Hispania
Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Roman Republic, it was divided into two provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. During the Roman Empire, under the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was subdivided into Baetica and Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was reorganized as Hispania Tarraconensis.
Beginning with Diocletian’s Tetrarchy, the territory of Tarraconensis was further divided to create the provinces of Carthaginensis and Gallaecia. All the Hispanic provinces on the mainland, together with the Balearic Islands and the North African province of Mauretania Tingitana, were later organized into the Diocesis Hispaniarum, governed by a vicarius.
The name Hispania was also used in the period of Visigothic rule. The modern place names of Spain and Hispaniola are both derived from Hispania.
Etymology
The origin of the Ancient Roman word Hispania is unknown. The evidence for the various speculations is based merely upon what are at best mere resemblances, likely to be accidental, and suspect supporting evidence.The Phoenicians referred to the region as possibly meaning "land of rabbits or hyraxes", "land of metals", "northern island", or "lowland". Roman coins struck in the region from the reign of Hadrian show a female figure with a rabbit at her feet, and Strabo called it the "land of the rabbits". Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania of Iberian origin and derived it from the pre-Roman name for Seville, Hispalis. This was revived for instance by the etymologist Eric Partridge who felt that this might strongly hint at an ancient name for the country of *Hispa, presumably an Iberian or Celtic root whose meaning is now lost. Hispalis may alternatively derive from Heliopolis. Occasionally Hispania was called Hesperia ultima 'farthest western land' by Roman writers since the name Hesperia 'western land' had already been used by the Greeks to refer to the Italian peninsula.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, Jesuits scholars like Larramendi and José Francisco de Isla tied the name to the Basque word ezpain 'lip', but also 'border, edge', thus meaning the farthest area or place.
During Antiquity and Middle Ages, the literary texts derive the term Hispania from an eponymous hero named Hispan, who is mentioned for the first time in the work of the Roman historian Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus, in the 1st century BC.
Hispania is the Latin root for the modern name Spain, and the words Spanish for Hispanicus or Hispanic, or Spain for Hispania, can be interchangeable, depending on context. The Estoria de España written on the initiative of Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio, between 1260 and 1274, during the Reconquista of Spain, is believed to be the first extended history of Spain in Old Castilian using the words España and Españoles to refer to Medieval Hispania. The use of Latin Hispania, Castilian España, Catalan Espanya and Old French Espaigne, among others, to refer to Roman Hispania or Visigothic Hispania was common throughout all the Late Middle Ages.
A document dated 1292 mentions the names of foreigners from Medieval Spain as Gracien d'Espaigne. Latin expressions using Hispania or Hispaniae were often used in the Middle Ages, while the Spain Romance languages of the Reconquista use the Romance version interchangeably. In the James Ist Chronicle Llibre dels fets, written between 1208 and 1276, there are many instances of this. The borders of modern Spain do not coincide with those of the Roman province of Hispania or of the Visigothic Kingdom, and thus medieval Spain and modern Spain exist in separate contexts.
The Latin term Hispania, often used during Antiquity and the Low Middle Ages, like with Roman Hispania, as a geographical and political name, continued to be used geographically and politically in the Visigothic Spania, as shown in the expression laus Hispaniae, 'Praise to Hispania', to describe the history of the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula of Isidore of Seville's Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum:
You are, O Spain, holy and always happy mother of princes and peoples, the most beautiful of all the lands that extend far from the West to India. You, by right, are now the queen of all provinces, from whom the lights are given not only the sunset, but also the East. You are the honor and ornament of the orb and the most illustrious portion of the Earth... And for this reason, long ago, the golden Rome desired you
In modern history, Spain and Spanish have become increasingly associated with the Kingdom of Spain alone, although this process took several centuries. After the union of the central peninsular Kingdom of Castile with the eastern peninsular Kingdom of Aragon in the 15th century under the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, only Navarra and Portugal were left to complete the whole peninsula under one monarchy. Navarre followed soon after in 1512, and Portugal, after over 400 years as an independent and sovereign nation, in 1580. During this time, the concept of Spain was still unchanged. It was after the restoration of Portugal's independence in 1640 when the concept of Spain started to shift and be applied to all the Peninsula except Portugal.
