Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The major exceptions were the Basques who, though defeated, were never Roman-
ised like the rest.
Rome gave the country a road system,
aqueducts, temples, theatres, amphitheatres
and bathhouses, but they began the process
of deforestation as they culled the extensive
forests that in their time covered half the
meseta
. Even more than these, their cultural
impact was profound. They brought Chris-
tianity to Spain, planted olive trees on a
massive scale, introduced olive oil production
and may even have invented
jamón.
The
basis of most of the languages still spoken
here - Castilian, Catalan, Galician and Por-
tuguese - are versions of the vernacular Lat-
in spoken by Roman legionaries and colon-
ists, filtered through 2000 years of linguistic
mutation. The Roman era also saw the arrival
of Jews in Spain, who were to play a big part
in Spanish life for over 1000 years.
Roman Ruins
1 ITÁLICA (
CLICK HERE
)
2 TARRAGONA (
CLICK HERE
)
3 SEGOVIA (
CLICK HERE
)
4 BOLONIA (
CLICK HERE
)
Islamic Spain
After the Romans came the Visigoths, but they were a mere historical interlude
compared with the great Islamic dynasties that swept them away. In AD 711 Tariq
ibn Ziyad, the Muslim governor of Tangier, landed at Gibraltar with around 10,000
men, mostly Berbers (indigenous North Africans). Within a few years the Muslims
(often referred to as Moors) had conquered the whole Iberian Peninsula, except
small areas in the Asturian mountains in the north. Their advance into Europe was
only checked by the Franks at the Battle of Poitiers in 732.
The name given to Muslim territory on the peninsula was Al-Andalus. Political
power and cultural developments centred initially on Córdoba (756-1031), then
Seville (c 1040-1248) and lastly Granada (1248-1492). It was during the 10th and
early 11th centuries, under the independent Caliphate of Córdoba, that Al-Andalus
reached the height of its power and lustre and became famous for enlightened
scholarship (it was through Al-Andalus that much of the learning of ancient Greece
was transmitted to Christian Europe) and religious tolerance. Al-Andalus also deve-
loped an extraordinary architectural legacy and developed the Hispano-Roman ag-
Search WWH ::
Custom Search