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CHAPTER III.

HISPANIA ROMANA.

(B.C. 38-A.D. 192.)

THIRTY-EIGHT years before the birth of Christ, at the close of the Macedonian war, when the administration of the Roman world was divided among Lepidus and Antony and Octavian, Spain fell to the share of the future Augustus Cæsar, and a new tax was imposed upon the Province in order to provide for the exigencies of the Imperial Treasury; and from the date of this impost,1 or Aes, commences the Spanish Era, or era of Cæsar, the basis or starting point of a chronological system adopted and maintained in the Peninsula for over thirteen centuries.2

One of the earliest decrees of Octavian was calculated to bind Spain yet more closely to the Empire. For in his fifth Consulship (B.c. 29), he divided the country anew into three provinces, directly tributary to Rome, and enjoying all the advantages of Roman Unity and Roman Law. Bætica, the most civilised and easily governed, and which included the modern provinces of Andalusia, Granada, and a portion of Estremadura, was to be administered by the Senate; while Lusitania, which comprised northern Estramadura, Southern Portugal, the Algarves, and part of Leon-all the wildest and most turbulent districts in the Peninsula, was to be governed by the Emperor; and that great tract of country, henceforth known as Tarraconensis, which comprehended the whole of the rest of Spain, and whose most important city, Tarraco, took

1It was used in Catalonia down to 1180; in Aragon till 1350; in Castile till 1380. Solo por esta paga y no por el Señorio de Augusto sobre España se ha de fijar la Epoca. España Sagrada, vol. ii., cap. vi., pp. 147-154; and Garibay, lib. vi., cap. 26. The somewhat fanciful derivation of era by Florez is adopted by most Spanish historians. Modern Etymologists derive the word from Æs, plur: Aera counters; not perhaps very much more satisfactory.

2 See Bury, Students' Roman Empire, cap. vi., sec. iii., p. 87.

the place of Carthagena as the capital of the entire Province, was also reserved for the direct rule of Augustus. Bætica, the peaceful, was administered by a resident Proconsul. The Imperial Provinces were committed to a legatus Augusti pro Prætore.1

Shortly after this new division of the Roman dominions (B.C. 27), and his own assumption of the Imperial title, Augustus determined to visit the important Spanish provinces of his Empire. The Temple of Janus had been closed at Rome; but Roman troops were still vainly engaged in the never-ending struggle in Cantabria. Augustus, the undisputed master of a peaceful world, was not yet master of the Spanish Asturias, nor was he as immediately successful as he had expected on his arrival in the country; and after a fruitless march through the wild regions of north-west Spain, he retired to Tarraco, leaving to his lieutenant, Marcus Agrippa, the duty of receiving the formal, but scarcely substantial submission of the Asturian and Cantabrian mountaineers, "the last to submit to the arms of Rome, and the first to throw off the yoke of the Arabs ".2

North-west Spain, indeed, was in the end rather overcome than subdued; but as long as the natives yielded nominal obedience to the Romans, they were permitted to enjoy their freedom, if not their independence. If Augustus failed to conquer the Asturians, he spent two fruitful years (27-25) in Spain, devoted to the more peaceful objects of reforming the manifold abuses of the Imperial administration, and consolidating Roman power in the Peninsula. Yet nothing was left undone by the Emperor to ensure the continued subjection of the turbulent mountain tribes of Cantabria, and the safety of their more peaceful neighbours in the plains.

Three legions were permanently stationed on the northwest frontier; two legions in the Asturias, with military headquarters at Asturica Augusta (Astorga) and Bracara Augusta (Braga), and one legion for Cantabria and the modern Province of Leon, with headquarters at Pisoraca, now Herrera, between Santander and Palencia; and a military road was constructed from one town to another, along the entire frontier. So complete and so successful were these timely precautions that, with

1 Similarly in British Imperial India, the old and well settled Presidencies are somewhat differently and more constitutionally governed than the Non-Regulation Provinces lying on the frontier. The Governor of Bombay and Madras are often styled Proconsuls; the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab is a noble modern Proprætor.

2" Te Cantaber non ante domabilis," Horace, Carm., iv., 4. Cf. Gibbon, chapter i.; Livy, xxviii., c. 12.

the exception of a trifling revolt in the time of Nero, we hear of no more fighting in the north-west of Spain until the arrival of the Suevians, more than four hundred years after the visit of Augustus. As the population became more settled, the number of legions was diminished, until at length, from the time of Diocletian to the time of Honorius, the Cantabrian Provinces remained without any standing garrison; and three legions were judged sufficient to maintain the Pax Romana throughout the length and breadth of the Peninsula.

Not only in the north-west, but in every part of Spain, the Imperial visit inaugurated an era of unwonted peace, contentment and prosperity; the name of the first and greatest Augustus was long held in honour by the grateful inhabitants, and lives in the present day in the names of many Spanish cities. Merida or Emerita Augusta recalls its prudent foundation by grants of land to retired soldiers or Emeriti, who were induced to settle there about B.C. 18. Astorga is Asturica Augusta; Braga is Bracara Augusta; Lugo is Lucus Augusti-all frontier garrison towns founded about the same time by the same Emperor. The city which survives as Leon was established a few years later on the north-west frontier, and has nothing to do with the lions that are displayed on the noble coat of arms of the Province. The charge, if heraldically canting, is etymologically deceptive. For Leon, Urbs septima Legionis, takes its name from the seventh Legion, which was stationed there to keep in check the wild tribes of the neighbourhood,1 and is the city, not of the Lion, but of the Legion. Cæsarea Augusta or Cæsaraugusta, formerly Salduba, and now Saragossa, perpetuates the very name of its founder; and in Pax Augusta, or Badajoz, we have perhaps the most happily named of all the Spanish cities of Augustus. For his Empire was really peacethe Pax Augusta; and for full four centuries after his visit, Spain enjoyed that happiness which is proverbially said to be the lot of those countries which have no history.

