From the Iberian Peninsula to the Roman Hispania

Abstract

This 2014 we conmemorate Octavio Augustus death’s bimillenary. Under his command, as just another achievement of the Pax Augusta, a magnificent Rome culminated the Romanization of our land. To state that Rome conquered Spain would be mistaken, as it is not possible to conquer something that does not yet exist. It is true that against Roman legions a great diversity of indigenous peoples fought for two long and bloody years. However, they were not Spaniards, but “turdetanos, ilergetes, celtíberos, vacceos”, etc, those who faced the Roman legions. Only after the Augustan pacification, when all the peoples' diversity and culture merge with the Romanization, Rome and its provincial administration achieved to create a new political unit, Hispania, which reached to exceed, for the first time in its history, what until that time was not more than a topographical concept based on simple peninsular configuration.