40- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
The first signs of a nation: Roman Spain
In hindsight, the Carthaginians’ attack on Rome in the
Second Punic War was a mistake – the Romans landed
in southern Iberia behind Hannibal and his elephants
as they crossed the Alps and made for Italy, and began
taking Spain from the bottom up. Rome had ousted
the Carthaginians from the peninsula by 206 BC, but
it took another two bloodstained centuries before
the Celtiberians were quelled and Iberia conquered.
Much of the territory, divided into three provinces, was
Romanised – only the Basques steadfastly refused to
join the party. All the useful Roman novelties appeared –
roads, aqueducts, theatres, a code of law – and
the Latin used by legionnaires and traders gave the
peninsula its first relatively homogenous tongue.
In return, Hispania became the Empire’s breadbasket,
bore minerals and soldiers, and gave old legionnaires a
nice place to retire to. WithTrajan, Hadrian and Marcus
Aurelius, Hispania even began churning out its own
Roman emperors, and good ones at that.Hairy moments: the Visigoths take control
As the Roman Empire slowly crumbled, Iberia was
plagued by Germanic tribes.The worst, the Vandals,
cemented their notoriety by dismantling anything
Roman, but also lent Andalusia its name (for a while it
had a V at the front). More cultured were the Visigoths
who arrived in 414, stayed for three centuries and
maintained an unsteady grip on power from their
capital inToledo.Iberia is a Greek term;
Hispania is Latin.
Both refer to the whole
Iberian Peninsula, not
just the area of modern
day Spain.
What the Romans did
for modern Spain
Today, Spain can trace
some key themes back
to its days in the Roman
Empire. The concept of
a single Spanish entity,
rather than different
regions within the
peninsula, was Roman.
Three of Spain’s four
official languages have
Latin roots (Basque being
the exception), as does
the official religion –
the Romans brought
Christianity to Hispania
in the first century AD.
Many of Spain’s largest
urban areas have
Roman origins, including
Córdoba (Corduba),
Barcelona (Barcino)
and Zaragoza
(Caesaraugusta).
The Romans of Betica
province in southern
Hispania shipped tonnes
of the region’s olive
oil back to Italy. The
45-metre-high Monte
Testaccio, to the south
of Rome, composed of
broken amphorae from
Hispania, hints at the
scale of the export
operation.