Hispania - Clickable Map of the Roman Empire - First Century AD
Hispania
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Ancient Hispania. Conquered by the Romans from the Carthaginians, and made
into two provinces, Citerior or Tarraconensis, and Ulterior or Baetica, B. C.
205. Lusitania, Portugal, made a province by Augustus.
Tarraco, Tarragona. Saguntum. Carthago Nova,
Cartagena. Numantia. Gades, Cadiz.
Munda. Corduba, Cordova.
Mountains: Pyrenaei.
Rivers: Iberus, Ebro. Durius,
Douro. Tagus. Anas, Guadiana. Baetis,
Guadalquivir.
Cantabri. Celtiberi. Ilergetes. Turdetani.
Oceanus Cantabricus, Bay of Biscay. Mare Atlanticum.
Mare Internum, Mediterranean Sea. - Ancient
Geography
Roman Hispania 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 (see Cantabrian Wars). Until then, much of Hispania remained autonomous. Romanization proceeded quickly 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. Caesar wrote on the Civil Wars that the soldiers from the Second Legion had become Hispanicized and regarded themselves as hispanicus. Many of the peninsula's population were admitted into the Roman aristocratic class and they participated in governing Hispania and the Roman empire, although there was a native aristocracy class who ruled each local tribe. The latifundia (sing., latifundium), large estates controlled by the aristocracy, were superimposed on the existing Iberian landholding system. The Romans improved existing cities, such as Lisbon (Olissipo) and Tarragona (Tarraco), established Zaragoza (Caesaraugusta), M�rida (Augusta Emerita), and Valencia (Valentia), and provided amenities throughout the empire. The peninsula's economy expanded under Roman tutelage. Hispania served as a granary and a major source of metals for the Roman market, and its harbors exported gold, tin, silver, lead, wool, wheat, olive oil, wine, fish, and garum . Agricultural production increased with the introduction of irrigation projects, some of which remain in use today. 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�138), and Marcus Aurelius (r. 161�180) were born in Hispania. The Iberian denarii, also called argentum oscense by Roman soldiers, circulated until the 1st century BC, after which it was replaced by Roman coins. Hispania was separated into two provinces (in 197 BC), each ruled by a praetor: Hispania Citerior ("Nearer Hispania") and Hispania Ulterior ("Farther Hispania"). The long wars of conquest lasted two centuries, and only by the time of Augustus did Rome managed to control Hispania Ulterior. Hispania was divided into three provinces in the 1st century BC. - Wikipedia
The Hispaniae Roman Hispania in 125During the first stages of Romanization, the peninsula was divided in two by the Romans for administrative purposes. The closest one to Rome was called Citerior and the more remote one Ulterior. The frontier between both was a sinuous line which ran from Cartago Nova (now Cartagena) to the Cantabrian Sea. Hispania Ulterior comprised what are now Andalusia, Portugal, Extremadura, Le�n, a great portion of the former Castilla la Vieja, Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, and the Basque Country. Hispania Citerior comprised the eastern part of former Castilla la Vieja, and what are now Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia, and a major part of former Castilla la Nueva. In the year BC 27 the general and politician Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa divided Hispania into three parts, namely dividing Hispania Ulterior into Baetica (basically Andalusia) and Lusitania (including Gallaecia and Asturias) and attaching Cantabria and the Basque Country to Hispania Citerior. The emperor Augustus in that same year returned to make a new division leaving the provinces as follows: Provincia Hispania Ulterior Baetica (Hispania Baetica), whose capital was Corduba, presently C�rdoba. It included a little less territory than present-day Andalusia�since modern Almer�a and a great portion of what today is Granada and Ja�n were left outside�plus the southern zone of present-day Badajoz. The river Anas or Annas (Guadiana, from Wadi-Anas) separated Hispania Baetica from Lusitania. Provincia Hispania Ulterior Lusitania, whose capital was Emerita Augusta (now M�rida) and without Gallaecia and Asturias. Provincia Hispania Citerior, whose capital was Tarraco (Tarragona). After gaining maximum importance this province was simply known as Tarraconensis and it comprised Gallaecia (modern Galicia and northern Portugal) and Asturias. In AD 69, the province of Mauretania Tingitana was incorporated into the Diocesis Hispaniarum. By the 3rd century the emperor Caracalla made a new division which lasted only a short time. He split Hispania Citerior again into two parts, creating the new provinces Provincia Hispania Nova Citerior and Asturiae-Calleciae. In the year 238 the unified province Tarraconensis or Hispania Citerior was re-established. Provinces of Hispania under the TetrarchyIn the 3rd century, under the Soldier Emperors, Hispania Nova (the northwestern corner of Spain) was split off from Tarraconensis, as a small province but the home of the only permanent legion is Hispania, Legio VII Gemina. Beginning with Diocletian's Tetrarchy reform in AD 293, the new dioecesis Hispaniae became one of the four dioceses�governed by a vicarius�of the praetorian prefecture of Gaul (also comprising the provinces of Gaul, Germania and Britannia), after the abolition of the imperial Tetrarchs under the Western Emperor (in Rome itself, later Ravenna). The diocese, with capital at Emerita Augusta (modern M�rida), comprised the five peninsular Iberian provinces (Baetica, Gallaecia and Lusitania, each under a governor styled consularis; and Carthaginiensis, Tarraconensis, each under a praeses), the Insulae Baleares and the North African province of Mauretania Tingitana. Christianity was introduced into Hispania in the 1st century and it became popular in the cities in the 2nd century. Little headway was made in the countryside, however, until the late 4th century, by which time Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire. Some heretical sects emerged in Hispania, most notably Priscillianism, but overall the local bishops remained subordinate to the Pope. Bishops who had official civil as well as ecclesiastical status in the late empire continued to exercise their authority to maintain order when civil governments broke down there in the 5th century. The Council of Bishops became an important instrument of stability during the ascendancy of the Visigoths. Rome continued to dominate the area until the collapse of the Empire in the west. The Iberian population turned to the Visigoths, a Germanic people, for protection when Rome could no longer spare legions to guard the territory. - Wikipedia
Hispania (Ἱσπανία). An extensive country, forming a kind of
peninsula, in the southwest of Europe; the modern Spain and Portugal. It was
bounded on the north by the Pyrenees and Sinus Cantabricus or Bay of Biscay, on
the west by the Atlantic, on the south by the Atlantic, Fretum Herculeum or
Strait of Gibraltar, and the Mediterranean, which last bounds it also on the
east. By the Romans, Spain was represented by the figure of a woman with a
rabbit at her side. The Romans borrowed the name Hispania, appending their own
termination to it, from the Ph�nicians, through whom they first became
acquainted with the country. The Greeks called it ?�???a (Lat. Iberia), but
attached at different periods different ideas to the name. Up to the time of the
Achaean League and their more intimate acquaintance with the Romans, they
understood by this name all the sea-coast from the Pillars of Hercules to the
mouth even of the Rhodanus (Rhone) in Gaul (Polyb. iii. 37). The coast of Spain
on the Atlantic they called Tartessis (Herod.i. 163). The interior of the
country they termed Celtic� (?e?t???), a name which they applied, in fact, to
the whole northwestern part of Europe. The Greeks in after-ages understood by
Iberia the whole of Spain. The name Iberia is derived from the Iberi (?�??e?) of
whom the Greeks had heard as one of the most powerful nations of the country.
The Roman poets called the country Hesperia Ultima. For a map of Hispania, see
the article Provincia.
The origin of the ancient population of Spain is altogether uncertain. The Iberi,
according to the ancient writers, were divided into six tribes; the Cynetes,
Gletes, Tartessii, Elbysinii, Mastieni, and Calpiani. Diodorus Siculus (v. 31
foll.) mentions the invasion of Spain by the Kelts. The Iberi made war against
them for a long time, but, after an obstinate resistance on the part of the
natives, the two people entered into an agreement, according to which they were
to possess the country in common, bear the same name, and remain forever united;
such, says the same historian, was the origin of the Celtiberi in Spain. These
warlike people, continues Diodorus, were equally formidable as cavalry and
infantry; for, when the horse had broken the enemy's ranks, the men dismounted
and fought on foot. Their dress consisted of a sagum, or coarse woollen mantle;
they wore greaves made of hair, an iron helmet adorned with a red feather, a
round buckler, and a broad two-edged sword, of so fine a temper as to pierce
through the enemy's armour. Although they boasted of cleanliness in both their
food and dress, it was not unusual for them to wash their teeth and bodies with
urine, a custom which they considered favourable to health. Wine was brought
into the country by foreign merchants. The land was equally distributed, and the
harvests were divided among all the citizens; the law punished with death the
person who appropriated more than his just share. They sacrificed human victims
to their divinities, and the priests pretended to read future events by
inspecting the entrails. At every full moon they celebrated the festival of a
god without a name; from this circumstance, their religion has been considered a
sort of deism.
The Phoenicians were the first people who established colonies on the coast of
Spain. Tartessus was perhaps the most ancient; at a later period they founded
Gades (Cadiz). They carried on there a very lucrative trade, inasmuch as the
country was unknown to other nations; but, in time, the Rhodians, the Samians,
the Phocaeans, and other Greeks established settlements on different parts of
the coast. Carthage had been founded by the Ph�nicians; but the inhabitants,
regardless of their connection with that people, took possession of the
Ph�nician stations, and conquered the whole of maritime Spain. The government of
these people was still less supportable. The Carthaginians were unable to form
any friendly intercourse with the Spaniards in the interior. The ruin of
Carthage paved the way for new invaders, and Spain was considered a Roman
province two centuries before the Christian era. Those who had been the allies
became masters of the Spaniards, and the manners, customs, and even language of
the conquerors were introduced into the peninsula. But Rome paid dearly for her
conquest; the north�or the present Old Castile, Aragon, and Catalonia�was
constantly in a state of revolt. The mountaineers shook off the yoke, and it was
not before the reign of Augustus that the country was wholly subdued.
The peninsula was then divided into Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior.
Hispania Citerior was also called Tarraconensis, from Tarraco, its capital, and
extended from the foot of the Pyrenees to the mouth of the Durius (Douro), on
the Atlantic shore; comprehending all the north of Spain, together with the
south as far as a line drawn below Carthago Nova (Carthagena), and continued in
an oblique direction to Salamantica (Salamanca), on the Durius. Hispania
Ulterior was divided into two provinces, Baetica, on the south of Spain, between
the Anas (Guadiana) and Citerior, and above it Lusitania, corresponding in a
great degree, though not entirely, to Portugal. In the age of Diocletian and
Constantine, Tarraconensis was subdivided into a province towards the limits of
Baetica, and adjacent to the Mediterranean, called Carthaginiensis, from its
chief city Carthago Nova, and another, north of Lusitania, called Gallaecia from
the Callaici. The province of Lusitania was partly peopled by the Cynetes or
Cynesii. The Celtici possessed the land between the Anas and the Tagus. The
Lusitani, a nation of freebooters, were settled in the middle of Estremadura.
The part of Baetica near the Mediterranean was peopled by the Bastuli Poeni. The
Turduli inhabited the shores of the ocean, near the mouth of the Baetis. The
Baeturi dwelt on the Montes Mariani, and the Turdetani inhabited the southern
slope of the Sierra de Aracena. The last people, more enlightened than any other
in Baetica, were skilled in different kinds of industry long before their
neighbours. When the Ph�nicians arrived on their coasts, silver was so common
among them that their ordinary utensils were made of it. The people in Gallaecia,
a subdivision of Tarraconensis, were the Artabri, who derived their name from
the promontory of Artabrum, now Cape Finisterre; the Bracari, whose chief town
was Bracara, the present Braga; and lastly the Lucenses, the capital of whose
country was Lucus Augusti, now Lugo. These tribes and some others formed the
nation of the Callaici or Callaeci. The Astures, now the Asturians, inhabited
the banks of the Asturis, or the country on the east of the Gallaecian
mountains. Their capital was Asturica Augusta, now Astorga. The Vaccaei, the
least barbarous of the Celtiberians, cultivated the country on the east of the
Astures. The fierce Cantabri occupied Biscay and part of Asturias. The Vascones,
the ancestors of the present Gascons, were settled on the north of the Iberus or
Ebro. The Iacetani were scattered over the Pyrenaean declivities of Aragon. The
Ilergetes resided in the country round Lerida. As to the country on the east of
these tribes, the whole of Catalonia was peopled by the Ceretani, Indigetes,
Ausetani, Cosetani, and others. The lands on the south of the Ebro were
inhabited by the Arevaci and Pelendones; the former were so called from the
river Areva; they were settled in the neighbourhood of Arevola, and in the
province of Segovia: the latter possessed the high plains of Soria and Moncayo.
The space between the mountains of Albaracino and the river was peopled by the
Edetani, one of the most powerful tribes of Spain. The Ilercaones, who were not
less formidable, inhabited an extensive district between the upper Jucar and the
lower Ebro. The country of the Carpetani, or the space from the Guadiana to the
Somo-Sierra, forms at present the archiepiscopal see of Toledo. The people on
the south of the last were the Oretani, between the Guadiana and the Montes
Mariani; and the Olcades, a small tribe near the confluence of the Gabriel and
Jucar. Hispania Carthaginiensis, a subdivision of Tarraconensis, was inhabited
by two tribes: the Bastitani, in the centre of Murcia, and the Contestani, who
possessed the two banks of the Segura, near the shores of the Mediterranean.
Under the Romans all the arts of Latin civilization flourished. Latin was spoken
by the educated, and many of the great writers of the Silver Age were
Spaniards�Martial, Seneca, Quintilian, Lucan, Silius Italicus, Columella,
Pomponius Mela, as also Prudentius and Isidorus in later times. The emperor
Trajan was of Spanish birth.
