Since moving to Portugal a couple of years ago, I have come across a quote more than once that some Portuguese use half ironically, half proudly:
“Há, na parte mais ocidental da Ibéria, um povo muito estranho: não se governa nem se deixa governar!”
“There is, in the westernmost part of Iberia, a very odd people: they refuse to govern themselves and they refuse to be governed!”
The quote is sometimes attributed to “a Roman general” from the 3rd century B.C., sometimes to Julius Caesar. Google has not been particularly helpful in finding the source or the original Latin quote, or even a translation into English (substituting Iberia with Hispania did not improve it).
Is it known if the Romans had any specific thoughts on the people of West-Hispania?
Thank you!
The central and northern parts of the Iberian Peninsula took the Romans centuries to conquer. Once the entire peninsula had been subdued, however, Lusitania - the province that includes the modern nation of Portugal - was neither notably rebellious nor especially ungovernable.
I was unable to locate the source of your quote. I saw it attributed to the Republican general Galba (notorious for his slaughter of unarmed Lusitanians in the second century BCE) and to Caesar (notorious for being Caesar). But I never saw a specific source quoted, and failed to find it in what I assumed to be the logical places. According to this article (see pp. 391-2), the quote's roots are medieval, not ancient.
Although the phrase seems to be a later invention, it has some historical basis. After taking the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula from the Carthaginians, the Romans worked for nearly two centuries to conquer the rest. Most of the Iberian Peninsula was characterized by networks of small settlements and a basically pastoral economy. The Romans could destroy a Hellenistic kingdom by taking its capital and/or destroying the king's army. But in Iberia, they had fight a seemingly endless series of small actions, and victory meant only the acquisition of a chiefdom. The Romans were also repeatedly distracted from their conquests - above all by wars in the East - and tended to send armies and plan campaigns on a scale calculated to win a triumph for the governor, not permanent annexation.
The political origins of the modern nation of Portugal are, of course, medieval. The region - and later province - that the Romans called Lusitania was neither culturally unified nor politically distinct. But the Romans did associate Lusitania with Viriathus, the most formidable Iberian general they ever faced. The region was also closely linked with the rogue general Sertorius. Lusitania, finally, was less thickly settled than regions farther south and east, and may have seemed correspondingly more "barbaric" to Roman eyes.
In the imperial era, as mentioned earlier, the province of Lusitania was not particularly given to rebellion. The rebellious part of Spain in the imperial era was the far north, where the only Spanish legions were stationed. Lusitania was, if anything, quietly prosperous. Though never a notably wealthy province, it was fully integrated into the imperial economy. Emerita Augusta (now Merida, Spain), was an impressive place; the modern city, in fact, still features the longest extant Roman bridge.
As far as I can tell, in short, Portugal's reputation for being ungovernable owes more to modern nationalism than ancient intractability.