knowledge of the south and south-eastern districts; and as the Roman conquests were extended, we hear something of the tribes and districts of the interior. But we are told that as late as the time of Cato the Censor the greater number of the independent tribes who inhabited the north and west of the Peninsula were as yet scarcely known to the Romans, even by name. And although after the fall of Numantia the Central Provinces as well as Southern and Eastern Spain had become more or less rapidly Romanised,1 we have no detailed information of the tribes and tribal divisions of the Peninsula until the time of Strabo, whose Geography was written in all probability within twenty years after the commencement of the Christian era.2 By this time, as he tells us, the Southern Provincials had not only been converted to Roman manners, and adopted the Roman dress, but they had entirely forgotten their own language or languages, Iberian, Celtiberian, Phoenician, or Carthaginian.3

Yet Niebuhr, in the absence of direct authority, ingeniously conjectures that after centuries of warfare, in which the Celts may have been more successful in the south and the Iberians in the north of the Peninsula, the two races, meeting in the great central plain on more or less equal terms, may have entered into that traditional agreement to share the country between them, which would be at once the earliest example of a political convention in ancient Europe and the origin of the Spanish people. And however imperfectly the high contracting parties may have carried out the provisions of the treaty, their alliance and friendly intercourse gave birth to a nation of mixed

1 The wars in Spain of Sertorius and of Cæsar were, in a great measure, Roman civil wars; nor did they change to any considerable extent the nature of the Imperial dominion in Spain from the fall of Numantia, B.C. 133, to the final conquest or pacification of the Asturias in A.D. 19.

2 Books i. to iv. were published about that time.

3 Strabo, iii., 2, 15.

4 See Diodorus Siculus, v., 33, 1; Lucan, Hieron; and W. von Humboldt, translation by Marrast, sub tit. Recherches sur les habitants primitifs de l'Espagne (1766), pp. 120, 125. See Strabo, iii., 3, 4 and 5: Arnold's Hist. of Rome, iii., 396; and John Ormsby, in Cornhill Magazine, 1870, p. 425. The words of Niebuhr to which I refer are as follows: "As one part of England was occupied by Germans so completely as to destroy every trace of the ancient inhabitants, while in other places the Britons lived among the Germans and became mixed with them, so in Spain the Iberians expelled the ancient Celtic population whereever 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. Thus in the course of time the two nations became amalgamated" (Niebuhr, Lectures, ii., 281).

See also Memorias de la Real Academia de Historia, tom. iii., pp. 1-244, and tom. iv., pp. 1-75.

race, split up unhappily in course of time into numerous rival tribes, but all known to the early Roman historians under the general name of Celtiberians.

2

Thus, if the Spaniard was a Celt, he was a Celt with a difference, and in his distinguishing characteristics he was always essentially Iberian. He was a man of great and powerful individuality,1 hardy and determined, sober and frugal, chivalrous but vindictive, restless but stubborn, careless of life, ever reckless of danger. He was, moreover, factious and unmanageable; hardly to be led, never to be driven; a faithful friend, a fearless foe, an impatient ally. But, above and beyond all these characteristics, the Celtiberian had something peculiar to himself, like that subtle essence, baffling analysis and defying imitation, which makes the vintage of the Gironde so entirely different from the red wine of precisely similar chemical elements that is made on the banks of the Rhone or the Danube. For two thousand years the Spaniard has perpetuated this noble individuality, and has stood alone among European nations in the constancy of his Peninsular originality; most conspicuous in the days of his greatness, when the sun never set on his empire, and his soldiers were the terror of Europe; but distinguishable even in the days of his abasement, when his factions were organised by favourites and his faithfulness was played upon by priests. His vices are still partly Latin and partly Gothic, yet their fashion is distinctly Peninsular; and if some of his greatness no doubt is Roman, his virtues are all his own. Of the religion of these early forebears of the Spanish people we know absolutely nothing. The education of their youth 1 Cantaber, ante omnis hiemisque, æstusque, famisque Invictus :

3

Silius Italicus, iii., 326.

2 Neque adhuc hominum memoria repertus est quisquam, qui, eo interfecto, cujus se amicitiæ devovissent, mori recusaret: Cæsar, Bell. Gall., iii., 22.

Prodiga gens animæ et properare facillima mortem :

Silius Italicus, i., 226. See Livy, lib. xviii., and xxxiv., 17. As to their contempt for pain and torture, and the singing and jesting of Celtiberian prisoners, even when nailed upon the cross by the Romans, who would have cowed them, see Strabo, iii., 4.

3 We may be pretty sure that the ancient Celtiberians were religious. Lafuente speaks of human sacrifices, though the authorities he quotes seem hardly to justify an assertion which is in all probability entirely correct. See also Depping, i., pp. 34-37, quoting St. Augustine, apud Vives.

