The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)Gibbon, Edward
History
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Indexes; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
We have attempted to explain the spirit which moderated, and the
strength which supported, the power of Hadrian and the Antonines.
We shall now endeavor, with clearness and precision, to describe
the provinces once united under their sway, but, at present,
divided into so many independent and hostile states. Spain, the
western extremity of the empire, of Europe, and of the ancient
world, has, in every age, invariably preserved the same natural
limits; the Pyrenæan Mountains, the Mediterranean, and the
Atlantic Ocean. That great peninsula, at present so unequally
divided between two sovereigns, was distributed by Augustus into
three provinces, Lusitania, Bætica, and Tarraconensis. The
kingdom of Portugal now fills the place of the warlike country of
the Lusitanians; and the loss sustained by the former on the side
of the East, is compensated by an accession of territory towards
the North. The confines of Grenada and Andalusia correspond with
those of ancient Bætica. The remainder of Spain, Gallicia, and
the Asturias, Biscay, and Navarre, Leon, and the two Castiles,
Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, and Arragon, all contributed to form
the third and most considerable of the Roman governments, which,
from the name of its capital, was styled the province of
Tarragona. 70 Of the native barbarians, the Celtiberians were the
most powerful, as the Cantabrians and Asturians proved the most
obstinate. Confident in the strength of their mountains, they
were the last who submitted to the arms of Rome, and the first
who threw off the yoke of the Arabs.
70 (return) [ See Strabo, l. ii. It is natural enough to suppose,
that Arragon is derived from Tarraconensis, and several moderns
who have written in Latin use those words as synonymous. It is,
however, certain, that the Arragon, a little stream which falls
from the Pyrenees into the Ebro, first gave its name to a
country, and gradually to a kingdom. See d’Anville, Geographie du
Moyen Age, p. 181.]
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