Balearic Slingers
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Balearic Slingers
Mercenary life is recorded as a custom of Iron Age Spain, particularly in the central area of the Iberian peninsula. Departing from the native tribe and applying to serve in others was a way for economically disadvantaged youth to escape poverty and find an opportunity to use their fighting skills. Starting from 5th century BC, mercenary life would become a true social phenom in Hispania, with great numbers of fighters from distant lands coming to join the armies of Carthage, Rome, Sicily and even Greece, as well as other Hispanic peoples. They are repeatedly described by authors like Strabo and Thucydides as being among the best fighting forces in the Mediterranean Sea area, as well as, according to Livy, the most elite unit in Hannibal's army (''id roboris in omni exercitu''). Polybius cites them as the reason for the Carthaginian victory in several battles during the Second Punic War. Background Differentiating literal mercenaries from foreign vassals, brought to the batt ...
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Granite Statue Of A Lusitanian Warrior, Dating From The 1st Century AD, National Archaeology Museum, Lisbon (12691953623)
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies underground. It is common in the continental crust of Earth, where it is found in igneous intrusions. These range in size from dikes only a few centimeters across to batholiths exposed over hundreds of square kilometers. Granite is typical of a larger family of ''granitic rocks'', or ''granitoids'', that are composed mostly of coarse-grained quartz and feldspars in varying proportions. These rocks are classified by the relative percentages of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase (the QAPF classification), with true granite representing granitic rocks rich in quartz and alkali feldspar. Most granitic rocks also contain mica or amphibole minerals, though a few (known as leucogranites) contain almost no dark minerals. Granite is nearly always m ...
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Second Punic War
The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three 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 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 finally won the war. The First Punic War had ended in a Roman ...
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Bastetania
The Bastetani or Bastuli were an ancient Iberian (pre-Roman) people of the Iberian peninsula (the Roman Hispania). They are believed to have spoken the Iberian language. The relationship between the Iberian Bastetani and the Tartessian Mastieni (who lived in Mastia, on the southeastern coast of the peninsula) is not entirely clear. Their territory extended through the southeastern Iberian Peninsula, which currently encompasses southern Albacete, Almería, Granada, eastern Málaga, southeastern Jaén and western Murcia. Their main towns were located between ''Baria'' (present-day Villaricos) and ''Bailo'' (Cádiz), also including '' Malaka'', '' Abdera'', '' Sexi'' and '' Carteia''.Luis A. García Moreno, ''Mastienos y Bastetanos: un problema de la etnología hispana prerromana.'' 1990 Their capital was probably the city known as Basti by the Romans, which corresponds to present-day Baza. The '' Lady of Baza'', a famous Bastetani sculpture, was recovered from the necropolis o ...
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Turdetania
Baeturia, Beturia, or Turdetania was a region in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula (in modern Spain) between the Guadiana and the Guadalquivir rivers. In the Iron Age, it was inhabited by Celts and the Turdetani. The territory was conquered by the Roman Republic in the 2nd century BCE. See also * Turdetani * Hispania Baetica Hispania Baetica, often abbreviated Baetica, was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula). Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis. Baetica remained one of the basic ... Regions of Spain Geography of Spain {{europe-geo-stub ...
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Hispania
Hispania ( la, Hispānia , ; nearly identically pronounced in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Italian) was the Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula and its provinces. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. During the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divided into two new provinces, Baetica and Lusitania, while Hispania Citerior was renamed Hispania Tarraconensis. Subsequently, the western part of Tarraconensis was split off, first as Hispania Nova, later renamed "Callaecia" (or Gallaecia, whence modern Galicia). From Diocletian's Tetrarchy (AD 284) onwards, the south of the remainder of Tarraconensis was again split off as Carthaginensis, and all of the mainland Hispanic provinces, along with the Balearic Islands and the North African province of Mauretania Tingitana, were later grouped into a civil diocese headed by a ''vicarius''. The name Hispania was also used in the period of Visigothic rule. The mod ...
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Cantabri
The Cantabri ( grc-gre, Καντάβροι, ''Kantabroi'') or Ancient Cantabrians, were a pre-Ancient Rome, Roman people and large tribal federation that lived in the northern coastal region of ancient Iberia in the second half of the first millennium BC. These peoples and their territories were incorporated into the Roman Province of Hispania Tarraconensis in 19 BC, following the Cantabrian Wars. Name ' is a Latinisation of names, Latinized form of a local name, presumably meaning "Highlanders" and deriving from the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed root *''cant''- ("mountain") in Ligurian language (ancient), Ancient Ligurian. During the High and Late Middle Ages, as well as Modern Period, the name refers usually to the Basques. Geography Cantabria, the land of the Cantabri, originally comprised much of the highlands of the northern Spanish Atlantic coast, including the whole of modern Cantabria province, eastern Asturias, nearby mountainous regions of Castile and Le ...
