iberian Peninsula, Gaul, Italy, Germania,
Russia, the Middle East, North Africa, etc. Here it is how he described
Iberia:
Iberia produces abundance of antelopes and wild horses. In many places
the lakes are stocked. They have fowl, swans, and birds of similar
kind, and vast numbers of bustards. Beavers are found in the rivers,
but the castor does not possess the same virtue as that from the
Euxine, the drug from that place having peculiar properties of its own,
as is the case in many other instances.
Iberia produces a large quantity of roots used in dyeing. In olives,
vines, figs, and every kind of similar fruit-trees, the Iberian coast
next the Mediterranean abounds, they are likewise plentiful beyond.
The Romans call the whole land indifferently Iberia and Hispania, but
designate one portion of it Ulterior, and the other Citerior.
However, at different periods they have divided it differently,
according to its political aspect at various times.
Concerning
the foundation of Gades, the Gaditanians report that a certain oracle
commanded the Tyrians to found a colony by the Pillars of Hercules.
Strabo notes that the Turdetani were the most civilized peoples in
Iberia, with the implication that their ordered, urbanized culture was
most in accord with Greco-Roman models:
The
Turdetani [successors to the people of Tartessos] on the other hand,
especially those who dwell about the Guadalquiver, have so entirely
adopted the Roman mode of life, as even to have forgotten their own
language. They have for the most part become Latins, and received Roman
colonists; so that a short time only is wanted before they will be all
Romans.
In Bastetania the women dance
promiscuously with the men, each holding the other’s hand. They all
dress in black, the majority of them in cloaks called saga, in which
they sleep on beds of straw. They make use of wooden vessels like the
Kelts. The women wear dresses and embroidered garments. Instead of
money, those who dwell far in the interior exchange merchandise, or
give pieces of silver cut off from plates of that metal. Those condemned
to death are executed by stoning; parricides are put to death without
the frontiers or the cities. They marry according to the customs of the
Greeks.
The Cantabrians and their neighbours
wash themselves and their wives in stale urine kept in tanks, and to
rinse their teeth with it, which they say is their custom. This
practice, as well as that of sleeping on the ground, is common both
among the Iberians and Kelts. Some say that the Gallicians are atheists,
but that the Keltiberians, and their neighbours to the north,
[sacrifice] to a nameless god, every full moon, at night, before their
doors, the whole family passing the night in dancing and festival.
For
in the war against the Cantabrians, mothers have slain their children
sooner than suffer them to be captured; and a young boy, having obtained
a sword, slew, at the command of his father, both his parents and
brothers, who had been made prisoners and were bound, and a woman those
who had been taken together with her. A man being invited by a party of
drunken [soldiers] to their feast, threw himself into a fire. It is a
proof of the ferocity of the Cantabrians, that a number of them having
been taken prisoners and fixed to the cross, they chanted songs of
triumph. Instances such as these are proofs of the ferocity of their
manners. There are others which, although not showing them to be
polished, are certainly not brutish. For example, amongst the
Cantabrians, the men give dowries to their wives, and the daughters are
left heirs, but they procure wives for their brothers. These things
indicate a degree of power in the woman, although they are no proof of
advanced civilization.
The life of the
mountaineers is such as I have described, I mean those bordering the
northern side of Iberia, the Gallicians, the Asturians, and the
Cantabrians, as far as the Vascons and the Pyrenees. The rough and
savage manners of these people is not alone owing to their wars, but
likewise to their isolated position, it being a long distance to reach
them, whether by sea or land. Thus the difficulty of communication has
deprived them both of generosity of manners and of courtesy. At the
present time, however, they suffer less from this both on account of
their being at peace and the intermixture of Romans. Wherever these
[influences] are not so much experienced people are harsher and more
savage.
Between 8 BC and 2 BC Augustus ordered the reconstruction of the previous Via Hercules creating the
Via Augusta, the longest and busiest major road buit in ancient Hispania that linked Hispania Baetica in the south with the north of Hispania and which was still used by the Muslim occupiers of southern Spain in the 10th century, who called it al-Racif. The length of the road was 1,500 kilometres.
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| Via Augusta |
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| The Arch of Bera, a Roman Triumphal arch on the Via Augusta, remains at the North of Tarragona. |
The
Vía de La Plata (Silver Way) or Ruta de la Plata (Silver
Route) is an ancient commercial and pilgrimage path that crosses the
west of Spain from north to south, connecting Mérida to Astorga.