The different tribes were confounded while the Romans governed the country; but,
in the beginning of the fifth century, the Suevi, Vandals, and Visigoths invaded
the Peninsula, and, mixing with the Kelts and Iberians, produced the different
races which the ethnologist still observes in Spain. The first-mentioned people,
or Suevi, descended the Durius under the leadership of Ermeric, and chose Braga
for the capital of their kingdom. Genseric led his Vandals to the centre of the
peninsula, and fixed his residence at Toletum (Toledo); but fifteen years had
not elapsed after the settlement of the barbarous horde when Theodoric,
conquered by Clovis, abandoned Tolosa (Toulouse), penetrated into Spain, and
compelled the Vandals to fly into Africa. During the short period that the
Vandals remained in the country, the ancient province of Baetica was called
Vandalusia, and all the country, from the Ebro to the Strait of Gibraltar,
submitted to them. The ancient Celtiberians, who had so long resisted the
Romans, made then no struggle for liberty or independence; they yielded without
resistance to their new masters. Powers and privileges were the portion of the
Gothic race, and the title of hijo del Goda, or �son of the Goth,� which the
Spaniards changed into hidalgo, became the title of a noble or a free and
powerful man among a people of slaves. A number of petty and almost independent
States were formed by the chiefs of the conquering tribes; but the barons or
freemen acknowledged a liege lord. Spain and Portugal were thus divided, and the
feudal system established.
See Dunham, History of Spain and Portugal, 5 vols. (London, 1832); Mariana, The
General History of Spain from the Earliest Times (Eng. trans. by Stephens,
London, 1699), a very valuable work; Romey, Histoire d'Espagne, 9 vols. (Paris,
1839-50); and H�bner, La Arqueologia de Espa�a (Barcelona, 1888). - Harpers Dictionary of
Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers.
Hispania HISPA�NIA
HISPA�NIA (?spa??a, S?pa??a), and IBE�RIA (???�???a), and, with reference to its
division into two parts, very frequently HISPANIAE (so also ?�???a?, Steph. B.
sub voce the ancient names of the great peninsula now divided into the countries
of Spain and Portugal. In this article, for convenience, the whole peninsula
will be often called simply SPAIN.
I. ANCIENT NAMES.
As in the case of other countries, which only became known to the Greeks and
Romans by portions, there was at first no general name for the whole peninsula.
Polybius states that the part of the land on the Mediterranean, as far as the
Pillars of Hercules, was called IBERIA (?�???a), while the portion onwards from
that point along the ocean had no general name, as it had not long been known,
and was entirely occupied by numerous barbarian peoples. (Plb. 3.37).
1. Name in general use among the Greeks: Iberia.
The name in general use among the Greeks, during the historical period, was
IBERIA which was understood to be derived from the river IBERUS (Plin. Nat. 3.3.
s. 4; Justin,. 44.1; Steph. B. sub voce Avien. Or. Mar. 248): whence it was
applied to the surrounding country, first vaguely, as will presently appear, and
afterwards more exactly, as they gradually became acquainted with those physical
features which so strikingly define its limits. (Hecat. Fr. 11--13; Hdt. 1.163,
7.165; Scyl. pp. 1, 2; Strab. iii. p.166; Eustath. ad Dion. Per. 281; Hor. Carm.
4.528. (comp. below on the boundaries.)
2. Hispania
The other and still more familiar name, HISPANIA (?spa??a, Strab. iii. p.166;
Agathem. 1.2), came into use after the Romans began to have a direct connection
with the country; and has remained the prevailing appellative ever since. There
is little doubt that the genuine form of the name is SPAN or SAPAN, the vowel
sound being prefixed for easier pronunciation, as is common in southern as well
as eastern languages when an initial s is followed by another consonant (of this
usage examples may be seen in the Arabic and Turkish names of Greek cities): and
the name is used without the prefix (Spa??a: Artemidor. ap. Steph. B. sub voce ?�???a?;
Plut. de Flum. p. 32, Huds., vol. x. p. 774, Reiske; Paul. Epist. ad Rom. 15.28,
&c.) The origin of the name is not known with any certainty, nor whether it was
used by the inhabitants themselves. Bochart derives it from the Phoenician and
Hebrew word HEBREW (tsapan), which means a rabbit; and arguments are adduced in
favour of this etymology from the numerous testimonies of the ancients to the
abundance of these animals in the country (Strab. iii. pp. 144, 168: Aelian, Ael.
NA 13.15; Varro, R. R. 3.12.; Catull. 35.18; Plin. Nat. 8.58. s. 83, 11.37. s.
76), as well as from a medal of Hadrian, on the reverse of which is seen a
female figure, as the personification of Spain, with a rabbit at her feet. (Florez,
Med. de Esp. vol. i. p. 109.) Others explain the Phoenician word to mean
concealed, that is, the country little known; but this seems to be a mere fancy.
(Maltebrun, Pr�cis de la G�ogr. vol. viii. p. 21.) On the other hand, W. von
Humboldt, in his invaluable essay on the primitive history of Spain, maintains
that it was a native name, and that its genuine form, vowel prefix and all, is
preserved almost unaltered in the modern native name Espa�a, which he derives
from the Basque Ezpa�a, a border, margin, or edge, denoting that the peninsula
was the margin of Europe towards the ocean. (Humboldt, Pr�fung der Untersuch.
�ber die Urbewohner Hispaniens, Berlin, 1821; comp. on the etymology of both
names, Plut. de Flum. l.c.; Solin. 23; Ammian. Marc. 23.6; Const. Porph. de
Admin. Imp. 2.23; Eustath. ad Dion. Per. 282; Bochart, Chan. 1.35, Phaleg, 3.7;
Oberlin, ad Vib. Seq. p. 397; Grot. ad Mart. Cap. p. 201; Wesseling, ad Itin. p.
268; Tzschucke, ad Mel. 2.6.)
3. Hesperia
HESPERIA was an old Greek name, chiefly used by the poets, in connection with
the notion that the world consisted of four parts, of which LIBYA was the
southern, ASIA the eastern, EUROPA the northern, and HESPERIA the western: and,
according to this idea, Spain was the westernmost part of Hesperia. (Niebuhr,
Lectures on Ancient Ethnography and Geography, vol. ii. p. 279.) Hence the
country is sometimes called simply Hesperia (Macrob. 1.3; Serv. ad Verg. A.
1.530; Isid. Orig. 14.4), and sometimes, in contradistinction to Italy, Hesperia
Ultima (Hor. Carm. 1.36. 4; comp. Diefenbach, Celtica 3.32).
4. Celtica
CELTICA (? ?e?t???) was also a general name for the West of Europe, and was used
specifically for the interior of Spain, which was originally peopled, or
believed to have been peopled, by Celts. (Aristot. de Mundo, vol. i. p. 850, Du
Val.; Scymn. 173.) Ephorus (ap. Strab. iv. p.199; Marc. ad loc. p. 142) extended
Celtica to Gades, and applied the name of Iberia only to the W. part of the
peninsula. So too Eratosthenes (ap. Strab. ii. p.107) extended the Galatae (i.
e. Celts) to Gadeira. This usage is, however, uncommon, the name being generally
confined to those parts of the peninsula in which fragments of the old Celtic
population held their ground. [CELTAE: CELTICA.]
5. Tartessis
TARTESSIS was a name applied to the S. portion of the peninsula, and especially
to the part beyond the Straits, in contradistinction to the name [1.1075]
Iberia, in its narrower sense, that is, the maritime district from the Straits
to the Pyrenees. (Polyb. loc. sup. cit): but this is a subject which needs a
separate discussion underits properhead. [TARTESSUS]
6. Ethnic and Adjective Forms.
(1.) From IBERIA: Eth. ?�??, gen. ?�????, pl. ?? ?�??e?, fes. ?�????; Lat. Iber,
Lucan 6.255, Hor. Carm. 2.20. 20, pl. Iberes, Catull. 9.6, also Hiber, Hiberes;
and Iberi or Hiberi, Verg. G. 3.408, fem. Iberina, Juv. 6.53: Adj. ?�??????
whence ? ?�????? for the country itself; fem. ? ?�???a?,--??d??; Lat. Iberus,
Ibericus, and rarely Iberiacus (Sil. Ital. 13.510). (2.) Connected with
HISPANIA: Eth. and Adj. ?spa???, Const. Porph. de Admin. Imp. 2.23; Zonar. iii.
p. 406; Hispanus, Hispani, Adv. Hispane; also Spanus, Schol. Juv. 14.279;
Ampelius 6; and Spanicus, Geogr. Ray. iv. sub fin.; Adj. Hispaniensis (the
distinction between this and the ethnic being nicely drawn in the following
examples: Vell. 2.51, Balbus Cornelius non Hispaniensis natus, sed Hispanus,
that is, not merely belonging to Spain, like, for example, a Roman born in
Spain, but a true Spaniard, and Mart. xii. Praef.: Ne Romam, si ita decreveris,
non Hispaniensem librum mittamus, sed Hispanum), and rarely Hispanicus. (Suet.
Aug. 82, Vitr. 7.3.)
II. SPAIN AS KNOWN TO THE GREEKS.
The west of Europe was to the early Greeks a land of fancy as well as mystery.
Vague reports had reached them, probably through the Phoenicians, from which
they at first learnt little more than the bare existence of lands, so far
distant from their own country as to reach the region of the setting sun and the
banks of the all-encompassing river Ocean. According to the very natural
tendency which led them to place the happiest regions and the choicest
productions of the earth at its extreme parts, confirmed perhaps by exaggerated
accounts of the fertility and beauty which some of these regions (Andalucia, for
instance) actually enjoy, they fancied them as happy plains or as enchanted
islands, and peopled them with the divine nymphs, Circe and Calypso, who there
detained in sweet bondage the hero whom fate had cast upon their shores, with
the happy spirits of departed heroes, with the primitive and pastoral Cyclopes,
and the wealthy maritime Phoenicians, or with the exiled dynasty of gods,
Who with Saturn old,
Fled over Adria to the Hesperian fields,
Or o�er the Celtic roamed the utmost isles.
These poetic fancies were succeeded by historical inquiries, and then came all
the difficulties of reconciling meagre and conflicting testimonies with the
poets and with each other; mistakes arising from first assigning positions
vaguely and variously and then, instead of the discovery of such errors the
attempt to reconcile them by supposed migrations and other arbitrary devices: so
that such names as BEBREYCES, CHALYBES, CIMMERII, and IBERES scarcely seem
associated with any exact locality, and are freely transferred backwards and
forwards between the shores of the Atlantic and those of the Euxine. To this was
added the polemical spirit, which we find so rampant among the old geographic
crisis (as among the African and Arctic critics now), which �by decision more,
embroiled the fray;� while all the time the later poets were adding to the
confusion by imitating the legends of the ancients, and inventing others of
their own. Amidst all these elements of uncertainty it is no wonder that we
generally find no sure basis of information concerning the more distant
countries of the world until the arms of Rome had cleared the way for the
inquiries of the learned Greek.
But yet the neglect of this period would deprive the science of ancient
geography of a great portion of its interest, and of its use, too, in throwing
light on the progress of our race. And in no case is this period more attractive
than in that of the remotest country towards the West, one which is invested
with the double interest of having been familiar to the Phoenicians, as a
principal scene of their commerce and colonisation, while the Greeks were still
making it a favourite theatre for tile creations of their fancy.
1. Mythical Period
Of the purely Mythical Period little is to be said, and that little more
properly belongs to other articles. [CIMMERII, OCEANUS; FORTUNATAE INSULAE;
SULAE; HESPERIDES, AEAEA; HERCULIS COLUMNAE &c.; and the articles GERYON,
HERCULES, &c. in the Dictionary of Greek and ]Roman Mythology and Biography.]
2. Semi-Mythical Period of Hesiod and the Lyric Poets,
Advancing to the Semi-Mythical Period of Hesiod and the Lyric Poets, we begin to
meet with names which have at least the appearance of a specific geographical
significance, though still most uncertain as to their position; such as
TARTESSUS In connection with the legends of the Hyperboreans, the Rhipaean
mountains appear as a great range intersecting Europe from W. to E. The ISTER
and ERIDANUS were known by name to Hesiod (Hes. Th. 338, 339) as rivers of W.
Europe; and his island Erytheia: the abode of Geryon, is so described as to
prepare the way for its subsequent identification with GADES
3. Logographers and Tragic Poets,
The transition to the period of more real, though still most imperfect
knowledge, marked by the age of the Logographers and Tragic Poets, is extreme
extremely gradual, for while the avowed writers of fiction are seen to invest
their scenes with only an appearance of fact, the investigators of facts are
found recording under that guise the strangest fictions. But yet there is no
doubt that both give us what is meant to be objective knowledge; and no reader
of the Prometheus, for example, can doubt that Aeschylus expends all the
resources of his geographical knowledge, be they less or more, on his
description of the wanderings of 10. Indeed, with reference to our present
subject, we have now reached a period when the maritime enterprise of the
Phoecaeans had placed the Greeks in direct connection with the shores of the W.
part of the Mediterranean; and had made them acquainted with Tyrrhenia, Iberia,
and Tartessus. (Hdt. 1.163.) Accordingly we find the logographer Pherecydes and
the poet Stesichorus not only acquainted with the name TARTESSUS; but the latter
making it a river, in such a manner as to suggest its identification with the
Guadalquivir [BAETIS], while the former accurately represents it as a city on
the straits which divide Libya from Europe [TARTESSUS]. Stesichorus mentions
also the island of Erytheia, and an island Sarpedonia in the Atlantic, (Strab.
iii. p.148; Schol. Apollon. 1.211.) Pindar seems well acquainted with the
Pillars of Hercules, as the limit of the known world [HERCULIS COLUMNARE] and
Aeschylus, besides some other interesting allusions, too doubtful, however, to
be discussed here, seeks for the sources of the Ister in the Rhipaean mountains,
a fact of which the importance will be more clearlyseen when the views of
Herodotus have been discussed. (Schol. Apollon. 4.28; Ukert, vol. ii. pt. 1. pp.
