The accidents of external policy caused the Romans to establish themselves on the Pyrenaean peninsula earlier than in any other part of the transmarine mainland, and to institute there two standing commands. There, too, the republic had not, as in Gaul and Illyricum, confined itself to subduing the coasts of the Italian sea, but had rather from the outset, after the precedent of the Barcides, contemplated the conquest of the whole peninsula. With the Lusitanians (in Portugal and Estremadura) the Romans had fought from the time that they called themselves masters of Spain; the "more remote province" had been instituted, strictly speaking, against these tribes and simultaneously with the "nearer" one; the Callaeci (Gallicia) became subject to the Romans a century before the battle of Actium; shortly before that battle the subsequent dictator Caesar had, in his first campaign, carried the Roman arms as far as Brigantium (Corunna), and consolidated afresh the annexation of this region to the more remote province. Then, in the years between the death of Caesar and the sole rule of Augustus, there was unceasing warfare in the north of Spain; no fewer than six governors in this short time won triumphs there, and perhaps the subjugation of the northern slope of the Pyrenees was effected chiefly in this epoch.[24] The wars with the cognate Aquitanians on the north side of the mountains, which fall within the same epoch, and the last of which was victoriously ended in the year 727 { 27.}, must stand in connection with these events. On the reorganising of the administrative arrangements in 727 {27.} the peninsula went to Augustus, because there was a prospect of extensive military operations there, and it needed a permanent garrison. Although the southern third of the more remote province, thenceforth named from the river Baetis (Guadalquivir) was soon given back to the government of the senate,[25] by far the greater portion of the peninsula remained constantly under imperial administration, including the greater part of the more remote province, Lusitania and Callaecia,[26] and the whole of the large nearer one. Immediately after the institution of the new supreme control Augustus resorted in person to Spain, with a view, in his two years' stay (728, 729) {26, 25.}, to organise the new administration, and to direct the occupation of the portions of the country not yet subject. This he did from Tarraco as his headquarters, and it was at that time that the seat of government of the nearer province was transferred from New Carthage to Tarraco, after which town this province is thenceforth usually named. While it appeared necessary on the one hand not to remove the seat of administration from the coast, the new capital on the other hand commanded the region of the Ebro and the communications with the north-west and the Pyrenees. Against the Astures (in the provinces of Asturias and Leon), and above all, the Cantabri (in the Basque country