page_title: Romanization of Hispania
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Romanization of Hispania / Overview
context_page_description: The Romanization of Hispania is the process by which Roman or Latin culture was introduced into the Iberian Peninsula during the period of Roman rule.
  Throughout the centuries of Roman rule over the provinces of Hispania, Roman customs, religion, laws and the general Roman lifestyle, gained much favour in the indigenous population, which was compounded by a substantial minority of Roman immigrants, which eventually formed a distinct Hispano-Roman culture. Several factors aided the process of Romanization:
  Creation of civil infrastructure, including road networks and urban sanitation.
  Commercial interaction within regions and the wider Roman world.
  Foundation of colonia; settling Roman military veterans in newly created towns and cities.
  The spread of the hierarchical Roman administrative system throughout the Hispanic provinces.
  Growth of Roman aristocratic land holdings.
  According to historian Theodore Mommsen in the late fourth century the romanization of the Iberian peninsula was practically at 100%
context_section_description: Roman influence gradually spread across the peninsula over a prolonged period of two centuries. Many Iberian tribes were initially aggressive, opposing Roman dominion militarily, though others became allied or tributary entities increasingly reliant on Rome. 
  The Mediterranean coast, which was inhabited before the arrival of the Romans by indigenous Iberians such as the Turdetani and Ilergetians, as well as Greek and Phoenician/Carthaginian colonies, were quick to adopt aspects of Roman culture. The first Roman cities were founded in these territories, such as Tarraco in the northeast or Italica in the south during the period of confrontation with Carthage.
  In the interior of the Iberian Peninsula, where Celtiberian, Cantabrian and Vasconian (Basque) cultures were well established. Constant military campaigns against the rebellious indigenous Iberians eventually pacified the Hispanic provinces, ending with the Augustan campaigns against the Cantabrians and Astures. The predominance of native Iberian culture diminished in the face of the cultural impact of Roman dominion, being assimilated and transformed gradually into the later Hispano-Roman culture.
  The new Hispano-Roman elite, formed of the preceding Iberian tribal elite and the growing Roman aristocracy, occupied administrative positions in the new municipal institutions and wider imperial bureaucracy, serving in judicial, military and civil offices. The expansion of Roman citizenship in the Antonine Constitution in 212 AD radically changed the concept of romanitas and aided in the further assimilation of native Iberian cultures. Three Roman emperors, Theodosius I, Trajan and Hadrian, came from the Roman provinces of Hispania, as did the authors Quintilian, Martialis, Lucan and Seneca.
  One of the main consequences of the romanization of Hispania was the development and use of the Spanish language and the Portuguese language after the fall of the Western Roman empire in the fifth century. These worldwide important languages evolved from Vulgar Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War, beginning in 210 BC.
caption: Roman theatre at Segóbriga.
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