Spanish History and Culture

Ancient History

17th February – 4th March

Elena Sol Jiménez
Ancient History of the Iberian Peninsula
Pre-roman Iberian Peninsula and the Roman Conquest
1. Geography and Chronology of the Ancient IP
2. Documentary resorces available
3. Roman Presence in the IP
The romanisation: the IP under the Roman Empire
1. Hispania in the High Roman Empire
2. Hispania in the Low Roman Empire
The end of Roman Hispania: the Barbarian invasions
1. Visigoths in Hispania
Creation of Roman
provinces in
Hispania (197 BC)
- Roman occupation of the Iberian
territories → two provinces:
- Hispania Citerior
- Hispania Ulterior
- Administration: two annual praetors
(civil and military powers).
- Permanent army of two or more
legions
- Gradual conquest of the inland:
- Lusitanian Wars (155-139 BC)
- Numantine War (154-133 BC)
The Roman Conquest of the Iberian
Peninsula (218-19 BC)
• Conquest of Hispania (218 BC) coincides with the period of the
republican system in Rome and it goes until the end of the 1st
century BC (beginning of the Roman Empire)
• Assimilation of the Latin culture took place from the beginning, but
most of all under the Empire (from the 1st century AD onwards.)

ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE IBERIAN PENINSULA

ROMAN REPUBLIC
ROMAN EMPIRE (27 BC – 476 AD)
(509- 1st cent. BC)

Foundation of Second Punic War Conquest Barbarian Invasions

Diocletian (284 AD)
Gades (1100 BC) (218 BC) (19 BC) (409 AD)
The bodies of the inhabitants are well adapted to endure privation
and fatigue; their minds are inured to contempt of death. A strict and
parsimonious abstinence prevails among them all. They prefer war to
peace; and, if no foreign enemy offers himself, they seek one at home.
(…) so much stronger is their love of honour than of life. (…) The
activity of the people is extraordinary; their minds restless. To many,
their war-horses and arms are dearer than their blood. There is no
sumptuous preparation among them for festival days; nor was it till
after the second Punic war that they learned from the Romans to use
warm baths. During so long a course of years they have had no great
general besides Viriatus, who maintained a struggle against the
Romans for ten years with various success. So much more similar are
their dispositions to those of wild beasts than of men.

Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, XLIX 2, 1-4.

Celtiberian and
Numantine Wars

• Conflicts with celtiberians

(populations in the Iberian
Plateau) until 133 BC
• Viriato (147-139 BC)
• Numantia resists the
Roman army
Roman history during the 1st century BC
• Crisis of the Roman Republic:
• Civil Wars (91-30 BC) due to growing importance of military and
personalistic power
• Alternation between a Republican system and a dictatorship
• Role of Hispania as a secondary front: Roman armies of each leader
fought in Hispania
• End of Roman Civil Wars (30 BC) → all political and military powers in
the person of Octaviano, proclaimed Augustus in 27 BC
• Foundation of the Roman Empire through the personal
government of Augustus (27 BC-14 AD)
 The romanisation: the IP
under the Roman Empire
1. Hispania in the High Roman Empire (1st-2nd centuries AD)
2. Hispania in the Low Roman Empire (3rd-5th centuries AD)
Romanisation during Roman conquest (3rd-
1st century BC)
• Beginning of urbanisation:
foundation of Roman colonies
(Italica, Tarraco, Corduba…)
• Acculturation of local people,
specially Iberians (east and
south)
• Cooperation between Romans
and local elites → success of
Roman control
Peoples from the North of the Iberian
Peninsula
All the mountaineers are frugal, their
beverage is water, they sleep on the ground,
and wear a profuse quantity of long hair
after the fashion of women, which they bind
around the forehead when they go to
battle. They subsist principally on the flesh
of the goat, which animal they sacrifice to
Mars, as also prisoners taken in war, and
horses. They likewise offer hecatombs of
each kind after the manner of the Greeks,
described by Pindar, “ To sacrifice a hundred
of every [species].
Strabo, Geography 3.3.7
Hispania during the time of Augustus
(27 BC-14 AD)
• New provinces organisation:
Tarraconense, Betica and
Lusitania
• War against cantabri and asturi
• Foundation of Emerita Augusta
(capital of Lusitania) to reward
retired veterans from the wars,
and other cities
Bronze of Bembibre (15 BC)
"The emperor Caesar Augustus, son of The Divine, in his ninth
tribunitial power and proconsul, says: I knew from my legates which
presided over the Transdurian province that the inhabitants of the
Paemeiobrigensian hillfort, belonging to the people of the Susarri,
had remained faithful, while the rest became dissidents.
Therefore, I bestow them a permanent immunity and the
possession of their land, with the same boundaries which they had
when my legate Lucius Sextus Quirinalis governed this province. To
the inhabitants of the Paemeiobrigan hillfort, of the people of the
Susarri, and onto which I bestowed full immunity, I restore to
their place the people of the Aliobrigiaecinan hillfort, of the people
of the Gigurri, into the same civitas, and order that these from the
Alobrigiaecino hillofrt fulfill all the obligations together [within] the
Susarrans. Said in Narbo Martius the 16th and 15th days before the
kalends of March, being consuls M. Drusus Libo and L. Calpurnius
Piso."
Hispania during the time of Augustus
(27 BC-14 AD)
• Baetica: The most pacified province of
Hispania (no need of active army)
- Dependent of the Roman Senate

