That the obstinate spirit of resistance to organized armies by means of a _guerilla_ warfare, the savage patriotism which suggests such expressions as _war even to the knife_, and the endurance behind stone walls, which characterizes the modern Spaniards, is foreshadowed in the times of their earliest history, has often been remarked, and that truly. Numantia is an early Saragossa, Saragossa a modern Numantia. Viriathus has had innumerable counterparts. Where the indomitable Cantabrian held out against the power of Rome, the Biscayan of the year 1851 adheres to his privileges and his language; and what the Cantabrian was to the Roman, the Asturian was to the Moor. Both trusted their freedom to their impracticable mountains and stubborn spirits--and kept it accordingly. It is an easy matter to refer the peculiarities of the Spanish character to the infusion of Oriental blood; and with some of them it may be the case. But with many of them, the reference is a false one. Half the Spanish character was Iberic and Lusitanian before either Jew or Saracen had seen the Rock of Gibraltar. Of the early Spanish religion, we know but little. A remarkable passage in Strabo speaks to their literature. They had an _alphabet_. This is known from coins and inscriptions. And it was of foreign origin--Greek or Phœnician. This nothing but the most inconsiderate and uncritical patriotism can deny. Denied, however, it has been; and the indigenous and independent evolution of an alphabet has been claimed; the particular tribe to which it has more especially been ascribed being the _Turdetani_. These--and the passage I am about to quote is the passage of Strabo just alluded to--are "put forward as the wisest of the Iberi, and they have the use of letters; and they have records of ancient history, and poems, and metrical laws for six thousand years--as they say."[6] Now, whatever may be the doubts implied by the last three words of this extract, the evidence is to the effect that the old Iberians were a lettered nation; the antiquity of their civilization being another question. To modify our scepticism on the point, the text has been tampered with, and it has been proposed to read _poems_ (ἐπῶν) instead of years (ἐτῶν). The change, to be sure, is slight enough--that of a single letter--from _p_ (π) to _t_ (τ); nevertheless, as it is more than cautious criticism will allow, the reading must stand as it is, and the claim of the Turdetanians must be for a literature nearly as old as the supposed age of the world in the current century,--a long date, and a date which would be improbable, even if we divided it by twelve, and rendered ἔτος by _month_ instead of _year_. It denotes either some shorter period (perhaps a day) or nothing at all.