238--243.) [1.1076]
4. Hecataeus
From these fragmentary notices we pass on to the first writer who gives us a
systematic account of any portion of the country,--namely HECATAEUS of Miletus
(about B.C. 500); for we have no remains of the earlier work of Charon of
Lampsacus, which contained a Periplus of the coast outside of the Pillars of
Hercules. (Eudoc, Violar. p. 435.) The Greeks of this period seem to have been
acquainted with the S. coast so far as to know the names of a number of places
along it, but not so as to form any accurate idea of it as a whole. From the few
extant fragments of Hecataeus, and from the passages in which Festus Avienus
follows his authority, Ukert deduces the following results:--West of the
Straits, which he makes scarcely 7 stadia in width, dwelt the TARTESSII (Avien.
Or. Mar. 70), among whom was the town of ELIBYRGE (Steph. B. sub voce ???�????),
which no other ancient writer names, but which the moderns have sought to
identify, on account of the resemblance in the names only, with ILLIBERIS or
ILLITURGIS East of the Pillars dwelt the MASTIANI with the capital, MASTIA; a
people and city long after mentioned also by Polybius (3.24): they had also the
cities of Syalis [SUEL], Mainobora [MAENOBA], Sixos [SAXETANUM], Molybdana, and
Calathe (Steph. B. sub voce s. vv.). Further to the E. the country began to be
called Iberia, and was inhabited by numerous peoples; among whom were the
Ilaraugatae, on a river of the same name (Steph. B. sub voce ??a?a??ata?), who
seem to be the Ilurgetae or ILERGETAE of later writers; and the Misgetes (Steph.
B. sub voce ??s??te?). Among the cities of Iberia are mentioned Crabasia and
Hyops, with a river Lesyros near the latter. (Steph. B. sub voce ???). Hecataeus
also mentions the town of Sicane (Steph. B. sub voce S?????), a name of much
interest, as showing the existence of Sicanians in Spain, which is also asserted
by Thucydides, who makes them dwell upon a river Sicanus, next the Ligyes who
expelled them thence to Sicily. (Thuc. 6.2; Strab. iii. p.270; SICANI) Two
islands, Cromyusa and Melussa, are mentioned by Hecataeus as belonging to
Iberia. (Steph. B, s. vv.)
5. HERODOTUS
Herodotus touches on the W. of Europe only incidentally, as but very distantly
related to his main subject. In one passage, when speaking of the extreme
regions of the earth, he plainly states that he has nothing certain to say of
the western parts of Europe: and he even doubts the existence of the river
Eridanus and the islands Cassiterides (3.115); and elsewhere he mentions the
belief of the Persians that there were no countries of any great importance W.
of Greece (7.8). His views may be summed up as follows:--Beyond the Pillars of
Hercules lay Gadeira, and near it the island of Erytheia (4.8). Elsewhere he
mentions the CYNESII or CYNETES as the westernmost people of Europe (2.33;
4.49); and next to them the great nation of the Celtae, whose country is
remarkable for its precious metals, and for the long life of the inhabitants
(1.163; 4.49, 152, 192: comp. Strab. iii. pp. 150, 151; Lucian, Macrob. 10;
Phlegon. de Longaev. 4; Cic. de Senect. 19; Plin. Nat. 7.48; Val. Max.8.13).
Among the Celtae were the sources of the river ISTER in the neighbourhood of a
city called PYRENE. (Hdt. 2.33; 4.49.) It is important to remember that this
statement respecting the source of the Ister is connected with a theory
entertained by Herodotus,--that the two great rivers of Libya and Europe, the
Nile and the Ister, followed courses right through the respective continents,
from W. to E., almost exactly parallel and equal to each other: the intro.
duction of the name Pyrene is discussed in its proper place. [PYRENAEI MONTES]
The name of Iberia is mentioned by him twice. The one passage is that already
cited respecting the discoveries of the Phocaeans, where the relation in which
it stands to Tyrrhenia suggests that it signifies the peninsula of Spain, so far
as it was known by maritime discovery (1.163). In the other passage he mentions
the Iberians in the army of Hamilcar in Sicily; and he connects them with the
Ligyes in such a manner as to suggest the inference, that the name was applied
to the whole Mediterranean coast, from the Straits to the Gulf of Lyon (7.165).
In the former of these passages, again, he mentions TARTESUS in close connection
with Iberia, and describes the Phocaeans as holding most friendly intercourse
with Arganthonius, the king of the Tartesii (1.163); and he speaks elsewhere of
the wealth and commercial importance of Tartesus [TARTESSUS]. These several
views seem to have had little more connection in the mind of the historian than
the passages referring to them have in his works; but, on comparing them with
the actual facts, and having regard to his probable sources of information,
something like a whole may be made out. On the S. coast, his knowledge, derived
from Phoenician and Phocaean sources, seems to have extended as far as the SW.
point of the peninsula, the SACRUM PROMONTORIUM (Cape St. Vincent), which long
remained the westernmost limit of ancient maritime discovery; if, at least, his
Chynetes are the CONII of other writers--that is, the inhabitants of the
southern projection of Portugal, called CUNEUS Justin (44.43) mentions Cunetes
in the mountains of the Tartessii; a confirmation of the hint given under CONII
that the name is truly ethnic, and that its resemblance to the Roman cuneus,
which so well describes the name of the district, is merely an accidental
coincidence. Next, the great colony of GADES was a subject of which he would
hear much from the Phoenicians; and separate accounts respecting Tartessus and
the surrounding country would be obtained from the same people, who had long
traded to it under the name of Tarshish, and from the Phocaeans, as we have
seen. The name Iberia seems to have been derived exclusively from the Phocaeans.
Lastly, apart from these results of maritime discovery, he had obtained from the
Phocaeans and other sources the impression that the great Celtic race overspread
pretty well the whole interior of Western Europe; a region, however, of which he
possessed scarcely one detail of accurate knowledge.
6. Historians, geographers of the century after Herodotus
The historians, geographers of the century after Herodotus had obtained a larger
amount of materials, but without a corresponding improvement in the accuracy of
their knowledge. The wide extent of the Celtic name, and the confusion between
Celts and Iberians, are found still prevalent; and the courses of the great
rivers of W. Europe are very imperfectly known. Thus, EUDOXUS of Cnidus (about
B.C. 380--360), of whose geographical work Aristotle made great use, mentions
the mountain Pyrene in Celtica, towards the W. extremity of the equinoctial line
(p??? d?s�?? ?s?�e?????), as containing the sources of the rivers Ister and
Tartessus, of which the latter flowed outside of the Pillars, and the former
through all Europe. (Aristot. Meteor. 1.13.) He places Iberia S. of Celtica, and
describes its shores towards the ocean as high and rocky, with promontories
running far out into the sea. (Strab. [1.1077] iii. p. 153.) About the same
time, EPHORUS, who devoted the 4th book of his work on geography to the W. of
Europe, assigns a vast extent of country to the Celts, and carries them on the
W. as far as Gades; while he confines the name of Iberia to the region W. of
Gades, and, if we are to believe Josephus, even fell into the error of making
Iberia a city with a comparatively small territory. He relates some absurd
fables about these regions. (Strab. iii. p.153, iv. p. 199, vii. p. 302; Joseph.
c. Apion. 1.12; Marx, ad Ephor. Frag. p. 142.) The Periplus of SCYLAX which also
belongs to about the same period, is very vague as to the shores of Spain. He
makes special mention of the commercial settlements of the Carthaginians outside
the Pillars, and of the tides and shoals which characterise that sea: a great
sandbank stretches across from the Sacred Promontory (C. S. Vincent) to the
promontory of Hermaeum in Lybia. The Iberians are the first people in Europe;
and there is the river Iber, and two islands called Gadeira [GADES]; and then
comes the Greek city EMPORIUM. Probably there is here a gap in the text; for he
passes over the whole coast from the Pillars to the Pyrenees, the voyage along
which, he says, occupies 7 days and nights. (Scylax, pp. 1, 51, ed. Hudson, pp.
1--3, 123, ed. Gronov.) Next to the Iberians, he places the Ligurians (????e?)
and the �mixed Iberians� (?�??e? �???de?) as far as the Rhone.
In the Pseudo-Aristotelian work de Mirab. Auscult. (86), the peoples of Western
Europe are mentioned in the following order, from W. to E.: Iberes, Celtoligyes,
Celtae, as far as Italy. HERODORUS tells us that the Iberians, who dwell on the
shores of the Straits, though belonging to one race, have various names,
according to their several tribes. (Fr. ap. Const. Porphyr. de Admin. Imp.
2.23.) Those most to the W. are called CYNSETES (Steph. B. sub voce ????t????);
N. of them are the GLETES (Steph. B. sub voce G??te?; comp. Strab. iii. p.166,
who says that the country E. of the Iberus was formerly called after the IGLETES
a great and powerful nation, who dwelt in it); then the TARTESSII; then the
ELBYSINII; then the MASTIANI and the CALPIANI, as far as the Rhone. (This
enumeration, and the order of it, might be made to throw much light on the names
and positions of the Spanish peoples, if the argument were not somewhat too
speculative for this article).
We likewise find a vast amount of error and confusion among the geographers of
this age respecting the distances and bearings of the shores of the W.
Mediterranean. Eudoxus states that a person sailing through the Straits into the
Inner Sea has immediately on his left hand the Sardoan, Galatian (Gallic), and
Adriatic Sea, on the right the bay of the Syrtes (Arist. de Mund. 3); and
Dicaearchus estimates the distance from the Sicilian Strait (Straits of Messina)
to the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar) at only 7000 stadia. (Strab.
ii. p.105.)
7. Age of Alexander and the Ptolemies.
The reign of Alexander the Great forms an epoch in the geography of W. Europe.
While his followers were adding by their own direct observations to the
knowledge of the extreme East, we are told that from the opposite end of the
known world his fame attracted the envoys of numerous nations, and among the
rest from the Celts and the Iberians, whose dress was then for the first time
seen, and their language first heard, by the Greeks and Macedonians. (Arrian,
Arr. Anab. 7.15.) From these and other sources, the learned men of Alexandria,
under the Ptolemies, obtained the information which is recorded in the works of
ERATOSTHIENES, his contemporaries, and his followers. It appears that
Eratosthenes was indebted for much of his knowledge to Timosthenes, the admiral
of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and the author of a large geographical work; but the
views of. both on the W. of Europe in general, and on Iberia in particular, are
severely criticised by Strabo and Marcian. (Strab. ii. pp. 92--94.)
Eratosthenes describes 3 peninsulas as running out S. from the mainland of
Europe; the one that which ends with the Peloponnesus, the second the Italian,
and the third the Ligurian (????st????); and these contain between them the
Adriatic and Tyrrhenian gulfs. (Strab. vii. p.92.) In another passage, the
westernmost of these 3 peninsulas is described as that which extends to the
Pillars, and to which Iberia belongs. (Strab. ii. p.108.) Of this peninsula he
assigns a large part to the Celts (Ga?ata?), whom he makes to reach as far as
Gadeira. (Strab. ii. pp. 107, 108.) He places the Columns of Hercules on the
Straits [HERCULIS COLUMNAE], to the W. of which he represents the peninsula as
running out into several large promontories. Of these, the first is the Sacred
Promontory (C. S. Vincent), which he placed at the greatly exaggerated distance
of 5 days' voyage from Gades. (Strab. ii. p.148.) The other chief promontory is
that of CALBIUM, about which dwelt the OSTIDAMNII; and opposite to it lay
several islands, of which UXISAMA, the furthest to the W., was distant 3. days'
voyage from Calbium: in this part of his description he follows Pytheas. (Strab.
i. p.64.) The region adjacent to Calpe he calls Tartessis, and places there the
�happy island� of Erytheia. Besides GADES he mentions the town of TARRACO
(Tarragona), and adds that it has a good roadstead, a statement contradicted by
Artemidorus and Strabo. (Strab. iii. p.159.) He makes the Pyrenees the E.
boundary. [PYRENAEI.] In general, his knowledge seems not to have extended
beyond the coast.
8. extent of Iberia, as understood by the Greek geographers.
We are now brought down to the time of the First Punic War, and to the eve of
the period when the imperfect. and often merely speculative, notions of the
Greeks respecting Spain were superseded by the direct information which the
Romans gained by their military operations in the country. But before passing on
to the Roman period, a few words are: necessary on the extent of Iberia, as
understood by the Greek geographers.
While, as we have already seen, many of them gave the greater part of the
peninsula to the Celts, and confined the Iberians either to the part W. of the
Straits, or to the Mediterranean shore; others extend the name of Iberia as far
E. as the Rhone, and even as far N.E. as the Rhine, and so as to include the
peoples on both sides of the Alps. Thus Aeschylus, if we are to believe Pliny,
took the Eridanus to be another name for the Rhodanus, which he placed in
Iberia. (Plin. Nat. 37.2. s. 11.) Nonnus applies the epithet Iberian to the
Rhine. (Dionys. xxiii. p. 397, xliii. p. 747.) Plutarch. places Iberian tribes
in the Alps. (Marcell. 3.) In fine, Strabo sums up these opinions as
follows:--�The name of Iberia, as used by the earlier writers,, includes all the
country beyond the Rhone and the Isthmus which is confined between the Gallic
Gulfs (i. e. the Bay of Biscay, and the Gulf of Lyon): but those of the present
age assign M. Pyrene as its; boundary, and called it indifferently Iberia and
Hispania [1.1078] [whereas by those of old the name of Iberia] was applied only
to the part within the Iberus.� (Strab. iii. p.166; the words within brackets
are supplied as the most probable restoration of a gap in the text.)
It must be observed that such statements as these express something more than a
confusion in the minds of the Greek writers between the territories of the Celts
and of the Iberians: they express the fact in ethnography, that the Iberian race
extended beyond the boundaries of Spain as defined by the Pyrenees, and that
they were to a great extent intermixed with the Celts in W. Europe. (See below,
on the earliest inhabitants of Spain: No. VII.)
