There is evidence about the Roman presence in this territory in the Roman Hispanian era. The evidence consists in archaeological remains of a Roman hamlet whose date is the 2nd century BC. During the Middle Ages a castle named La Asomada was built in the century 12th.
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Aelia Flavia Flaccilla (31 March 356 – 386), was a Roman empress and first wife of the Roman Emperor Theodosius I. She was of Hispanian Roman descent. During her marriage to Theodosius, she gave birth to two sons – future Emperors Arcadius and Honorius – and a daughter, Aelia Pulcheria. She was titled Augusta, as her coinage shows.
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Statue of Balbus in Cadiz, Spain Lucius Cornelius Balbus (fl. 1st century BC) was a Roman politician and general of Hispanian origin. Although from a family of naturalized foreigners (he received Roman citizenship at the same time as his uncle, around 72 BC) he did valuable services for the early Roman Empire and also contributed to public architecture of its capital.
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Ulia Fidentia or simply Ulia was a Roman municipium in the province of Hispania Baetica. The site is the location of the current city of Montemayor, Córdoba. During the Second Hispanian campaign of Caesar's Civil War almost all the towns of Hispania Ulterior had switched allegiance to Pompey's side, except for a few towns, including Ulia. Caesar therefore honored the town with the appellation Fidentia.
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Horace (65 BC 8 BC) writes, et laetum equino sanguine Concanum ("the Cantabrians, drunk on horses' blood").Carmina book 3, chapter 4. verses 29 36 Julio Caro Baroja suggests there may have been an equestrian deity among Hispanian Celts, similar to that of the other European Celts. The Celtic goddess of the horses, worshipped even in Rome was Epona, which in ancient Cantabria was called Epane.
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Legio sexta Hispana ("Sixth (Hispanian) Legion") may have been a legion of the Imperial Roman army. Only a few records attesting a "VI Hispana" were known in 2015. Seyrig (1923) argued that this unit was created in AD 68 and disappeared before 197.Seyrig (1923) 488-96 Another theory is that VI Hispana was created after 197 and was destroyed in the turmoil of the Empire's Third Century Crisis.
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In the Republican camp, Atius Rufus charged Afranius with betraying his army. Despite this, Afranius, along with Petreius, broke his word to Caesar, embarked with as many loyal troops as he could gather and sailed for Epirus and Pompey. His Hispanian Cohorts were greatly appreciated by the Republicans, and he was welcomed back into the Republican fold. Afranius took no active command at Dyrrachium or Pharsalus, though he was no doubt there.
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The word Punicus comes from Punic, a Latin word for "Phoenician" borrowed from Ancient Greek phonikeos.Etymology of Punicus It has been suggested that Punicus received this name not from birth, but as a title after gaining military experience around Carthaginian forces in Southern Hispania. Alternatively, it is also possible that he was a Phoenician by blood, a Lusitanian of Phoenician ancestry, or merely a Hispanian whose name sounded like Punic to Roman chroniclers. An 18th-century chronicle gives Punicus the alternate name of "Appimanus".
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Peninsular fortified settlements, either castra or oppida, had a limited participation in Hispanian warfare. Given that the latter was mostly tribal in nature, raids were performed in order to sack and plunder, only rarely in order to capture and maintain territory. An inferior quarreling faction, unable to best the other on the battlefield, would seek refuge in their walls and endure the sacking of their outdoors properties, enjoying the safety that their enemies would not probably even try to assault the place. Formal siege warfare and machinery only arrived with the Carthaginian and Roman armies.
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Though Hydatius consistently characterizes Hispanian heretics as Manichees, it is generally believed that he meant Priscillianists, followers of the ascetic bishop Priscillian, who had been condemned as a heretic by several church councils and executed as a magician by the emperor Magnus Maximus around 385. We know very little else about Hydatius's life, though we know he was kidnapped and imprisoned for a time in 460 by local enemies, which suggests he played an important role in the internal politics of Roman Gallaecia. Hydatius probably died in 468 or shortly after, since at that point his chronicle breaks off abruptly.
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Sertorius owed some of his success to his prodigious ability as a statesman. His goal was to build a stable government in Hispania with the consent and co-operation of the people, whom he wished to civilize along the lines of the Roman model. He established a senate of 300 members, drawn from Roman emigrants (probably also including some from the highest aristocrats of Hispania) and kept a Hispanian bodyguard. For the children of the chief native families he provided a school at Osca (Huesca), where they received a Roman education and even adopted the dress and education of Roman youths.
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4; Cassius Dio, Roman History 39.1–5 During the spring of 56 BC the Triumvirate held a conference at Luca (modern Lucca) in Cisalpine Gaul. Rome was in turmoil, and Clodius' populist campaigns had been undermining relations between Crassus and Pompey. The meeting renewed the Triumvirate and extended Caesar's proconsulship for another five years. Crassus and Pompey would be consuls again, with similarly long-term proconsulships to follow: Syria for Crassus, the Hispanian provinces for Pompey.Cicero, Letters to his brother Quintus 2.3; Suetonius, Julius 24; Plutarch, Caesar 21, Crassus 14–15, Pompey 51 The conquest of Armorica was completed when Caesar defeated the Veneti in a naval battle, while young Crassus conquered the Aquitani of the south-west.
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Lucius Cornelius Balbus ( 1st century BC) was born in Gades early in the first century BC. Lucius Cornelius Balbus was a wealthy Roman politician and businessman of Hispanian origin (he was a native of Gades) who played a significant role in the emergence of the Principate at Rome. He was a prominent supporter of Julius Caesar and a close advisor to the emperor Augustus. He served in Hispania under Pompey and Metellus Pius against Sertorius. For his services against Sertorius, Roman citizenship was conferred upon him and his family by Pompey. He accompanied Pompey on his return to Rome in 71 BC, and was for a long time one of his most intimate friends.
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His parents, Fronto and Flaccilla, appear to have died in his youth. His name seems to imply that he was born a Roman citizen, but he speaks of himself as "sprung from the Celts and Iberians, and a countryman of the Tagus"; and, in contrasting his own masculine appearance with that of an effeminate Greek, he draws particular attention to "his stiff Hispanian hair" (x. 65, 7). His home was evidently one of rude comfort and plenty, sufficiently in the country to afford him the amusements of hunting and fishing, which he often recalls with keen pleasure, and sufficiently near the town to afford him the companionship of many comrades, the few survivors of whom he looks forward to meeting again after his thirty-four years' absence (x. 104).
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Others cite the Roman soldiers' appetite for plunder as preventing him from rallying in pursuit. The most probable explanation from a strategic standpoint is Scipio's unwillingness to risk being trapped between Hasdrubal's army on one side and one or both of Gisgo's and Mago's armies, both of superior numerical strength. Mere days after Hasdrubal's defeat, Mago and Gisgo were able to converge in front of the Roman positions, bringing into question what would have happened had Scipio pursued Hasdrubal. After winning over a number of Hispanian chiefs (namely Indibilis and Mandonius), Scipio achieved a decisive victory in 206 BC over the full Carthaginian levy at Ilipa (now the city of Alcalá del Río, near Hispalis, now called Seville), which resulted in the evacuation of Hispania by the Punic commanders.
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