The Roman Occupation of Iberia

“Drawing on literary and archaeological evidence, Herrero Giménez addresses an extraordinary number campaigns, including many little-known and ill-documented… an immensely importance read for anyone with an interest in the rise of Rome.” – The NYMAS Review The area of Hispania, this being the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces, had a great influence on the development of the history of Ancient Rome. In part this was because some of Rome’s main emperors, such as Trajan or Hadrian, politicians, including Lucius Cornelius Balbus the first consul of the Republic born outside of Italy, writers and poets like Martial or Lucanus, and philosophers, like Seneca, came from the Iberian Peninsula. It was also a consequence of the enormous commercial flow that existed between the colony and the metropolis, and because some of the events that took place in Hispania deeply marked Rome. For this reason, many of the main protagonists of its history, at some point in their lives lived, and fought, in Hispania, including such individuals as Sulla, Pompey, Julius Caesar and Augustus, among many others. Iberia became a battleground between Rome and Carthage in the Second Punic War, followed by the endless bloody struggle against the Iberian and Celtic tribes that turned Hispania into a kind of Vietnam for the Romans. It was also the scene of bitter fighting during the Civil Wars that led to the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire, with the great battles between Julius Caesar and the sons of Pompey, as well as the final defeat of Quintus Sertorius who had held out in Spain for over a decade. There was also three years of struggle by the Emperor Augustus trying to quell the revolts of the Cantabrian tribes. Lastly, Spain, as with other parts of the…