III. SPAIN AS KNOWN TO THE CARTHAGINIANS AND THE ROMANS.
1. Down to the End of the First Punic War.
The internal state of the peninsula, down to the period at which we have now
arrived, will be spoken of below; but, in order to estimate the knowledge of the
country possessed by the Romans, we must first glance at its relations to the
other great power of the Mediterranean. From the earliest known period of
antiquity the Phoenicians had held commercial intercourse with Spain; and there
is more than a probability that Tyre had established a sort of dominion over the
part adjacent to the S. coast, the TARSHISH of Scripture, and the TARTESSIS of
the Greeks. (Isaiah, 23.10, where the prophet compares the liberty of Tarshish,
consequent on the fall of Tyre, to the free course of a river,--such, for
example, as her own Guadalquivir,--when a mighty obstacle is removed.) The
phrase �ships of Tarshish� appears to have been as familiar in the mercantile
marine of Tyre as �Indiamen� in our own (2 Chron. 9.21, 20.36, 37: Ps. 48.7; Is.
lx. 9; Ezek. 27.25); and the products of the Spanish mines, �silver, iron, tin,
and lead,� are mentioned by Ezekiel as among �the multitude of all kind of
riches, by reason of which Tarshish was her merchant.� (Ezek. 27.12.) Phoenician
settlements were numerous on the S. coast of the peninsula, within the Straits,
and beyond them there was the great commercial colony of GADES the emporium for
the traffic of Tyre with the shores of the Atlantic. But this was not all. From
the very physical nature of the country, it was scarcely possible that the
Phoenicians should have abstained from extending their power up the navigable
stream of the BAETIS of which Gades may be regarded as the port, over the
fertile plains of Baetica (Andalucia), as far N. as the Sierra Morena, which at
once contained the mineral wealth in quest of which they came, and formed a
barrier against the natives of the centre. Be this as it may, we know for
certain that in the narrower tract between the sea-shore and the Sierra Nevada [ILIPULA]
the people were a mixed race of Iberian and Phoenician blood, called
????f?????e? (Strab. iii. p.149: BASTULI). The power which the Carthaginians
obtained during this period over the natives cannot be positively defined; but
they received many of them into their armies by voluntary enlistment.
2. The Viceroyalty of the House of Barca.
Such were the relations of Spain to Carthage; and as to Rome, she had had as yet
nothing to do with the peninsula, when the First Punic War was brought to an
end, B.C. 241. Carthage seemed to have expended all her resources in the vain
effort to secure Sicily; and, when the revolt of her African mercenaries gave
Rome an opportunity of filching away from her her oldest provinces, Sardinia and
Corsica (B.C. 236), the contest might well be thought to have concluded. �I
believe,� says Niebuhr, �that there were fellows at Carthage, such as Hanno,
who, partly from envy of Hamilcar, and partly from their own stupidity, would
not or could not see that, after the loss of Sicily and Sardinia, there were yet
other quarters from which the republic might derive great benefits. When, after
the American War, it was thought that the ignominious peace of Paris had put an
end to the greatness of England, Pitt undertook with double courage the
restoration of his country, and displayed his extraordinary powers. It was in
the same spirit that Hamilcar acted: he turned his eyes to Spain: . . . . he
formed the plan of making Spain a province, which should compensate for the loss
of Sicily and Sardinia. The latter island was then and is still very unhealthy,
and its interior was almost inaccessible. Sicily had an effeminate and unwarlike
population, and, rich as it was, it might indeed have increased the maritime
power of Carthage, but it would not have given her any additional military
strength. The weakness of Carthage consisted in her having no armies; and it was
a grand conception of Hamilcar's to transform Spain into a Carthaginian country,
from which national armies might be obtained. His object, therefore, was, on the
one hand, to subdue the Spaniards, and on the other to win their sympathy, and
to change them into a Punic nation under the dominion of Carthage. (Plb. 2.1;
Diod. Fr. Lib. xxv.; Eclog. ii. p. 510.) The conduct of the Romans towards their
subjects was haughty, and always made them feel that they were despised. The
highly refined Greeks, who were themselves wont to look with contempt on all
foreigners, must have felt that haughtiness very keenly. The Spaniards and Celts
were of course less respected. Common soldiers in the Roman armies not
unfrequently, especially in the times of the emperors, married native women of
the countries in which they were stationed. Such marriages were regarded as
concubinage, and from them sprang a class of men who were very dangerous to the
Romans. The Carthaginians acted more wisely, by making no restrictions in regard
to such marriages. Hannibal himself married a Spanish woman of Castulo (Liv.
24.41: comp. Diod. Fr. Lib. xxv.; Eclog. ii. p. 510, foll.), and the practice
must have been very common among the Carthaginians. This was an excellent way to
gain the good will of the natives. The whole of the southern coast of Spain had
resources of no ordinary kind; it furnished all the productions of Sicily and
Sardinia, and in addition to them it had very rich silver mines, the working of
which has been revived in our own days. Hamilcar was the first who introduced
there a regular and systematic mode of mining, and this led him, or his
son-in-law, to build the town of New Carthage (Carthagena). While the
Carthaginians thus gained the sympathy of the nation, they acquired a population
of millions which relieved them from the necessity of hiring faithless
mercenaries, as they had been obliged to do in the First Punic War; they were
enabled to raise armies in Spain just as if it had been their own country. The
Romans no doubt observed these proceedings with feelings of jealousy, but could
not prevent them, as long as the Cisalpine Gauls stood on their frontiers, ready
to avenge the defeats of the Senones and Boians.� (Niebuhr, Lectures on Roman
History, [1.1079] vol. ii. p. 69.) It was in the year B.C. 237 that Hamilcar
commenced this mighty work, not without an ultimate design, unless He is grossly
misrepresented by Polybius and Livy, of founding for his house an empire in
Spain, in case the Anti-Barcine faction, should prevail at Carthage. [CARTHAGO
NOVA] For eight years he carried on his plan with great success, and he appears
to have extended the Carthaginian empire as far N. as the Sierra Morena, so that
it included the whole of Andalucia, and pretty well all Murcia. On his death,
B.C. 229, he left his power and his schemes as an inheritance to Hasdrubal, his
son-in-law, who carried on the plan for nearly nine years, till he was cut off
by an assassin, B.C. 221, and left its fulfilment to the mighty genius of
Hannibal. Meanwhile the Romans, occupied with the war in Cisalpine Gaul, had no
power to interfere. Just, however, before that war began, they had done the best
they could by making a separate treaty, not with Carthage, but with Hasdrubal
himself (as a sort of supplement to the existing treaty with Carthage), by which
the river Iberus (Ebro) was fixed as a limit beyond which the Carthaginians were
not to extend their conquests (as Polybius states), or (according to Livy) as
the boundary between the two states, B.C. 228. (Plb. 3.27; Liv. 21.2; 34.13).
That the latter expression, even if used in the treaty (which seems from
Polybius to be more than doubtful) does not imply that the Roman arms had
actually extended to the Iberus, is shown by Livy himself in the second passage
quoted, where he says that Spain was then in the hands of the Carthaginians,
held by their generals and armies, while Rome had not a single general nor any
soldiers in the country. The previous treaty itself, made at the close of the
First Punic War, had provided that the allies of each state should be safe from
molestation by the other; and now, if we are to believe Livy (Polybius being
silent on the point), an express stipulation to the same effect was introduced
on behalf of Saguntum, a city lying within the portion assigned to the
Carthaginians, but in alliance with the Romans. [SAGUNTUM] The dispute upon this
question, and its bearing upon the rights of the two parties in the Second Punic
War, are of little consequence here, except as throwing light on the connection
of the Romans with the peninsula. Thus much is certain, that Saguntum was in
alliance with Rome when Hannibal laid siege to it, and it is also probable that
the Romans' had some footing in TARRACO
3. The Second Punic War.
When Hannibal, on his march to Italy, had effected the passage of the Rhone, and
turned the flank of Scipio, B.C. 218, the bold resolution, by which that general
sent the bulk of his army into Spain under his brother Cneius, to oppose
Hasdrubal, while it perhaps determined, however remotely, the issue of the war,
began a struggle, first with the Carthaginians, and then with the Spaniards'
themselves, which lasted almost 200 years, and only ended with the subjugation
of the northern mountaineers, the CANTABRI and ASTURES by Augustus, B.C. 25. It
is needless to dwell on those details, which are familiar to every reader as a
part of the Second Punic War: the successes of Cn. and P. Scipio, and their
unfortunate end, B.C. 218--212; the almost romantic expedition of young P.
Scipio, 211, his capture of New Carthage, 210 [CARTHAGO NOVA], and the final
expulsion of the Carthaginians from Spain B.C. 206, which was followed by its
erection into a Roman province. From this time the Romans had to deal with the
natives, a people always willing to make use of foreigners against each other,
but never ready to yield them obedience.
4. Conquest of the country by the Romans.
Neither the dominion of Hannibal, nor that acquired by the Romans in the Second
Punic War, extended over so much as one half of the peninsula. The part which
they had entirely subdued, seems to have comprehended Catalonia, Valencia,
Murcia. and Andalucia, or the country between the sea and the great chain which
runs parallel to the E. coast, and on the S. the country between the Sierra
Morena and the sea. The province (its division will be spoken of presently) was
governed by praetors; there being sometimes one, and sometimes two; and two
legions were kept stationary in Spain. This arrangement, besides its effects on
the Roman constitution, with which we are not here concerned, had a most
important influence on Spain. �The legions remained there for a number of years,
married Spanish women, and became estranged from Italy. When, therefore, such
legions were disbanded, many soldiers would remain in Spain, unwilling to return
to a country to which they had become strangers.� (Niebuhr, Lectures on Roman
History, vol. ii. p. 208.)
The central tribes, forming the great Celtiberian nation, retained their own
government, which seems to have been of a republican form, in nominal alliance
with the Romans, to whom the independent tribes of the N. and W. were as yet
scarcely known by name. (Liv. 23.21, 29.3; Flor. 2.17.) The Roman settlements
were continually exposed to the attacks which the natives, as provocation was
given or opportunity offered, made upon them from their strongholds in the
mountains. (Liv. 28.4.) To abate the evil Cato the Elder, when consul, undertook
an expedition against the Celtiberians and some smaller tribes, whom he induced,
by a stratagem, to demolish the defences of their towns, and so to place
themselves in his power, which, it must be added, he used with such justice and
moderation as to win their hearts, B.C. 184. (Appian, App. Hisp. 41; Liv. 34.17;
Plutarch, Cat. 10; Flor. 2.17.) Indeed, as Niebuhr has more than once observed
in his Lectures, the wars of Rome in Spain give constant illustrations of that
point which (like most others) is still conspicuous in the national character,
their great susceptibility of personal influence, which often proved a
corrective to their bitter jealousy of foreigners. �It is indeed surprising� (he
says, vol. ii. p. 209) �to see how a Roman general with humane feelings was
always able to win the affections and confidence of those tribes [in central
Spain], and to establish the authority of Rome for a time, until fresh acts of
injustice provoked their resentment.� Of this we have another striking example
in the success of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, the father of the celebrated
brothers, who concluded a fierce war, in which the Romans had been for some time
engaged with the Celtiberians, by an honourable peace, which at once secured the
Roman supremacy and won the hearts of the natives. By this peace the Roman power
became established in Catalonia, Valencia, Arragon, and the E. part of Castile,
and the tribes who were parties to it bound themselves to build no more towns,
B.C. 179. (Polyb. ap Strab. iii. pp. 111, 170; Liv. 40.49, et seq., 41.3;
Appian, [1.1080] Hisp. 43; Flor. l.c. CELTIBERI.) From this time it becomes
difficult, from the paucity of materials, to give a consecutive account of the
progress of the Roman arms; nor would the details be very interesting. The war
seems to have been more or less constant, in the valleys of the Tagus and the
Durius, with various tribes, among which the most conspicuous are the VACCAEI
and the LUSITANI; what was gained by the skill and wisdom of one general being
generally put to hazard by the cupidity and oppressions of another. On the whole
it seems probable that, before the epoch of the Macedonian War (B.C. 171), the
domination of Rome had been extended over the whole peninsula, except the
mountainous regions of the north, and the mountain fastnesses of the centre. In
B.C. 153, some new provocation, the exact nature of which is obscure [CELTIBERIA],
drove the Celtiberians into open revolt, and the consul Q. Fulvius Nobilior made
an unsuccessful campaign against them. (Liv. Epit. lib. xlvii; Appian, App. Hisp.
44-47.) The consul of the next year, the celebrated M. Claudius Marcellus,
concluded an armistice with them on very fair terms, and turned his arms against
the Lusitanians. But his moderation was alike distasteful to the Senate, who
demanded an unconditional submission, and to his successor in the consulship, L.
Licinius Lucullus (B.C. 151), who renewed the war with much cruelty and avarice,
but with little success, against a part of the Celtiberians; but he gained some
advantages against the VACCAEI and CANTABRI, and other peoples as yet unknown to
the Romans. (Plb. 35.3, 4; Liv. Epit. xlviii; Appian, App. Hisp. 51-55.) After
the war had lasted for four years, B.C. 153--149 (a period which is therefore
sometimes called �the First Celtiberian War,� to distinguish it from the war of
NUMANTIA which was, in fact, but its continuation), it appears to have been
suspended, partly because the attention of Rome was now occupied with the Third
Punic War (B.C. 149), but still more on account of the more serious occupation
which the cruelty and treachery of Lucullus and the praetor Galba had made for
the two armies of Spain in the great war against the Lusitanians and Viriathus,
which was only finished by the consul D. Junius Brutus, in B.C. 138. [LUSITANIA]
Brutus, remaining in his province of Further Spain as proconsul, devoted the
next year to the completion of the conquest of Lusitania, and then marched
across the river Durius (Douro) into the country of the Callaici Bracarii, into
which no Roman army had ever before penetrated, and advanced as far as the
Minius (Minho), though his conquests can hardly have been permanent. [GALLAECIA]
Meanwhile the state of affairs in the other province, Hither Spain, had become
critical; and the Celtiberians, long known as the bravest and most noble-minded
of the Spaniards, were engaged in that final struggle which was only quelled by
the skill and the stern resolution of the younger Scipio Africanus. In B.C. 143
Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus had entered his province of Hither Spain with
the resolution to confirm, by its final conquest, the fame he had already
acquired in Macedonia; and he gained great successes against the Celtiberians. (Liv.
