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28-558: Lusitania was an ancient Roman province corresponding to most of modern Portugal. Lusitania , Lusitanian , and Lusitanic may also refer to: Lusitania Lusitania ( / ˌ l uː s ɪ ˈ t eɪ n i ə / ; Classical Latin : [luːsiːˈtaːnia] ) was an ancient Iberian Roman province encompassing most of modern-day Portugal (south of the Douro River ) and a large portion of western Spain (the present Extremadura and Province of Salamanca ). Romans named
56-602: A Carthaginian) first and Caesarus (Καίσαρος) after, the Lusitani reached Gibraltar . Here they were defeated by the praetor Lucius Mummius . From 152 BC onwards, the Roman Republic had difficulties in recruiting soldiers for the wars in Hispania, deemed particularly brutal. In 150 BC, Servius Sulpicius Galba organised a false armistice. While the Lusitani celebrated this new alliance, he massacred them, selling
84-581: A change had occurred in the use of the name "Lusitanian". He mentions a group who had once been called "Lusitanians" living north of the Douro river but were called in his day "Callacans". The Lusitani established themselves in the region in the 6th century BC, but historians and archeologists are still undecided about their ethnogenesis . Some modern authors consider them to be an indigenous people who were Celticized culturally and possibly also through intermarriage. The archeologist Scarlat Lambrino defended
112-758: A total of forty-six populis. Five were Roman colonies : Emerita Augusta ( Mérida , Spain), Pax Iulia ( Beja ), Scalabis ( Santarém ), Norba Caesarina ( Cáceres ) and Metellinum ( Medellín ). Felicitas Iulia Olisipo ( Lisbon , which was a Roman law municipality) and three other towns had the old Latin status: Ebora ( Évora ), Myrtilis Iulia ( Mértola ) and Salacia ( Alcácer do Sal ). The other thirty-seven were of stipendiarii class, among which Aeminium ( Coimbra ), Balsa ( Tavira ), or Mirobriga ( Santiago do Cacém ). Other cities include Ossonoba ( Faro ), Cetobriga ( Setúbal ), Collippo ( Leiria ) or Arabriga ( Alenquer ). Under Diocletian , Lusitania kept its borders and
140-635: Is often synonymous with Portugal, despite the province's capital being located in modern Mérida, Spain . The etymology of the name of the Lusitani (who gave the Roman province its name) remains unclear. Popular etymology connected the name to a supposed Roman demigod Lusus , whereas some early-modern scholars suggested that Lus was a form of the Celtic Lugus followed by another (unattested) root *tan- , supposed to mean "tribe", while others derived
168-624: The Arevaci and Pellendones the anti-Roman uprisings that rocked Celtiberia throughout most of the 1st Century BC. These revolts served only to weaken the Lusones' military however, and by mid-Century they had been driven out from the right bank of the Ebro by the Vascones , who seized four of their key border towns including Grachurris. The Lusones virtually disappear from the historical record upon
196-478: The Celtiberian Wars against Rome , until the destruction of Numantia brought the collapse of the alliance in 134-133 BC. Prior to that, they were defeated by Proconsul Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus in 142 BC and despite being forcibly incorporated into Hispania Citerior province, they continued to resist Roman authority for decades. Remaining warlike as ever, the Lusones plotted with
224-476: The Greek λυσσα, "frenzy" or "rage", and sometimes Rage personified; for later poets, Lusus and Lyssa become flesh-and-blood companions (even children) of Bacchus . Luís de Camões ' epic Os Lusíadas (1572), which portrays Lusus as the founder of Lusitania, extends these ideas, which have no connection with modern etymology. In his work, Geography , the classical geographer Strabo (died ca. 24 AD) suggests
252-473: The Lusitani resisted with a long guerilla war; they later joined Sertorius ' (a renegade Roman General) troops (around 80 BC) and Julius Caesar conducted a successful campaign against them in 61-60 BC, but they were not finally defeated until the reign of Augustus (around 28–24 BC). With Lusitania (and Asturia and Gallaecia ), Rome had completed the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula , which
280-715: The Lusones near the Tajo headwaters, whereas the historian Appian places them along the Ebro . In fact, their lands were located in the Aragonese region along the middle Ebro , on the Moncayo range (Latin: Mons Chaunus ) between the Queiles and Huecha rivers, occupying the western Zaragoza and most of Soria , stretching to the northeastern fringe of nearby Guadalajara and southern Navarre provinces. Their presumed capital
308-543: The foundations of both the ‘bandit town’ of Complega (site unknown; Celtiberian mint: Kemelon ) and the Roman colony of Grachurris ( Eras de San Martín , Alhama – La Rioja ) by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus the Elder in 181 BC. The Lusones joined their neighbours the Arevaci , Belli and Titii into the Celtiberian Confederacy in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC and fought alongside their allies in
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#1732765939741336-841: The high Tajuña River valley, northeast of Guadalajara . They were eliminated by the Romans as a significant threat in the end of the 2nd century BC. They spoke a variety of the Celtiberian language and were a subdivision of the Celtiberians . There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that the ancestors of the Celtiberian groups were installed in the Meseta area of the Iberian Peninsula from at least 1000 BC and probably much earlier. A mixed people, they included elements of early Italic ( Osco - Latin ) and Gallic affiliation,
364-499: The latter possibly related to the namesake Helvetic Lusones from present-day Switzerland or from Pannonia , who migrated to the Iberian Peninsula around the 4th Century BC. Some scholars also reasoned that they might bear a connection with the Lusitani , with the latter people being actually an off-shot of the Lusones that migrated to the west of the Peninsula during the 4th Century BC. The Greek geographer Strabo located
