Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/329

 UNDER CARTHAGINIANS.] SPAIN 305 barbarous Celts and Iberians, with some Phoenician settle- ments for the purposes of trade on its southern coasts. Several of these places were just known to them by name ; but even of Gades, rich and populous as it seems to have been in quite early days, nothing but vague hearsay had reached them, and Herodotus, who mentions it as Gadeira (iv. 8), merely defines its position as " on the ocean outside of (beyond) the Pillars of Hercules." Tarraco, one of the oldest and most important of the cities of Spain, and one of which we hear continually in the subsequent history of the country, was also in all probability a Phoenician colony. There are still here remains of very ancient walls, possibly Phoenician work. Gades, Tartessus, Tarraco, all seem to have been of Phoenician origin 1 and of unknown antiquity, and they were flourishing places in the 7th century B.C., when the Greeks first made a slight acquaint- ance with them, an acquaintance, however, which they did not follow up. The result is that we really know nothing about Spain till the first war between Rome and Carthage (264-241 B.C.). There was indeed, in the 4th century B.C., an embassy to Alexander the Great from the remote West, of Gauls and Iberians, and from that time learned Greeks began to discuss the geography of Spain. But again the country drops out of sight till the 3d century B.C., when we find a close connexion established between it and Carthage, which, being itself a Phoenician colony, would feel itself almost at home on the southern shores of Spain. According to Polybius, Carthage (before the First Punic War) had acquired at least something like a protectorate over the Iberian tribes as far as the Pyrenees, the then recognized boundary between the Iberians and Celts, between, in fact, Spain and Gaul. Spanish troops served as volunteers in Carthaginian armies. There must have been a good deal of Phoenician blood in the south of Spain for many centuries, and this Dartha- no doubt prepared the way for Carthaginian ascendency ginian j n j^e country. Not, however, till after the First Punic ascend- ^y- &r an( j ^ j Qgg Q f g^y wag th ere anything that could be called a Carthaginian empire in Spain. It was in 237 B.C. that Hamilcar Barca, the father of Hannibal, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and set foot in Spain, not, how- ever, with any commission from the home Government at Carthage, but with the deliberately formed design of making the country, with its warlike population and great mineral wealth, into a Carthaginian province, and ulti- mately into a basis of operations in a future war with Rome (see HAMILCAR, HASDRUBAL, HANNIBAL). There were rich mines in the mountains, which had drawn the Phoenicians some way into the interior, and among the native tribes there were the elements of a brave and hardy soldiery. A good army might very well be organized and paid out of the resources of Spain. All this Hamilcar clearly saw, and in the true spirit of a statesman he set himself to the work, not merely of subjugating the coun- try, but of making the Spaniards into loyal subjects of Carthage. He encouraged marriages between his officers and soldiers and the native women : his own son Hannibal married a Spanish woman. Tie showed them how to work their gold and silver mines to the best advantage ; in every way, in short, he made them feel that he was their friend. The great work of which he had laid the foundation was carried on after his death in 228 by his son-in-law Hasdrubal, under whom New Carthage, with its fine harbour, founded probably by Hamilcar, became the capital of the country. It would seem that by this time the Carthaginian empire in Spain was as firmly established over the southern half of the country as the fickle and uncertain temper of the native tribes would admit. The 1 For the Phoenician colonization of Spain, see PHCEXICIA, vol. xviii. p. 806. Spaniard of that day, as indeed more or less throughout his whole history, was particularly amenable to personal influence, and an Hamilcar or a Hannibal could sway him as he pleased. From 228 to 221 Hasdrubal was extending and strengthening the Carthaginian rule in Spain, while the Romans were fighting in Cisalpine Gaul. One pre- caution, indeed, they had taken, an understanding with Hasdrubal, which might be regarded as a treaty, that the Carthaginian conquests were not to be pushed east of the Ebro. West of that river there was one town, Saguntum, a Greek colony, in alliance with Rome ; this Hasdrubal had spared. His successor, Hannibal, after two years' continuous fighting, which resulted in the submission of hitherto unconquered tribes and the undisputed supremacy of Carthage throughout almost all Spain, attacked and took the place in 218. This was the beginning of the Second Punic War. Spain was now for the first time entered by Roman armies, under the command of the two Scipios, the brothers Cneius and Publius. Six years of hard fighting ended in the defeat and death of these two brave men, but in 210 the son of Publius, the elder Africanus, struck a decisive blow at the Carthaginian power in Spain by the sudden capture of New Carthage. The war, however, still dragged on till 205, in which year it may be said that Spain, or at least that part of it which had been under Carthage, was fairly conquered by the arms of Roman Rome. Andalusia, Granada, Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, conquests. Aragon, may be said to have become Roman territory. Rome had now to deal simply with the native Spaniards, without the fear of any foreign interference. Hence from 205 the reduction of the country into a Roman province was only a matter of time. It proved, however, to be a tedious and troublesome work, and more than once Rome's hold on Spain was seriously imperilled. An oppressive governor, or a governor without tact and sympathy, was sure to unsettle the restless and impressionable tribes, and to stir up all manner of dangerous jealousies and heart-burnings. The Scipios, the elder Africanus espe- cially, knew how to manage the people, and yet even in 205, the year of those brilliant successes of Africanus, there was a great rising of several of the tribes, headed by a local chieftain, against the dominion of Rome. It was quelled after a sharp engagement ; there was a general submission on the part of the Spaniards, and many of them became Roman tributaries. It was some time, however, before the country, or even the southern half of it, was really subdued into complete peace and order. The moun- tains and the forests were a formidable obstacle to the Roman legions, and favoured that guerilla warfare which makes conquest slow and laborious. For a long period many of the tribes were rather the allies and dependants of Rome than her subjects, and might at any moment be roused into war. In fact, Rome's dominion west of the Ebro Further Spain (Hispania Ulterior), as the province was called must for very many years have been little more than nominal. Rome's policy was to keep the native tribes disunited, and to have as many of them as possible under a friendly protectorate. There seem to have been wide differences between these tribes, some, especially those in the interior and in the north, being fierce and utterly barbarous, and others in the south and south-west comparatively mild and civilized. The Celtiberi, in the interior, were a group of warlike tribes, and were always uncertain and intractable. At one time they would fight for Rome ; at another they would serve as mercenaries for Rome's bitter foe, the Carthaginian. Continually were they breaking out into revolt and defying the arms of Rome. The " Celtiberian War " often figures in the pages of Roman histories, and it generally meant a war XXII. 39