Epit. liii.; V. Max. 9.3.7, 7.4.5, 3.2.21; Appian, App. Hisp. 76; Eutrop. 4.16.)
The reverses of his successor Q. Pompeins, the varied fortunes of the war, and
its conclusion by Scipio, belong to the history of NUMANTIA whose fall and
destruction established the Roman dominion in Central Spain, B.C. 133; and left
nothing to be done except the subjection of the CANTABRI and ASTURES which was
effected by Augustus in B.C. 25. (See the articles: the Wars of Sertorius and
those of Caesar belong to the internal history of Rome; and only deserve notice
here on account of their effect in still further consolidating the Roman power
in the peninsula.)
The Romans had thus been long quietly established in the south and east; and in
the centre the constant presence of Roman armies, and the settlements of Roman
veterans, had necessarily exerted a great influence on the language and manners
of the natives, besides infusing into the population no small share of Roman
blood. And, during the whole period of two centuries, no other foreign influence
had been brought to bear upon the people: we hear only of one invasion by
barbarians, that of the CIMBRI who, after their great victory over Manlius and
Caepio (B.C. 105), turned off into Spain, which they ravaged in the most fearful
manner for the greater part of two years (B.C. 104,103), until the desperate
resistance of the Celtiberians induced them to give up the hope of a permanent
conquest, and to retire from the peninsula. (Niebuhr, Lect. on Rom. Hist. vol.
ii. p. 330.)
Under Augustus the Romanising process was carried on by the foundation of many
and very considerable colonies, as, for example, CAESAR AUGUSTA (Zaragoza),
EMERITA AUGUSTA (Merida), PAX JULIA (Beja), PAX AUGUSTA (Badajoz), LEGIO VII.
GEMINA (Leon), and others. These cities were adorned with some of the finest
productions of Roman architecture, of many of which magnificent ruins still
remain.
The system of internal communication also, which had been commenced as early as
B.C. 124 (Plb. 3.39; Freinsheim, Suppl. Liv. 61.72), and further developed by
Pompey's military roads over the Pyrenees (Sallust, Frag. Hist. iii. p. 820,
Cort.), was made tolerably complete by Augustus. Thus the peninsula, with all
its natural advantages, was laid open to travellers and settlers, who flocked
over the Pyrenees to all quarters of the land; so that, by the time of Strabo,
the Turdetani in the S., and the people about the Baetis in general, had been
entirely converted to Roman manners (te???? e?? t?? ??�a??? �eta�?�???ta? t??p??),
and they had even forgotten their own language. Most of them had obtained the
civitas Latina, and had received Roman settlers; so that little was wanting of
their being all Romans. The Iberians who were in this condition were called
Togati; and among these were included even the Celtiberians, who had been
regarded as the wildest (?????d?stat??) of all (Strab. iii. p.151); that is, of
all the tribes in the S. and centre of the peninsula, for of them only is Strabo
here speaking. The tribes of the northern mountains long after retained those
fierce rugged manners which led Juvenal to write (Sat. 8.119) �Horrida vitanda
est Hispania.�
Having thus become more thoroughly Roman than any other province out of Italy,
Spain furnished many names distinguished in the history and literature of Rome,
such as the poet Lucan, the two Senecas, Columella, Pomponius Mela, Quintilian,
Martial, and many others.
IV. POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND CONSTITUTION UNDER THE ROMANS.
1. The two provinces of Hither and Further Spain.
The provincial constitution dates from [1.1081] the year after the expulsion of
the Carthaginians, B.C. 205; and at the same time the division of the peninsula
into two parts, which appears already to have been used as a geographical
distinction, was made a part of the political constitution; so that the
peninsula formed, from the first down to the time of Augustus, two1 provinces,
the eastern, called HISPANIA CITERIOR (? ??t?? ?spa??a or ?�???a and the western
called HISPANIA ULTERIOR (? ??t?? or ??? I.), the words ??t?? and ??t?? having
reference to the river IBERUS (Ebro) which was at first adopted as the natural
boundary. (Strab. iii. p.166; Caes. B.C. 3.73; Cic. pro Leg. Manil. 12; pro
Font. 56. 3; Liv. 28.18, 30.30, 32.27, 28, 45.16; Plin. Nat. 3.1. s. 2; Tac.
Ann. 4.13; Flor. 4.2.) The boundary, however, was drawn differently at different
times; so that we find, in Caesar (B.C. 1.38), Hispania Citerior extending as
far as the SALTUS CASTULONENSIS, on the NE. margin of the valley of the BARTIS
(Guadalquivir); and afterwards the boundary was drawn from this range, or from
the sources of the Baetis to New Carthage, and later still to the town of URCI
(Almeria), a little W. of the SE. point of the peninsula (CHARIDEMI PR.; C. de
Gata), or even to MURGIS a little further to the W. (Artemid. ap. Steph. B. sub
voce ?�???a?; Strab. l.c.; Plin. Nat. 3.3. s. 4; Const. Porph. de Admin. Imp.
2.23.) Polybius, having probably in his mind the old Greek distinction between
the country of the Celts and that of the Iberians, calls the eastern province
Celtiberia and the western Iberia, and makes the boundary near Saguntum; but by
this he probably refers to the Ebro as the boundary, for he fell into the common
mistake about the position of Saguntum (Polyb. iii 17; comp. SAGUNTM; see also
Artemid. ap. Steph. B. sub voce ?�e??s??pe???; Strab. iii. p.148; Plut. Sert.
3). Other writers use Celtiberia as a synonym for Hither Spain (Plin. Nat. 4.36;
Solin. 23). Lastly, some late writers used the terms Great and Little Spain (?spa??a
�e???? and �????) as equivalent respectively to Hither and Further Spain (Charax,
ad Const. Porph. de Admin. Imp. 2.23; comp. Steph. B. sub voce ?spa??a?). Even
after the division into three provinces, we still find the phrases Hispania
Citerior and Ulterior, the latter including Baetica and Lusitania.
2. Administration before Augustus.
The two provinces were governed, at first, by proconsuls elected extra ordinem (Liv.
28.38; 29.13, 31.20), and afterwards by two praetors, who were usually invested
with the power of proconsuls and the insignia of the 12 fasces. (Liv. 32.28,
33.26; Duker. ad Liv. 37.46, 39.29; Drakenborch. ad Liv. 40.39.) At the time of
the Macedonian war, the provinces were united under one governor; but only as a
temporary arrangement, and the double government was restored in B.C. 167 (Liv.
44.17, 45.16). As already observed, there, were two armies stationary in Spain;
two legions in each province (comp. Caes. B.C. 1.38). The seat of government for
Hither Spain was at first TARRACO and afterwards also CARTHAGO NOVA; that of the
Further Province seems generally to have been at CORDUBA and sometimes at GADES
3. The Three Provinces of Tarraconensis, Baetica, and Lusitania.
Already in the time of julius Caesar we find a distinction made between the part
of Further Spain which lay SE. of the Anas (Guadiana), and the country of the
Lusitani and Vettones to the W. and N. of that river. He represents the country
as divided between the three legati of Pompeius, of whom Afranius held Hispania
Citerior, with three legions; Petreius, the country from the Saltus
Castulonensis to the Anas, with two legions; and Varro, the territory of the
vettones and Lusitani, on from the Anas, with two legions. (B.C. 1.38.) This
distinction was adopted in the settlement of the provinces by Augustus; Hispania
Ulterior being divided into the two provinces of BAETICA and LUSITAIA, while
Hispania Citerior2 was called by the new name of HISPANIA TARRACONENSIS, after
its old capital TARACO. (Appian, App. Hisp. 3, 102; Strab. iii. p.166; tela,
2.6; Plin. Nat. 3.2; D. C. 53.12; Const. Porph. de Admin. Imp. 2.23: the phrase
tres Hispaniae is found in an inscription, ap. Marini, ii. p. 785: respecting
the boundaries of the three provinces, see the several articles.)
4. Imperial Administration.
Baetica was a senatorial province; the other two were provinciae Caesaris (Strab.
xvii. p.840; Suet. Aug. 27; D. C. 53.12): all three were governed by praetors,
of whom the praetor of Tarraconensis had consular power; and under him were
three legati and three legions. His residence was generally at Tarraco, but
sometimes also at New Carthage: that of the praetor of Baetica at Corduba; that
of the propraetor of Lusitania usually at Augusta Emerita. The finances were
administered, in Baetica, by a quaestor, in the two other provinces by
procuratores Caesaris.
5. Conventus Juridici.
For judicial purposes, the whole country was divided into districts, called
convents juridici, in each of which the courts were held at a chief city, to
which the convents was considered to belong. There were, according to Pliny who
makes this division the basis of his description, 14 conventus in all; of which
Tarraconenses had 7, Baetica 4, and Lusitania 3; as follows (Plin. Nat. 3.3. s.
4, 4.2). s. 24, 21. s. 35):--
(1). The 7 conventus of TARRACONENSIS were those of CARTHAGO NOVA, TARRACO,
CAESAR AUGUSTA, CLUNIA, LUCUS AUGUSTI, BRACARA AUGUSTA, and probably ASTURICA
AUGUSTA; besides the Balearic islands. [BALEARES INSULAE.] These 7 conventus
contained 472 towns and villages, of which 293 were reckoned as belonging to the
other (contributas aliis) 179, which were made up as follows: 12 coloniae, 13
oppida civium Romanorum (i. e. with the full Roman citizenship), 18 Latinorum
veterum (i. e. with the jus Latii), 1 foederatorum (allied, but without the
civitas), and 135 stipendiaria (i. e. tributary, Plin. Nat. 3.3. s. 4).
(2). The 4 conventus of BAETICA had their seats at GADES, CORDUBA, ASTICGI, and
HISPALIS and contained 175 towns; namely, 9 coloniae, 8 municipia, [1.1082] 29
with the Latin franchise (Latio antiquitus donata), 6 free (libertate donata), 7
allied (foedere donata), 120 stipendiaria. (Plin. Nat. 3.1. s. 3). (3).
LUSITANIA had for the head-quarters of its 3 conventus, the cities of EMERITA
AUGUSTA, PAX JULIA, and SCALABIS; at which justice was administered to the
peoples of 46 towns, including 5 coloniae, 1 municipium civium Romanorum, 3 with
the Latin franchise (Latii, antiqui), and 36 stipendiarias. (Plin. xxi. s. 35.)
*
Further particulars, including the names of the chief of the towns here counted
up, are given under BAETICA, LUSITANIA, and TARRACONENSIS.
6. Changes after Augustus.
Vespasian rewarded the Spaniards for the readiness with which they espoused his
cause by conferring the Jus Latii on all the cities of the peninsula. (Tac.
Hist. 3.53, 70; Plin. Nat. 3.3. s. 4; coins of Vespasian, with the epigraph
HISPANIA, ap. Eckhel, vol. vi. p. 338.)
Long before the new arrangement of the provinces under Constantine, the
subdivision of Tarraconensis had begun by the erection of GALLAECIA and ASTURIA
into a Provincia Caesaris under the Antonines, perhaps even under Hadrian. (Orelli,
Inscr. No. 77.) Under Constantine, Spain, with its islands, and with the part of
Africa which included the ancient Mauretania, now reckoned to Spain, was divided
into the 7 provinces of BAETICA, LUSITANIA, GALLAECIA, TARRACONENSIS,
CARTHAGINIENSIS, INSULAE BALEARES, and TINGITANA, which had for their respective
capitals, HISPALIS, EMERITA, BRACARA, CAESARAUGUSTA, CARTHAGO NOVA, PALMA, and
TINGIS Of these 7 provinces the first 3 were governed by Consules, the other 4
by Praesides; and all were subject to the Vicarius Hispaniarum, as the deputy of
the Praefectus Praetorio Galliae. (S. Rufus, Brev. 5; Not. Dig. Occ. 100.20;
B�cking, Annot. ad N. D. vol. ii. p. 458, where much interesting matter is
collected; Zosim. 2.32, 33; Cod. Theod. L. v. et lxi.) Entirely independent of
the Vicarius Hispaniae were 3 military governors (comites, Cod. Theod. L. iv. L.
iii. &c.).
7. Summary of Political Geography
To complete this summary of the political geography of Spain, we subjoin a
tabular list, from Ukert (vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 322), of the Peoples and Districts
of the Several Provinces, as enumerated by the principal ancient authorities:--
[See next page.]
V. DESCRIPTIVE GEOGRAPHY FOR THE TIME OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
1. Position and general form.
In the period which has passed under our review, it has been seen that two
leading facts respecting Spain had been established from the earliest period of
historical research; namely, that it was the westernmost country of Europe,3 and
that it was not (as some of the poets seem to have fancied) an island, but had
its Mediterranean shore continuous with that of LIGURIA Of its actual separation
from Libya there never was a doubt, even among the poets, though they look back
in imagination to a time when the separation was effected by superhuman power. [HERCULIS
COLUMNAE] The early knowledge of the Straits led necessarily to some knowledge
of the ocean which lies beyond them [ATLANTICUM MARE]; and we have seen that, at
a very early period, the Greeks were acquainted with the Atlantic coast as far
as the Sacred Cape (C. S. Vincent). The campaigns in Lusitania gave them a
general idea of the W. coast; and the Cantabrian War, in which the fleet of
Augustus, for the first time, sailed along the N. coast, united its evidence
with the knowledge already obtained of the S. of Gaul, to complete the true
notion of the general form of the country, as it is well described by
Arnold:--�The Spanish peninsula, joined to the main body of Europe by the
isthmus of the Pyrenees, may be likened to one of the round bastion towers which
stand out from the walls of an old fortified town, lofty at once and massy.�
(Arnold, History of Rome, vol. iii. p. 391.) This passage is quoted for the sake
of the striking form in which it puts the general idea of the object; but we may
venture to improve the details, by observing, that a modern polygonal bastion
might be a better image, and that the isthmus of the peninsula is more
accurately described by an ancient geographer than by the modern historian, as
�the isthmus� --not of the Pyreneesbut, with reference to its narrowest part,
�hemmed in between the two Gallic gulfs� (Strabo, as already quoted4); and it is
within this isthmus that the Pyrenees rise, like gigantic lines of
fortification, to cover the whole peninsula which lies beyond them. (Comp. Strab.
ii. p.127; Agathem. ii. p. 36.)
