After Romans arrived in the territory during the 2nd century BC, a war with Lusitanian tribes ensued between 155 and 139 BC, with the Roman province eventually established in 27 BC.[2]
In modern parlance, Lusitania is often synonymous with Portugal, despite the province's capital being located in modern Mérida, Spain.
Origin of the name
The etymology of the name of the
which?] suggested that Lus was a form of the Celtic Lugus followed by another (unattested) root *tan-, supposed to mean "tribe",[3] while others derived the name from Lucis, an ancient people mentioned in Avienius' Ora Maritima (4th century AD) and from tan (-stan in Iranian), or from tain, meaning "a region" or implying "a country of waters", a root word that formerly meant a prince or sovereign governor of a region.[4][5][6]
Ancient Romans, such as
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 (even children) of Bacchus. Luís de Camões' epic Os Lusíadas (1572), 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 (died ca. 24 AD) suggests a change had occurred in 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".[7]
The Lusitani established themselves in the region in the 6th century BC, but
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.[1]
The archeologist Scarlat Lambrino defended the position that the Lusitanians were a tribal group of Celtic origin related to the
Iberia). Some have claimed that both tribes came from the Swiss mountains.[citation needed] Others argue that the evidence points to the Lusitanians being a native Iberian tribe, resulting from intermarriage between different local tribes. [citation needed
]
The first area colonized by the Lusitani was probably the
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
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
The Lusitani are mentioned for the first time in Livy who describes them as fighting for the Carthaginians in 218 BCE; they are reported as fighting against Rome in 194 BC, sometimes allied with Celtiberian tribes.
In 179 BC, the
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,
Minho river
.
Romans scored other victories with
Sertorius' (a renegade Roman General) troops (around 80 BC) and Julius Caesar conducted a successful campaign against them in 61-60 BC,[10] but they were not finally defeated until the reign of Augustus
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:
As with the Roman names of many European countries, Lusitania was and is often used as an alternative name for Portugal, especially in formal or literary and poetic contexts. The 16th-century colony that would eventually become Brazil was initially founded as "
as one of the successor states to Portugal under the assumption that such a campaign would result in an easy French victory.
The province was also the namesake of the North Atlantic Ocean liner RMS Lusitania infamous for being torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915. The ship's owners, the Cunard Line, commonly named their vessels after Roman provinces with the Lusitania so being called after the Roman Iberian province to the north of the Strait of Gibraltar while her sister ship RMS Mauretania was named after the Roman North African province on the south side of the strait.
^O'Brien, John (1768). "Ta'n & Tàin". Focalóir gaoidhilge-sax-bhéarla, or An Irish-English dictionary. Nicolas-Francis Valleyre. p. 464. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
^Suetonius, Cae, 18; Appian, BH, 102; Plut, Cae., 12; Dio, 37 & 52, 153-154, Valleius Patraculus, II, 52-5; Antonio Santosuosso, Storming the Heavans: Soldiers, Emperors, and Civilians in the Roman Empire (London: Pilmico/Random House, 2011), p. 57-58; Casey Simpson, "Caesar or Rex?" (Honors thesis, Ball State University, 2004); Stephen Dando-Collins, Legions of Rome (New York: Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's, 2010), pp. 28, 61-63; CAH, both editions
^Abascal, J. M. "Otón". Diccionario Biográfico electrónico. Real Academia de la Historia.
^Unless otherwise noted, the governors from 75 to the end of Hadrian's reign are taken from Werner Eck, "Jahres- und Provinzialfasten der senatorischen Statthalter von 69/70 bis 138/139", Chiron, 12 (1982), pp. 281-362; 13 (1983), pp. 147-237.
Roman Hispania after Claudius: Conventus juridici (Emeritensis, Scalabitanus and Pacensis)
Roman Hispania under Diocletian: Lusitania found in the west
Roman Empire in 300 AD:Diocesis Hispaniarumin the west
Roman Theatre ofMetellinum (Medellín)![]]Pax Iulia (Beja)](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Arco_Romano.jpg/240px-Arco_Romano.jpg)
]]Beja)
Ruins of Conimbriga
Roman bridge of Salmantica (Salamanca)
Roman walls ofLisboa)
Roman arch ofEgitandiorum (Idanha-a-Velha)
![]]Pax Iulia (Beja)](/File:Arco_Romano.jpg)
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