The Celtiberians hereabouts were known to the Romans as Carpetani (how ill these Latin forms seem to reproduce the uncouth designations which these primitive peoples really bore!) The Carthaginians were the first civilised nation to come in contact with them, and we hear of a Punic governor, Tago. It is impossible to resist the suspicion that his personality arose, Aphrodite-like, from the river Tagus. But a Moorish writer gives a plausible account of a revolt which arose among the Carpetani consequent on Tago’s assassination by Hasdrubal, the contemporary of Hannibal. This brought that great commander himself upon the scene. Before him the tribesmen were scattered like chaff before the wind. Did the African Phœnicians found a permanent station at Toledo? It would not seem so. No vestige or fragment, no trace whatever of their domination has come down to us. Most likely this was a mere trading centre, where the black-bearded, keen-eyed Semites bartered the wares of Africa and the East against the ores and fleeces of Spain. The population remained almost purely Celtic. One wonders if a few Carthaginians settled amongst them, and if their descendants became confounded with their kinsmen in race, the Jews. It is a wild conjecture, but might not the presence of such Semitic settlers have given rise to the fantastic legend of the founding of Toledo by the Children of Israel? Where the Carthaginian sowed, the Roman reaped. And now the Carpetanian village looms in the light not of mere tradition, but of history. Livy tells us that in the year 193 B.C. the Pro-Consul Marcus Fulvius Nobilior defeated a host of Celtiberians, Vaccei and Vectones in this region, and took prisoner a king called Hilerno. In consequence of this victory Toledo--described as _urbs parva sed loco munito_--fell into the power of the conquerors. The wild rebellious Celts might henceforward chafe and lash themselves into impotent fury; on their necks the yoke of the Roman was firmly riveted, never by the natives unassisted to be shaken off. Historians have remarked on the aloofness of the Toledans during the long winter of foreign domination. Between the various leaders and factions who made Spain their cock-pit, the citizens observed strict neutrality. They rendered no assistance to Viriathus in his magnanimous attempt to recover national independence. Perhaps they were not wanting in sympathy for their compatriots; but the conquerors had long recognised the military value of the town by the Tagus, and here we may suppose was always a strong garrison ready to stamp out the first efforts at revolt.