The
historical origins of this route are uncertain. It is believed based on
diverse archaeological findings, that the route was used for commercial
purposes involving tin. Tin was present in many regions of the Iberian
Peninsula including Tartessos. The "Tin Way" was used as an access road,
which allowed the Romans to conquer tribes such as the Callaici, the
Astures, and the Vacceos. Many sources, among them the Antonine
Itinerary, describe the route to leave from Emerita Augusta,
(present-day Mérida), capital of Lusitania, towards Asturica Augusta
(present-day Astorga) through Tarraconensis. During the Roman Empire it
is known that it was used to connect two main areas of the highest
importance at both end, the gold mines of Las Medulas and the copper
mines of Rio Tinto.
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| Main arterial roads of Roman Hispania |
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| Roman Roads (117 AD) under Trajan |
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| Roman roads in Hispania including the Viae publicae (main roads) and the viae vicinale/rusticae (secondary roads) |
The Jewish historian, Josephus, confirms that as early as 90 AD there was already a
Jewish Diaspora living in Europe, made-up of the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. Thus, he writes in his Antiquities: “
…there are but two tribes in Asia (Turkey) and Europe subject to the Romans, while the ten tribes are beyond Euphrates till now and are an immense multitude.” One estimate places the number carried off to Spain at 80,000. (Graetz, p. 42). Subsequent immigrations came into the area along both the northern African and southern European sides of the Mediterranean. (Assis, p. 9.)
Among the earliest records which may refer specifically to Jews in Spain during the Roman period is Paul's Letter to the Romans. Many have taken Paul's intention to go to Spain to minister the gospel (15.24, 28) to indicate the presence of Jewish communities there.
As citizens of the Roman Empire, the Jews of Spain engaged in a variety
of occupations, including agriculture. Until the adoption of
Christianity, Jews had close relations with non-Jewish populations, and
played an active role in the social and economic life of the province
(Assis at p. 9). From a slightly later period, Midrash Rabbah (Leviticus Rabba § 29.2), and Pesikta de-Rav Kahana (Rosh Hashanna), both, make mention of the
Jewish Diaspora in Spain (Hispania) and their eventual return. Among these early references are several decrees of the Council of Elvira, convened in the early fourth century, which address proper Christian behavior with regard to the Jews of Spain, notably forbidding marriage between Jews and Christians. The edicts of the Synod of Elvira, although early examples of priesthood-inspired anti-Semitism, provide evidence of Jews who were integrated enough into the greater community to cause alarm among some: of the Council's 80 canonic decisions, all which pertain to Jews served to maintain a separation between the two communities (Laeuchli, pp. 75–76). It seems that by this time the presence of Jews was of greater concern to Catholic authorities than the presence of pagans; Canon 16, which prohibited marriage with Jews, was worded more strongly than canon 15, which prohibited marriage with pagans. Canon 78 threatens those who commit adultery with Jews with ostracism. Canon 48 forbade Jews from blessing Christian crops, and Canon 50 forbade sharing meals with Jews; repeating the command to Hebrew the Bible indicated respect to Gentile.
The Romans improved existing cities, such as Lisbon (Olissipo) and
Tarragona (Tarraco), established Zaragoza (Caesaraugusta), Mérida
(Augusta Emerita), and Valencia (Valentia), and provided amenities
throughout the empire.
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| The Arch of Medinaceli (1st century AD) is a unique example of monumental Roman triumphal arch within Hispania. |
The
Aqueduct of Segovia is one of the best-preserved elevated Roman aqueducts. Emperor Domitian ordered its construction and was finished by 112 AD. The aqueduct once transported water from the Rio Frio river, situated in mountains 17 km (11 mi) from the city in the La Acebeda region. It runs 15 km (9.3 mi) before arriving in the city. Within the walled city there was a distribution system. The details of this system are not fully known, but it has been established that the water followed a subterranean route, which has recently been marked on the city's pavements.