The god of the Celtiberians was known as "Elman, or the god of blood," a fit forerunner of the evil genius of the mediaval religion in Spain. See Memorias de la Real Acad. de Hist., vol. iii., 157-8. Masdeu, after giving a long list of the Divinidades que suelan creerse propias de la nacion Española, comes to the conclusion that all were of either Phoenician or Carthaginian or Greek or Roman origin, vii., 356-359. Cf. Strabo, iii., 14, 16.

consisted chiefly in military and gymnastic exercises, in feats of arms, in displays of boldness and endurance. The Celtiberians, we are told, from their earliest childhood were brave and hardy, contemptuous of pain and danger, and inspired from their very infancy with an almost passionate love of personal independence. The women not only educated the younger children and cultivated the land,1 but took their places in times of special danger by the side of their husbands or their fathers in battle array.

The occupations of the men appear to have been exclusively those that were connected with war. The military arts were cultivated by them with conspicuous success; and we find that, apart from their reckless bravery, they were more skilful both as strategists and tacticians than any of the other Barbarians with which the Romans were at any time engaged in arms.2 Nor were they less successful in the manufacture than in the use of their weapons. So admirable was the temper of their steel that no Roman shield nor helmet could resist their stroke; and the short Spanish sword of Bilbilis, forerunner of the celebrated blade of Toledo, was introduced by the admiring Romans into the armies of the Republic as early as the days of Hannibal.4

1A characteristic example of early maternal discipline is recorded by Florus, ¡ii., 8, Cibum puer a matre non accipit nisi quem, ipsa monstrante, percusserit.

2 See F. Hoefer, Diodore de Sicile, vol. ii., pp. 33, 34 (notes). Sword and lance were used with equal dexterity by cavalry and infantry. Of the Celtiberian slings, of their short and long lances, as well as of their defensive arms, the shield and the helmet, see Diod. Sic., lib. v., cap. 33, last lines, and Livy, lib. xxii., 46; Aul. Gell., xv., 30. Polybius describes a peculiar practice among the Celtiberians. When the cavalry saw that the infantry was hard pressed, they would quit their horses and leave them standing in their place while they helped the infantry. We must presume that this was done on occasions when the mounted men for some reason could be of no use as cavalry. These early dragoons had small pegs, TаσσαλισкOUS, fastened to the end of their reins, and they used to fix these pegs in the ground, their horses being trained to stand by them till the riders returned and took them up, Polybius, Fragment, iii., 3 in ed. Casaubon (1763), vol. iv., p. 283; cf. Diod. Sicul., v., 35, ad hoc.

3 The celebrated gladius hispanensis. See Livy, vii., 10, and xxii., 46; Polybius, iii., 24; Diod. Sicul., v., 33. It is curious enough that while the Roman soldiers wore their swords suspended at the right side, the ancient Celtiberians wore theirs on the left, as is now the case throughout the world. The authorities for both these statements will be found collected by Masdeu, vii., 119, 120. The Pilum or heavy spear of the Roman Legionary is said to have been also adopted from the Iberians. It is no doubt the Sparus of Livy, xxxiv., 15.

This spear is to be seen in the hands of the horsemen in many of the old Ibero-Roman coins. See Ford (1845), i., 177.

A Bilbilis, a Celtiberian word of uncertain meaning, was a town on the river Salo, whose water gave an unrivalled temper to the steel. The modern town of

Of the Celtiberian literature, if literature they possessed, not a fragment has come down to us. Their very language is lost. And of their way of life, when not actually ranged in battle, we have neither record nor tradition.2

The Celtiberians had no Gildas. All that we know of them --and it is little enough—is told by those who waged cruel war against them, and the tale of the enemy is one of valour and of generosity, of restless vigour and of almost heroic endurance.

II.-Saguntum.

If the Celts and the Iberians were the first settlers, they were not long permitted to be the sole occupants of the

Calatayud is built, not on, but near the site of Bilbilis, which was dilapidated by Ayúb, the nephew of Musa, the conqueror, to supply the materials for the Moslem Fort, Kila 't Ayub. Bambola, about two miles to the east of Calatayud, is supposed to occupy the site of Bilbilis. See Pliny, N.H., xxxiv., 14, 41. Justin, xliv., 2, 3; and Martial-the greatest of the sons of Bilbilis-i., 50, 3, 12; iv., 55, 11-15; X., 20, 103, 104; xii., 18, 9. Cf. Ukert, Geog. ii. (1), 460.

1 The Cantabrians at least are said to have originally written from right to left, after the manner of the Semitic nations, and to have given up this ancient system, called by them agercaya, for the Roman alphabet, not long before the Christian era. Baudrimont, Hist. des Basques, p. 175.

