Hispania Baetica

Hispania Baetica or only Baetica is the Latin name of an ancient region and Roman province in the south of Spain. Your main part formed the present-day Andalusia, in the north they ranged well into the Extremadura. It is named after the great river Baetis, now the Guadalquivir.

Equipment and limits

In the Republican period, the area belonged to the province of Hispania ulterior, which included the south and west of the Iberian peninsula. Through the provincial reform under Emperor Augustus, the Hispania ulterior was divided into two parts, Hispania Baetica ( South-East) and Lusitania (northwest). Thus, the Baetica bordered to the west and northwest on the Lusitania, the limit being approximately along the river Anas ( Guadiana today ) ran. In the east it bordered on the great province of Hispania Citerior; on the Mediterranean coast, this limit was southwest of Carthage Nova (Cartagena) and proceeded from there towards the west -northwest. In a later step emperor Augustus carried out a boundary shift, whereby the Hispania Citerior was still increased at the expense of Baetica something; since then was the border on the coast near the present city of Almería and proceeded from there in North West direction.

When Augustus established the province is unknown. The oldest evidence is an inscription from the year 2 AD, in which it is called Hispania Baetica ulterior. The official name Hispania ulterior Baetica was common until the time of Emperor Trajan, and later the province was also in the Beamtentitulatur Hispania Baetica or just simply Baetica.

Administration and cities being

The Baetica was Augustus only one of the three Hispanic provinces a senatorial province; it was therefore formally not under the direct supervision of the emperor, but a certain proconsul by the Senate praetorian rank, the one proconsular legate and a quaestor stood to the side. The legate was appointed by the Proconsul, the Bursar got his office either by lot or by the proconsul. The term of office of the proconsuls, legates and proconsular Quaestors was one year ( from July 1 of one year to June 30 of the following year ); Extension principle was possible, but no such case for the Baetica detectable. The Prokonsulate the senatorial provinces were distributed by lottery in principle; at this every Senator was able to participate as soon as his praetorship lagged five years. Since, however, had a remarkable number of proconsuls of Baetica from Hispania ( mostly from the Baetica itself) originated or earlier relations with the Iberian peninsula, it can be assumed that many times there has been no real draw is required, but arrangements have been made. For special situations, the emperor retained the right to the province to assume an extraordinary imperial legate, which also happened occasionally.

The provincial capital was Corduba, today Córdoba. The Baetica was divided into four judicial districts: Corduba, Astigi ( Ecija ), Gades (Cádiz ) and Hispalis ( Seville ). This classification is probably back to Emperor Claudius. In the Baetica no legion was stationed. The area included in the time of Augustus 175 cities and was already completely romanised at the beginning of the imperial period; it was the richest and most densely populated province of the peninsula. A variety of archaeological discoveries sheds light on the management of individual cities.

Under the emperor Vespasian almost all free inhabitants of the province were given the Latin civil rights (ius Latii ); this privilege was obsolete than 212 Emperor Caracalla all the free citizens of the Reich gave Roman citizenship.

Late Antiquity

The new provincial division of the Emperor Diocletian in the late 3rd century seems to have changed nothing on the periphery of Baetica. 409 Germanic tribes crossed the Pyrenees. They first devastated large parts of the peninsula and then settled as federates of the Romans; in the distribution of provinces by lot the Baetica fell the Silings, a part of the root of the Vandals, too. 416-418 the Silings were defeated by the Visigoths and eradicated almost entirely. Later recognized in the Baetica temporarily Asdings, another part tribe of the Vandals, by. 429 attracted the asdingischen Vandals from Africa. Whether after conquest of the Iberian peninsula by the Visigoths, the stages occurred in the second half of the 5th century, which remained Baetica exist as an administrative unit under its old name, is unknown.

Under Emperor Justinian I. large parts of the area were around 552/53 conquered by the Oströmern and formed several decades the major part of a new Eastern Roman province of Spania until the Visigoths around 625 succeeded in recovering also the last places.

At the latest after the Arab conquest (711 ), the term Baetica finally disappeared.