Hispania
Hispania refers to the ancient Roman provinces located on the Iberian Peninsula, primarily encompassing modern-day Spain and Portugal. The region's early inhabitants included Iberians and Celts, later influenced by Phoenician and Greek settlers who established significant coastal colonies. Following conflicts with Carthage, the Romans took control of Hispania during the Second Punic War, leading to the establishment of two primary provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. Under Roman rule, the area experienced extensive economic and cultural development, producing notable writers like Seneca and Lucan.
By the late third century, various invasions, including those by the Franks and the emergence of the Christian church, marked significant changes in Hispania's political landscape. The Visigoths, after defeating the Suebi, established a powerful kingdom in the region following the decline of Roman authority. Hispania's rich history reflects a complex interplay of various cultures and peoples, shaping the identity of the Iberian Peninsula throughout antiquity.
Subject Terms
Hispania
(Spain and Portugal)
The basic population consisted of Iberians (who came from Africa, in early Neolithic times) and Celts (arriving from the north, in the late Bronze and Iron Ages). Phoenicians from Tyre (Es-Sur) settled at Tartessus and Gades (Cadiz), and Greeks from Phocaea (Foca) and Massalia (Massilia, Marseille) established coastal colonies. Most of these settlements vanished, however, in the later third century BC, when the Carthaginians, reviving the Phoenician heritage, established a powerful empire in the south and east of the country, founding Carthago Nova (Cartagena) in 228. During the Second Punic War they lost this empire to the Romans (206), who established army commands and conducted a prolonged series of military operations culminating in the fall of the native chieftain Viriathus' stronghold Numantia in 133. It was during this phase that two Roman provinces were created, Hispania Citerior (Nearer Spain) covering the principal route south to Carthago Nova, and Hispania Ulterior (Further Spain) including the Baetis (Guadalquivir) valley and southeast coast.
Spain was the scene of two important victories of Julius Caesar in his civil wars against the Pompeians (Ilerda [Lerida] 49, Munda 45). Augustus finally divided the whole of the peninsula into three provinces, Citerior (subsequently known as Tarraconensis, extending to the north and west coast), Baetica (Ulterior, highly Romanized), and a new province of Lusitania (Portugal and part of western Spain). Municipalization, colonization and the spread of Latin rights (under which the leaders of city administrations became Roman citizens) gradually proceeded—especially under Vespasian, AD 69–79—and during the years to come the older territories reached the height of their economic development. They sent more senators to Rome than any other territory except southern (Narbonese) Gaul, and produced Latin writers of the caliber of the two Senecas, Lucan and Martial. In the later third century, however, Frankish invasions exacted a heavy toll.
Diocletian (284–305) and his successors created new provinces of Carthaginensis, Callaecia (Galicia) and the Balearic Islands within the administrative diocese of the Hispaniae (in which Mauretania Tingitana [Tingitania] was also included). A powerful Christian church, emerging at the Council of Illiberis (Elvira, 300/306), came to be dominated by Bishop Ossius (Hosius) of Corduba (Cordoba), a close adviser of Constantine I the Great; the outstanding Christian Latin poet Prudentius (348–after 405) also came from Spain. In the early fifth century, during the reign of Honorius, the country underwent a complicated series of imperial usurpations (Jovinus, Sebastianus, Maximus), resisting or conniving with successive waves of German invaders, in the course of which Suebi, Vandals and Alans crossed the Pyrenees and were given lands in the west and southwest.
The Visigoths, too, entered Spain, in order to slaughter the Vandals and Alans, but withdrew, for the time being, to occupy lands the Romans had given them in southwestern Gaul. The Vandals, for their part, sailed over to North Africa (429), while the Suebi extended their power in the northeast of the Iberian peninsula. In c 468, however, the Visigoths under Euric defeated the Suebi (whose state finally came to an end in 585), and when compelled by the Franks to evacuate Gaul created their own powerful kingdom in Spain instead. See alsoBaecula, Baetica, Baetis, Balearic Islands, Barcino, Bilbilis, Bracara Augusta, Caesaraugusta, Calagurris, Callaecia, Carthago Nova, Clunia, Corduba, Emerita, Emporiae, Gades, Hispalis, Iberus, Ilerda, Italica, Lucus Augusti, Lusitania, Malaca, Osca, Tagus, Tarraco, Tartessus, Valentia.