Lusitanie

The Lusitanie ( Lusitania ) was a Roman Province which covered the part of current the Portugal in the south of the Douro, part of the León and Estrémadure. It was separated from Hispanie later towards 27 av. J. - C., according to the course of the Anna. The capital of this imperial Province was Emerita Augusta (auj. Mérida).

See the later Hispanie for the period preceding the Christian era.

This inhabited area in Antiquity by several people was integrated into the Roman Empire after rough fights against the Lusitanians, one of these people, which thus gave his name to the Roman province of Lusitania lately created by Auguste in the last third of the 1st front century J. - C.

This province with the borders of the Roman Empire knew several centuries of Pax romana, without remarkable event. Its romanisation is more or less deep according to the zones and their levels of richness. Thus the zones of interface which they are coastal or frontier other provinces (especially the Bétique were richer, the archaeological vestiges are more abundant there, the more villae). One of the principal heritages will be for the future people which will occupy this zone the language which of the vulgar Latin will give rise to the Portuguese and Spanish modern. The province counts about fifty cities under Auguste, for a population estimated at 700.000 inhabitants.

Olisipo (Lisbon), having the Roman statute of municipe

Cities having the statute of Roman colony:

Norba Caesarina (Cáceres)
Metelinum (Medellin)
Emerita Augusta (Mérida), founded in -25
Pax Julia (Beja)

Other cities:

Salmanica (Salamanque)
Caesarobriga (Talavera Reina),
Augustobriga (Talavera Vieja)
Conimbriga (Condeixa-a-Velha)
Aeminium (Coimbra)
Scallabis (Santarém)
Vipasca (Aljustrel)
Ebora Liberalitas Julia (Évora)
Portus Cale (Oporto), which will give its name to the Portugal, with the Middle Ages.

The constitution of the province under the reign of Auguste was supplemented by the creation of the Conventus (of the administrative subdivisions) of the time of the dynasty flavienne, most probably as of the reign of Vespasien. These Conventus was three with for capitals Emerita Augusta, Scallabis and Pax Iulia. The reforms dioclétiennes did not change gives it for the province which was renewed with identical although integrated in a new level, the vicariate of Hispanie.

If the political history of the province seems quite thin (the centuries of Roman integration seem to have been one great moment of peace), it merges with an economic life seems it intense where the province occupied a place more than important in exports of Garum, it seems besides that it occupied the first place in this exporting industry on a all empire scale and that it fed the whole of the Western Mediterranean basin, the town of Rome and even the East. The bonds which linked it in North Africa and the province of Bétique with their great commercial aristocracies is more than undeniable and some Roman big families had there important agricultural domains in particular in the current area of Portuguese Alentejo particularly adapted to the constitution of villae.

Although it was not directly victim of the raids Moors of second half of the 2nd century of our era, a certain agitation seems to reign there at that time. It was not directly touched by the first Germanic raids of the 3rd century and the 4th century. On the other hand the 5th century was one period of upheavals:

In 409, a heteroclite group Germanic people: Vandals Hasdings and Sillings, Suèves and Alains devastated the Iberian peninsula after having penetrated in Gaulle the previous year. Low resistances of the Roman troops on the spot, embourbées in a civil war between various candidates with the imperial throne of Occident, left the place to the Germanic occupation. The Peninsula was thus divided between these people and Lusitanie échut in Alains which had also taken possession of the Iberian province of the Cartaginensis.
In 417, the Visigoths with the service of the emperor of Occident destroy the kingdoms Alain and vandal silling. The survivors unite with the Hasdings Vandals in Galicia, then leave Spain in 429 pennies the aegis of the king Genséric to invade North Africa where they will found a kingdom vandal as large as transitory.
In 439, Suèves remained only in Iberian peninsula at the sides of the Romans extend their domination of Galicia to Lusitanie and in Bétique and seize Mérida and Seville. They are driven back by the Visigoths in 456 which return in the Peninsula but to settle there this time.
In 468, the Visigoths seize Lusitanie and integrate it into the Royaume of the Visigoths.

The name of this province gave rise to that of the horse Lusitanian.

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