Hispania Tarraconensis was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania. It encompassed much of the northern, eastern and central territories of modern Spain along with modern northern Portugal. Southern Spain, the region now called Andalusia, was the province of Hispania Baetica. On the Atlantic west lay the province of Lusitania, partially coincident with modern-day Portugal.
History
Establishment The Phoenicians and Carthaginians colonised the Mediterranean coast of Iberia in the 8th to 6th centuries BC. The Greeks later also established colonies along the coast. The Romans arrived in the 2nd century BC during the Second Punic War.
The province Hispania Citerior Tarraconensis was established in the reign of Augustus as the direct successor of the Roman Republican province of Hispania Citerior ("nearer Hispania"), which had been ruled by a propraetor.Livy, The History of Rome, 41.8. The roots of the Augustan reorganisation of Hispania are found in Pompey the Great's division of Hispania between three of his legates at the end of the Republic, immediately before his civil war with Julius Caesar. As a result of the agreements that led to the formation of the First Triumvirate in 60 BC, Pompey had received the governorship of the Iberian provinces. Given that he preferred to remain in Rome, where he could oversee affairs in the capital, he delegated the government of Hispania to three legates: Lucius Afranius in Hispania Citerior, with three legions; Marcus Petreius in the eastern part of Hispania Ulterior, with two legions; Marcus Terentius Varro in the western part of Hispania Ulterior, with two legions.
At the end of the civil wars, Pompey's division was consolidated by Augustus in 27 BC, when he formally established the three provinces of Hispania Citerior Tarraconensis, Hispania Ulterior Lusitania (corresponding to modern Portugal, apart from the northern region of the modern country, plus Spanish Extremadura), and Hispania Ulterior Baetica (corresponding to the southern part of Spain, i.e. Andalusia). Citerior and Lusitania were Imperial provinces, while Baetica was a Senatorial province.
The creation of these new provinces was achieved in order to facilitate the incorporation of the northwestern portion of the Iberian peninsula, inhabited by the Gallaeci, Cantabri, and Astures, into the Roman empire. Tarraconensis thus served as a base for the annexation of these territories during the Cantabrian Wars (27–19 BC). Augustus himself resided from 27 to 26 BCSuetonius, Augustus. 20 at Segisama (modern Sasamón, Burgos),Florus 2.33Orosius, History against the Pagans 7.21. and at Tarraco,Cassius Dio 53.25.7. where he received an embassy from India. During this period he was accompanied by his nephew and heir, Marcellus,Cassius Dio 53.25.8. and his stepson, the future emperor Tiberius, both of whom served as military tribunes in 25 BC in the conflict with the Cantabrians – the pair's first military commands.Suetonius Tiberius 9.1.
The name of the province derives from its capital, Colonia Urbs Triumphalis Tarraco. The provincial borders were modified in 12 BC, in order to incorporate the Galician and Asturian territories which had previously belonged to Lusitania, and perhaps to an ephemeral Transduriana province before that,Bierzo Edict (and in Hispania Epigraphica 8, 1998, n. 325, pp. 115-158), but arguments that this inscription is a fake in Alicia M. Canto, "Rarezas epigráficas e históricas en los nuevos edictos augusteos de El Bierzo", in El bronce de Bembibre: un edicto del emperador Augusto del año 15 a.C., Luis A. Grau Lobo & José Luis Hoyas (edd.), Museo de León, 2001, pp. 153-166, and challenges to the existence of this province: F. Martín, "Sobre el significado de prouincia" , in Urbs Aeterna, Coloquio Internacional Roma entre la Literatura y la Historia, homenaje a la Prof. Carmen Castillo, Pamplona, 2003, pp. 593-610. as well as the mining area around Castulo that had previously been part of Baetica. This reorganisation meant that all Roman troops stationed in Hispania were henceforth under the command of a single Roman legate based at Tarraconensis and that the main mining regions, which supplied precious metals to the Imperial treasury (gold in the Galician Massif, silver in Sierra Morena), were under the direct control of the Imperial administration, with easy access by sea to Italia and Rome, where the Imperial mints were located.
Pacification and Romanisation under the Julio-Claudians and Flavians In addition to creating the province and setting its borders, Augustus followed the directions left by Julius Caesar in granting many communities in the province the privileged status of coloniaRes Gestae Divi Augusti Tab. V, 28. or municipium (Roman or Latin), especially along the Levante coast, the part of Baetica transferred to the province in 12 BC, and the Ebro Valley, along with some foundations on the Meseta Central and in the northeast. He also regularised the status of the other political entities in the province, the civitates stipendiaria (communities subject to tribute), whose affairs could be directly intervened in by the governor.
This policy was continued by Tiberius (AD 14–37), who increased the number of municipia in the northern part of the Meseta Central.
Between the reigns of Augustus and Nero, imperial interventions led to the regularisation of the old pre-Roman roads and their conversion into Roman roads, which formed a framework for the provincial territory which brought the provincials into contact with Roman culture (Latin rapidly became the common language of the province) and gave them access to highly developed economic networks and a monetary economy. Ceramics began to be imported in large quantities – Arretine ware from Italy under Augustus and Tiberius and Samian ware from Gaul between the reigns of Caligula and Vespasian.