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| Aqueduct of Segovia |
Roman Emperor
Trajan (Marcus Ulpius Traianus) was born in the city of
Italica (now in the municipal area of Santiponce, in the outskirts of modern Sevilla), an Italic settlement in the province of Hispania Baetica. His family came from Umbria and he was born a Roman citizen. Trajan's birthplace of Italica was founded as a Roman military colony of Italian settlers in 206 BC, though it is unknown when the Ulpii arrived there. It is possible, but cannot be substantiated, that Trajan's ancestors married local women and lost their citizenship at some point, but they certainly recovered their status when the city became a municipium with Latin citizenship in the mid-1st century BC. Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presided over the greatest military expansion in Roman history, leading the empire to attain its maximum territorial extent by the time of his death. As a civilian administrator, Trajan is best known for his extensive public building program, which reshaped the city of Rome and left numerous enduring landmarks such as Trajan's Forum, Trajan's Market and Trajan's Column. As an emperor, Trajan's reputation has endured – he is one of the few rulers whose reputation has survived nineteen centuries. Every new emperor after him was honoured by the Senate with the wish felicior Augusto, melior Traiano (that he be "luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan").
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| Trajan |
Italica thrived especially under the patronage of Hadrian, like many other cities in the empire under his influence at this time, but it was especially favoured as his birthplace. He expanded the city northwards as the nova urbs (new city) and, upon its request, elevated it to the status of colonia as Colonia Aelia Augusta Italica even though Hadrian expressed his surprise as it already enjoyed the rights of "Municipium". He also added temples, including the enormous and unique Trajaneum in the centre of the city to venerate his predecessor and adopted father, and rebuilt public buildings.
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| Amphitheater of the ancient roman city of Itálica, Santiponce, Seville, Spain |
The
Trajan's Bridge at Alcantara (nowadays known as Alcántara
Bridge) was s built over the Tagus River between 104 and 106 AD by
Trajan. The bridge's construction occurred in the ancient Roman province
of Lusitania.
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Trajan's Bridge at Alcantara (1870)
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The
Tower of Hercules is an ancient Roman lighthouse built in
the 2nd century AD on a peninsula about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 mi) from the
centre of A Coruña, Galicia, in north-western Spain. Until the 20th
century, the tower itself was known as the "
Farum Brigantium".
The tower was built or perhaps rebuilt under Trajan. Through the
millennia many mythical stories of the lighthouse's origin have been
told. According to a myth that mixes Celtic and Greco-Roman elements,
the hero Hercules slew the giant tyrant Geryon after three days and
three nights of continuous battle. Hercules then—in a Celtic
gesture—buried the head of Geryon with his weapons and ordered that a
city be built on the site. The lighthouse atop a skull and crossbones
representing the buried head of Hercules’ slain enemy appears in the
coat-of-arms of the city of Coruña.
Another legend embodied in the 11th-century Irish compilation Lebor Gabála Érenn—the "
Book of Invasions"—King
Breogán, the founding father of the Galician Celtic nation, constructed
a massive tower of such a grand height that his sons could see a
distant green shore from its top. The glimpse of that distant green land
lured them to sail north to Ireland. According to the legend Breogán's
descendants stayed in Ireland and are the Celtic ancestors of the
current Irish people. A colossal statue of Breogán has been erected near
the Tower.
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| Tower of Hercules |
Salsamenta was salted fish in ancient Rome. Salting was the quintessential preserve of the Roman world of antiquity. It had a very important role in the economy of the empire, since it allowed imports exports of resources from the provinces to Rome and allowed perishable products after treatment at salting factories, to enter the commercial network. It was also the only way for inland populations, far offshore to consume this protein source.
Garum was a major export product from Hispania to Rome, and gained the towns a certain amount of prestige. Garum’s origins lie in both Greek and Phoenician cooking. Amphorae containing deposits of the sauce have been found in shipwrecks from the fifth century B.C., and it is believed that its name may derive from the Greek word for shrimp. To make garum, vats were filled with fresh fish guts typically cleaned from whitebait, anchovies, mackerel, tuna, and others. They were placed between layers of salt and aromatic herbs and left in the sun for several months until they reached proper pungency. It was important to add just the right amount of salt—too little would result in putrefaction, while too much would disrupt the natural process of fermentation that gave the sauce its distinctive tang. Garum was produced in various grades consumed by all social classes.
After the liquid was ladled off of the top of the mixture, the remains
of the fish, called
allec, was used by the poorest classes to flavour
their staple porridge or farinata.
Factories known as
cetariae proliferated to satisfy the Roman world’s craving for the fish sauce. Typically, these production centers were located near the coast, ensuring quick and easy access to the freshest catch. They also tended to be outside the city center because of the stench radiating from them.
