Channel: Ancient Cities
Duration: 21:45
Description: It is said that all roads lead to Rome, and we’ll follow some which connected Rome to the rich provinces of the West: Iberia (Spain), and ancient Gaul (France). “Roman Imprint on the West” takes us through the streets of Nimes, Orange, Tarragona, Italica, Meridia and more.
During the Second Punic War, an expanding Roman Republic captured Carthaginian trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast from roughly 210 to 205 BCE. It took the Romans nearly two centuries to complete the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, though they had control of it for over six centuries. Roman rule was bound together by law, language, and the Roman road.
The cultures of the Celtic and Iberian populations were gradually Romanised (Latinised) at differing rates in different parts of Hispania. Local leaders were admitted into the Roman aristocratic class[f] Hispania served as a granary for the Roman market, and its harbours exported gold, wool, olive oil, and wine. Agricultural production increased with the introduction of irrigation projects, some of which remain in use. Emperors Hadrian, Trajan, Theodosius I, and the philosopher Seneca were born in Hispania. Christianity was introduced into Hispania in the 1st century CE and it became popular in the cities in the 2nd century CE. Most of Spain’s present languages and religion, and the basis of its laws, originate from this period.
The weakening of the Western Roman Empire’s jurisdiction in Hispania began in 409, when the Germanic Suebi and Vandals, together with the Sarmatian Alans crossed the Rhine and ravaged Gaul until the Visigoths drove them into Iberia that same year. The Suebi established a kingdom in what is today modern Galicia and northern Portugal. As the western empire disintegrated, the social and economic base became greatly simplified: but even in modified form, the successor regimes maintained many of the institutions and laws of the late empire, including Christianity.
Published: June 15, 2014 10:31 pm