Spain in the Ancient World

Related civilizations: Iberians, Celts, Celtiberians, Semites, Phoenicia, Carthage, Greece, Rome, Visigoths.

Date: 3000 b.c.e.-700 c.e.

Locale: The Iberian Peninsula, including the Balearic Islands

Spain in the Ancient World

Knowledge of ancient Spain is limited to archaeological evidence, epigraphs, and a sometimes conflicting literary record. As many of the ancient settlements are buried under existing cities, the history of this period will most likely remain incomplete.

Early History

By 3000 b.c.e., Spain was home to sedentary peoples who made pottery, erected megalithic tombs, worked copper, and inhabited fortified villages. Toward the beginning of the second millennium b.c.e., a wave of megalithic worshipers from the east initiated a period of agricultural prosperity in Andalusia, and in the north another megalithic people, the precursors of the Basques, settled in the Pyrenees. Bronze metallurgy was introduced between 1900 and 1600 b.c.e. and yielded more durable weapons. For better defense, many villages were relocated on heights.

Although it is often stated that the Iberians invaded Spain from North Africa (sometime between 4000 and 1600 b.c.e.) and spread northward, their origin is unknown. They are generally described as short, dark-skinned people, but the term Iberian does not indicate a specific race or ethnicity. Rather it is a generic label for the complex association of inhabitants of Spain’s eastern and southern seaboard. The classicist Leonard Curchin would restrict the term Iberian to peoples of the east coast, because archaeological evidence in the south shows many orientalizing tendencies as a result of Semitic settlement along the Andalusian coast. He refers to the southern culture, centered on the Guadalquivir Valley, as Tartessian, home of the fabled Tartessus. The most interesting part of the Iberian culture that has been preserved are the stone sculptures, which are decorative (bulls, sphinxes, and other animals) or religious, such as the full-sized enthroned ladies called damas.

Between 900 and 600 b.c.e., successive waves of Celts crossed the Pyrenees and spread over the central Meseta and the western part of the peninsula. The Celts introduced into Spain iron metallurgy, the broad sword, and trousers. They were soon pressured by Iberians being forced southward by the Gauls. These Iberians moved into the central Meseta, fighting with and eventually dominating the Celts. With the establishment of peace, the two groups intermingled, forming the Celtiberians in the upper Ebro Valley and the eastern Meseta, although the Celts continued to occupy the west (Portugal and Galicia). Their economy depended on livestock raising and hunting as well as on cereal cultivation. The Celts and Celtiberians were divided into dozens of tribes (including the Vettones, Carpetani, and Arevaci) that controlled regions with settlements usually occupying hill forts. When threatened by a common enemy, the tribes formed coalitions under an elected war leader. They were renowned fighters using iron-tipped javelins and short, pointed double-edged swords, both of which were later adopted by the Romans.

The traders

Phoenician traders, attracted by Spain’s mineral wealth, reached Spain’s Atlantic coast about 1100 b.c.e. There they established Gadir (Cádiz). The Tartessian culture referred to above was likely a blend of Phoenician and local elements, in an area very close to Gadir. Evidence of Phoenician activity in southern Spain does not begin to accumulate until 800 b.c.e., when the Phoenicians came under the sway of the Assyrians and were expected to supply raw materials, especially silver and salt fish. Gadir became a prosperous colony and important commercial center, supporting the establishment of new colonies such as Onoba (Huelva), Malaca (Málaga), and Sexi (Almuñécar).

In the sixth century b.c.e., Assyria fell to the Babylonians, and Phoenicia’s commerce with the far west was curtailed, permitting Carthage to gain supremacy over the Semitic colonies in the central and western Mediterranean. In Spain, Carthaginian (Punic) settlement was long restricted to the same coastal strip and offshore islands that had been settled by the Phoenicians. However, after Rome defeated Carthage in the First Punic War (264-241 b.c.e.), Carthage sent a force to conquer southern Spain as compensation for territorial losses in the central Mediterranean. Cartago Nova (Cartagena) was founded as the center of Carthage’s Spanish operation. Hannibal led the Punic army deep into Spain, reaching Salamanca and perhaps the Ebro Valley. The east-coast city of Sagunto placed itself under Roman protection. Hannibal’s siege of the city provoked the Second Punic War (218-201 b.c.e.). After losing to the Roman consul Scipio Africanus, the Carthaginians had to cede Spain and their remaining Mediterranean island possessions. Because Carthage started as a Phoenician colony, it is difficult to sort out the Carthaginian innovations from those of the Phoenicians. However, it is known that the Carthaginians introduced their knowledge of fish curing and use of esparto grass in making goods such as cordage and shoes.

