HISPA'NIA (probably connected with Heb. shapan, rabbit, from shapan, to hide). The name by which the Spanish Peninsula. including the modern Spain and Portugal. was known to the Romans. By the Greeks it was called Iberia, and by the Roman poets sometimes Hesperia, the Western Land. The earliest inhabitants of whom we have any knowledge were the Iberians, a race apparently unconnected ethnically or linguistic ally with any other race of Europe, of which the modern representatives are the Basques of Northern Spain. But in very early times hordes of Celts crossed the Pyrenees and occupied almost the whole peninsula. pushing hack or assimilating the Iberians, whence the natives were generally called Celtiberians by the ancients. The national wealth of the country—especially its silver de posits—early attracted traders and colonists. About the middle of the fourth century B.C. the Creek colony of Emporhe (Ampurias) was founded on the northeast coast. Phwnician trad ers early made the circuit of the coasts. and
Glides (Cadiz) was one of their permanent trad ing stations. The Carthaginians. driven from Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia by the Romans. de termined to conquer Spain both as a source of wealth and as a base of operations against Italy. Carthago Nova (Cartagena) was their principal town, and they soon brought almost the entire country under their sway. From here Hannibal set out to cross the Alps (u.c. 218) : but his down fall at the end of the Second Panic War lost the country to the Carthaginians and placed it under Roman control. For a century or two, however, the native tribes continued in a state of semi independence, until in the time of Augustus. who founded many colonies in Spain. the country was finally Romanized. The peninsula was divided into three provinces: Hispania Tarraeonensis, with its capital Tarraco (Tarragona) in the north and east: BTtica in the south: and Lusitania, corresponding nearly to the modern Portugal.