1 Some ingenious Spanish archæologists have not only asserted that the lion is displayed on the civic shield in consequence of the presence of the king of beasts in north-east Spain, but they go to the length of saying that the Leonese lions were brought into the country from Africa by the Carthaginians! The lion was of course adopted as an appropriate device for the city of the Legion, after the name had been softened into Leon, which was not until the end of the thirteenth century, and not in the reign of the Lion King, Leovgild, as is frequently asserted.

Furthermore, heraldic charges are no older than the end of the twelfth century, and it is unlikely that towns adopted any cognisances for another fifty years. See Manual Risco, Historia de la Ciudad y Corte de Leon (Madrid, 1792), and Iglesias y Monasterios de Leon (Madrid, 1792), chap. iv., 3.

Of the general condition of the Peninsula, and of the cities and districts inhabited by the various more or less Romanised native tribes at this period we have a most interesting account in the great work of Strabo. The southern provinces, at once the most accessible and the most civilised, naturally claim the largest share of his attention. Gadeira (Cadiz) had long been one of the most celebrated seaports of the world; Malaca (Malaga) was already a considerable town; and the famous Rock of Calpe, half-way between the two, and held by an Iberian tribe, the Bastuli or Bastulani, is frequently mentioned by the traveller. Starting on a westerly course from these favoured regions and passing the Sacred Promontory, now Cape St. Vincent, Strabo first surveys the western coasts, and speaks of the city of Ulysipo or Olisipo, the landing place of Ulysses, now Lisbon, at the mouth of the Tagus. And he finds, as he proceeds northwards in his survey, Celts, Lusitanians, Carpetanians, Oretanians, Vettones, and Gallicians, "the last to be subdued"; to the east of these, Asturians, Celtiberians, and most distant tribe of all, north of the Minius (Minho), the Arrotreba, inhabitants of the great promontory of Nerium, the modern Finisterre; lawless and plundering mountaineers every man of them, though peace and the influence of the legions of Tiberius had already done much to soften their rough and savage manners.

Turning from these wild regions, and starting once more from Malaga, in a north-easterly course, he finds Bastitanians, whose country is represented by the modern Province of Murcia, with the cities of Carthagena and Denia (Dianium) on the coast. The Contestanians inhabited part of Murcia und Valencia, the country of the Esparto grass, already highly appreciated in the markets of Italy. The Edetanians occupied part of Valencia and Aragon, with the ever famous city of Saguntum; and the Gymnesiæ or Balearic Islands lay off the coast. The Ilercarones were found on the northern shores of Valencia; and the Cosetanians inhabited South Catalonia and the imperial city of Tarragona. Northward, again, he met with Laletanians in North Catalonia, and Indigetes in the country just south of the Pyrenees, with the old Greek town colonies of Rhodope and Emporium. To the west of these were found the Ilergetes; and inland to the south-west as far as Cæsaraugusta, which is classed as a Celtiberian city, was the country of the Ausetanians.

Beyond this, Strabo's geography is somewhat confused; but he speaks of the inland country generally as Celtiberia, and of

its "most renowned city Numantia," which had apparently been already rebuilt after its destruction by Scipio. But his greatest admiration, and a great part of his book on Spain is reserved for Turdetania, the most civilised and the most prosperous district in Hispania.1

Turdetania was bounded on the west and north by the river Anas or Guadiana, on the east by the tribes of the Carpetani and the Oretani, on the south by the sea; and it thus included the modern Provinces of Malaga, Cadiz, Seville, Huelva, Badajoz and Cordova, and was pretty nearly conterminous with Roman Bætica. The chief cities were Hispalis, Gadeira, Corduba, Italica, and Munda. There was a large population settled on either side of the Bætis or Guadalquivir, which flowed through the heart of the Province, and was navigable for ships as far as Hispalis, and for boats as far as Corduba. The old geographer was amazed at the endless succession of groves and gardens, at the marvellous fertility of the soil, and at the skill with which it was cultivated. Nor was he less struck by the material wealth of the country; by the immense production of corn and wine and oil; 2 by the vermilion and scarlet dyes, the wool of surpassing quality, the stuffs of incomparable texture, the wax, the honey, the pitch, the leather, the cattle, the gamemore especially the rabbits and the fish, of which the tunnies and congers were of peculiar excellence, and of which an enormous quantity was annually salted for export. He is amazed at the number and size of the merchant ships, built for the most part of Turdetanian timber; and at the almost fabulous richness and variety of the mines. Nor is he less struck with the purity of the air, and the politeness and urbanity of the inhabitants, who had, he says, for the most part so entirely adopted the Roman mode of life as even to have forgotten their own language.4

Of the towns, in addition to those already referred to, he specially notices Pax Augusta (Badajoz) among the Celtici, and Augusta-Emerita (Merida) among the Turduli. But he does not mention either Bracara Augusta, Asturica Augusta, or Portus Cale, in the north-west; nor even Barcino (Barcelona) in the north-east.

Of the tribes and districts of the interior, Strabo speaks very

1 Strabo, lib. iii., cap. 2.

2 Polyb., in Athen., i., 28.

3 See as to the ancient mode of ferreting, the most graphic account in Strabo, iii., 2, 6. The rabbit (Aeßnpís) as we have seen, was an ancient device of Hispania, 4 Ticknor, Hist. of Span. Literature, vol. iii., p. 320.