Hispania Ulterior

The further Spanish province, containing the richest agricultural land in the peninsula and the hardest people in it, which is why Rome eventually split it in two. Ulterior meant beyond - the Guadalquivir valley, the southern coast, and an undefined western hinterland running into what is now Portugal. It was organised in 197 BC out of territory taken from Carthage, and its southern core, the old Turdetanian country, was already urban, literate and wealthy when Rome arrived. Gades was a Phoenician foundation older than Rome itself and became a Roman municipality whose merchants traded to Britain. The province's northern and western edges were another matter entirely: the Lusitanian wars ran for decades, and Viriathus, a shepherd turned commander, defeated several Roman armies before being murdered by his own envoys after they were bribed. Rome's conduct in these campaigns was bad enough to be criticised in the Senate. Caesar governed the province twice, first as quaestor and later as propraetor, and used a campaign in the west to clear his debts before returning to Rome. It was the base from which Pompey's sons fought their last campaign. Augustus divided it in 27 BC into Baetica, given to the Senate because it needed no army, and Lusitania, which kept one. The southern half became the most thoroughly Romanised region outside Italy. Two emperors, Trajan and Hadrian, came from families settled there. Olive oil from the valley was shipped to Rome in quantities that built an artificial hill of broken amphorae. Its governors were among the most frequently prosecuted for extortion of any province in the republic. The Baetis valley was already exporting grain to Rome before the province was formally organised.

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