332 



SPAIN. 



Lusitanian Viriathus, at the head of his country- 

 men, withstood the Roman power till he fell by 

 assassination (B. C. 140). For fourteen years, the 

 Romans attempted, without success, to suhjugate 

 the Numantines, till Scipio (B. C. 133) triumphed 

 over the ashes of the city, whose inhabitants had 

 destroyed themselves. Afterwards, this land, which 

 is possessed of much natural strength, afforded re- 

 fuge to several of the popular leaders of Rome, on 

 their full from power. Thus Sertorius, an adherent 

 of Marius, lived in Lusitania (B. C. 72), and the 

 sons of Pompey fought against Caesar in Hispania 

 Baetica, where Cneius fell. After a struggle of 200 

 years, when Agrippa, the general of Augustus, con- 

 quered the Cantabrians, Spain was first completely 

 subjected to the Roman power. Augustus himself 

 founded the colony of Caesar Augusta (Saragossa) 

 and Augusta Emerita (Merida). For 400 years, 

 the Roman manners and language took root in the 

 Spanish provinces, which, in Caesar's time, had a 

 population of 40,000,000. Merida supported a 

 garrison of 90,000 men ; Tarragona had 2,500,000 

 inhabitants. In the arts of war and peace, the 

 peninsula rivalled Rome. Pomponius Mela, Seneca, 

 Lucan, Trajan, and Theodosius the Great, were 

 natives of Spain. The Celtic language continued 

 only in Cantabria, and is still understood in Biscay, 

 as William von Humboldt's investigations have 

 shown. See his Attempts to ascertain the original 

 Inhabitants of Spain by Means of the Basque Lan- 

 guage (Berlin, 1821). 



The Middle Ages of Spain include the times of 

 the Goths and Arabians from the irruption of the 

 barbarians into the Roman empire to the fall of 

 Grenada, the last Moorish kingdom in Spain (1492.) 

 At the commencement of the fifth century, the 

 Vandals, Suevi and Alans spread themselves over 

 the peninsula. About 419, the brave Wallia 

 founded the kingdom of the Visigoths in Spain. 

 The Vandals, from whom Andalusia received its 

 name, could not withstand him, and withdrew into 

 Africa in 428. From 467 to 484 the great Euric 

 extended the kingdom of the Visigoths by the expul- 

 sion of the Romans, and gave them their first written 

 laws. At length Leowigild, in 585, overthrew the 

 kingdom of the Suevi, in Galicia. Under his suc- 

 cessor, Reccared I., the introduction of the Catho- 

 lic faith, in 586, gave the corrupt Latin language 

 the predominance over the Gothic; and, after that 

 time, the unity of the Spanish nation was main- 

 tained by the Catholic religion and the political in- 

 fluence of the clergy. But, after 125 years, Alaric's 

 family, from revenge at being passed by in the 

 choice of a king, recalled the Arabians, who had 

 passed over into Africa. King Roderic fell in the 

 seven days' battle against Tarik, at Xeres de la 

 Frontera, in Andalusia, in 711. After that, the 

 greatest part of Spain became a province of the 

 caliphs of Bagdad. Forty years later, in 756, 

 Abdorrhaman I., the last of the Ommiades, made 

 himself master of Spain, overthrowing the govern- 

 ment of the Abassides, and establishing a separate 

 caliphate at Cordova; which, however, after 1038, 

 fell to pieces, the different governors becoming 

 independent, and assuming the title of kings. 

 Thus Arabian princes reigned at Saragossa, Toledo, 

 Valencia and Seville. In these places, the Moor- 

 ish language and customs were almost universal. 

 Yet the Christians were allowed the free exercise 

 of their religion. The Arabians likewise permitted 

 their new subjects (called Mozarabians, that is, 

 spurious Arabians) to retain their language, laws 



and magistrates. At this time, the Jews spread 

 over Spain. Meanwhile, the Visigoths, under their 

 hero Pelayo and his successors, maintained their 

 freedom in the mountains of Asturia and Gali- 

 cia. The Moorish governments being weakened by 

 changes of dynasties, and by internal dissensions, 

 the Christian kings wrested from the Arabians one 

 portion of the country after another, till, after the 

 great victory, which the united Christian princes 

 obtained over the Almohades, in 1220, at Tolosa, 

 in Sierra Morena, there remained to the Arabians 

 only the kingdom of Grenada, which was likewise 

 obliged to acknowledge the Castilian supremacy in 

 1246, and was finally conquered by Ferdinand and 

 Isabella in 1491. During the period of Arabian 

 power, agriculture, commerce, the arts and sciences, 

 flourished in Spain. The population was consider- 

 able. In Tarragona, there were 80,000 families, or 

 350,000 inhabitants. The rich city of Grenada 

 contained 70,000 houses, 250,000 inhabitants, and 

 50,000 men able to bear arms. The Ommiades 

 had connexions with the Byzantine emperors. The 

 universities and libraries at Cordova and other 

 places were resorted to by Christians, as the seat 

 of the Greco- Arabic literature and the Aristotelian 

 philosophy. From these institutions, Europe re- 

 ceived the knowledge of the present arithmetical 

 characters, of gunpowder, and of paper made from 

 rags. Among the Gothic Spaniards, the blending 

 of the chivalrous and religious spirit gave occasion 

 to the foundation of several military orders. The 

 great Cid or don Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar el Cam- 

 peador, the hero without an equal, has been cele- 

 brated since the end of the eleventh century as the 

 hero of his age. The romantic elevation of national 

 feeling, which found its support in the religious faith 

 and national church, preserved the Christian Gothic 

 states Navarre, Arragon and Asturia, from many 

 internal and external dangers. The county of Cas- 

 tile, at first called Burgos, became, in 1028, a separ- 

 ate kingdom. Ferdinand I., by his marriage in 

 1035, united with it Leon and Asturia. For him 

 the great Cid conquered a part of Portugal. The 

 kingdom of Navarre has existed since the ninth 

 century. It formed a part of the Spanish territory 

 of Charlemagne, south of the Pyrenees, obtained by 

 conquest from the Arabians, and extending as far 

 as the Ebro. Here, in the county of Barcelona, 

 now the principality of Catalonia, powerful vassals 

 ruled, till one of them, Raymond V., became, by 

 marriage, king of Arragon, in 1135. His descend- 

 ants in the male line reigned there 258 years. 

 Alphonso VI. (died 1109), king of Leon, Castile 

 and Galicia, together with Portugal, as far as Mon- 

 tego, conquered the Moorish kingdom of Toledo, 

 or New Castile; but he gave up Portugal to his 

 son-in-law Henry of Burgundy. Ferdinand III. did 

 more : he conquered Cordova, Murcia, Jaen, Seville, 

 Cadiz, and subjected Grenada to a feudal depen- 

 dence on him. He became, in 1252, the true 

 founder of the kingdom of Castile, by establishing 

 the rule of indivisibility and primogeniture in the 

 succession. Still the whole was as yet but an im- 

 perfect confederation. The privileges granted to 

 the Jews in Spain, in the middle ages, had an inju- 

 rious influence on the government and the public 

 welfare. They were placed nearly on a level with the 

 nobles; they were appointed ministers of finance, 

 farmers of the public revenues, and stewards to the 

 great : thus they obtained possession of all the 

 money in the country, and, by their excessive usus y, 

 at length excited a universal outcry against them ; 