392-511: The longest times The Lusitani are mentioned for the first time in Livy who describes them as fighting for the Carthaginians in 218 BCE; they are reported as fighting against Rome in 194 BC, sometimes allied with Celtiberian tribes. In 179 BC, the praetor Lucius Postumius Albinus celebrated a triumph over the Lusitani, but in 155 BC, on the command of Punicus (Πουνίκου, perhaps
420-499: The name Lusitania had Roman origins, as when Pliny says " lusum enim Liberi Patris aut lyssam cum eo bacchantium nomen dedisse Lusitaniae et Pana praefectum eius universae " [Lusitania takes its name from the Lusus associated with Bacchus and the Lyssa of his Bacchantes , and Pan is its governor]. Lusus is usually translated as "game" or "play", while lyssa is a borrowing from
448-526: The name from Lucis , an ancient people mentioned in Avienius' Ora Maritima (4th century AD) and from tan ( -stan in Iranian ), or from tain , meaning "a region" or implying "a country of waters", a root word that formerly meant a prince or sovereign governor of a region. Ancient Romans, such as Pliny the Elder ( Natural History , 3.5 ) and Varro (116 – 27 BC, cited by Pliny), speculated that
476-628: The north of the Strait of Gibraltar while her sister ship RMS Mauretania was named after the Roman North African province on the south side of the strait. 38°46′08″N 7°13′05″W / 38.7689°N 7.2181°W / 38.7689; -7.2181 Lusones The Lusones ( Greek : Lousones ) were an ancient Celtiberian (Pre- Roman ) people of the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania ), who lived in
504-569: The position that the Lusitanians were a tribal group of Celtic origin related to the Lusones (a tribe that inhabited the east of Iberia ). Some have claimed that both tribes came from the Swiss mountains. Others argue that the evidence points to the Lusitanians being a native Iberian tribe, resulting from intermarriage between different local tribes. The first area colonized by the Lusitani
532-658: The region after the Lusitanians , an Indo-European tribe inhabiting the lands. The capital Emerita Augusta was initially part of the Roman Republic province of Hispania Ulterior before becoming a province of its own during the Roman Empire . After Romans arrived in the territory during the 2nd century BC, a war with Lusitanian tribes ensued between 155 and 139 BC, with the Roman province eventually established in 27 BC. In modern parlance, Lusitania
560-531: The south Emerita Augusta ( Mérida ) (settled with the emeriti of the Legio V Alaudae and Legio X Gemina legions ). Between the time of Augustus and Claudius , the province was divided into three conventus iuridicus , territorial units presided by capital cities with a court of justice and joint Roman/indigenous people assemblies (conventus), that counseled the Governor: The conventus ruled of
588-674: The successor states to Portugal under the assumption that such a campaign would result in an easy French victory. The province was also the namesake of the North Atlantic Ocean liner RMS Lusitania infamous for being torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915. The ship's owners, the Cunard Line , commonly named their vessels after Roman provinces with the Lusitania so being called after the Roman Iberian province to
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#1732765939741616-572: The survivors as slaves; this caused a new rebellion led by Viriathus , who was after many attempts killed by traitors paid by the Romans in 139 BC, after having led a successful guerrilla campaign against Rome and their local allies. Two years after, in 137 BC Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus led a successful campaign against the Lusitani, reaching as far north as the Minho river . Romans scored other victories with proconsul Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus and Gaius Marius (elected in 113 BC), but still
644-457: Was Turiaso or Turiasso ( La Oruña , Vera de Moncayo – Zaragoza; Celtiberian mint: Turiazu ); other key Lusones towns were Calagurris/Galagorina ( Calahorra – La Rioja ; Celtiberian mint: Kalacoricos ), Cascantum/Cascanton ( Cascante – Navarre; Celtiberian mint: Caiscata ), Bursau/Bursada ( Borja – Zaragoza; Celtiberian mint: Burzao ), Carabis/Caravis ( Magallón – Zaragoza; Celtiberian mint: Carauez ). They were also involved in
672-519: Was along the Douro River, while on its eastern side its border passed through Salmantica ( Salamanca ) and Caesarobriga ( Talavera de la Reina ) to the Anas ( Guadiana ) river. Between 28 and 24 BC Augustus' military campaigns pacified all Hispania under Roman rule, with the foundation of Roman cities like Asturica Augusta ( Astorga ) and Bracara Augusta ( Braga ) to the north, and to
700-500: Was initially founded as " New Lusitania ". In common use are such terms as Lusophone , meaning Portuguese-speaking, and Lusitanic , referring to the Community of Portuguese Language Countries —once Portugal's colonies and presently independent countries still sharing some common heritage. Prior to his invasion in 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte proposed the establishment of a French-backed puppet Kingdom of Northern Lusitania as one of
728-730: Was probably the Douro valley and the region of Beira Alta (present day Portugal); in Beira , they stayed until they defeated the Celtici and other tribes, then they expanded to cover a territory that reached Estremadura before the arrival of the Romans . And yet the country north of the Tagus, Lusitania, is the greatest of the Iberian nations, and is the nation against which the Romans waged war for
756-562: Was ruled by a praeses , later by a consularis . Finally, in 298 AD, Lusitania was united with the other provinces to form the Diocesis Hispaniarum (" Diocese of the Hispanias"). As with the Roman names of many European countries, Lusitania was and is often used as an alternative name for Portugal, especially in formal or literary and poetic contexts. The 16th-century colony that would eventually become Brazil
784-434: Was then divided by Augustus (25–20 BC or 16–13 BC ) into the eastern and northern Hispania Tarraconensis , the southwestern Hispania Baetica and the western Provincia Lusitana . Originally, Lusitania included the territories of Asturia and Gallaecia, but these were later ceded to the jurisdiction of the new Provincia Tarraconensis and the former remained as Provincia Lusitania et Vettones . Its northern border
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