pain in the course of the
second Punic war was from the beginning divided into two masses--the
province formerly Carthaginian, which embraced in the first instance
the present districts of Andalusia, Granada, Murcia, and Valencia, and
the province of the Ebro, or the modern Arragon and Catalonia, the
fixed quarters of the Roman army during the last war. Out of these
territories were formed the two Roman provinces of Further and Hither
Spain. The Romans sought gradually to reduce to subjection the
interior corresponding nearly to the two Castiles, which they
comprehended under the general name of Celtiberia, while they were
content with checking the incursions of the inhabitants of the western
provinces, more especially those of the Lusitanians in the modern
Portugal and the Spanish Estremadura, into the Roman territory;
with the tribes on the north coast, the Callaecians, Asturians,
and Cantabrians, they did not as yet come into contact at all.
The territories thus won, however, could not be maintained and secured
without a standing garrison, for the governor of Hither Spain had no
small trouble every year with the chastisement of the Celtiberians,
and the governor of the more remote province found similar employment
in repelling the Lusitanians. It was needful accordingly to maintain
in Spain a Roman army of four strong legions, or about 40,000 men,
year after year; besides which the general levy had often to be called
out in the districts occupied by Rome, to reinforce the legions. This
was of great importance for two reasons: it was in Spain first, at
least first on any larger scale, that the military occupation of the
land became continuous; and it was there consequently that the service
acquired a permanent character. The old Roman custom of sending
troops only where the exigencies of war at the moment required them,
and of not keeping the men called to serve, except in very serious
and important wars, under arms for more than a year, was found
incompatible with the retention of the turbulent and remote Spanish
provinces beyond the sea; it was absolutely impossible to withdraw
the troops from these, and very dangerous even to relieve them
extensively. The Roman burgesses began to perceive that dominion over
a foreign people is an annoyance not only to the slave, but to the
master, and murmured loudly regarding the odious war-service of Spain.
While the new generals with good reason refused to allow the relief