• Tarraconensis: Provincia Hispania Citerior

- Six administrative subdivisions:
conventus iuridici (judicial district).
- Governed by a magistrate chosen by the
Emperor (and Lusitania)
- In Citerior and Lusitania the finances were
controlled by procurators of equestrian
grade → taxes and revenues from the mines
Urbanisation and citizenship

• Coloniae: settlement of Roman citizens, usually army veterans.

Founded on a new site. Ius italicus (exemption of land tax, Roman law
and citizenship)
• Municipia: usually native communities, they retained local
autonomy. Magistrates acquired Roman citizenship

→ Process of romanisation through indigenous elites, italian

settlement, political organisation and the aim of acquiring Roman
citizenship
Society in Roman Hispania
> 1.000.000
• Bases of wealth: landowing and agriculture Senatorial
sesterces
class
• Bases of birth: wealth and clienteles
Equites

• Ruling oligarchy that monopolised the Decurions (local

local political power aristocracy)

• Different rights depending on their Plebs frumentaria,

political status peregrini, libertus, servi
Citizenship granted by Vespasian (69-79 AD)

• Promoted a special law to extent the Roman

citizenship in Hispania
• Granted ius latii (Roman citizenship) to the
local magistrates of local settlements
→ Promotion, urbanisation and romanisation
of countless hispanic cities
Hispanic presence in Roman politics
The number of Senators of provincial origin
increased significantly with the Flavian dinasty PERCENTAGE OF SENATORS ACCORDING TO
THEIR BIRTHPLACE (2ND HALF 1st cent. AD -
(AD 69-96)
BEGINNING 2nd cent. AD ):
Senators according to their 70
Provinces
60

Lusitania 50
Tarraconensis 7%
40
20%
30
Baetica
Tarraconensis 20

Baetica Lusitania 10
73% 4th Qtr
0
Nerva (96-98) Trajan (98-117) Hadrian (117-138) Septimius Severus
(193-211)
Italic Provincial Occidental Oriental Hispanic
The concept and process of “Romanisation”
• Very long and complex historical process, as a result of the
relationships between native peoples and Romans in Hispania
→ Clear predominance of the Roman structures over the native ones
• The local peoples replaced step by step their respective
autochthonous languages (Iberian, Celtiberian, Celtic, Greek) with
the use of the latin (“latinisation”)
• This substitution was only accomplished at the end of the process: it
was not a mechanic, simultaneous and uniform process in every
region
The concept and process of “Romanisation”

• The local aristocracy, the town councillors and priests set the
example for each community
• Impulse to urban life: to see the city as the example of a spatial,
territorial and social organization
• Rome was the high classes reference for: speech, dress, names,
manners…
Maybe emperor Hadrian´s wife (Circa AD 130-150)
An elite Roman woman from the
Flavian era (end 1st century AD)
Economy: commerce
• Internal - external trade.

• Most of the trade was carried by ships

(maritime and river trade).
• A great number of liberti, freedmen,
brought about these activities,
profitable but disgraceful for the
elites

• Transportation and Trade routes:

• Internal transportation within the
peninsula was by river, for example
the Guadalquivir. Grain, olive oil and
minerals from Sierra Morena were
loaded at Corduba and carried down-
stream by scapharii (boatmen)
Economy: mining and agriculture
• Mineral and metal resources: aurum,
argentum
• Las Médulas (Ponferrada)
• Open-pit gold mine 1st century BC
Agriculture and livestock
• The Romans did not worry about improving the cultivation or farming systems
already there. Nevertheless, the products from these activities were really
appreciated:

• Olives (oil) (Baetica, Ebro Valley ) Evidences of

Mediterranean exterior commerce
• Cereals (Meseta, Baetica, Ebro Valley ) triad of OLIVE OIL since
• Wine (north-eastern, Baetica, Ebro Valley ) 3rd century BC
• Fruits and vegetables (central Mediterranean coast)
• Garum
• Esparto grass (ropes, baskets, chairs)
• Domestic animals: sheep (Wool), cows, pigs,
• Breeding horses