Hispania Ulterior

The other of Rome's original 197 BCE Spanish provinces, covering the south and west -- and the scene of decades of fierce resistance, including Viriathus's guerrilla war against Rome and the famous siege and destruction of Numantia. Augustus split it in 27-14 BCE into the new provinces of Baetica and Lusitania. Viriathus, a shepherd turned guerrilla leader, humiliated successive Roman armies through the 140s BCE before being assassinated by his own envoys, bribed by a Roman commander who then refused to honor the promised reward -- a betrayal the historian Appian singled out as a particular disgrace even by Rome's own standards. The province's rich silver mines near Corduba and the Guadalquivir valley's exceptional agricultural fertility made it one of the most valuable territories Rome ever acquired, financing decades of the Republic's wars in the process. Its capital Corduba became a major center of Roman learning, producing the philosopher Seneca the Younger and the poet Lucan a generation before Augustus's reorganization split the province in two. The eventual division into Baetica and Lusitania reflected both the province's sheer size and Augustus's broader policy of creating administratively manageable units once conquest gave way to settled governance.

• Existed: 197 BCE – 27 BCE
• Type: Entity
• Government: Roman province
• Capital: Corduba (Córdoba)