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| Baelo Claudia was a key garum production center, lying conveniently near
the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea joins the Atlantic
Ocean. These waters form the migratory route for several fish species.
Here, nets could be set to catch tuna as they passed through on their
way to spawn, a practice that continues on that coast to this day. |
Romanization proceeded quickly in some regions where we have references to the togati, and very slowly in others, after the time of Augustus, and Hispania was divided into three separately governed provinces (nine provinces by the 4th century). More importantly, Hispania was for 500 years part of a cosmopolitan world empire bound together by law, language, and the Roman road. But the impact of Hispania in the newcomers was also big.
The romanized Iberian populations and the Iberian-born descendants of Roman soldiers and colonists - had all achieved the status of full Roman citizenship by the end of the 1st century. The emperors
Trajan (r. 98-117),
Hadrian (r. 117-38), and
Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-80) were born in Hispania. Poets Martial, Lucan and philosopher
Seneca were also born in Hispania.
In the 4th century, Latinius Pacatus Drepanius, a Gallic rhetorician, dedicated part of his work to the depiction of the geography, climate, inhabitants, soldiers, and so forth of the peninsula, writing with praise and admiration:
“
This Hispania produces tough soldiers, very skilled captains, prolific speakers, luminous bards. It is a mother of judges and princes; it has given Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius to the Empire.”
Hispania was for 500 years part of a cosmopolitan world empire bound together by law, language, and the Roman road. But the impact of Hispania in the newcomers was also big. Caesar wrote on the Civil Wars that '
the soldiers from the Second Legion had become hispanicized and regarded themselves as hispanicus'.
Throughout the centuries of Roman rule over the provinces of Hispania, Roman customs, religion, laws and the general Roman lifestyle, gained much favour in the indigenous population, which was compounded by a great number of Roman immigrants, which eventually formed a distinct Hispano-Roman culture. Roman civilization was much more technologically advanced and sophisticated than previous cultures in the peninsula.
The ancient Roman civilization is known as the great builder of infrastructure. It was the first civilization which dedicated itself to a serious and determined effort for this kind of civil work as a basis for settlement of their populations, and the preservation of its military and economic domination over the vast territory of its empire. The works of most importance are roads, bridges and aqueducts.
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| The Tower of Hercules in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain, is the world's oldest Roman lighthouse still used as a lighthouse |
Infrastructure for civilian use was built with intensity by the Romans in Hispania, Roman roads that ran through the peninsula joining Cadiz to the Pyrenees and Asturias to Murcia: covering the coastal Mediterranean and Atlantic through the already established routes. Along them a booming trade flowed, encouraging political stability of the territory over several centuries.
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| Iberian Peninsula in 125 |
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| Main arterial roads of Roman Hispania |
Undoubtedly, the Roman civilization was much more refined than the people of pre-Roman Hispania, which promoted its adoption to these people. Roma also suffered a strong tendency towards chauvinism that made it despise foreign cultures,which were generally referred to as "barbarian", so any close relationship with the Empire and its cities was going to imitate the lifestyle of it. On the other hand, for the social elite of the previous period, it was not a sacrifice. Contrarily, they become the new Hispano-Roman elite, and moved from their previous austere way of life to the comfort and enjoyment of the services which came with urbanisation and the political stability and homogeneity that the Empire brought. This way these elites could occupy government positions in the new municipal institutions, becoming judges and joining the Roman legions as potential commanders who could thrive politically while progressing in the military.
Christianity was introduced into Hispania in the first century and it became popular in the cities in the second century.
Latin was the official language of Hispania during the Rome's more than 600 years of rule, and by the empire's end in Hispania around 460 AD, all the original Iberian languages, except the ancestor of modern Basque, were extinct.
-> The Greeks adopted the alphabet from the earlier
Phoenician alphabet, one of the closely related scripts used for the West Semitic languages
-> It is generally held that the Latins adopted the western variant of the
Greek alphabet in the 7th century BC from Cumae, a Greek colony in southern Italy – making the early Latin alphabet one among several Old Italic alphabets emerging at the time.
-> From the Cumae alphabet, the
Etruscan alphabet was derived. The Latins ultimately adopted 21 of the original 26 Etruscan letters.
-> The
Latin alphabet spread from Italy, along with the Latin language, to the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea with the expansion of the Roman Empire.
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| Evolution of Greek and Latin Alphabets |
