Baetica

The Roman province of Bética (in Latin, Bætica) was one of the Roman provinces that existed in the Iberian Peninsula, called Hispania by the Romans. It took its name from the Betis River (in Latin Bætis), now called the Guadalquivir River; its capital in Roman times was the Colonia Patricia Corduba, the current Spanish city of Córdoba, in Andalusia. Later, in the Visigothic period, the capital became Hispalis, the current city of Seville.

Betica had an important contribution to the whole of the Roman Empire, both economically and culturally and politically. In the economic field, the extraction of minerals (gold, silver, copper and lead) and agriculture were very significant, with the production and export, above all, of cereals, oil and wine, the latter two being especially famous throughout the Empire together with the garum. In the political field, Baetica was for a long time a senatorial province that, due to its high degree of Romanization, depended on the political power of the Senate, not on the military power of the emperor. In it the decisive Battle of Munda was fought between popular and optimates, supporters of Caesar and Pompey, respectively. In addition, he gave to Rome the emperors Trajan and Hadrian, natives of Itálica, and the Cordovan philosopher Seneca, among many others.

Territory

Maximum expansion of the Roman Empire.

First Roman division of Hispania, where the Hispania Ulterior can be seen.

Hispania according to the Roman provincial division of 27 B.C., where the limits of Bética can be seen.

Hispania at the time of Diocletian.

Bética province.

Bética included more than 75% of the territory of present-day Andalusia and a part of Extremadura: most of the complete provinces of Cádiz, Córdoba, Huelva, Málaga and Seville, the western half of those of Granada and Jaén, a fifth of that of Almería and part of the south of Badajoz.

It was divided into four conventus iuridici:

• Conventus Cordubensiswith capital in Corduba which was also the capital of the entire Bética province.
• Conventus Astigitanuswith capital in Astigi.
• Conventus Gaditanuswith capital in Gads.
• Conventus Hispalensis with capital Hispalis.

These territorial divisions were judicial districts, in which the principales of the community met annually under the direction of a legatus iuridicus of the proconsul to oversee the administration of justice.

About the years 13-7 B.C. C. the eastern limits of the Bética were modified. The districts of Cástulo, Acci and the territory to the east and north of the current province of Almería, which originally belonged to the province of Bética, were segregated by Augusto and incorporated into the Tarragona province. As Bética was a senatorial province, this fact is interpreted as an act of the emperor in order to directly control the mines in that area, since Tarraconense was a province that depended directly on the imperial power, not on the Senate.

The territory was articulated through a network of roads arranged based on three large natural passage axes: the Bética depression, the Intrabético furrow and the coast. Around these axes there were important population centers such as Córduba, Gades, Hispalis, Iliberris, Malaca and Ostippo, among others, which monopolized the collection of taxes, commerce and the exploitation of the ager, in addition to being major sources of penetration of Roman culture and its distribution throughout its areas of rural influence. The dividing nature of large rivers such as the Guadiana and the Guadalquivir, the importance of the large mining districts such as Almadén, the natural border represented by the Sierra Morena, the importance of large population centers and the ease of communication by sea, are elements that made border and that at the same time configured a territorial space with different realities but with a certain cohesion.

When Diocletian made a new provincial division in 298 known as Diocesis Hispaniarum, he maintained the limits of Baetica.

Roman Baetica

Bronze back issued under Augustus by the Colonia Iulia Traducta, since many Bética communities enjoyed the privilege of issuing fiduciary currency from the end of the republic to Caligula.

Roman Bética del año 27 a. C. al 411.

After the defeat of Carthage in the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians abandoned Hispania and their presence was replaced by that of the Romans, who had to face some pockets of resistance, such as the Turdetan uprising in 197 BC. C. As a consequence of the Roman victory, the provinces of Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior were created. The year 27 B.C. C., with the imperial reorganization of Augustus, Hispania was divided into three imperial provinces: the Bética, the Tarraconense and the Lusitania. La Bética was from then on a senatorial province governed by a proconsul with its capital in Córdoba.

Betica was one of the most dynamic and economically developed provinces of the empire, being rich in resources and deeply Romanized, absorbing populations of freed slaves and a wealthy elite that remained a stable social group for centuries, although it was not exempt from social upheavals, such as those that occurred in the time of Septimius Severus, who sentenced a large number of Betics to death, including women. The deep Romanization of the province was rewarded with the granting by Emperor Vespasian of the rights of Latin citizenship (latinitas), when he promulgated the Ius Latii minor by means of of the Edict of Latinity, which he granted not only to the Beticos, but to all Hispanic citizens.

