| Hispania Baetica |
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Hispania Baetica was one of three Imperial Roman Province s in Hispania , (modern Iberia ). Hispania Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania (modern Portugal ), and to the northeast by Hispania Terraconensis . Baetica was renamed '' Andalucia '' by the Moors in the 8th Century . Before Romanization, the mountainous area that was to become Baetica was occupied by several settled Iberian tribal groups. ), Abdera and Malaca ( Málaga ). Some of the Iberian cities retained their Pre-Indo-European names in Baetica throughout the Roman era. Granada was called ''Eliberri,'' ''Illiberis'' and ''Illiber'' by the Romans; in Basque , ''"iri-berri"'' or ''"ili-berri"'', still signifies "new town". The south of the Iberian peninsula was agriculturally rich, providing for export were largely confined to the north. In the reorganization of the Empire in 14 BCE , when Hispania was remade into the three Imperial Province s, Baetica was governed by a Proconsul who had formerly been a Praetor . Fortune smiled on rich Baetica, which was ''Baetica Felix,'' and a dynamic, upwardly-mobile social and economic middling stratum developed there, which absorbed Freed Slave s and far outnumbered the rich Elite . The Senatorial province of Baetica became so secure that no Roman Legion was required to be permanently stationed there. '' Legio VII Gemina '' was permanently stationed to the north, in Hispania Tarraconensis . Hispania Baetica was divided into four ''conventus'', which were territorial divisions like judicial circuits, where the chief men met together at major centers, at fixed times of year, under the eye of the proconsul, to oversee the administration of justice: the ''conventus Gaditanus'' (of Gades, or Cádiz ), ''Cordubensis'' (of Cordoba ), ''Astigitanus'' (of Astigi, or Écija ), and ''Hispalensis'' (of Hispalis, or Seville ). As the towns became the permanent seats of standing courts during the later Empire, the ''conventi'' were superseded ( Justinian's Code , i.40.6) and the term ''conventus'' is lastly applied to certain bodies of Roman citizens living in a province, forming a sort of enfranchised corporation, and representing the Roman people in their district as a kind of Gentry ; and it was from among these that proconsuls generally took their assistants. So in spite of some social upsets, as when Septimus Severus put to death a number of leading Baetians— including ''women''— the elite in Baetica remained a stable class for centuries. Columella , who wrote a twelve volume treatise on all aspects of Roman farming and knew Viticulture , came from Baetica. The vast Olive plantations of Baetica shipped olive oil from the coastal ports by sea to supply Roman legions in Germania . Amphora s from Baetica have been found everywhere in the Western Roman Empire . It was to keep Roman legions supplied by sea routes that the Empire needed to control the distant coasts of Lusitania and the northern Atlantic Coast of Hispania. Baetica was rich and utterly Romanized, facts that the emperor Vespasian was rewarding when he granted the '' Ius Latii '' that extended the rights pertaining to Roman citizenship ('' Latinitas '') to the inhabitants of Hispania, an honor that secured the loyalty of the Baetian elite and its middle class. The Roman emperors Trajan , the first emperor of provincial origin, and Hadrian came from Baetica. Baetia was Roman until the brief invasion of the Vandal s and Alans passed through in the 5th Century , followed by the more permanent kingdom of the Visigoth s. The province formed part of the Exarchate Of Africa and was joined to Mauretania Tingitana after Belisarius ' reconquest of Africa. The Catholic Bishop s of Baetica, solidly backed by their local population, were able to convert the Arian Visigoth king Reccared and his nobles. In the 8th Century the Islam ic Berber s ("Moors") of North Africa established the Caliphate Of Cordoba conquering Baetica. The region was known to them as " Al-Andalus ," under which name its later history is continued. The early 20th Century composer Manuel De Falla wrote a '' Fantasia Baetica '' for Piano , using Andalusian melodies. External links
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