Hispania

Hispania was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Roman Republic, it was divided into two provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. During the Roman Empire, under the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was subdivided into Baetica and Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was reorganized as Hispania Tarraconensis.

Beginning with Diocletian’s Tetrarchy (AD 293), the territory of Tarraconensis was further divided to create the provinces of Carthaginensis and Gallaecia (also called Callaecia, the origin of the name of modern Galicia). All the Hispanic provinces on the mainland, together with the Balearic Islands and the North African province of Mauretania Tingitana, were later organized into the Diocesis Hispaniarum, governed by a vicarius.

The name Hispania was also used in the period of Visigothic rule. The modern place names of Spain and Hispaniola are both derived from Hispania.

The origin of the Ancient Roman word Hispania is unknown. The evidence for the various speculations is based merely upon what are at best mere resemblances, likely to be accidental, and suspect supporting evidence.

The Phoenicians referred to the region as i-shphan-im possibly meaning "land of rabbits or hyraxes", "land of metals", "northern island", or "lowland". Roman coins struck in the region from the reign of Hadrian show a female figure with a rabbit at her feet, and Strabo called it the "land of the rabbits". Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania of Iberian origin and derived it from the pre-Roman name for Seville, Hispalis. This was revived for instance by the etymologist Eric Partridge (in his work Origins) who felt that this might strongly hint at an ancient name for the country of *Hispa, presumably an Iberian or Celtic root whose meaning is now lost. Hispalis may alternatively derive from Heliopolis (Greek for 'city of the sun'). Occasionally Hispania was called Hesperia ultima 'farthest western land' by Roman writers since the name Hesperia 'western land' had already been used by the Greeks to refer to the Italian peninsula.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, Jesuits scholars like Larramendi and José Francisco de Isla tied the name to the Basque word ezpain 'lip', but also 'border, edge', thus meaning the farthest area or place.

During Antiquity and Middle Ages, the literary texts derive the term Hispania from an eponymous hero named Hispan, who is mentioned for the first time in the work of the Roman historian Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus, in the 1st century BC.

Hispania is the Latin root for the modern name Spain, and the words Spanish for Hispanicus or Hispanic, or Spain for Hispania, can be interchangeable, depending on context. The Estoria de España ('The History of Spain') written on the initiative of Alfonso X of Castile El Sabio ('the Wise'), between 1260 and 1274, during the Reconquista ('reconquest') of Spain, is believed to be the first extended history of Spain in Old Castilian using the words España ('Spain') and Españoles ('Spaniards') to refer to Medieval Hispania. The use of Latin Hispania, Castilian España, Catalan Espanya and Old French Espaigne, among others, to refer to Roman Hispania or Visigothic Hispania was common throughout all the Late Middle Ages.