ens and the women of the so-called barbarian nations was
rarely recognized by law; many of the Spanish women, as prisoners of
war, were sold into slavery; and with such a social system imposed by
the conquerors, it is easy to see that contamination was inevitable.

With the gradual decay of Roman power, the colonial dependencies of this
great empire were more and more allowed to fall into the almost absolute
control of unscrupulous governors, who did not miss an occasion to levy
extortionate taxes and manage everything in their own interests. As the
natural result of the raids of the barbarian hordes--the Alans, the
Suevians, the Vandals, and the Goths--Spain was losing all that
semblance of national unity which it had acquired under Roman rule, and
was slowly resolving itself into its primitive autonomous towns.
Finally, Euric the Goth, who had founded a strong government in what is
now southern France, went south of the Pyrenees in the last part of the
fifth century, defeated the Roman garrison at Tarragona, and succeeded
in making a treaty with the emperor, whereby he was to rule all Spain
with the exception of the Suevian territory in the northwest. Now begins
that third process of amalgamation which was to aid in the further
evolution of the national type. First, the native Iberians were blended
with the early Celtic invaders to form the Celtiberian stock, then came
the period of Roman control, to say nothing of the temporary
Carthaginian occupancy, and now, finally, on the ruins of this Roman
province, there rose a Gothic kingdom of power and might. The
foundations of Roman social life were already tottering, for it had been
established from the beginning upon the notion of family headship, and
the individual had no natural rights which the government was bound to
respect, and, all in all, it was little calculated to inspire the esteem
and confidence of the proud Spaniard, who prized his personal liberty
above all else. In literature and in art Roman influences were dominant
and permanent, but, as Martin Hume says: "The centralizing governmental
traditions which the Roman system had grafted upon the primitive town
and village government of the Celtiberians had struck so little root in
Spain during six centuries, that long before the last legionaries left
the country the centralized government had fallen away, and the towns
with their assembly of all free citizens survived with but little
alteration from the pre-Rom