HISPANIA

Tribes of Hispania: There were a group of tribes that inhabitated the Iberian Peninsula.

The Lusitani Were a group of warlike tribes who, despite defeats, resisted Roman domination until their great leader, Viriatus, was killed (139 BC). In the 1st century BC they joined in supporting Sertorius, against the government in Rome. The Lusitani lived in what is now Portugal.

The Celtiberians or "Celts of Iberia" In Roman times the Celtiberians were composed of : Arevaci, Belli, Titti, and Lusones. The Arevaci dominated the neighboring Celtiberian tribes from the powerful strongholds at Okilis (modern Medinaceli) and Numantia. The Belli and the Titti were settled in the Jalon valley, the Sierra del Solorio separating them from the Lusones to the northeast.

The Celts The first arrivals appear to have established themselves in Catalonia, having probably entered via the eastern passages of the Pyrenees. Later groups (more identifiably Celtic) ventured west through the Pyrenees to occupy the northern coast of the peninsula, and south beyond the Ebro and Duero basins as far as the Tagus valley. Why the Celts did not continue down the Mediterranean coast is not known, but probably the strong Iberian presence was an inhibiting factor. 

Celts According to Roman sources, the Celts were a warlike people, fiercely independent and courageous in battle, if somewhat lacking in discipline. Despite tribal rivalry amongst themselves. The Celts were pastoral by nature and little inclined to urban niceties.  As a result, there is little construction left that reveals their presence, especially in the interior. Celtic Spain is now almost exclusively reduced to Galicia.

The Iberians Settled in the southern and eastern sections of what is now Spain, from which the entire peninsula got its name. Iberian applied to all tribes that settled by the 5th century BC between the Iberus River and the Huelva River. The most important of the Iberian tribes were the Bastetani, who occupied the Almeria and mountainous Granada regions. To the west of the Bastetani were the Turdetani who were the regions most powerful. The Turdetani tribes were located around the Guadalquivir River valley and were greatly influenced by the Greeks in the Emporion and Alicante regions.

TARTESSOS Ταρτησσός) or Tartessus was a semi-mythical harbor city and the surrounding culture on the south coast of the Iberian Peninsula. In modern Andalusia, Spain at the Guadalquivir river. It appears in sources from Greece and the Near East starting during the first millennium BC.  The first historian Herodoto describes it as beyond the Pillars of Heracles  (Strait of Gibraltar). The people from Tartessos became important trading partners of the Pheoenicians , whose presence in Iberia dates from the 8th century BC. 

Tartessos

The people of Hispania had a great deal of influence from Phoenician (Carthaginian), Greek and Roman settlements.

ROMAN HISPANIA MAP