The assimilation of Roman culture also led to an early Christianization, which took strong root in the coastal areas and marked a new cultural development throughout the Iberian Peninsula. In the IV century, Christianity began to be tolerated in the Empire and later it would be proclaimed the official and only allowed religion, being celebrated in In the Baetic lands the Council of Elvira, a fundamental milestone in the History of Christianity in Spain, was attended by eleven Baetic bishops, out of a total of nineteen attendees.

Betic Visigothic

Hispania visigoda about 700.

Plaza del Foro de Baelo Claudia.

Betica was Roman until in 411, after invading the Western Empire, the Suevi, Vandals and Alans settled in the Iberian Peninsula. The Silingo Vandals (led by Fridibaldo), more powerful than their Asdingo brothers, received the fertile province of Baetica, where they remained until they were expelled by the Visigoths and the survivors joined the Asdingos with whom they invaded the diocese of Africa. It is not possible to specify in which areas of Andalusia they settled, due to their short stay and the lack of archaeological findings.

With the irruption of the Visigoths on the political scene of the Iberian Peninsula in 418, the Vandals were expelled. The strong Romanization and the strength of a territorial oligarchy in the province, capable of having authentic armies of its own, made Bética a difficult territory to conquer. It was the last territory controlled de facto by the Visigoths, and the one with the greatest political instability. Proof of this is that in the year 521 the pontiff appointed the metropolitan bishop of Seville (Salustio) vicar of Lusitania and Baetica, implying that the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Tarragona did not control the territories of the southern peninsula.

Starting in the year 531, the Visigothic king Teudis carried out a rapid expansion towards the south, coming to install his court in Seville, to have a better control of his operations in the south of the peninsula. He even led an offensive, unsuccessful, against the Byzantine power established in Settem (Ceuta). Finally, Bética was definitively integrated into the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo, although when the interests of the Hispano-Roman land-owning oligarchy were in danger, rebellions occurred, such as those of Atanagildo and Hermenegildo.

Byzantine presence on the Iberian peninsula.

The rebellion of Atanagildo, with the support of the Baetica oligarchy, marked the entry into action of the Byzantine power, expanding under Justinian I. An important part of Baetica and Carthaginian, given its importance for trade in the Mediterranean, was conquered and incorporated by said emperor under the name of Province of Spania, which established its capital in the Mediterranean Malaca. For this, Justinian had to have the fundamental support of the population and vernacular elite, heavily Romanized, who was against the Visigoths and wanted a return to Roman and Catholic order. However, the Byzantine presence in Baetica was fleeting, since the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo always wanted to recover the lost coastline. The campaigns, first by Leovigildo and then by Suintila, led to the creation of a unified power in the Iberian Peninsula.

The Catholic bishops of Baetica, solidly supported by the local population, managed to convert the Arian Visigothic king Recaredo and his nobles. During the Visigothic period, religiously and culturally, San Leandro and San Isidoro were fundamental personalities, who carried out their work mainly in Seville.

The battle of Guadalete, fought in 711 in Baetic lands by Rodrigo, a Visigothic king who had previously been Duke of Baetica, was the definitive fight in the loss of Hispania by the Gothic power. Berber Muslims from North Africa together with Arab elites conquered Baetica and most of the rest of Hispania, first establishing the Emirate and later the Caliphate of Córdoba, whose capital was established in Córdoba, the same city as that of Baetica., a province that from then on ceased to exist as such, although it continued to be the nerve center of al-Andalus.

Economy

Salazone factor. Museo Anticuarium Sevilla.

Agriculture in the south of the Iberian Peninsula was especially rich, exporting wine, olive oil and also a fermented fish sauce called garum, highly prized in the Roman diet. The vast olive plantations of Baetica provided olive oil that was transported by sea and supplied, among others, to the Roman legions in Germany. Amphorae from Baetica have been found throughout the Western Roman Empire. To retain control of these shipping lanes the Empire needed to control the distant coasts of Lusitania and the Atlantic coast north of Hispania. Columella, who wrote twenty volumes dealing with all aspects of Roman agriculture and viticulture, came from Baetica.