Celtiberians in the context of "Celts"

The Iberians (Latin: Hibērī, from Greek: Ἴβηρες, Iberes) were an ancient people indigenous to the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula. They are described in Greek and Roman sources (among others, by Hecataeus of Miletus, Avienius, Herodotus and Strabo). Roman sources also use the term Hispani to refer to the Iberians.

The term Iberian, as used by the ancient authors, had two distinct meanings. One, more general, referred to all the populations of the Iberian peninsula without regard to ethnic differences (Pre-Indo-European, Celts and non-Celtic Indo-Europeans). The other, more restricted ethnic sense and the one dealt with in this article, refers to the people living in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, which by the 6th century BC had absorbed cultural influences from the Phoenicians, Carthaginians and the Greeks. This pre-Indo-European cultural group spoke the Iberian language from the 7th to at least the 1st century BC. The rest of the peninsula, in the northern, central, and northwestern areas, was inhabited by Vascones, Celts or Celtiberians groups and the possibly Pre-Celtic or Proto-Celtic Indo-European Lusitanians, Vettones, and Turdetani.

The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of Punic Warsthree wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Italy and Iberia, but also on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and, towards the end of the war, in North Africa. After immense materiel and human losses on both sides, the Carthaginians were once again defeated. Macedonia, Syracuse and several Numidian kingdoms were drawn into the fighting, and Iberian and Gallic forces fought on both sides. There were three main military theatres during the war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns in Sicily, Sardinia and Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthaginian colonial cities with mixed success before moving into Italy; and Africa, where Rome won the war.

The First Punic War had ended in a Roman victory in 241 BCE after 23 years and enormous losses on both sides. After the war Carthage expanded its holdings in Iberia where in 219 BCE a Carthaginian army under Hannibal besieged, captured and sacked the pro-Roman city of Saguntum. In spring 218 BC Rome declared war on Carthage, beginning the Second Punic War. Later that year, Hannibal surprised the Romans by marching his army overland from Iberia, through Gaul and over the Alps to Cisalpine Gaul (modern northern Italy). Reinforced by Gallic allies he obtained crushing victories over the Romans at the battles of Trebia (218) and Lake Trasimene (217). Moving to southern Italy in 216 Hannibal defeated the Romans again at the battle of Cannae, where he annihilated the largest army the Romans had ever assembled. After the death or capture of more than 120,000 Roman troops in less than three years, many of Rome's Italian allies, notably Capua, defected to Carthage, giving Hannibal control over much of southern Italy. As Syracuse and Macedonia joined the Carthaginian side after Cannae, the conflict spread. Between 215 and 210 BC the Carthaginians attempted to capture Roman-held Sicily and Sardinia, but were unsuccessful. The Romans took drastic steps to raise new legions: enrolling slaves, criminals and those who did not meet the usual property qualification; this vastly increased the number of men they had under arms. For the next decade the war in southern Italy continued, with Roman armies slowly recapturing most of the Italian cities that had joined Carthage.

The Lusitanians were an Indo-European-speaking people living in the far west of the Iberian Peninsula, in present-day central Portugal and the regions of Extremadura and Castilla y León of Spain. It is uncertain whether the Lusitanians were Celts or Celticized Iberians, related to the Lusones. After its conquest by the Romans, the land was subsequently incorporated as a Roman province named after them (Lusitania).

The La Tène culture (/ləˈtɛn/; French pronunciation: [la tɛn]) was a European Iron Age culture. It developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from about 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC), succeeding the early Iron Age Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under considerable Mediterranean influence from the Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul, the Etruscans, and the Golasecca culture, but whose artistic style nevertheless did not depend on those Mediterranean influences.

La Tène culture's territorial extent corresponded to what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, England, Southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Northern Italy and Central Italy, Slovenia, Hungary and Liechtenstein, as well as adjacent parts of the Netherlands, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Transylvania (western Romania), and Transcarpathia (western Ukraine). The Celtiberians of western Iberia shared many aspects of the culture, though not generally the artistic style. To the north extended the contemporary Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe, including the Jastorf culture of Northern Germany and Denmark and all the way to Galatia in Asia Minor (today Turkey).

The Roman Republic conquered and occupied territories in the Iberian Peninsula that were previously under the control of native Celtic, Iberian, Celtiberian and Aquitanian tribes and the Carthaginian Empire. The Carthaginian territories in the south and east of the peninsula were conquered in 206 BC during the Second Punic War. Control was gradually extended over most of the peninsula without annexations. It was completed after the end of the Roman Republic (27 BC), by Augustus, the first Roman emperor, who annexed the whole of the peninsula to the Roman Empire in 19 BC.

This conquest started with the Roman acquisition of the former Carthaginian territories in southern Hispania and along the east coast as a result of defeating the Carthaginians (206 BC) during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), after which the Carthaginian forces left the peninsula. This resulted in an ongoing Roman territorial presence in southern and eastern Hispania. In 197 BC, the Romans established two Roman provinces. These were Hispania Citerior (Nearer Spain) along most of the east coast (an area corresponding to the modern Valencia, Catalonia and part of Aragon) and Hispania Ulterior (Further Spain) in the south, corresponding to modern Andalusia.

Celtic mythology is the body of myths belonging to the Celtic peoples. Like other Iron Age Europeans, Celtic peoples followed a polytheistic religion, having many gods and goddesses. The mythologies of continental Celtic peoples, such as the Gauls and Celtiberians, did not survive their conquest by the Roman Empire, the loss of their Celtic languages and their subsequent conversion to Christianity. Only remnants are found in Greco-Roman sources and archaeology. Most surviving Celtic mythology belongs to the Insular Celtic peoples (the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland; the Celtic Britons of western Britain and Brittany). They preserved some of their myths in oral lore, which were eventually written down by Christian scribes in the Middle Ages. Irish mythology has the largest written body of myths, followed by Welsh mythology.

The supernatural race called the Tuatha Dé Danann is believed to be based on the main Celtic gods of Ireland, while many Welsh characters belong either to the Plant Dôn ("Children of Dôn") or the Plant Llŷr ("Children of Llŷr"). Some figures in Insular Celtic myth have ancient continental parallels: Irish Lugh and Welsh Lleu are cognate with Lugus, Goibniu and Gofannon with Gobannos, Macán and Mabon with Maponos, and so on. One common figure is the sovereignty goddess, who represents the land and bestows sovereignty on a king by marrying him. The Otherworld is also a common motif, a parallel realm of the supernatural races, which is visited by some mythical heroes. Celtic myth influenced later Arthurian legend.