Bibliotheca hispana : a catalogue of books in Castilian, Catalan, Portuguese, or otherwise of Spanish interest.

  • Bernard Quaritch (Firm)
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bibliotheca hispana : a catalogue of books in Castilian, Catalan, Portuguese, or otherwise of Spanish interest. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in France and Spain. This is perhaps one of the causes which have given rise to the Irish tradition that the Spaniards were their ancestors. The name Iberia is comprehensible as expressing the country of the Iberi; but no proper explanation has been given of the name Hispania, which in Strabo’s time was considered exactly equivalent to Iberia. As the Hisp appears likewise in Hispalis, we are inclined to think that Hispania was originally the name of the district round Seville. After the legions had been for forty years fighting and garrison- keeping in Spain, a considerable number of sons of Romans were born in the country, and the first Roman colonia was established, formed from these creoles, in the south of Andaluzia. Many settlements of agriculturists from Italy followed in rapid succession, and before long there were several centres of population from which the Latin language was diffused among the Celtic and Iberian tribes. This was the first step towards the creation of the Romance language and of modern Spanish history. The schools which Sertorius is said to have established during his eight or nine years of rule in Spain must have gone far to increase the Romanising tendencies which had begun a hundred years before. When the Lusitanians—the purest of the Celtic population—sent to Africa to invite Sertorius to join them, they must have been able to express their wishes in Latin. The rapidity of the conversion of the Andalucians into Romans was so great that when Strabo wrote (about the beginning of the Christian era), they had already lost the memory of their native speech, and were little different from Romans. The same writer speaks of the improved manners of the people throughout Spain except in the northern mountains, and when he wrote all the wars had ended. Within three centuries from that time, the Latin language was dominant in the peninsula. Only in Cantabria and Vasconia, an ancient language survived in general use. Elsewhere throughout the country, no doubt, there were little groups of population in which some Celtic or Iberian dialects lingered on (as is shown from an incident related by Tacitus); but when the northern Barbarians began to appear in Spain soon after a.d. 400, it is probable that, besides the Basque, no other language than Latin was spoken by the people. The Romanisation of the whole country during the first three centuries of our era was so great, that it seemed as though the Hellenico-Roman civilisation had transferred its chief seat to Spain. Of the Latin writers who were