barbarous Celts and Iberians, with a few Phoenician settlements,
for the purposes of trade, on its southern coasts.

At the close of the first Punic war, Hamilcar Barca, at the head
of a Carthaginian host, crossed the strait of Gibraltar and
commenced the conquest which his son Hannibal completed, and which
resulted in the undisputed supremacy of Carthage throughout almost
all of Spain. This brings us to 218 B. C. and marks the beginning
of the second Punic war, when the Roman legions first entered
Spain. After a struggle which lasted for thirteen years the
Carthaginians were completely routed, and the country was
conquered by the arms of Rome. It was many years, however, before
the inhabitants were really subdued, but eventually they became
more completely Romanized than any province beyond the limits of
Italy. When brought under the iron rule of the Empire they were
forced to desist from the intestinal wars in which it had been
their habit to indulge, and adopting the language, laws and
manners of their conquerors, they devoted themselves to industrial
pursuits, and increased remarkably both in wealth and numbers.
Their fertile fields formed for a considerable time the granary of
Rome, and from the metal-veined mountains an immense amount of
gold and silver flowed into Roman coffers. However, these were not
voluntary offerings of the natives. They were compelled to labor
in the mines for the benefit of strangers, and thus Spain, in the
early ages, was the type of Spanish America in the fifteenth and
succeeding centuries, with the difference that in the first case
the Spaniards were the slaves, and in the second they were the
slave-holders.

For more than 300 years Spain remained under Roman rule, until in