Rome’s decision to establish a permanent presence in the Iberian peninsula is in itself highly significant, and could be said to mark the beginning of Rome’s imperial ambitions. She had become involved in the peninsula only by accident, her hand being forced by Hannibal’s use of Spain as a base to attack Italy. After a series of successful campaigns in the region during the Second Punic War led by Scipio Africanus (211-206 Bc), Rome decided at the end of the conflict not to evacuate the area, something which would have been perfectly strategically sound, but rather to create two provinces in the peninsula: Hispania Ulterior, initially comprising what is now Andalusia with its capital at cordoba, and Hispania citerior, embracing the coastal areas of Catalonia and Valencia with its capital at Tarragona, Rome’s earliest base in the peninsula. These two provinces, established in 197 BC, were the first to be founded beyond the immediate ambit of Italy and show a wish at Rome to become a Mediterranean rather than merely a regional power.
Unsurprisingly, having just become free of Carthaginian rule, the local inhabitants were less than happy with this new dispensation, and rose up in “rebellion.” These uprisings among the Iberian peoples of the Mediterranean coast were suppressed with ease in the south, and with a little more difficulty in Hispania Citerior. However, this swift consolidation was not a harbinger of future success: Roman expansion across the peninsula met with far greater opposition among the Celtiberians and Celts, forcing Rome to engage in a protracted struggle which was only finally brought to close when the Asturias and Cantabria were incorporated into the empire in 19 bc. By this time, the peninsula had been divided into three by the emperor Augustus. Hispania Ulterior was divided into two new provinces: Hispania Ulterior Baetica, essentially the area of the original province, and Hispania Ulterior Lusitania, roughly modern Portugal, with its capital established at the Spanish border-town of Merida (Augusta Emerita), which was initially a colony for veterans of the Cantabrian campaign. The remainder of the peninsula, along with some areas of mineral wealth previously found in Ulterior, remained as the province of Hispania Citerior, often referred to as Hispania Tarraconenis after its capital. This arrangement was to last until a further subdivision into five provinces in c. ad 293 by the emperor Diocletian. This was done by creating new provinces from the north-west (Gallaecia) and south-east (Hispania Carthaginiensis) sections of the old Hispania Citerior.
World History
