This is episode 5 called Second Iron Age: Iberians, Celts and other Pre-Roman peoples and in this episode you will learn:

Show notes

• Everything about the Pre-Indo-European Iberians: Iberian alphabets, urbanism, warfare and weapons, society and politics, traditions, religion, burial customs and trade
• Everything about the Indo-European Celts: Celtic economy, social institutions, warfare, religion, urbanism, cultures and society
• The Celtiberians, who were famous for being ferocious and brave warriors
• The ancient Basques, the Vascones
• Reflections on the manipulation about the Basque identity and ethnicity done by Basque nationalism

Script

I’m David Cot, host of The History of Spain Podcast, and this is episode 5, called Second Iron Age: Iberians, Celts and other Pre-Roman peoples. In this episode you will learn about the native cultures that were coexisting in the Iberian Peninsula before the Roman conquest of Hispania. Subscribe to the podcast to not miss an episode!

The first thing I would like to mention is that we must understand the ethnic, linguistic or other kind of differences I will mention here not in a strict sense, but in broad terms. The Pre-Roman cultures and peoples I will talk about today didn’t have states as we think of them today, they didn’t have strict borders, instead they were very fluid cultures that were, to a higher or lower degree, interconnected, and that sometimes intermixed. There were two major ethnic groups in the Iberian Peninsula before the Carthaginian and Roman invasions, the Iberians and the Celts. We also have the Celtiberians that were a mixed group, and the proto-Basques whose origins are still under investigation.

<figure class="aligncenter"><figcaption>Map of Pre-Roman Iberia, showing linguistic and ethnic groups, as well as main foreign colonies</figcaption></figure>

The Iberians were Pre-Indo-European peoples of the Neolithic stock that populated the Mediterranean side of the Iberian Peninsula, and their culture started around the 5^th century BC. Iberian culture was a bit influenced by Phoenician and Greek cultures, as we can easily see in their artistic works. What we know as Iberians though is not a unified group of peoples, but different tribes of each area of the Spanish Mediterranean that shared similar characteristics. For instance, in the Iberian territory there were multiple languages and writing systems. We know the sounds of the characters of the Iberian scriptures, but not their meaning since archeologists haven’t found an Iberian Rosetta Stone. Apart from the Greco-Iberian alphabet that used the Ionic variant of the Greek alphabet, the rest of scripts, the Northeastern Iberian, Southeastern Iberian, Tartessian and Celtiberian scripts were semi-syllabaries, which means that their writing systems were a mix of an alphabet and a syllabary. The difference is that alphabets represent phonemes and syllabaries represent syllables to make up words. It was only between the 1^st and 2^nd centuries AD that the Iberian language disappeared, as well as the other paleohispanic languages, since they were all replaced by Latin.

To learn about the Iberian peoples, we need to rely more on archeology rather than literature, because all the literature about them is Greco-Roman and is biased. I mean, it’s not like the Romans or Carthaginians made an anthropological study about them before their conquests. So yeah, this episode will not be narrative, just like the previous one.

Anyway, let’s get started. Iberians usually settled and built their towns on heights to easily defend the territory, and their towns could have walls too. This kind of urbanism is called oppidum and was found all over Europe. A very interesting fact is that cities that had an influence over their region controlled the area nearby by founding small towns or building disperse houses. Cities even used sculptures that represented heroic acts to justify their expansion and influence. Their architecture and urbanism were not as advanced as the earlier Tartessian urbanism, but compared to their neighbors, the Celts, they were more urbanized and less pastoralist.

They didn’t have advanced military technology like catapults until the Second Punic War, but Iberians were known as ferocious warriors that attracted the attention of foreign powers looking for mercenaries. Iberian warfare was endemic and made between tribes, to raid and pillage. Iberians stood out for their ambushes and guerrilla tactics, and the infantry used hit-and-run tactics. Now talking about their weapons, the falcata stands out as it’s the characteristic Pre-Roman sword of the Iberian tribes. The falcata has a single-edged blade that pitches forwards towards the point, the edge being concave near the hilt, but convex near the point, and they don’t only surprise by their shape, but also by the quality of the iron. The famous Gladius Hispaniensis inspired the Roman military to adopt those swords after the Punic Wars in their Republican Army. See an image of a falcata in your podcast player, on thehistoryofspain.com or looking it up on Google. Iberian soldiers also used spears, javelins, they had both small and large shields, and Iberian horsemen were highly regarded.

<figure class="aligncenter"><figcaption>Iberian falcata</figcaption></figure>

On another note, Iberian society was as stratified as any other urbanized society at the time, with its kings or chieftains, nobles, priests, artisans, peasants and slaves. The nobles met in councils and chieftains maintained their power through a system of vassalage and servitude. The nobility was a warrior class, as it’s evidenced by the sculptures and necropolis found that idealize aristocratic values. Iberian societies were extremely divided politically and led by caudillos, and only some united in confederacies to defend the territory from the Carthaginian and Roman invaders.

Among their customs, we find the Iberian devotio, a pact of vassalage where the devoti or clients swore to protect their caudillo or king, in exchange for protection and a higher social status. If the leader died, the devoti had to commit suicide as they also vowed to protect their leader to the gods. This social institution played a major role in some heroic last stands seen during the Roman conquest of Hispania, and it served Roman interests later because Iberians quickly embraced the cult to the emperor. The Romans had a similar institution, but their devotio was radically different, since in their case the Romans devoted to gods to guarantee a military victory in exchange for their life, while Iberians offered their life to protect a person.

Archeologists haven’t found any big sanctuary, instead religious rites seem to have been performed domestically and in the open. Iberians didn’t like to represent their divinities like Greeks did, therefore we know very little about their religious beliefs. Nonetheless both the Greeks and Phoenicians influenced their religious practices, as some of their deities were known and worshiped. On the other hand, they used ex-vote figurines that were unique, which means that they represented a different individual each time. Iberians