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into being – much of which was used well into recent times. Barcelona was
of less importance, although in 15 BC the emperor Augustus granted it the
lengthy name of Colonia Julia Augusta Faventia Pia.
In the first two centuries AD, the Spanish mines and the granaries of Andalucia
brought unprecedented wealth, and
Roman Spain
enjoyed a period of stable
prosperity in which the region of Catalunya played an influential part. InTarraco
and the other Roman towns, the inhabitants were granted full Roman citizen-
ship; the former Greek settlements on the Costa Brava had accepted Roman
rule without difficulty and consequently experienced little interference in their
day-to-day life.
Towards the third century AD, however, the Roman political framework
began to show signs of decadence and corruption.Although at a municipal level
the structure did not disappear completely until the Muslim invasions of the
eighth century, it became increasingly vulnerable to
barbarian invasions
from
northern Europe.The Franks and the Suevi swept across the Pyrenees, sacking
Tarraco in 262 and destroying Barcelona. It was subsequently retaken by the
Romans and rather belatedly defended by a circuit of walls and towers, part of
which can still be seen.Within two centuries, however, Roman rule had ended,
forced on the defensive by new waves of Suevi, Alans and Vandals and finally
superseded by the
Visigoths
from Gaul, former allies of Rome and already
Romanized to some degree.
TheVisigoths established their first Spanish capital at Barcelona in 415 (before
eventually basing themselves further south at Toledo), and built a kingdom
encompassing most of modern Spain and the southwest of modern France.
Their triumph, however, was relatively short-lived. Ruling initially as a caste
apart from the local people, with a distinct status and laws, the Visigoths lived
largely as a warrior elite, and were further separated from the local people by
their adherence to Arian Christianity, which was considered heretical by the
Catholic Church. Under their domination, the economy and the quality of life
in the Roman towns declined, while within their ranks a series of plots and
rivalries – exacerbated by their system of elective monarchy – pitted members
of the ruling elite against each other. In 589 King Reccared converted to
Catholicism, but religious strife only multiplied – resistance on the part of
Arian Christians lead to reaction, one of the casualties of which was the size-
able Jewish population of the peninsula, who were enslaved en masse in the
seventh century.
The Moors and the Spanish Marches
Divisions within theVisigothic kingdom coincided with the Islamic expansion
in North Africa, which reached the shores of the Atlantic in the late seventh
century. In 711 (or 714, no one is sure) Tariq ibn Ziyad, governor of Tangier, led
a force of several thousand largely Berber troops across the Straits of Gibraltar
(the name of which is a corruption of the Arabic,
jebl at-Tariq
, “Tariq’s moun-
tain”) and routed theVisigothic nobility near Jerez de la Frontera.With no one
to resist, the stage for the
Moorish conquest of Spain
was set.Within ten
years, the Muslim Moors had advanced to control most of modern Catalunya
– they destroyed Tarragona and forced Barcelona to surrender – although the
more inaccessible parts of the Pyrenees retained their independence. It was not
simply a military conquest. The Moors had little manpower, and so granted a
limited autonomy to the local population in exchange for payment of tribute.
They did not force the indigenous people to convert to Islam, and Jews and
Christians lived securely as second-class citizens. In areas of the peninsula
CONTEXTS
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A history of Barcelona and Catalunya