These general views were held by the geographers under the Roman empire, but
with some interesting differences as to details. They all describe the country
as narrowest at the Pyrenees, and gradually widening out from thence. Mela makes
its width at the Pyrenees half as much as at the W. coast; Strabo, in the
proportion of 3 to 5. Strabo compares it to the hide of a beast, having the neck
turned towards the E., and by it joined on to Gaul (?e?t???: Strab. ii. p.127,
iii. pp. 137, 138, comp. ii. pp. 119, 120; Dion. Per. 287; Eusth. ad Dion. Per.
285; Mela, 2.6, 3.1; Plin. Nat. 3.3. s. 4). It should be borne in mind that
Strabo regarded the peninsula as a four-sided figure, of which the E. side was
formed by the Pyrenees, which he believed to lie N. and S. parallel to the
Rhine; from their extremities the N. coast ran out to the PR. NERIUM (C.
Finisterre), and the S. coast [1.1083]
POLYBIUS. STRABO. MELA PLINIUS. PTOLEMAEUS.
I. BAETICA.
Mastiani. Bastuli. Bastetani, and Bastetani. Bastetani.
Bastitani. Turduli, W. of Turduli Turdetani.
Iberi Montani. Turdetania. the Pillars. Baeturia, including Turduli.
Baeturia. E. Turduli, Celtici.
W. Celtici.
II. LUSITANIA.
Lusitani. Cuneus. Lusitania. Lusitania. Turdetani.
Celtici. Turduli. Turduli. Celtici.
Lusitania. Lusitani.
III. PARRACONENSIS.--A. SE. COAST FROM SW. TO NE.
Oretani. Bastuli. Bastitani.
Bastetani. Mavitania.
Aeletani. Deitania.
Sidetani. Contestania. Contestani.
Ilergetes. Edetania. Edetani.
Indigetes. Ilergaones. Ilercaones.
Lacetani. Cossetania.
Lartoleaetae. Ilergetes.
Laletani. Laletani.
Indigetes. Indigetes.
B. ON THE BORDERS OF BAETICA AND LUSITANIA--SE. TO NW.
Oclades. Bastuli. Bastitani.
Mentesani.
Oretani. Oretani. Oretani. Oretani.
Carpetani. Carpetani. Carpetani.
Vettones. Vettones. Vettones.
Vaccaci. Vaccaei. Vaccaei. Vaccaei.
Callaici. Gallaeci. Callaici.
Braecarii.
Grovii. Lucenses.
Celtici. Celtici.
Artabri. Artabri.
C. N. COAST, FROM W. TO E.
Astures. Astures. Astures. Astures.
Cantabri. Cantabri. Cantabri.
Autrigones. Autrigones. Autrigones.
Orgenomesci. Caristi.
Varduli. Varduli. Varduli.
Vascones. Vascones. Vascones.
D. AT THE FOOT OF THE PYRENEES, FROM NW. TO SE.
Cerretani. Cerretani. Ilergetes.
Jaccetani. Lacetani. Cerretani.
Ilergetes. Ausetani. Indigetes.
E. IN THE CENTRE OF SPAIN.
Verones. In the N. In the N.
Celtiberi; Turmodigi. Murbogi.
including Carietes. Pelendones.
Arevaci, and Vennenses. Arevacae.
Lusones. In the S. In the S.
Celtiberi. Carpetani.
Arevaci. Celtiberi.
Pelendones. Lobetani.
In the E.
Jaccetani.
Castellani.
Ausetani.
[1.1084]
to the PR. SACRUM5 , and the fourth side by the W. coast, extending N. and S.,
between the two headlands named, parallel to the Pyrenees. (Strab. iii. p.137;
comp. Just. 44.1.) When others call it triangular they probably reckon the whole
N. side, along the Pyrenees and N. coast, as one, which is more accurate. (Oros.
1.2; Aeth. Ister. Cosmog. p. 43, ed. Simler.) Its true form may be regarded, by
a rough process of estimation, as a trapezium contained by lines drawn from the
C. Creus to C. Finisterre, on the N.; from C. Finisterre to C. S. Vincent, on
the W.; from C. S. Vincent to C. de Gata, on the S.; and from C. de Gata to C.
Creus, on the E.: but, by drawing intermediate lines from headland to headland,
the number of sides might be considerably varied.
2. Boundaries.
No country which is not insular has its boundaries so well defined as Spain:
namely, on the E. and part of the S. side (the S. side of Strabo and other
ancient writers), the Mediterranean [MARE INTERNUM]; on the rest of the S., the
W., and part of the N. sides, the Atlantic [ATLANTICUM MARE]; and on the
remainder of the N side (the E. side of Strabo and other ancient writers), the
Pyrenees [PYRENARI M.]. Different names were applied to the seas which washed
the coasts (the bays will be mentioned presently), as follows: the part of the
Mediterranean on the S. coast was called BALEARICUM MARE and IBERICUM MARE; the
part along the S. coast, INTERNUM MARE specifically; then came the Straits of
Gades or Hercules [GADITANUM FRETUM]; the part of the ocean along the S. side
was called GADITANUS OCEANUS and that along the N. coast CANTABRICUM MARE.
3. Size.
The Spanish peninsula lies between 36� 1' and 43� 45' N. lat., and between long.
3� 20' E. and 9� 21' W. Its greatest length from N. to S. is about 460 miles,
and its greatest breadth from E. to W. about 570 miles; its surface, including
the Balearic isles, about 171,300 square miles. As might naturally be expected,
the numbers given by the ancients vary greatly from these figures and from one
another.6 Eratosthenes made the distance from the Gades to the Sacred Cape 5
days' sail (Strab. iii. p.148), and otherwise, from the Sacred Cape to the
Pillars, 3000, and thence to the Pyrenees 3000 stadia; and therefore the
greatest length 9000 stadia (Strab. i. p.64, ii. p. 106). Artemidorus reckoned
1700 stadia from the Sacred Cape to the Pillars. (Strab. iii. p.148.) Polybius
gives the distance from the Pillars to the Pyrenees as somewhat less than 8000
stadia, as follows: from the Pillars to New Carthage, 3000 stadia; thence to the
Iberus, 2600 stadia; thence to Emporium, 1600 stadia (Plb. 3.39; Strab. ii.
p.106): the remaining distance, to the Pyrenees, he does not specify, but it is
manifestly so much too great that, for this and other reasons, Ukert proposes to
change the lastmentioned number from 1600 to 2000, or 2200, which would make the
total from the Pillars to Emporium 7800 stadia (Ukert, vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 256 b.
If this emendation be sound, we may account for the error as made by a copyist
to agree with the 1600 stadia given by Strabo from the Ebro to the Pyrenees).
Strabo makes the length from the Pyrenees to the W. coast, in a straight line,
6000 stadia, and he also calls this expressly the greatest length: elsewhere he
assigns the same length to that part of the S. coast which lay within the
Straits as follows: from Calpe to New Carthage, 2200 stadia; thence to the
Iberus, about the same; thence to the Pyrenees,1600: the greatest breadth,
namely, along the W. coast, he makes 5000 stadia; the least, namely along the
Pyrenees, 3000 stadia. (Strab. ii. pp. 106,127, 128, iii. pp. 137, 156.)
Pliny quotes various statements, according to which the length varied from 1200
to 1500 M. P., the breadth from 900 to 1100, and the whole circuit of the coast
from 2600 to 3000 M. P. (Plin. Nat. 3.1. s. 2, 3. s. 4; 4.21. s. 35). Ptolemy
places Hispania between 30 and 9� long. and 36� and 46� lat. (2.4). In all these
statements, it is important to observe that the geographers founded their
estimates of the distances almost entirely on the itinerary measurements.
4. Outline of the Coast, Promontories, and Bays.
A glance at the map of Spain will show at once twelve salient points in the
outline of the coast, besides some others of secondary importance. The first,
beginning at the N. end of the E. coast, is that formed by the E. extremity of
the Pyrenees, PYRENES PROM. (t? t?? ??????? ?????) or VENERIS PROM or PYRENAEA
VENUS (t? ?f??d?s???, ?e??? t?? ?????a?a? ?f??d?t??), a mountainous headland,
projecting far into the sea, and dividing the gulf of CERVARIA (Cervera) or
PORTUS VENERIS on the N. from that of RHODA and EMPORIAE (Bay of Rosas) on the
S.; its name being obtained from a temple of Venus which stood upon it, (Liv.
26.19; Strab. iv. pp. 178, 181; Mela, 2.5.8; Plin. Nat. 3.3. s. 4.) From the S.
side of the Bay of Rosas the coast preserves a pretty even direction, about SW.
to a little S. of BARCINO (Barcelona), whence it forms a very large bay, which
is terminated on the S. by the headland of DIANIUM (C. S. Martin), running far
out to the east. In the upper part of this large bay are TARRACO and the delta
of the IBERUS; its lower part, from about 40� N. lat., forms the SUCRONENSIS
SINUS (G. of Valencia), facing the east. To the SSW. of the Dianium Pr. and E.
of Carthago Nova lies the almost equally conspicuous headland of SATURNI PR. (C.
de Palos); and the bay between them was called ILLICITANUS SINUS (B. of
Alicante). Proceeding SW. from the Saturni Pr. we come to the CHARIDEMI PR. (C.
de Gata), running out far to the S. and forming the turning point from the E. to
the S. coast: between this and the former lay the MASSIENUS SINUS, which has no
specific modern name. These are the four great headlands and the three large
bays of the E. coast.
Doubling the Charidemi Pr. and passing by the comparatively small URCITANUS
SINUS (G. of Almeria), upon which the boundary between Tarraconensis; and
Baetica comes down to the coast, the coast pursues almost a straight line to
MALAGA (Malaga), which forms the E. extremity (as the M. of the Baetis forms the
western) of the base of the great triangular projection of the S. coast which
runs out to meet a similar projection of the African coast, leaving between them
only the narrow passage called the GADITANUM or HERCULEUM FRETUM (Straits of
Gibraltar). The E. end of the Strait is guarded by the two rocky headlands
called the Pillars of Hercules [HERCULIS COLUMNAE], of which the one on the
European side, so celebrated under the names of CAIPE and Gibraltar, forms
[1.1085] the termination of the Mediterranean coast of Spain.7 The W. entrance
of the Straits is formed by a headland, named, like most of those which have
been mentioned, after a temple which stood upon it, JUNONIS PR., doubtless an
object of deep reverence from the time of the Phoenicians downwards; its ancient
sanctity has been long forgotten, but, even in a work like this, a tribute must
be paid to the glories of Cape Trafalgar. Proceeding, NW. past the island and
city of Gades, we come to one of the minor headlands, that which lies outside of
the mouth of the BAETIS (Guadalquivir), marked by the CAEPIONIS TURRIS (Chipiona).
Hence the coast sweeps round a bay which has no name, NW. and W. to the mouth of
the ANAS (Guadiana), where the coast of BAETICA terminates, and that of
LUSITANIA begins. The first object on the S. coast of Lusitania is the
projection called CUNEUS (C. de S. Maria); and about 1 1/4� W. of this, the S.
side of the peninsula terminates at the frequently mentioned SACRUM PR. (C. S.
Vincent), where, as at :Trafalgar, ancient sanctity is eclipsed by modern glory.
The W. coast of LUSITANIA is so straight as to form no large bays, and it has
only three headlands worth mentioning; namely, the long and sharp promontory S.
of the estuary of the TAGUS named BARBARIUM PR.8 of Strabo (C. Espichel); then
the W. point both of the estuary of the Tagus and of the whole coast, the MAGNUM
PR.9 of Mela and Pliny (C. da Roca); and lastly, about 40' N. of this, the LUNAR
or LUNARIUM PR. of Ptolemy (C. Carvoeiro: but see note just above).
At the mouth of the DURIUS (Douro) the coast of Lusitania ends, and that of
GALLAECIA begins. It preserves the same character of straightness as far N. as
the MINIUS (Minho), beyond which it is broken into a series of estuaries of
river (enumerated under GALLAECIA), the points of land between which require no
specific notice, till we come to the extreme NW. corner of the peninsula. Here
the W. coast terminates at the headland. called CELTICUM or NERIUM (C. de
Finisterre), which lies almost at the intersection of two lines, each of which
may be taken as a �datum line� for the W. and N. sides of the peninsula. These
lines are the meridian of 9� W. long. and the parallel of 43� N. lat. The former
runs through the W. side of the Sacred Cape (C. S. Vincent), just outside of the
W. coast, except for the portion which projects westward about the mouth of the
Tagus: while the latter keeps from about 50 to about 20 miles within (i. e. S.
of) the N. coast, and coincides very nearly with the chain of mountains which
form the W. continuation of the Pyrenees.10 The greatest rise of the N. coast
above the datum line of 43� N. lat. is made at once from the Pr. Nerium, whence
the coast runs NE. up to the CORU or TRILEUCUM PR. (C. Ortegal), which forms the
extreme N. point of the whole peninsula. Hence the N. coast proceeds nearly
straight to the E., but with a gradual declination to the S., having no large
bays, and no promontories worth naming till we reach that of OEASO (C. del
Higuer), at its E. extremity, which is formed by a spur of the Pyrenees.
