But the Romans were as little the first intruders who introduced foreign blood and foreign ideas into Southern Spain as they were the last. Their predecessors were the Phœnicians—sometimes direct from Tyre and Sidon, oftener from the Tyrian colony of Carthage. It was through the accounts of the Phœnicians that the earliest notices of Iberia found their way into Greece; it was through the Phœnicians that the Hellenic poets first heard of the columns of Hercules. It was through the Phœnician—Punic or Tyrian, as the case might be—that the mining and commercial industry of Turdetania was developed. Through them, too, probably (but not certainly) came the alphabet. I say probably, because the shape of the letters is Greek or Italian rather than Phœnician. As the Phœnician settlements seem to have been factories rather than colonies, and as their marriages must have been with native women, their influence was moral rather than physical, i.e., they introduced new ideas rather than new blood. Their contact with the Turdetanians may be spread over some seven centuries—from about 900 to 200 B.C.
New ideas, too, rather than new blood was what was introduced by the Romans; the great change which they effected being that of the language from Iberic to Latin. At the same time, it is by no means safe to say that the Turdetanian civilization was wholly of foreign origin—half Roman and half Phœnician. The inland cities could scarcely be the latter. Yet they existed when Rome first began its conquests. So high do I put either the actual civilization of the southern Iberians, or (what is nearly the same thing) the capacity for receiving its elements, that I doubt whether it stands on a lower level than that of Northern Italy itself minus its geographical advantages of contiguity to Greece. Their remote position was a great disadvantage, and so was the comparative smallness of their sea-board, arising from the unindented character of the peninsular coast.
Between the garrisons of Rome and Carthage we may safely assume some intermixture of native African blood—Numidian, Gætulian, or Mauritanian—Amazirgh, Kabail, or Berber. It is safe, too, not exactly to exclude Greek influences from Turdetanian Iberia altogether, but to hold as a general rule that, from the monopolizing character of the Phœnician commerce—especially the Carthaginian branch of it—the Greek and Phœnician influences were in the inverse ratio to each other.
The chief negative fact connected with ancient Bætica is, that none of its geographical localities end in -briga, a remark, of which we shall soon see the import.
The Roman power in Spain was broken by those populations, who gave to Spain the important foreign elements of the fifth century. These are said to be the Alans, the Vandals, the Suevi, and the Goths. Concerning the first of these there is a doubt. The true Alani were a people from the parts between the rivers Volga and Jaik to the north, and the range of Caucasus to the south—people whose nearest neighbours were the Circassians and Russians, or, at any rate, their ancient equivalents: people whose affinities were Asiatic; and whose nearest kinsmen were the Huns, the Avars, the Khazars, and the Turks. Now I do not say that the presence of such a population in Spain, in the first ten years of the fifth century (about A.D. 408) is impossible; perhaps, indeed, it is probable. The Huns, with whom the Alans were allied, were then hanging, like a cloud charged with thunder, over Europe, about to carry carnage and desolation as far westward as the plains of Champagne. And the Alans will help them. So I do not deny that they may have invaded Spain. I remark, however,—as good authorities have done before me—that, except in Spain, the Suevi are almost always in alliance with the Alemanni; a nation with a name so like that of the Alani, as for confusion to be likely. Such confusion, I think, existed here: in other words, I believe that the invaders of Spain were the Suevi and Alemanni—not the Suevi and Alani. If the view be wrong, we must admit an intermixture—inconsiderable, perhaps, in amount—of Turk blood.
The Vandals—for reasons given elsewhere—I believe to have been no Germans at all, but Slavonians under a German leader, the ancestors of the present Serbs of Silesia and Lusatia: since the express statement of Idatius is that they were Vandali Silingi. Now the Silingi can easily be shown to have been the old Silesians. The existence of Slavonic blood in Spain was first indicated by the present writer; and as Andal-usia took its name from the Vandals in question, the local ethnologist may be well employed in seeking for Slavonic elements in a quarter where they have not hitherto been suspected. As the Vandals, too, of Andalusia were the Vandals of Genseric, Gelimir, and the kings of northern Africa, it must be Slavonic rather than German blood, which is not unreasonably supposed to exist amongst some of the mountaineers of Algeria. Whether the Vandals occupied Andalusia to the comparative exclusion of the Goths is uncertain.
The Suevi of Spain must have been but little different from those Burgundian Germans who conquered Germany. They formed part of the same confederacy, and only differed from their allies in proceeding further southwards.
The Goths belonged to a different branch. Their epoch is from A.D. 412 to A.D. 711. As the Gothic empire was an extension from that of southern Gaul, Catalonia may be the province where the Gothic blood is most abundant. Niebuhr considers that they pressed the Suevi before them into Portugal and Asturias.
Two other elements require notice, both early, but one insignificant in amount, and the other obscure and problematical; the Greek and the Keltic.
From Marseilles, Greek colonists founded Emporia on the coast of Catalonia, and a few other places of less importance.
But who were the Keltæ of Spain? the population whose name occurs in the word Celtici and Celtiberi, Keltic Iberians, or Iberian Kelts? Three considerations come in here.
a. First, the external evidence, or the testimony of ancient authors as to the presence of Kelts in Spain and Portugal.
b. Secondly, the internal evidence derived from the remains of language, the presence of certain customs, and physical appearance.
c. The à priori likelihood or unlikelihood of a Kelt-iberic mixture.
The last is considerable.
The evidence that gives us Kelts at all in the Peninsula gives us them for three-fourths of its area; indeed, Andalusia is the only part wherein reasons of some sort or other for their presence, cannot be discovered. We find traces of them in the valleys of the Ebro, the Guadiana, the Tagus, and the Douro, and we find them also on the high central table-lands that form the water-shed. Such being the case, what must be our view of their chronological relations to the Iberi? Are they the older occupants of Spain and Portugal, or the newer? If the newer, the displacement must have been enormous. If the older, whence are we to bring the Iberians? So great are the difficulties of this alternative, that the fact itself requires extraordinary caution before we admit it at all. Let us deal with the evidence in this cautious spirit.
The external evidence is clear and decisive. To go no further than Strabo, we have Kelts in the north, Kelts between the Guadiana and the Douro, and Kelts in the interior.
At the head-waters of the Guadiana, Posidonius places the Keltiberians, in which parts they “increased in numbers, and made the whole of the neighbouring country Keltiberic.” This is the country on each side of the Sierra de Toledo, or New Castile, the very centre of Spain, and, as such, an unlikely place for an immigrant population, whether we look to its distance from the frontier, or to its mountainous aspect. They are carried, at least, as far north as the mountains of Burgos, and to the upper waters of the Douro on one side, and the Ebro on the other. So that Old Castile, with parts of Leon and Aragon, may be considered as Keltiberic. This is the first division.
In the south of Portugal comes the second, i.e., in Alemtejo, or the parts between the Tagus and the Guadiana. Here are the Celtici of the classical writers.
The third section is found in the