‘Liquid spaces’ in NE Hispania Citerior during the Mid-Republican period: Introducing a new reality

Abstract

During the period between the Second Punic War (218-202 BC) and the outbreak of the Sertorian War (82 BC), the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula experienced the emergence of a new reality deriving from the contacts between the Roman occupation forces and the indigenous communities. After a period of war stress and rebellion, ultimately suppressed by Cato in north-east Iberia (195 BC) (Liv. 34.13.4-16.7; 35.9.6; App. Hisp. 39-40; Zon. 9.17), the new native elites emerging as a result of — or thanks to — the conflict chose to embrace the Roman cause. However, Rome’s military conquest of the peninsula did not imply the imposition of a new cultural hegemony. Without a well-defined foreign policy, Rome showed no interest in directly undertaking the organisation and administration of the vanquished during the Mid-Republican period (e.g. Ñaco del Hoyo 2006: 81-103). On the contrary, it limited itself to currying the favour of the local elites in order to retain political control over the newly conquered territories through them. This lack of definition gave rise to ‘liquid realities’ and ‘spaces’, in which the ruling classes gradually became ‘Romanised’, but in which Iberian mores and customs not only survived but continued to predominate. An example of this can be seen through the continuation of the Iberian language and its epigraphic evolution (Sinner and Ferrer 2016: 201; Torra 2009: 21)