In this outline, the statements of Strabo, Mela, Pliny, Ptolemy, and other
ancient writers have been arranged in their several places, according to the
true figure of the coast: further details are given under the respective
articles. One matter which requires especial notice, namely, Pliny's great error
in making the W. coast end, and the N. coast begin, immediately above the
estuary of the Tagus, is more fully referred to under ARTABRI
Before proceeding to the interior, it should be mentioned that, besides the
lesser islands near the coast, the great group now known as the Balearic
Islands, E. of C. S. Martin (Pr. Dianium), were always considered to belong to
Hispania. [BALEARES, PITYUSAE.]
5. The Interior, with its Mountains and Rivers.
Few maps present to the eye a more striking picture than that of Spain; and yet,
clearly as the physical features stand forth, an unpractised eye may easily
misunderstand them. A single glance suffices to show that the country is
intersected, through the greatest portion of its breadth, by five great chains
of mountains, the two outermost of which fall off at once, on the N. and S.
respectively, to the bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean, while between them and
the other three there are inclosed four great valleys, forming the river-basins
of the Douro, Tagus, Guadiana, and Guadalquivir; and that another chain, though
less regular, running across, and, to some extent uniting, the E. extremities of
these five, divides the sources of the rivers just named from another great
river-basin, that of the Ebro; and, lastly, that, on the E. side of this basin,
a great branch of the Pyrenees, running to the S., forms on its E. declivity
another maritime border along the entire NE. coast of the peninsula. All this is
very obvious; but it is quite insufficient for a clear outline of the structure
of the peninsula. There is another element: one not quite so obvious on the map;
but one which makes Spain so entirely unlike every other country of Europe, and
which has so materially influenced its climate, its population, the foreign
settlements in its several parts, the commerce of other nations with it, the
campaigns carried on within its boundaries by contending empires, and its own
intestine struggles, both in ancient and in modern times, that a right knowledge
of it is of the first consequence to the whole study of the history of the
country. This peculiar feature of the peninsula is well described by
Arnold:--�Spain rises from the Atlantic on one side, and the Mediterranean on
the other, not into one or two thin lines of mountains divided by vast tracts of
valleys or low plains, but into a huge tower of table-land, from which the
mountains themselves rise again, like the battlements on the summit. The plains
of Castile are mountain plains, raised nearly 2000 feet above the level of the
sea, and the elevation of the city of Madrid is nearly double that of [1.1086]
the top of Arthur's Seat, the hill or mountain which overhangs Edinburgh.�
(History of Rome, vol. iii. p. 391.) The elevation of this central table-land
is, in fact, higher than that of any other table-land in Europe, while its
extent is so great as to comprehend nearly one-half of the area of the
peninsula. Its limits correspond pretty nearly to that of the quadrangle formed
by the parallels of 38� and 43� N. lat. and the meridians of 1� and 8� W. long.
Its boundaries on the N. and S. are strikingly defined by the continuous and
lofty chains of mountains called respectively the Mountains of Asturias [VASCONUM
SALTUS and VINDIUS M.] and the Sierra Morena. On the E. its separation from the
basin of the Ebro and the E. maritime district is effected by a less perfectly
continuous series of high lands and mountain ridges, called by the ancients
IDUBEDA in the N. part, and OROSPEDA in the S.; and on the W. it subsides to the
Atlantic by means of the extreme portions of the mountains which traverse it
from E. to W., with a declination more or less to the S.11 becoming more decided
towards the extremities, till at last their W. slopes fall down to the Atlantic,
forming the valleys and terraces of Portugal. [Comp. LUSITANIA] Of the ranges
which thus traverse the table-land the most important is that which runs SW.
almost through its centre, and terminates in C. da Roca (Magnum Pr.), W. of the
mouth of the Tagus (where it was called HERMINIUS M.: no specific names are
given to the other portions of the chain), dividing the region into two nearly
equal parts. Of these divisions the northern contains the river basin of the
Douro [DURIUS], and is now known as the table land of Old Castile and Leon; the
southern, or table-land of New Castile and Estremadura, is much more
mountainous, and is subdivided by another range, which has no specific ancient
name, into the river-basins of the Tagus [TAGUS] and the Guadiana [ANAS].
Of the lower districts by which this table-land is inclosed on all sides, like a
platform surrounded with ascents of various slopes, that on the W. coast is so
closely connected with the valleys of the table-land itself, that (however
distinct from it in modern geography and history) the former may be considered
by the student of ancient history as art appendage to the latter. The N.
maritime district forms the narrow strip along the bay of Biscay, which was
peopled by tribes as rugged as itself. [ASTURES, CANTABRI, GALLAECIA.] The
districts E. and S. of the central table-land are of the utmost importance in
history. Lying open to the Mediterranean, with a vast sea-board, and abounding
in valuable productions, they early came to be more closely connected with the
civilised states around the Inner Sea than with the wild regions in the interior
of the peninsula. The E. portion consists properly of two parts; the river basin
of the Ebro [IBERUS]. which lies much lower than the central table-land, but
still considerably higher than the sea; and the E. maritime region, extending
from the Pyrenees to New Carthage: but the two parts are so closely connected in
ancient history that they may be regarded as one division. Thus viewed, the E.
district is of a triangular form, having the Pyrenees for its base, and its
vertex at New Carthage and the C. de Palos, its E. side formed by the
Mediterranean shore, and its W. side by the ranges which divide it from the
central tableland; and answering to the provinces of Catalonia, Arragon, with
the S. part of Navarre, Valencia, and parts of New Castile and Murcia.
The S. district is of still far greater importance, and may be regarded as
forming, to a great degree, a country by itself, distinct from all the rest of
the peninsula; as, indeed, it has been politically and historically a separate
country during some of the most important periods of Spanish history. This
country--the TARTESSIS and BAETICA of the ancients, the Andalucia of modern
geography--is severed from the rest of Spain by the great chain of the Sierra
Morena [MARIANUS MONS], on the S. of which lies the valley of the Guadalquivir [BAETIS],
open entirely to the W. shore, but inclosed on the S. by another chain of lofty
mountains, named, from their snowy summits, the Sierra Nevada [ILIPULA], which
sink down to the S. coast by the intermediate chain of the Alpujarras, and form
on the N. the plain of Granada. On the E. side, the valley of the Baetis is
entirely shut in by ranges which run NE. and SW., linking the Sierra Nevada and
the Sierra Morena to one another and to the chain of OROSPEDA on the W. border
of the eastern district. Of these cross chains, the chief are those called the
CASTULONENSIS SALTUS and the ARGENTARIUS MONS
While thus separated by mountains from the rest of Spain, Andalucia lies
perfectly open to Africa and the Mediterranean,--a fact of the utmost importance
in relation to its ancient ethnography as well as its modern history. No one who
rightly appreciates this fact will wonder that it was a Phoenician dependency
while all the rest of Spain was still barbarian, nor that it was united to
Marocco under the later Roman empire, under the Vandals, and under the Arabs,
nor that the kingdom of Granada should have so long survived the expulsion of
the Moors from the rest of Spain.
To sum up this description. For the purposes of ancient history and geography
the peninsula of Spain is divisible into four main parts:--(1.) The central
table-land, with the W. coast, containing the river basins of the Douro, Tagus,
and Guadiana [ANAS]: (2.) The mountainous N. coast, comprising the ancient
GALLAECIA, ASTURIA, and CANTABRIA: (3.) The valley of the IBERUS and the E.
coast: (4.) BABTICA, or Andalucia.
The details respecting the mountains and rivers which have been mentioned, as
well as the lists of many others, not important enough to be included in this
general outline, are given under the several articles bearing their names, and
under those describing the three provinces and the smaller districts of the
peninsula.
VI. CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS.
The diversities in the surface of the peninsula are attended with a
corresponding variety of climate; so that Spain, though the southernmost country
of Europe, has, in different parts, the climates of nearly all the rest of the
continent. This is well set forth by Niebuhr: �Andalucia, the southernmost part,
is almost identical with ancient Baetica, and, as is observed even by Strabo, is
a country quite different from the rest of Spain. . . . While Valencia is flat
and well watered, but wanting in energy, Andalucia and Granada are countries
matured by the sun in the highest degree; they are scarcely European, but almost
like tropical countries. The eastern division [1.1087] or the country of the
Iberus, if we examine its northern parts, Aragon and Catalonia, already greatly
resembles a northern country. Valencia stands in the middle between them. The
whole country of the Tagus is throughout a table-land, very high at its
commencement, piercingly cold and unhealthy as far as the frontier of Portugal.
. . . . . Between the Sierra Morena and the Douro we have the large plain of
Estremadura, which is fertile but unhealthy, and perfectly flat. The plain of
Leon is scarcely inhabitable on account of its drought and barrenness. The
southern parts of Castile are productive, and the continuation of the valley
into Portugal changes its character so much as to become extremely rich: it
still contains large plains, but the greater part is a beautiful hilly country.�
(Lectures on Ancient Ethnography and Geography, vol. ii. pp. 282, 283.) Arnold
also has a brief passage on the subject, well worth quoting:--�The centre of
Spain, notwithstanding its genial latitude, only partially enjoys the
temperature of a southern climate; while some of the valleys of Andalucia, which
lie near the sea, present the vegetation of the tropics, the palm-tree, the
banana, and the sugar-cane. Thus, the southern coast seemed to invite an early
civilisation; while the interior, with its bleak and arid plains, was fitted to
remain for centuries the stronghold of barbarism.� (History of Rome, vol. iii.
pp. 391, 392.)
With these descriptions the statements of the ancient writers agree tolerably
well. It would be tedious to refer at length to the passages of Polybius,
Strabo, Pliny, Justin, and other writers, which are collected by Ukert (vol. i.
pt. 1. pp. 323, 324).
Its fertility is generally celebrated by the ancients, who mention among its
products, corn, wine, oil, fruits, pasturage, metals of all kinds, and precious
stones. Baetica was famed for its abundant harvests; Lusitania, for its numerous
flocks; Turdetania, for its timber; the fields of Carthago Nova and other
plains, for the spartum, from which cordage was made. But the great attraction
of the peninsula to civilised nations, from the earliest times, was found in its
mines of the precious metals, especially the silver mines in the mountains of
the south. It also yielded gold, iron, quicksilver, cinnabar, rock-salt, and
other valuable minerals. (See the authorities ap. Ukert, l.c.: comp. BAETICA,
CARTHAGO, CARTHAGO NOVA.)
VII. POPULATION.
The ethnography of the Spanish peninsula is a very difficult subject. It is
certain that, in the historical period, the chief stock of the population was
the race called Iberian, with a considerable intermixture of Celts, and, in the
S., of Phoenicians also. But as to the precise position of the Iberians in the
human family, and as to the questions, whence they came into the peninsula, in
what exact relation they stood to the Celtic population, and what has become of
them in the subsequent movements of races, which have swept like mighty
tide-waves backwards and forwards over the face of the peninsula:--these are
problems of which we cannot yet be said to have obtained a very satisfactory
solution.
The prevailing opinion among the ancients, and the one most in favour with
modern scholars, represents the Iberians as an aboriginal people, in addition to
whom the peninsula received an immigration of Celts from beyond the Pyrenees,
who overpowered the Iberians. The two peoples coalesced to a great extent,
forming the great nation of the CELTIBERI; but pure Iberian and pure Celtic
tribes were still to be found in various parts of the peninsula. (Hdt. 2.33;
Diod. 5.33, 35; Strab. i. p.33, iii. pp. 148, 151, 153, 157, 158, 162; Plb.
2.31; Appian, App. Hisp. 2; Plin. Nat. 3.1. s. 3; Lucan 4.9; Sil. 3.140.) The
Celtiberians occupied chiefly the centre of the country, as well as parts of
Lusitania and of the N. coast. [CELTIBERI.] The pure Iberians dwelt chiefly in
the Pyrenees and on all round the coast, and the pure Celts on both sides of the
river Anas, and in the extreme NW. of the peninsula, about the promontory Nerium.
[CELTICA] Lastly, there was a large admixture of Phoenicians in Baetica; and on
other points of the S. and E. coasts colonies were established by the
Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and by various Greek states, as the Phocaeans,
Rhodians, Zacynthians, Samians, and Massaliots (Hdt. 1.163; Strab. iii. pp. 151,
157, 159; Mela, 3.6; Plin. Nat. 5.19. s. 17); besides the great influx of Romans
at a later period.
But, as regards the first inhabitants, a directly opposite opinion has been held
by not a few eminent scholars, and is supported by the high authority of
Niebuhr, who expounds it as follows:--�Spain is destined by nature almost more
than Italy, to form one compact state: no one can have a doubt about this, when
looking at the three seas by which it is surrounded. Nevertheless, however, it
did not become united as one whole till a late period, though this happened
before the time of which we have written records; for there can be no doubt that
previously it was divided into two distinct countries. On the one side, the
Pyrenees formed its natural boundary towards Gaul (in the course of time,
however, they were crossed, and the Iberians ruled over the country from the
Garonne to the Rhone); but at an earlier period another natural boundary line
was formed by the Sierra Morena, an extensive range of mountains, which, for a
couple of centuries, formed the boundary between the Christian and Mahommedan
parts of Spain. These same mountains, no doubt, also separated the Iberians from
the Celts. The heights in the north of Spain, whence the Tagus, Durius, and
Minius flow towards the sea, and whence, on the other side, smaller rivers carry
their waters towards the Ebro, were inhabited by Celts, who were also called
Celtiberians. Other Celts bearing the name Celtici dwelt in Algarbia and the
Portuguese Estremadura, and others again inhabited the province Entre Dowro e
Minho in the north of Portugal. These three Celtic nations were quite isolated
in Spain. The Celtiberians were not pure Celts, but, as even their name
indicates, a mixture of Celts and Iberians; but the Celts in Portugal are
expressly stated to have been pure Celts. The latter attracted the attention
even of the ancients, especially of the excellent Posidonius, who made so many
correct observations, but allowed himself in this instance to be misled. He is
of opinion that the Celts had immigrated into Spain, for he reasoned thus: as
the Celts could migrate into Italy and across the Danube as far as the Dnieper
it was far less difficult for them to enter the neighbouring country of Spain.