Greek navigators first sailed along Spain’s coasts in the seventh century b.c.e., attracted, like the Phoenicians, by Spain’s reputed mineral wealth. Although many Greek pottery fragments have been found as far south as Huelva, no evidence—other than accounts in the writings of historians Herodotus, Strabo, and others—exists to demonstrate that Greeks had direct contact with southern Spain. In northern Spain, Greeks from Massilia (Marseilles) established daughter settlements of Emporion (Ampurias) and Rhode (Roses) around 575 b.c.e. Other places articulated with Emporion, once assumed to have been Greek colonies, either have been shown to be Phoenician (for example, Mainake, in the province of Málaga), or were simply landmarks for sailors (for example, Hemeroskopeion, near Ifach), or await intensive excavation (Saguntum). Nevertheless, Emporion (“a place of commerce”) eventually succeeded Massilia as Greece’s principal port of trade in the western Mediterranean. The Greeks certainly influenced Spain’s trade, and they are credited with introducing the cultivated olive tree and grapevine into Spain.

The Romans

Roman subjugation of Spain was a long, often bloody process of about two hundred years. During and after the Second Punic War, the Romans tried to incorporate the Iberian Peninsula into their republic and, later, their empire. In 206 b.c.e., Scipio Africanus founded Itálica, near Seville, as a home for veteran soldiers. Hispania, as Romans called the peninsula, was soon divided into Hispania Citerior (Nearer Spain, the Ebro Basin and the Levantine coast) and Hispania Ulterior (Farther Spain); later, other divisions were recognized. Romanization proceeded slowly at first. There were frequent clashes with Spanish tribes until about 180 b.c.e. A period of relative peace prevailed until 155-133 b.c.e., when there was a final heroic effort on the part of the Spaniards to expel the conqueror. In 137 b.c.e., 20,000 Romans surrendered to a far smaller force of Numantians. In response, Rome sent 60,000 troops under Scipio Aemilianus to subdue Numantia (near Soria). Encircled by siege camps and circumvallation, many of the starving Numantians committed mass suicide rather than surrender dishonorably. After the fall of Numantia, all but northwestern Spain was conquered, but its pacification required another hundred years. Except for the northwest, the conflicts of the first century b.c.e. were more like civil wars involving Roman political factions.

Spain was profoundly influenced by the long Roman domination (218 b.c.e.-409 c.e.). Most of Spain’s principal cities and towns were Roman and were eventually linked by about 12,000 miles (19,300 kilometers) of roads and stone bridges. Impressive architectural remains of the Roman period can still be seen throughout Spain: theaters, amphitheaters, aqueducts, bridges, triumphal arches, baths, and mosaics. Romans established numerous country estates (villas) with tenant farmers (coloni). Spain was one of the most productive parts of the Roman Empire, exporting wines, olive oil, olives, cereals, salt fish and fish sauce, gold, silver, lead, tin, copper, and iron.

Latin displaced other languages except for Basque. Spain’s vernacular Latin, however, varied regionally, much as Spanish does. Roman gods and goddesses were added to those already worshiped in the peninsula, and Christianity took root in Spain even before its legalization under Constantine the Great in 313 c.e.

Native Spaniards, known as Hispano-Romans, made significant contributions to Latin culture as some developed into men of letters (including Seneca the Elder, Seneca the Younger, Lucan, and Martial) or even became Roman emperors (Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius the Great). In 380 c.e., Theodosius made Christianity the empire’s official religion and denounced other faiths as heretical.

The Visigoths

In the fifth century c.e., the Visigoths, a Germanic people, operated in the south of France as an army of Roman auxiliaries. They were invited into Spain to oust Alani, Suebi, and Vandals, who had poured into Spain in 409 c.e. The Visigoths were to receive land in Aquitaine in compensation, but they stayed in Spain as the country’s new governors. At first, the Visigoth kingdom centered on Toulouse, but as Franks pushed into southern France, the Visigoths established new capitals at Barcelona, Mérida, and, finally, Toledo.

There were about 200,000 Visigoths in Spain versus a Hispano-Roman population of about 6 million. Outnumbered and politically unstable, the Visigoths remained a kind of aristocratic-military elite that assimilated Hispano-Roman culture. They adopted Latin (adding several hundred of their own words to the vernacular), maintained Roman administration and law, and in 589 c.e., under King Reccared, converted from Arian Christianity to orthodox Christianity. Their main contributions to Spain were deurbanization and transmigratory flocks of sheep. A struggle for succession to the throne led to an African Berber army invading Spain in 710 c.e. and bringing Visigothic rule to an abrupt end the following year.

Bibliography

Curchin, Leonard A. Roman Spain: Conquest and Assimilation. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1995.

Harrison, Richard J. Spain at the Dawn of History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1988.

Pierson, Peter. The History of Spain. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999.