page_title: History of Galicia
section_title: Roman Gallaecia (19 BCE – 410 AD)
hierarchical_section_title: History of Galicia / Antiquity / Roman Gallaecia (19 BCE – 410 AD)
caption_attribution_description: English: A part of the Roman Wall of Lugo, Galicia.
context_page_description: The Iberian Peninsula has been inhabited for at least 500,000 years, first by Neanderthals and then by modern humans.
context_section_description: The knowledge that we have today about the society of the hillforts is very limited; according to the Roman historians, the Galicians were a collection of barbarians who spent the day fighting and the night eating, drinking and dancing to the moon. But today it appears that in the last five centuries BCE they developed an aristocratic and even perhaps a feudal social model. The division of the country into concelhos, a concept similar to the counties of the islands or Romania, seems to be based on this class of social organization. Also, the structure based on hillforts seems to be associated with a fortified occupation of the territory, resembling the Central European classic Celtic habitat. On the other hand, this kind of territorial occupation was likely associated with its mineral resources (like a gold rush). It is also clear that the Romans' interest in this region was mainly related to its gold mines.
  When Iberia was involved in the Punic Wars between the Carthaginians and the Romans, the strategic alliance that they maintained with the Phoenicians enabled Hannibal to recruit many Gallegans. When the Romans finally undertook the conquest of Iberia, the Gallaicoi faced them in 137 BC. in the battle at the river Douro that resulted in a great Roman victory against 60,000 Galicians; the Roman general, proconsul Decimus Iunius Brutus, returned to Rome as a hero, receiving the additional name of Gallaicus, according to the historian Paulus Orosius.
  At the end of Brutus' campaigns, Rome controlled the territory between the Douro and Minho rivers plus probable extensions along the coast and in the interior. The Second Invasion, of 61 BCE, landed at Brigantium (A Coruña), under the command of Julius Caesar.
  The evidence suggests that the resistance of the Gaedels against the Romans ended here; from now on, they would be enlisted massively as auxiliaries of the Roman legions, fulfilling destinies sometimes completely separate from Galicia, as far as Thrace and Dacia. It has been estimated that of the total of Roman auxiliary troops coming from Iberia, more than a third belonged to tribes of the peninsular northwest.
  The final extinction of Celtic resistance was the aim of the violent and ruthless Cantabrian Wars fought under the emperor Octavian from 26 to 19 BCE. The resistance was appalling: collective suicide rather than surrender, mothers who killed their children before committing suicide, crucified prisoners of war who sang triumphant hymns, rebellions of captives who killed their guards and returned home from Gaul.
  In the 3rd century, Diocletian created an administrative division which included the conventūs (plural of conventus) of Gallaecia, Asturica and perhaps Cluniense. This province took the name of Gallaecia since Gallaecia was the most populous and important zone within the province. In 409, as Roman control collapsed, the conquests by the Suebi transformed Roman Gallaecia (conventūs Lucense and Bracarense) into the kingdom of Gallaecia (the Galliciense Regnum recorded by Hydatius and Gregory of Tours).
caption: Roman Wall of Lugo (Galicia).
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