But such isolated parts of a nation cannot have arrived in a country by
immigration; on the contrary, the Iberians appear extending themselves and in
possession of Aquitania and Languedoc at a very early period; how then could the
Celts, not being able to maintain the Pyrenees, have spread over the whole
peninsula? [1.1088] It is probable, nay almost evident, that it was the Iberians
that migrated and extended themselves; and this opinion agrees with the most
ancient traditions of the Celts in Ammianus Marcellinus, according to which they
were once masters of all the west of Europe, but were expelled from many parts.
If we suppose that the Celts dwelt as far as the Sierra Morena, and that the
Iberians, perhaps reinforced by their kinsmen from Africa, pressed them forward,
this supposition would account for some Celtic ruins which are still extant; and
the Celts may have capitulated in a similar manner to that described in the book
of Joshua. As one part of England was occupied by Germans so completely as to
destroy every trace of the ancient inhabitants, while elsewhere, as e. g. in
Devonshire, the Britons, in large numbers, lived among the Germans and became
mixed with them, so the Iberians expelled the ancient Celtic population,
wherever the nature of the country did not protect it; but the Celts maintained
themselves in the mountains between the Tagus and the Iberus, and the Iberians
only subdued them, and then settled among them. In course of time the two
nations became amalgamated, and thus formed the Celtiberians, whose character,
however, is essentially Iberian.� (Lectures on Ancient Ethnography and
Geography, vol. ii. pp. 280, 281.)
In further support of these views, we have the fact already mentioned, that
Spain lies quite open to immigration from the East by way of the Mediterranean
and the Straits; the now established fact that N. Africa, with which Spain is
thus connected, was peopled from the East; and traditions of settlements from
that side, of no great value certainly by themselves, but of some interest as
agreeing with the results of other investigations. (Sal. Jug. 18; Strab. xv.
p.687; J. AJ 10.11.1.) The decision of the question, if it is to be decided at
all, requires a more profound examination than has yet been made of the remnants
of the old Iberian language as preserved in inscriptions, in geographical names,
and in the dialects of the Basques, who are now admitted on all hands to be the
lineal descendants of the old Iberians. The foundations of such an investigation
have been laid by the late W. von Humboldt, in his work already mentioned. (Pr�fung
der Untersuchungen �ber die Urbewohner Hispaniens vermittelst der Baskischen
Sprache, Berlin, 1821: comp. Freret, M�m. de l'Acad. des Inscr. vol. xviii. p.
78; Hoffmann, die Iberer ina Western und Osten, Leipz. 1838.)
Thus much is certain that, in the whole period of ancient history, the great
bulk of the population was Iberian; and, through all subsequent infusions, large
as they have been, of Roman, Gothic, and Arab blood, the great mass of the
nation still retains the leading characteristics which are ascribed to the
Iberians in general and to the Celtiberians in particular, by Strabo and other
ancient writers, and which are summed up by Arnold in the following words:--�The
grave dress (Strab. iii. p.145), the temperance and sobriety, the unyielding
spirit, the extreme indolence, the perseverance in guerilla warfare, and the
remarkable absence of the highest military qualities, ascribed by the Greek and
Roman writers to the ancient Iberians, are all more or less characteristic of
the Spaniards of modern times. The courtesy and gallantry of the Spaniard to
women has also come down to him from his Iberian ancestors: in the eyes of the
Greeks, it. was an argument of an imperfect civilisation, that among the
Iberians the bridegroom gave, instead of receiving, a dowry; that daughters
sometimes inherited, to the exclusion of sons, and, thus becoming the heads of
the family, gave portions to their brothers, that they might be provided with
suitable wives. (Strab. iii. p.165.) In another point, the great difference
between the people of the south of Europe, and those of the Teutonic stock, was
remarked also in Iberia: the Iberians were ignorant, but not simple-hearted; on
the contrary, they were cunning and mischievous, with habits of robbery almost
indomitable--fond of brigandage, though incapable of the great combinations of
war. (Strab. iii. p.154.) These, in some degree, are qualities common to almost
all barbarians; but they offer a strong contrast to the character of the
Germans, whose words spoke what was in their hearts, and of whose most powerful
tribe it is recorded that their ascendancy was maintained by no other arms than
those of justice.� (Hist. of Rome, vol. iii. pp. 396, 397.)
The different tribes, however, were distinguished by very different degrees of
character. The Cantabrians, and the peoples of the N. coast in general, were the
wildest and rudest: the Celtiberians, though scarcely more civilised, were of a
very noble disposition: the Vaccaei were (under the Romans, at least) highly
civilised, and only inferior to the Turdetani of Baetica, who cultivated science
and had a literature of their own. [TURDETANIA.]
There remain two very striking points in which the ancient Iberians and the
modern Spaniards bear the closest resemblance to each other. The one is, not
merely the disunion, but the alienation and exasperation, which the several
nations have ever displayed towards each other, and which has made them the
almost helpless victims, or the still more helpless dependents, of foreign foes
or friends, whom they have afterwards requited with internecine hatred or bitter
ingratitude. The other point referred to is the obstinate endurance with which
they have fought behind walls, as attested, among other instances, by the sieges
of SAGUNTUM and NUMANTIA Gerona and Zaragoza; a quality, in both cases,
strangely contrasted with their inability to stand the shock of armies on the
open field of battle. �In Cond��s History of the Arabs, a general, in his
despatch to the Caliph, says of the Spaniards: On horseback they are eagles; in
the defence of their towns, lions; but in the field they are women.� (Niebuhr,
Lectures on Anc. Eth., &c. vol. ii. p. 286: the whole Lecture, as well as the
passage on Spain in Arnold's History, to both of which such frequent reference
has been made in this article, deserve the most attentive perusal: the
half-volume devoted to Hispania in Ukert's Geographie der Griechen und R�mer is
a masterly production, and contains a collection of references to nearly all the
materials required for the study; but the reader of Ukert must be constantly on
his guard against false references. Forbiger, Handbuch der alten Geographie,
vol. iii. pp. 4--109, follows close in Ukert's steps, correcting many of his
false references, but introducing others of his own; he adds, however, some
valuable notices of the modern literature of the subject. Among the works of the
ancient writers, Strabo's third book stands pre-eminent for its fulness and
general accuracy. The conquest of the peninsula by the barbarians, and the
transition to its medieval history, form too large a subject to be entered on
here: all that is necessary for the purpose [1.1089] of this work will be found
in the articles on the Alans, Goths, and Vandals.) 1066.)
The annexed coin, with the Roman legend HISPANORUM, is generally considered as
belonging to the Hispanians in general: but there is much reason to believe that
it does not really belong to Spain at all, but was struck in Sicily by a colony
of Spanish auxiliaries settled in that country.
COIN ASCRIBED TO HISPANIA.
[P.S]
1 Hence, as already observed, the names Hispaniae and ?�???a?; and also duae
Hispaniae, Cic. ll. sup. cit.
2 The name H. Citerior was called still continued to be used; and so, though
less commonly, was that of H. Ulterior, sometimes in its old sense (Plin. Nat.
3.3. s. 4), and sometimes for Baetica alone. (Plin. Nat. 3.1. s. 2, where both
senses occur at once: �Ulterior appellata, eadem Baetica . . . . Ulterior in
duas, per longitudinem, provincias dividitur.� Perhaps, however, the first words
only mean that the first land of Europe begins with H. Ulterior or H. Baetica,
without positively implying the full equivalence of the names.)
3 This involved its being the W.--most country of the known world, according to
the views of the ancient historians and geographers, from Herodotus down to
Ptolemy, all of whom believed the W. coast of Africa to fall off to the SE.
either at once from the Straits, or from a point opposite to the Sacred
Promontory. [LIBYA] Of course, we speak here of the mainland, excepting the
FORTUNATAE INSULAE and the semi-fabulous ATLANTIS
4 This correction may appear trifling to some: but, apart from the general
requirement of minute accuracy in descriptive geography, the point is really an
important one. The chain of the Pyrenees is not, as people often think,
perfectly continuous from sea to sea. Beginning, on the E., at C. de Creus,
above the gulf of Rosas, it maintains an unbroken line, penetrable only by
difficult mountain passes, till it ALMOST touches the bay of Biscay; but,
instead of actually reaching the sea, the main chain continues its westward
course, parallel to the N. coast, only throwing off lateral spurs to the coast.
and thus leaving a pass which has proved in all ages the vulnerable point in the
line. Indeed, if the actual chain were to be insisted on as the N. boundary of
Spain, the whole line of coast, including Guipuz�oa, Biscay, Santander, the
Asturias, and part of Gallicia, would belong physically to France. [See further,
under PYRENAEI M.]
5 Elsewhere, however (ii. p. 128), he makes the S. coast end at CALPE Gibraltar.
6 N. B. 10 stadia==1 geog. mile.
7 The Cape of Tarifa, in the middle of the Straits, deserves notice as the
southernmost point of the peninsula, though it has no specific name in ancient
geography.
8 Possibly these two names may be meant to denote one and the same headland,
viz. the C. Espichel; and the next, PR. LUNAE, may be the C. da Roca.
9 The cape of Tarifa, in the middle of the Straits, deserves notice as the
southernmost point of the peninsula, though it has no specific name in ancient
geography.
10 For the sake of those who find such modes of reference useful, another pair
of co-ordinate axes may be given for the peninsula in general. Taking TOLETUM
(Toledo), as a centre, it will be found that the meridian of 1� W. long. and the
parallel of 40� N. lat. intersect a very little N. of it, dividing the peninsula
into four quarters, the lengths and breadths of which along the axes (though not
their areas) are nearly equal.
11 The northernmost range does not come exactly under this description: its
course is almost due W. until it throws off a number of branches, by which it
subsides to the Atlantic, forming the mountain region of Gallicia. - Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography,
William Smith, LLD, Ed.
Read The Bible
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Table of Contents
Main Menu
- Ancient Assyrian Social Structure
- Ancient Babylonia
- Ancient Canaan During the Time of Joshua
- Ancient History Timeline
- Ancient Oil Lamps
- Antonia Fortress
- Archaeology of Ancient Assyria
- Assyria and Bible Prophecy
- Augustus Caesar
- Background Bible Study
- Bible
- Biblical Geography
- Fallen Empires - Archaeological Discoveries and the Bible
- First Century Jerusalem
- Glossary of Latin Words
- Herod Agrippa I
- Herod Antipas
- Herod the Great
- Herod's Temple
- High Priest's in New Testament Times
- Jewish Literature in New Testament Times
- Library collection
- Map of David's Kingdom
- Map of the Divided Kingdom - Israel and Judah
- Map of the Ministry of Jesus
- Matthew Henry Bible Commentary
- Messianic Prophecy
- Nero Caesar Emperor
- Online Bible Maps
- Paul's First Missionary Journey
- Paul's Second Missionary Journey
- Paul's Third Missionary Journey
- Pontius Pilate
- Questions About the Ancient World
- Tabernacle of Ancient Israel
- Tax Collectors in New Testament Times
- The Babylonian Captivity
- The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser
- The Books of the New Testament
- The Court of the Gentiles
- The Court of the Women in the Temple
- The Destruction of Israel
- The Fall of Judah with Map
- The History Of Rome
- The Incredible Bible
- The Jewish Calendar in Ancient Hebrew History
- The Life of Jesus in Chronological Order
- The Life of Jesus in Harmony
- The Names of God
- The New Testament
- The Old Testament
- The Passion of the Christ
- The Pharisees
- The Sacred Year of Israel in New Testament Times
- The Samaritans
- The Scribes
Ancient Questions
- Why Do the Huldah Gates Appear Different in Ancient Replicas and Modern Photos?
- What Is the Origin of the Japanese and Chinese Peoples? A Biblical Perspective
- How did the ancient Greeks and Romans practice medicine and treat illnesses?
- What were the major contributions of ancient Babylon to mathematics and astronomy?
- How did the ancient Persians create and administer their vast empire?
- What were the cultural and artistic achievements of ancient India, particularly during the Gupta Empire?
- How did ancient civilizations like the Incas and Aztecs build their remarkable cities and structures?
- What were the major trade routes and trading practices of the ancient world?
- What was the role of slavery in ancient societies like Rome and Greece?
- How did the ancient Mayans develop their sophisticated calendar system?
Bible Study Questions
- Why Do Christians Celebrate Christmas?
- How Many Chapters Are There in the Bible?
- The Five Key Visions in the New Testament
- The 400-Year Prophecy: Unpacking Genesis 15 and the Journey of a People
- The Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV): Historical Significance, Translation Methodology, and Lasting Impact
- Exploring the English Standard Version (ESV): Its Aspects, Comparisons, Impact on Biblical Studies, and Church Use
- A Detailed Historical Analysis of Language Updates in the KJ21: Comparison with Other Versions
- A Detailed Historical Analysis of the American Standard Version (ASV): Comparison to the King James Version, Influence on Later Translations, and Evaluation of Strengths and Weaknesses
- A Detailed Historical Analysis of Amplifications in the Amplified Bible (AMP) and Its Comparison to Other Bible Translations
- Detailed Historical Analysis of the Amplified Bible Classic Edition (AMPC): Examples of Amplifications and Comparative Analysis with Other Bible Translations
About
Welcome to Free Bible: Unearthing the Past, Illuminating the Present! Step into a world where ancient history and biblical narratives intertwine, inviting you to explore the rich tapestry of human civilization.
Discover the captivating stories of forgotten empires, delve into the customs and cultures of our ancestors, and witness the remarkable findings unearthed by dedicated archaeologists.
Immerse yourself in a treasure trove of knowledge, where the past comes alive and illuminates our understanding of the present.
Join us on this extraordinary journey through time, where curiosity is rewarded and ancient mysteries await your exploration.
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