Strabo and the Invention of Turdetania

Abstract

The work of recent years has been fundamental in expanding our understanding of how ancient geographers and historians perceived the Iberian Peninsula*.1 Strabo's Book 3 has been central to this effort, as it is a complete source that synthesizes this ancient perception, from Iberia's first emergence onto the historical and cultural horizon of the Greeks, up to the first century ce. It constitutes a unicum: there is no other ancient text on Iberia that equals it in information or potential for analysis. This chapter will not only focus on the particularities of Strabo's description of Turdetania. It will also question whether this literary construct may also be explained as a redefinition of Roman imperial ideology and, consequently, of romanization in Hispania. The image of Tartessus as a lost and legendary civilization with which the Greeks developed a special relationship of amicitia at around the seventh century bce, was an idea created by the geographer from Amaseia, one which has been enthusiastically adopted by scholars in Spain and abroad from the nineteenth century onwards.2 Hence, Turdetania, as a corollary of Tartessus, is also a part of Strabo's carefully crafted narrative.3 From the beginning of Book 3, Strabo clearly attempts to establish a comparison between Turdetania-Baetica and the remainder of the Iberian territories (although these varied in degrees of transition between barbarianism and civilization). The first is the ideal example of a harmonious coexistence