The province was effectively at peace except for an attempt at rebellion by the Astures under Nero which was easily suppressed by a primus pilus of the Legio VI Victrix. As a result, it was possible to progressively reduce the military garrison of the province. In AD 42–43, Claudius transferred the Legio IV Macedonica to Germania and in AD 63 Nero sent the Legio X Gemina to Pannonia.
In AD 68, Galba, who had governed the province since AD 61, was invited by Vindex to join his rebellion against Nero. When Galba received news that Nero had decided to have him killed, he accepted Vindex's offer, justifying the decision, according to Suetonius, by an oracle delivered by a young prophet two centuries earlier, which predicted that a new ruler of the world would arise in Clunia.Suetonius, Life of Galba 10.
Therefore, Galba proclaimed himself emperor at Clunia. After receiving the support of the governor of Lusitania, the future emperor Otho, he expanded the military forces of the province,Suetonius, Life of Galba 10.2 which consisted of the Legio VI Victrix, two cavalry alae, and three infantry cohortes, by recruiting various auxiliaries, at least three cohorts of Vascones, and the Legio VII Galbiana, and then he set out for Rome in order to seize power. After Galba was assassinated, the province was controlled in succession by partisans of Otho, then Vitelius, before finally coming under the control of Vespasian, the first Flavian emperor.
Under Vespasian an edict seems to have been promulgated, perhaps in AD 74, which permitted many of the province's urban communities to become municipia with Latin rights over the course of his reign and that of his successors, Titus and Domitian. Vespasian also decided to maintain a reduced military garrison in the province, consisting of the Legio VII Gemina Felix and its auxiliary units, which was focused mainly on supporting the work of the provincial governor, carrying out policing, and supervising mining work in the province.
Pliny the Elder served as procurator in Tarraconensis in AD 73.
Under Diocletian, in 293, Hispania Tarraconensis was divided in three smaller provinces: Gallaecia, Carthaginensis and Tarraconensis. The Imperial province of Hispania Tarraconensis lasted until the invasions of the 5th century, beginning in 409, when Suebi, Vandals and Alans crossed the Pyrenees, and ended with the establishment of a Visigothic kingdom.
The invasion resulted in widespread exploitation of metals, especially gold, tin and silver. The alluvial gold mines at Las Medulas show that Roman engineers worked the deposits on a very large scale using several aqueducts up to long to tap water in the surrounding mountains. By running fast water streams on the soft rocks, they were able to extract large quantities of gold by hydraulic mining methods (Ruina montium). When the gold had been exhausted, they followed the auriferous seams underground by tunnels using fire-setting to break up the much harder gold-bearing rocks. Pliny the Elder gives a good account of the methods used in Hispania, presumably based on his own observations.
Geography and political organisation
Borders and extent At its greatest extent, the province Hispania Tarraconensis covered about two thirds of the Iberian Peninsula. The Pyrenees mountains to the north formed the border with Gaul. The border with Lusitania to the southwest ran from the Cale (modern Porto, Portugal) along the Douro river and then the Tormes river. The border with Baetica ran from Castulo (modern Linares), through Acci (Guadix), to the bay of Almería.
With a surface area of around and an estimated population of 3–3.5 million (giving an average population density of 8–9 people/km2), at the date of its creation, Tarraconensis was probably the largest province in the Roman empire.K. J. Beloch, La popolazione del mondo greco-romano. Con appendici, Arnaldo Forni Editore, Reimpresión anastática de la edición de 1909, Bologna, 1977, pp 401-402, ISBN 88-271-8103-2,9788827181034
Administrative organisation Under Augustus' division of the provinces in 27 BC, Tarraconensis was an Imperial province like Lusitania, while Baetica was a Senatorial province. Tarraconensis was of consular rank, while the other two were praetorian.Strabo 3.4.20; Pomponius Mela Chorogr. 2.79. The governor was entitled legatus Augusti pro praetore, who was a senator of consular rank. The capital of the province was the colonia of Tarraco. In the time of Augustus and Tiberius, according to Strabo, the province was garrisoned by three legions – subsequently reduced to two by Caligula, and to one by Nero.Strabo 3.4.20
Because of the scale of the province, at some point between the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius, the province was divided into seven , each managed by a appointed by the Emperor directly. These districts were:
Tarraconensis, with its capital at Colonia Tarraco (Tarragona). Carthaginensis, with its capital at Colonia Carthago Nova (Cartagena). Caesaraugustanus, with its capital at Colonia Caesar Augusta (Zaragoza). Cluniensis, with its capital at Colonia Clunia Sulpicia (Coruña del Conde). Asturicensis, with its capital at Municipium Asturica Augusta (Astorga). Lucensis, with its capital at Lucus Augusti (Lugo). Bracarensis, with its capital at Municipium Bracara Augusta (Braga).
In each of the conventus capitals there was an Imperial cult centre, dedicated to the Genius Augusti and the deified emperors, with its own male and female priests, the flamen Augusti and flamenica Augusti, who were chosen by the elites of the privileged communities of the province (the coloniae and municipia). Each year, they chose one of their number to be the flamen and flamenica (they were not required to be married to one another) of the Imperial cult for the whole province, discharging their functions in the provincial forum in Tarraco.