Ubi fuerunt. Soldados y territorio en la hispania citerior alto-imperial. Entre epigrafía y arqueología

Resumen

ABSTRACT. Our work has discussed the relation between the military and the landscape within the Hispania Citerior province through the remaining epigraphic evidence. We were very aware of the limitation that is the amount of military epigraphy compared to the global number of roman inscriptions available in Spain. We accounted for the lack of archaeological and spatial contexts as well. It is a fact that the majority of the military epigraphy known to date in the Iberian Peninsula was found in unknown circumstances, in remote times (resulting in unavailable information) or was even re-used for subsequent structures (which usually transforms the original form). Moreover, many of the known pieces are in a fragmentary or partially lost state which in time increases the difficulty of reading and interpreting texts. Analysing and tracing the individual history of epigraphs it is possible to locate them on the territory and eventually in some capital locations within the military provinces. That is if we assume the A meticulous approach to each file (understood as the inscription and the history of the monument together) and the combination of other materials and data on them partially makes up for the scarcity of specific contexts for the pieces. In any case, these two elements do not suffice to successfully resume this task. Roman urban archaeology and military archaeology contribute with referential frames that are key to understand and abovementioned precautions. The main goal is therefore to apply an analytic model to outline an epigraphic topography of the early imperial Roman army in Hispania, taking into account the scarce amount of available epigraphic sources and the above-mentioned issues regarding analysis and context. Our methodological contribution to the subject of the Roman military in Spain is thus to obtain an approximate, systematic and spatial image of said military topography. reconstruct an epigraphic landscape. That is both from a global perspective as well as from the perspective of specific areas in the territory and specific locations where the military had a prolonged stay. ‘Between Epigraphy and Archaeology’ refers to the central aim of our work which is in line with many other scholarly reviews of the Roman military history in other parts of the Empire. On the other hand, we obtain a rather complex and fragmentary image from studying sources and contexts. It cannot be conceived as a uniform entity in time and space as it is subject to the history of the Roman Empire and its provinces. The different phases of the Roman establishment in Hispania, especially in the studied province, were influenced by events such as: the articulation of the territory of Hispania and the Citerior province after the conquest, the exploitation and administration of the newly acquired resources, or the civil wars in the 1st and 3rd centuries A.D. Considering the size of this subject, we believe we have outlined a detailed image of the relationship between the roman military and the occupied Iberian territories. Our perspective has been social rather than event-driven as we have encountered numerous examples of interaction between soldiers and the territory on which they served. Our work refutes the idea of an exercitus Hispanicus that is ‘secon-class’ in comparison to other early imperial Roman armies, which is usually justified by shifting the focus towards more conflictive areas of the Empire. The specific circumstances of Hispania shaped an specific military approach characterised by unique elements that resulted in the development of an active, busy and dynamic army. An army that was involved in infrastructure works to extend the imperial authority’s reach in the Citerior province. It evolved to become an agent of Romanization in times of peace and thus helped to define the early-imperial identity of Hispania.