Spain and Gaul under the Romans

       It has been already said that Punic settlements were made in Spain probably as far back as the seventh century B.C. To the Phoenicians or Carthaginians we may ascribe the introduction of letters and their application to coins and inscriptions, not only in the Punic language of the men who held Cadiz, Carthagena, and Barcelona, but also in the Iberian and Celtiberian language of native princes. Strabo says that the Turdetani (of the present Andalusia) boasted the possession of historical and poetical books of immense age in their own language ; but when he was writing, about the time of the birth of Christ, they were all Romanized and unable to speak any other tongue than Latin. There exists, however, a great quantity of coins struck in Spain between 400 B.C. and the time of Augustus. There are three varieties (omitting those of Greek colonies in Aragon), namely, those in Punic language and Punic letters, those with Iberian names in Punic letters, and those with Celtiberian names in modified Punic letters. The later Iberian and Celtiberian have sometimes Latin inscriptions added to the native ones. In the first century after Christ, the whole of Spain was virtually Eomanised. The Transalpine Gauls retained their own speech longer than the Spaniards did theirs, because the conquest was later; but the people of Cisalpine Gaul were Eomanised even earlier than the Spaniards. The independence of Marseilles as a Greek republic came to an end in the first century of the Roman empire, and the Greek language probably died out in a few generations. Then, no doubt, Roman letters took the place of the Greek, which, as Caesar said, were used by the Gauls in his time. Henceforward, till the fifth century, Spain and Gaul were simply outlying provinces of the empire, without anything in literature or calligraphy to distinguish their people from the Komanised Italians. It was not till the sixth century, when the Gothic kingdom had become a stable institution, that anything like a local fashion of calligraphy began to develop itself in Spain. Gaul was similarly affected by the influx first of the Visigoths, then of the Franks.

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, You Are Reading Chapter 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 chapters