2 The beauty of the Celtiberian coins is spoken of with admiration by Lafuente. The earliest existing Spanish coins are those of the Greek cities of the N. E. coast, notably of Emporiae (Ampurias) and Rhode (Rosas), eminently Greek in design, and bearing Greek, or more rarely Iberian inscriptions. See Head, Historia Numorum, p. 1; Heiss, Description générale des monnaies antiques de l'Espagne, 1870; Zobel de Zangroniz, Estudio Historico de la Moneda Antigua Española, and various special works by D. Celestino Pujol y Camps, printed within the last few years at Seville. In the more distinctively Iberian coins of the central provinces, Roman or Greek influences are also seen. The horse, whether natural, winged, or man-headed, is one of the most frequent designs. The following list of the devices on coins found in Spain with Iberian inscriptions may be interesting: Man's Head, Female Head, Horse (of common occurence), Escallop Shell (Pecten), Moon, Star (usually of eight points), Eagle, Dolphin, Prow of a Ship, Stern or Helm of a Ship, Horseman (by far the most frequently found), Lion, Wolf or Dog, Crossed Fishes, Bull, Caduceus, Bay Tree. The coins of Carthaginian cities are said to have borne, as a rule, a rude representation of a pair of Tunny Fish. Some of these, according to Señor Zobel de Zangroniz, may be as old as B.C. 350; but the oldest coins in the British Museum collection are supposed to be rather later than earlier than B. C. 268,

One of the oldest that I have seen is a copper piece with the words " 'OBULCO" on the reverse, and an Iberian inscription on the obverse. This coin is not later than 133, and may be as old as B.C. 268. The most recent authority on Spanish coinage is D. Alvaro Campaner y Fuertes, Indicador numismatico, 1 vol., 1891.

pon the earliest periods, in addition to the works already referred to, I have consulted Saulcy, Essai de Classification des monnaies autonomes d'Espagne, 1840; P. A. Boudard, Etude sur l'alphabet ibérien, et quelques monnaies autonomes d'Espagne (1852); also his Numismatique ibérienne; Joseph Gaillard, Description des monnaies espagnoles, Madrid, 1852; Antonio Delgado, Nuevo Método de Clasifi cacion, etc. (Seville, 1871).

Peninsula. The Phoenicians of Tyre, sailing westward in search of gain, founded, according to tradition, some eleven hundred and thirty years before Christ, the city of Gades or Gadeira 1 on the site of the modern Cadiz. A hundred and fifty years later we hear of another Phoenician settlement 2 at the mouth of the Baetis or Guadalquivir, the city of Tartessus or Tarshish, no less celebrated in the days of the Phoenician supremacy than Gadeira itself. But the glories of Tarshish had departed almost before the dawn of serious history. Its site is now uncertain; and its very existence has of late been called in question.3

In course of time, the Phoenicians established themselves along the whole of the south coast of the Peninsula, deriving immense riches from the skilful working of those famous mines which made Spain, as Gibbon has aptly said, the Peru and Mexico of the ancient world; and they founded, in addition to Cadiz and Tartessus, the cities of Malaga, Seville, Cordova,6 and probably Medina Sidonia, named after their own beloved

4

1 Gadeira, perhaps derived from Gadir, in Hebrew and Phoenician-a fence, i.e., a fenced city. See Niebuhr, Lectures, ii., 287-8. For other possible and still less likely derivations, see Depping, Hist. d'Espagne, i., 43-45, and Heeren, Politique et Commerce des Peuples de l'Antiquité, tom. iv., Appendix; and Romey, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. i., p. 68.

2 See Herodotus, i., 163, and Rawlinson's Phenicia, ed. 1889, pp. 125 and 418. 3 If it is the Tarshish of Scripture (1 Kings x. 22), its prosperity and importance must have been even anterior to the time of Solomon-say B.C. 1000whose navy of Tarshish, distinct from the navy that brought gold from Ophir, brought him once in every three years gold and silver, ivory and apes and peacocks. See Rawlinson's Phanicia (1889), pp. 125 and 431; Stanley's Jewish Church, pp. 182-187. Marina-quoted by Depping, i., 41-is of opinion that Tarshish is but a general name for the sea. But this is clearly untenable. See other authorities quoted Depping, in loc. cit., as well as the Discurso historicocritico sobre la primera venida de los Judios en España, by Fr. Martinez Marina, published in the third volume of the Memorias de la Acad. Real de Hist., pp. 317469, and a long note in Masdeu, vol. iii., pp. 273-285. Cf. Ezekiel xxvii. 12, Psalm lxxi., and Isaiah xxiii. 10, where Tyre is addressed by the poet as the Daughter of Tarshish. Dr. Arnold is clearly of opinion that Tyrian Tartessus was the Tarshish of Scripture (Hist. of Rome, iii., 323).

4 Malaga Lat., Malaca; Hebrew and Phoenician, Malac-carth : = a royal city. Cf. Niebuhr, op. cit., ii., 287-8.

5 Seville: Phoenician, Sephela or Spela = a plain. This became in Greek 'Ionoλa; in Latin, Hispalis; in Arabic, Ishbiliah; whence the modern Seville,

6 Cordova-Latin, Corduba-is said by Depping, op. cit., i., 53, on very doubtful authority, to be derived from Corteba = an oil mill. The Phoenician Karth uba rich city, as given by El Edris, is far more likely. Yet Niebuhr, in loc. cit., considers that Cordova is in its origin certainly a Roman colony, and had no existence before A.U.C. 640, when it was founded by Marcellus, much as Italica was founded by Scipio. See Descripcion de España de Xerif al Edris, traduccion de J. A. Conde, Madrid, 1799.