The archaeological remains of fully Romanized Spain are abun dant, but show the monotony of a provincial art which has nothing to stimulate it into new forms of its own. There is no obviously and distinctively "Spanish" flavour in the architecture and sculp ture of these times. The spirit which seems to distinguish mediaeval or modern Spain from the rest of Europe may or may not contain a recrudescence of Tartessian or Iberian or Celtiberian mentality. With the final Romanization of the land these older cultures were supplanted completely.
The origin and character of the early inhabitants of the Peninsula are obscure. We must await the result of further excavations of prehistoric sites and further inquiries into the native inscriptions before we can hope for much certainty. The Romans mention three races : Iberians (in the east, north and south), Celts (north-west) and Celtiberians (centre). The use to-day of the strange and ancient Basque tongue on the western slopes of the Pyrenees and in Vizcaya (Biscay) suggests that the Iberians may have been an older people than the Celts and alien from them in race. On the other hand, numerous place-names show that parts of the Peninsula were once held by the Celtic-speaking tribes who probably also inhabited the greater part of the area which is now France for several millenniums before the current era.
The Phoenicians had possibly reached Spain by the i Ith century B.C. One of their earlier foundations, Gades (now Cadiz), has been called the oldest town in the world (or in Europe) which has kept a continuity of life and name from its first origin. But their exploitation of the Peninsula dates principally from after the rise of Carthage (q.v.). Carthaginian "factories" were planted on many Spanish coasts: a Nova Carthago (New Carthage, mod. Cartagena) formed a Carthaginian fortress with the best harbour of south-eastern Spain. The expansion is attributed chiefly to the second half of the 3rd century B.C., and to the genius of Hamilcar Barca, who, seeing his country deprived by Rome of Sicily and Sardinia, used Spain, not only as a source of commercial wealth, but as an inexhaustible reservoir of recruits for the Carthaginian armies.
But Rome too needed the Spanish men and mines, and, in the second Punic War, drove Carthage finally and completely out of the Peninsula (201 B.c.).
The Romans divided Spain into two pro vinciae, Hispania Citerior, that is, the northern districts which were nearer to Italy, and Hispania Ulterior, the south. To each province was sent yearly a governor, often with the title pro consul. The commands were full of military activity. The south, indeed, notably the fertile valley of Andalusia, the region of the Guadalquivir (Baetis), then called Baetica, was from the first fairly peaceful. Italian veterans or Spanish soldiers who had served for Rome were settled at Hispalis (Seville) and at Carteia near Gibraltar, and a beginning was made of a Romanized pro vincial population. But in the north, on the high plateau and amidst the hills, there was incessant fighting throughout the greater part of the and century B.c., and indeed in some quarters right down to the establishment of the empire. In the long strug gle many Roman armies were defeated, many commanders dis graced, many Spanish leaders won undying fame as patriot chiefs (see NUMANTIA). But the struggle could not be given up without risk to the lands already won. So the war went on to its inevitable issue. Numantia, the centre of the fiercest resistance, fell in 133 B.C. (see Sam), and even northern Spain began to accept Roman rule and Roman civilization. When in 80-70 B.C. the Roman Sertorius (q.v.) attempted to make head in Spain against his political enemies in Rome, the Spaniards who supported him were already half Romanized.
There remained only small groups of unconquered tribes in the northern hills and on the western coast. Some of these were dealt with by Julius Caesar, governor here in 61 B.c. Others, especially the hill tribes of the Basque and Asturian moun tains, were still unquiet under Augustus. By the days of Cicero and Caesar (70-44 B.c.) the southern districts, at least, had become practically Roman : their speech, their literature, their gods were wholly or almost wholly Italian. Gades was the first city outside of Italy which obtained a municipal charter as municipium, without the usual implantation of Roman citizens.