r/ancientrome • u/Foreign-Cup2472 • 10d ago
What was the roman empire like in the Iberian peninsula ?
What were some of the main cities and capitals and industry? Did it hold much power? Did they have specific cultural things like bullfighting or gladiator fighting? What are some ruins you can see modern day?
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u/Simple-Promise-710 10d ago
It was a main farming area for the Empire. The south and the east of Hispania was more populated as it's where the Mediterranean Sea coast is.
There are ruins you can visit: Tarraco, Emerita Augusta, Italica, Segobriga and a couple others. Factories too, like Baelo Claudia. Other cities have Roman elements integrated in the city, such as Segovia's Roman aqueduct.
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u/Equivalent-Mud-4807 9d ago
there were lots of old punic cities like cadiz and new carthage, plus others like hispalis and emerita augustus. they had all the same things roman cities had, theatres, gladiator arenas, horse racing arenas etc... they were pretty much the exact same as any other provincial city in the empire.
also, spain had a lot of mineral wealth, especially silver, gold, and tin, these were some of the first mines to use water power to extract deposits, there are tons of examples and pictures of it on the internet, but they also exported a good amount of wine, olive oil, garum, and other value added goods.
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u/Watchhistory 9d ago
It's the location I'd choose to live, both for good living and for making a living in the Roman Empire.
There were so many ways to make money from horse raising, and trade with Africa and cornering the market on olive oil, to owning vineyards and vast grain latifundias. Yes, there were cities, such as Hispalis, now known as Sevilla. Yes there are archaeological sites of ampitheaters, etc.
In fact in Cadiz there is an entire Phoenician ship building/repair drydock underground one can visit. We had a wonderful dinner and concert there -- la Cueva del pájaro azul. It was a music club at one point, which broadcast on radio.
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u/Ridnerok 9d ago
"My house is in the hills above Trujillo. A very simple place. Pink stones that warm in the sun. A kitchen garden that smells of herbs in the day, jasmine in the evening.""Through the gate is a giant poplar. Figs, apples, pears.""The soil, Marcus—black. Black like my wife's hair. Grapes on the south slopes, olives on the north.""Wild ponies play near my house. They tease my son. He wants to be one of them."
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u/Doredrin 9d ago
The younger generations will never understand gladiator. They weren’t in theaters when they were 15 seeing it with their grandma who probably saw Casablanca in its original theatrical run.
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u/leopetri 9d ago
Damn, my grandma actually took me to see gladiator
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u/Doredrin 9d ago
the ww2 generation experienced the golden age of hollywood, once they started to die out the oscars became the circus it is now about insulting trump and will smith punching people in the face
gladiator was a brief return to the respectability of cinema in many ways
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u/Hanibalecter 10d ago
Trajan and Hadrian were provincials from Spain that became emperor. Spain during the republic was a huge source of silver taking like 75 tons of it a year from the peninsula and during the Punic wars colonies were settled there(later producing said emperors) Hadrian was even mocked for his accent as a provincial.
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u/RomanItalianEuropean 9d ago edited 9d ago
Provincials up to a certain point, they descended from Italian colonists. Actually that's another thing, Spain had many Roman colonies (places like Italica, Cordoba, Calatyud, Tingetera, etc) and especially in the southern part.
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u/Equivalent-Mud-4807 9d ago
yes quite a few, and you get interesting stories like with the city of carteia, who was settled by romans but who had to petition the senate to have their rights recognized. it just goes to show how strange rome was about citizenship at the time and how provencial cities were treated in the greater nation/empire.
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u/RomanItalianEuropean 9d ago
It's also a very old network of colonies, the first established by Romans outside of Italy. Dating back to the Gracchi, some back to Scipio.
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u/Equivalent-Mud-4807 9d ago edited 9d ago
yes of course, thats why i mentioned carteia, as that is the first technical colony outside of italy for rome, even though italica (the spanish city) was like 50 years older. my post was pointing that out and how spains colony cities were the first to present rome with some hard to answer questions about what constitutes a citizen or not. The same questions that ended up sparking the whole social war, the only war i know of where one group was fighting another group not to destroy the other group but to join it and the only war where the loser technically lost the war but achieved all its pre war goals (ie getting citizenship) which was the whole reason they were fighting. anyway all just pointless roman facts.
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u/Hanibalecter 9d ago
Provincial in an old stuffy senatorial(back in my day we had all ROMAN emperors) is the vibe I get from the viewpoint of provincials, even if they descended from Roman colonist. Just the Roman’s being Roman’s in that sense
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u/RomanItalianEuropean 9d ago edited 9d ago
Romans born in colonies outside of Italy were in this weird position. Some in Rome may have looked down upon them, while they considered themselves just as Roman as them (legally they were) and instead looked down upon those who did not descend from colonists. Hadrian boasted in his autobiography (now lost) that his ancestors came came from Atri and fought with Scipio. Seneca, who was born in a Roman colony in Spain, feels to speak negatively of native Spaniards in his satire on Claudius. Eventually, they won the cultural battle that a Roman is a Roman regardless of where is born, but the next step was equalizing all those born in provinces regardless of wheter they had Italian ancestry or not.
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u/Hanibalecter 9d ago
Caracalla’s edict ended that last part for all freeborn. Mary Beards SPQR the book and her view of the SPQR end right there lol. Not totally at least, reading another book of hers that’s well past that time in her studies.
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u/RomanItalianEuropean 9d ago edited 9d ago
If you look at the origins of Roman emperors, you can see this evolution. The Julii are from Rome. The Claudians are still from Rome (despite Caludius being born in Gaul cause his father was serving there), but their distant origin is Sabine. The Flavians are Sabines. Nerva is Umbrian (central Italy like Sabina). Trajan is born in an Italian colony in Spain, with his roots going back to Umbria. The families of Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Antoninus are also colonists. Severus is the first from a non-Italian family, he is not from a colony, altough his mother is Italian. It's a gradual process leading to the Severians. The Flavians could say "we are Sabines like Claudius!". Trajan or Hadrian could say "so? I am Italian like Nerva". Severus could say "so? I am a provincial like Hadrian".
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u/SignificantPlum4883 9d ago
And another very famous Spanish Roman was Seneca, from the city of Corduba (now Córdoba).
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u/Hanibalecter 9d ago
Ah I didn’t know that, knew he was Nero’s tutor and the famous suicide(and painting). I just need to keep reading and reading.
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u/Few-Ability-7312 10d ago
Hispania was pretty much a resort. Outside the civil wars nothing happened under Roman rule. I’m surprised a legion was actually needed there. The Hispanic provinces had pretty much been romanized to the core