Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula

This was a gradual process of economic, diplomatic and cultural infiltration and colonization, with campaigns of military suppression when there was native resistance,[1] rather than the result of a single policy of conquest.

The subjugation of the tribes in Hispania, which was later extended over the greater part the east coast of the peninsula, was achieved by force or through tributes, alliances, or marriages with local chiefs.

[14] In 216 BC, after receiving reinforcements of 4,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry from Africa, Hasdrubal gave orders for the Carthaginian fleet to be put into readiness to protect the Balearic Islands and the coast.

Scipio divided his men, making a detour to the left and sending the rest, led by Laelius, round the right of the hill to find a less difficult ascent.

The townsfolk, fearing a massacre if the Romans broke through, opened one of the city gates, went out, held their shields in case of a javelin attack and showed their empty right hands to point out that they had no swords.

Scipio felt that he could not face this large army without his native auxiliaries to give an appearance of greater strength, but he did not want to rely on them too much in case they changed sides like what happened to his uncle.

The battle reached the centre considerably later, so that the noon heat, the strain of standing under arms, hunger and thirst weakened the Carthaginians and Africans before they started fighting.

[55] In the meantime, Lucius Marcius defeated Hanno, Mago's prefect, who had been sent from Gades (Cadiz) with a small force of Africans to hire local mercenaries and had armed 4,000 young men.

[59] Probably some farming areas were oriented towards producing crops to be exported to Rome, particularly in the fertile valleys of the rivers Ebro (in the northern part of the east coast) and Baetis (Guadalquivir) in the south.

[64] In a later passage, Livy wrote that in 200 BC Gaius Cornelius Cethegus was a propraetor in Hispania and defeated a hostile force in the territory of the Sedetani and 15,000 of the enemy died.

[66] The idea of having only one man in charge in Hispania might have been connected with the fact that Hannibal had been defeated the year before and with the end of the Second Punic War there was a need to demobilise the Roman armies (particularly in Italy) and discharge the veterans.

At the end of 196 BC, it was decided that, with war in Hispania raging, a consul with a consular army of two legions plus 15,000 Latin infantry and 800 cavalry transported by 20 ships was needed.

In 195 BC, Cato sailed to Rhoda (modern Rosas, by the Pyrenees) a port of the Massiliote (the people of the Greek city of Massalia, Marseille, who were friends of Rome) and expelled the Hispanic garrison that held the fort.

He stayed there for three days to gather intelligence and to start drilling his troops He sent the redemptores (Roman merchants who followed the army) back to Rome, saying that 'war feeds itself' and on leaving Emporiae he pillaged the enemy's fields at a time when the grain was ready for threshing and spread "terror and flight in all directions".

Cato then sent three officers to the Celtiberians to offer them three choices: to receive double pay from the Romans, to return home with the guarantee of no reprisals, or to set a date and place for a battle.

He had little confidence in the troops of Sextus Digitus and asked the senate to give him a legion from Rome to supplement the scared remnant of this army in addition to the force he had been allowed to levy.

He went to Carpetania (in central Hispania) seized the town of Aebura (Talavera de la Reina, in western part of the province of Toledo; it was at the edge of the territory of the Vettones).

Richardson holds that a man with the cognomen Cento (usually written as Centho in the literary sources) is recorded in the Fasti Triumphales and that he may have been the praetor of Hispania Ulterior who succeed Titus Fontueus.

The mentioned epitome (the Periochae), which gave a very brief summary of all of Livy's books, records that there several unsuccessful campaigns in Hispania by various commanders in 154 BC and that in that year there was the beginning of the consuls being elected slightly earlier and starting their office on 1 January instead of 15 March as customary.

[130] Appian wrote that this war broke out because Segeda (near Zaragoza), a powerful city of the Celtiberian tribe of the Belli, persuaded the people of some smaller towns to settle there and was building a circuit of walls seven kilometres long.

[132] The Arevaci assembled at the town of Numantia (seven kilometres north of today's Soria, on a hill known as Cerro de la Muela near Garray), which had strong natural defences.

For his part, the consul Serbius Sulpicius Galba made a peace treaty with three of the Lusitanian tribes, and then, pretending to be a friend, killed the youth and sold the rest of the people to Gaul.

He had fled from Serbius Sulpicius Galba three years earlier, and, reuniting the Lusitanian tribes again, Viriathus began a guerrilla war that fiercely struck the enemy without giving open battle.

His numerous victories and the humiliation he inflicted upon the Romans made him worthy of the permanent place he holds in Portuguese and Spanish memory as a revered hero who fought without respite.

"[144] Aemilius Lepidus, who wanted glory, did not wait for instructions from Rome and attacked the Vaccaei, who lived in west-central Hispania to the west of the Celtiberians, falsely accusing them of supplying the Numantines.

He made an incursion in the territory of Pallantia, collected a small amount of plunder and spent the rest of his term of office in winter camp in Carpetania (in central Hispania).

Scipio concentrated on restoring discipline by forbidding luxuries the troops had become accustomed to, through regular tough exercises (all-day marches, building camps and fortifications and then demolishing them, digging ditches and then filling them up, and the like) and by enforcing regulations strictly.

He built an embankment of the same dimensions as the wall around the adjoining marsh, and two towers by the River Durius (Douro) to which he moored large timbers with ropes full of knives and spear heads, constantly kept in motion by the current.

In the former war the Germanic tribes of the Cimbri and the Teutones migrated around Europe and invaded territories of allies of Rome, particularly in southern France, and routed the Romans in several battles until their final defeat.

In an economic context there was the question of control over the rich gold mine at Las Medullas (the richest in the empire) in Asturia and the abundant iron ores of Cantabria.