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Balearic Islands
The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is Palma. The 2007 Statute of Autonomy designates the Balearic Islands as one of the ''nationalities'' of Spain. The official languages of the Balearic Islands are Catalan and Spanish. Its four largest islands are Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera. Many of its minor islands and islets are close to the larger islands, including Cabrera, Dragonera, and S'Espalmador. The islands have a Mediterranean climate, and the four major islands are all popular tourist destinations. Ibiza, in particular, is known as an international party destination, attracting many of the world's most popular DJs to its nightclubs. The islands' culture and cuisine are similar to those of the rest of Spain but have their own distinctive features. Etymology ...
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Warrior Culture
A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracies, class, or caste. History Warriors seem to have been present in the earliest pre-state societies. Scholars have argued that horse-riding Yamnaya warriors from the Pontic–Caspian steppe played a key role during the Indo-European migrations and the diffusion of Indo-European languages across Eurasia. Most of the basic weapons used by warriors appeared before the rise of most hierarchical systems. Bows and arrows, clubs, spears, swords, and other edged weapons were in widespread use. However, with the new findings of metallurgy, the aforementioned weapons had grown in effectiveness. When the first hierarchical systems evolved 5000 years ago, the gap between the rulers and the ruled had increased. Making war to extend the outreach of their territories, rulers often forced men from lower orders o ...
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Tribal Warfare
__NOTOC__ Ritual warfare (sometimes called endemic warfare) is a state of continual or frequent warfare, such as is found in some tribal societies (but is not limited to tribal societies). Description Ritual fighting (or ritual battle or ritual warfare) permits the display of courage, masculinity and the expression of emotion while resulting in relatively few wounds and even fewer deaths. Thus such a practice can be viewed as a form of conflict-resolution and/or as a psycho-social exercise. Native Americans often engaged in this activity, but the frequency of warfare in most hunter-gatherer cultures is a matter of dispute. Examples Warfare is known to every tribal society, but some societies develop a particular emphasis of warrior culture (such as the Nuer of South Sudan, the Māori of New Zealand, the Dugum Dani of Papua, the Yanomami (dubbed "the Fierce People") of the Amazon. The culture of inter-tribal warfare has long been present in New Guinea. Communal societies ...
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Banditry
Banditry is a type of organized crime committed by outlaws typically involving the threat or use of violence. A person who engages in banditry is known as a bandit and primarily commits crimes such as extortion, robbery, and murder, either as an individual or in groups. Banditry is a vague concept of criminality and in modern usage can be synonymous for gangsterism, brigandage, marauding, and thievery. Definitions The term ''bandit'' (introduced to English via Italian around 1590) originates with the early Germanic legal practice of outlawing criminals, termed ''*bannan'' (English ban). The legal term in the Holy Roman Empire was ''Acht'' or ''Reichsacht'', translated as "Imperial ban". In modern Italian, the equivalent word "bandito" literally means banned or a banned person. The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (NED) defined "bandit" in 1885 as "one who is proscribed or outlawed; hence, a lawless desperate marauder, a brigand: usually applied to members of ...
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Celtiberians
The Celtiberians were a group of Celts and Celticized peoples inhabiting an area in the central-northeastern Iberian Peninsula during the final centuries BCE. They were explicitly mentioned as being Celts by several classic authors (e.g. Strabo). These tribes spoke the Celtiberian language and wrote it by adapting the Iberian alphabet, in the form of the Celtiberian script. The numerous inscriptions that have been discovered, some of them extensive, have allowed scholars to classify the Celtiberian language as a Celtic language, one of the Hispano-Celtic (also known as Iberian Celtic) languages that were spoken in pre-Roman and early Roman Iberia. Archaeologically, many elements link Celtiberians with Celts in Central Europe, but also show large differences with both the Hallstatt culture and La Tène culture. There is no complete agreement on the exact definition of Celtiberians among classical authors, nor modern scholars. The Ebro river clearly divides the Celtiberian are ...
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Lusitanians
The Lusitanians ( la, Lusitani) were an Indo-European languages, Indo-European speaking people living in the west of the Iberian Peninsula prior to its conquest by the Roman Republic and the subsequent incorporation of the territory into the Roman province of Lusitania. History Origins Frontinus mentions Lusitanian leader Viriathus as the leader of the Celtiberians, in their war against the Romans. The Greco-Roman historian Diodorus Siculus attributed them a name of another List of ancient Celtic peoples and tribes, Celtic tribe: "Those who are called Lusitanians are the bravest of all Cimbri", often thought of as Germanic. The Lusitanians were also called Belitanians, according to the diviner Artemidorus. . [S.l.]: Real Academia de la Historia, 2000. 33 p. vol. 6 of Bibliotheca archaeologica hispana, v. 6 of Publicaciones del Gabinete de Antigüedades. Strabo differentiated the Lusitanians from the Iberians, Iberian tribes and called them Celts who had been known as Oestri ...
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