Hispania Baetica

The province Rome trusted enough to leave without an army, and the wealthiest part of the empire outside Italy. Augustus created it in 27 BC from the southern half of Hispania Ulterior and handed it to the Senate rather than keeping it himself - the standard signal that a territory was pacified, taxed and needed no garrison. It was named for the Baetis, the river now called the Guadalquivir, which was navigable far inland and did the work a road network elsewhere had to. The valley produced olive oil, wine, grain and garum in industrial quantities. Oil in particular went to Rome in such volume that the discarded amphorae built Monte Testaccio, a hill of broken pottery over thirty metres high that archaeologists have used to reconstruct the trade in detail, because the jars were stamped with the producer, the shipper and the weight. Corduba was the capital and the home of the Senecas; Seneca the Younger tutored Nero and was ordered to kill himself by him. Trajan was born at Italica near Seville, the first emperor from outside Italy, and Hadrian's family came from the same town. The province was heavily urbanised, with dozens of self-governing towns holding Latin rights. Its bronze municipal charters, several of which survive, are among the best evidence for how Roman local government actually worked. Mining continued at Rio Tinto, worked since the Bronze Age. The Vandals crossed it in the fifth century and may have left their name in Andalusia. The province held around 175 towns according to Pliny's list. Its capital Corduba is now Cordoba, a World Heritage city. Baetican oil supplied the army on the Rhine as well as the city of Rome.

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