Callaeci, the whole peninsula, with the exception of the north coast,
was now at least nominally subject to the Romans.

A senatorial commission was sent to Spain in order to organize, in
concert with Scipio, the newly-won provincial territory after the Roman
method; and Scipio did what he could to obviate the effects of the
infamous and stupid policy of his predecessors. The Caucani for
instance, whose shameful maltreatment by Lucullus he had been obliged
to witness nineteen years before when a military tribune, were invited
by him to return to their town and to rebuild it. Spain began again
to experience more tolerable times. The suppression of piracy, which
found dangerous lurking-places in the Baleares, through the occupation
of these islands by Quintus Caecilius Metellus in 631, was singularly
conducive, to the prosperity of Spanish commerce; and in other respects
also the fertile islands, inhabited by a dense population which was
unsurpassed in the use of the sling, were a valuable possession.
How numerous the Latin-speaking population in the peninsula was even
then, is shown by the settlement of 3000 Spanish Latins in the towns
of Palma and Pollentia (Pollenza) in the newly-acquired islands.
In spite of various grave evils the Roman administration of Spain
preserved on the whole the stamp which the Catonian period, and
primarily Tiberius Gracchus, had impressed on it. It is true that
the Roman frontier territory had not a little to suffer from the
inroads of the tribes, but half subdued or not subdued at all, on
the north and west. Among the Lusitanians in particular the poorer
youths regularly congregated as banditti, and in large gangs levied
contributions from their countrymen or their neighbours, for which
reason, even at a much later period, the isolated homesteads in this
region were constructed in the style of fortresses, and were, in case
of need, capable of defence; nor did the Romans succeed in putting