Languages
Latin was the official language of Hispania during Roman rule, which exceeded 600 years. After the fall of Rome and the invasion of the Germanic Visigoths and Suebi, Latin was spoken by nearly all of the population, but in its common form known as Vulgar Latin, and the regional changes which led to the modern Iberian Romance languages had already begun.History
Background
The Iberian Peninsula has long been inhabited, first by early hominids such as Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and Homo antecessor. In the Paleolithic period, the Neanderthals entered Iberia and eventually took refuge from the advancing migrations of modern humans. In the 40th millennium BC, during the Upper Paleolithic and the last ice age, the first large settlement of Europe by modern humans occurred. These were nomadic hunter-gatherers originating on the steppes of Central Asia. When the last ice age reached its maximum extent, during the 30th millennium BC, these modern humans took refuge in Southern Europe, namely in Iberia, after retreating through Southern France. In the millennia that followed, the Neanderthals became extinct and local modern human cultures thrived, producing pre-historic art such as that found in L'Arbreda Cave and in the Côa Valley.In the Mesolithic period, beginning in the 10th millennium BC, the Allerød Oscillation occurred. This was an interstadial deglaciation that lessened the harsh conditions of the Ice Age. The populations sheltered in Iberian Peninsula migrated and recolonized all of Western Europe. In this period one finds the Azilian culture in Southern France and Northern Iberia, as well as the Muge Culture in the Tagus valley.
The Neolithic brought changes to the human landscape of Iberia, with the development of agriculture and the beginning of the European Megalith Culture. This spread to most of Europe and had one of its oldest and main centres in the territory of modern Portugal, as well as the Chalcolithic and Beaker cultures.
During the 1st millennium BC, in the Bronze Age, the first wave of migrations into Iberia of speakers of Indo-European languages occurred. These were later followed by others that can be identified as Celts. Eventually urban cultures developed in southern Iberia, such as Tartessos, influenced by the Phoenician colonization of coastal Mediterranean Iberia, with strong competition from the Greek colonization. These two processes defined Iberia's cultural landscape - Mediterranean towards the southeast and Continental in the northwest.
Roman conquest
Roman armies invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 218 BC and used it as a training ground for officers and as a proving ground for tactics during campaigns against the Carthaginians, the Iberians, the Lusitanians, the Gallaecians and other Celts. It was not until 19 BC that the Roman emperor Augustus was able to complete the conquest. Until then, much of Hispania remained autonomous.Romanization proceeded quickly in some regions where there are references to the togati, and very slowly in others, after the time of Augustus, and Hispania was divided into three separately governed provinces, and nine provinces by the 4th century. More importantly, Hispania was for 500 years part of a cosmopolitan world empire bound together by law, language, and the Roman road. But the impact of Hispania on the newcomers was also substantial. Caesar wrote that the soldiers from the Second Legion had become Hispanicized and regarded themselves as hispanici.
Roman rule
Some of the peninsula's population were admitted into the Roman aristocratic class and they participated in governing Hispania and the Roman Empire, although there was a native aristocracy class who ruled each local tribe. The latifundia, large estates controlled by the aristocracy, were superimposed on the existing Iberian landholding system.The Romans improved existing cities, such as Lisbon and Tarragona, established Zaragoza, Mérida, and Valencia, and reduced other native cities to mere villages. The peninsula's economy expanded under Roman tutelage. Hispania served as a granary and a major source of metals for the Roman market, and its harbors exported gold, tin, silver, lead, wool, wheat, olive oil, wine, fish, and garum. Agricultural production increased with the introduction of irrigation projects, some of which remain in use today. The Romanized Iberian populations and the Iberian-born descendants of Roman soldiers and colonists had all achieved the status of full Roman citizenship by the end of the 1st century. The Iberian denarii, also called argentum oscense by Roman soldiers, circulated until the 1st century BC, after which it was replaced by Roman coins.
Hispania was separated into two provinces, each ruled by a praetor: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. The long wars of conquest lasted two centuries, and only by the time of Augustus did Rome manage to control Hispania Ulterior. Hispania was divided into three provinces in the 1st century BC. In the imperial era, three Roman emperors were born in Hispania: Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius.
In the 4th century, Latinius Pacatus Drepanius, a Gallic rhetorician, dedicated part of his work to the depiction of the geography, climate and inhabitants of the peninsula, writing:
This Hispania produces tough soldiers, very skilled captains, prolific speakers, luminous bards. It is a mother of judges and princes; it has given Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius to the Empire.
Christianity was introduced into Hispania in the 1st century, and it became popular in the cities in the 2nd century. However, little headway was made in the countryside, until the late 4th century, by which time Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire. Some heretical sects emerged in Hispania, most notably Priscillianism, but overall the local bishops remained subordinate to the Pope. Bishops who had official civil as well as ecclesiastical status in the late empire continued to exercise their authority to maintain order when civil governments broke down there in the 5th century. The Council of Bishops became an important instrument of stability during the ascendancy of the Visigoths. The last vestiges of Roman rule ended in 472.