of need by closely attaching itself to the
Romans, to whom it was in return very serviceable as an intermediate
station between Italy and Spain. The natives, on the other hand, gave
to the Romans endless trouble. It is true that there were not wanting
the rudiments of a national Iberian civilization, although of its
special character it is scarcely possible for us to acquire any clear
idea. We find among the Iberians a widely diffused national writing,
which divides itself into two chief kinds, that of the valley of the
Ebro, and the Andalusian, and each of these was presumably subdivided
into various branches: this writing seems to have originated at a very
early period, and to be traceable rather to the old Greek than to the
Phoenician alphabet. There is even a tradition that the Turdetani
(round Seville) possessed lays from very ancient times, a metrical
book of laws of 6000 verses, and even historical records; at any rate
this tribe is described as the most civilized of all the Spanish
tribes, and at the same time the least warlike; indeed, it regularly
carried on its wars by means of foreign mercenaries. To the same
region probably we must refer the descriptions given by Polybius of
the flourishing condition of agriculture and the rearing of cattle
in Spain--so that, in the absence of opportunity of export, grain and
flesh were to be had at nominal prices--and of the splendid royal
palaces with golden and silver jars full of "barley wine." At least a
portion of the Spaniards, moreover, zealously embraced the elements of
culture which the Romans brought along with them, so that the process
of Latinizing made more rapid progress in Spain than anywhere else in
the transmarine provinces. For example, warm baths after the Italian
fashion came into use even at this period among the natives. Roman
money, too, was to all appearance not only current in Spain far
earlier than elsewhere out of Italy, but was imitated in Spanish
coins; a circumstance in some measure explained by the rich silver-
mines of the country. The so-called "silver of Osca" (now Huesca
in Arragon), i. e. Spanish -denarii- with Iberian inscriptions, is
mentioned in 559; and the commencement of their coinage cannot be
placed much later, because the impression is imitated from that of
the oldest Roman -denarii-.

But, while in the southern and eastern provinces the culture of the
natives may have so far prepared the way for Roman civilization and