Identity Constructs among the Phoenicians in Roman Hispania: the Role of Past and Tradition.

Abstract

This paper focuses on the cultural and ethnic dimensions of the process of integration of the Phoenician communities of the south of the Iberian Peninsula into the structure of Rome, from the end of the Second Punic War in 206 BCE to the last quarter of the first century CE. Roman imperialism in Hispania clearly resulted in struggles over territory, power and cultural identity, but the archaeological and literary evidence points to a reality different than that underlying much of old narratives of opposition. Usually, those struggles have been conceptualized as Roman versus local identities, but not as a generational choices involving old and new practices. In the case of Phoenician communities of southern Hispania, the survival of cultural elements rooted in traditions prior to the arrival of Rome does not indicate an active and hostile resistance to Roman customs. On the contrary, this continuity is seen as a way of giving free rein to integration without renouncing the particularities, and putting emphasis on the past and the tradition. This phenomenon, equivalent to what is known as “symbolic ethnicity”, could be linked to the need for legitimation of the local elites, immersed in the complex game of identity oppositions and aggregations that held the ideological structures of Rome, rather accommodating concerning the integration of the conquered peoples.