Lusitania (Portuguese: Lusitânia, Spanish: Lusitania) or Hispania Lusitania was an ancient Roman province including approximately all of modern Portugal south of the Douro river and part of modern Spain (the present autonomous community of Extremadura and a small part of the province of Salamanca). It was named after the Lusitani or Lusitanian people (an Indo-European people). Its capital was Emerita Augusta (currently Mérida, Spain), and it was initially part of the Roman Republic province of Hispania Ulterior, before becoming a province of its own in the Roman Empire.
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The etymology of Lusitania, like the origin of the Lusitani who gave the province their name, is unclear. The name may be of Celtic origin: Lus and Tanus, "tribe of Lusus", connecting the name with the personal Celtic name Luso and with the god Lugh.[1]
Early modern scholars derived the name from Lucis, an ancient people mentioned in Avienus' Ora Maritima and Tan, from Celtic Tan (Stan), or Tain, meaning a region or implying a country of waters, a root word that formerly meant a prince or sovereign governor of a region.[2][3][4] The name has been connected with the personal Celtic name Luso and with the god Lugh.[5]
Ancient Romans, such as Pliny the Elder (Natural History, 3.5) and Varro (cited by Pliny), speculated that the name Lusitania was of Roman origin, as when Pliny says lusum enim liberi patris aut lyssam cum eo bacchantium nomen dedisse lusitaniae et pana praefectum eius universae: that Lusitania takes its name from the lusus associated with Bacchus and the lyssa of his Bacchantes, and that Pan is its governor. Lusus is usually translated as "game" or "play", while lyssa is a borrowing from the Greek λυσσα, "frenzy" or "rage", and sometimes rage personified; for later poets, Lusus and Lyssa become flesh-and-blood companions of Bacchus. Luís de Camões' Os Lusíadas, 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 suggests a change had occurred 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".[6]
The Lusitani, who were Indo-European speakers, 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 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 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.
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| Prehistoric Iberia | |
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| Lusitania and Gallaecia | |
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| Suebic Kingdom of Galicia (410-584) |
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| “ | 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 the longest times—Strabo[8] | ” |
The Lusitani are mentioned for the first time in Livy (218 BC) and are described as fighting for the Carthaginians; 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 a Carthaginian) first and Cesarus (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 the survivors as slaves; this caused a new rebellion led by Viriathus, who was soon 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 the Lusitani resisted with a long guerilla war; they later joined Sertorius' (a renegade Roman General) troops (around 80 BC) and were finally defeated by Augustus (around 28-24 BC).
With Lusitania (and Asturia and Gallaecia), Rome had completed the conquest of the Iberian peninsula, which was then divided by Augustus (25–20 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 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 28-24 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 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 a total of 46 populis, 5 being roman colonies[9] (Emerita Augusta (Mérida, Spain), Pax Iulia (Beja), Scalabis (Santarém), Norba and Metellinum). Felicitas Iulia Olisipo (Lisbon) was a roman law municipality) and 3 other towns had the old Latin status[10] (Ebora (Évora), Myrtilis Iulia (Mértola) and Salacia (Alcácer do Sal). The other 37 were of stipendiarii class, among which Aeminium (Coimbra), Balsa (Tavira), or Mirobriga (Santiago do Cacém). Other cities include Ossonoba (Faro), Cetobriga (Tróia, Setúbal), Collippo (Leiria) or Arabriga (Alenquer).
Under Diocletian, Lusitania kept its borders and was ruled by a praeses, later by a consularis; finally, in 298 AD, it 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 and literary or poetic contexts. The 16th century colony, which would develop into Brazil, was named Nova Lusitânia ("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.
| Wikisource has the text of the 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article Lusitania. |
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