Hispania

Hispania was the name given by the Romans to the whole of the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal, Spain, Andorra and Gibraltar) and to two provinces created there in the period of the Roman Republic: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. In the period of the Roman Empire, Hispania Ulterior was divided into two other provinces, Baetica and Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was renamed to Tarraconensis.

Origin of the Name

The term Hispania is Latin and the term Iberia Greek. To substitute Spanish for Iberian or for Hispanicus is anachronistic. Surviving Roman texts always use "Hispania" (first mentioned 200 BC by the poet Quintus Ennius) while Greek texts always employ "Iberia."

Related Topics:
Latin - Iberia - Greek - Anachronistic - 200 BC - Quintus Ennius

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The origin of the word Hispania appears to be Punic. The etymologist Eric Partridge (Origins) finds it in the pre-Roman name for Seville, Hispalis, which strongly hints of an ancient name for the country of *Hispa, an Iberian or Celtic root whose meaning is now losthttp://www.billcasselman.com/unpublished_works/spanish_female_names.htm.

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The Catholic Encyclopedia reports, "Some derive it from the Punic word tsepan, 'rabbit,' basing the opinion on the evidence of a coin of Galba, on which Hispania is represented with a rabbit at her feet, and on Strabo, who calls Spain 'the land of rabbits'" http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14169b.htm. Others attribute a Punic connotation of "dark", "hidden", "lost", or "remote."

Related Topics:
Catholic Encyclopedia - Strabo

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One version states that the name comes from the Phoenician word I-shphanim, which means literally "from or about hyraxes" (shphanim is plural for shaphán, Hyrax syriacus). Lacking a better term, the Phoenicians used that word for rabbits, an unknown animal for them but very common in the peninsula. Another interpretation of the same term would be Hi-shphanim, "Rabbits' Island" (or "Hyraxes' Island").

Related Topics:
Hyrax - Rabbit

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None of these etymologies is truly satisfactory.

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Rabbits weren't the only animal that stood out as abundant. Greeks called Cape St. Vincent, and by extension all of western Iberia, Ophioússa, which means "land of snakes," a designation that they also applied to numerous Mediterranean islands. The change to "Iberia" came because iber was a word heard among the peninsula's inhabitants. This geographic term cannot have been specific to the Ebro river, because this word was also heard throughout what is now Andalusia or southern Spain. Some modern linguists think that it meant simply river, but there is no consensus regarding this issue.

Related Topics:
Cape St. Vincent - Ophioússa - Snakes - Ebro - Andalusia - Linguist

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