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Neddyseagoon just added a Template:Campaignbox Roman conquest of Spain to several articles (I presume). This is not acceptable and is clearly POV. Not the use of a campaignbox, but saying it is of the Roman conquest of Spain. It was not the modern country of Spain that the Romans invaded and conquered, it was the whole of the
Iberian Peninsula.
Iberia or
Hispania, covers not only the modern country of
Spain, but
Portugal also. The word "Spain" in modern English (and its counterparts in other languages) means the country of
Spain, not all of the
Iberian peninsula (as the respective articles show). The fact is that
Castillian expansionism over the centuries (ask not only the
Portuguese, but also the
Galicians, the
Basques or the
Catalans...) tried to monopolize the definition of Iberia in a way that satisfied its imperial interests. In fact, even if Spain was used in ancient times to refer to the whole of Iberia, today it is not. In this sense, given that the Kingdom of Spain only emerges with the union of
Castille and
Aragon in
1492 (and this is disputed since
Navarre was only incoporated in
1512), one can almost say that there was never a Spain before that! It was Iberia that was conquered by the
Romans, who called it Hispania. The country of Spain didn't exist then. It was Hispania that was conquered by
Suevi,
Vandals,
Alans and
Visigoths. The country of Spain didn't exist then. It was Visigothic Hispania that was conquered by the
Moors. The country of Spain didn't exist then. The Moorish conquest was of Iberia or Hispania (that should not be confused with Spain, even if the term
Hispanic is used to denote Spanish speaking peoples), and they called it
Al-Andalus. This conquest and subsequent occupation led to a Christian reaction know as the
Reconquista from which several Christian kingdoms emerged (such as
Asturias,
León,
Castille,
Portugal,
Navarre, etc.). Over time Castille came to dominate most of Iberia (but not Portugal, except for a small period between 1580 and 1640) and the use of the castillian word "España" (which is the castillian version of latin Hispania) started as a political strategy to curb autonomy or independence from centralist Madrid (for the same reason Castillian language started to be known as Spanish, implying the irrelevance of other Iberian languages - this was still a problem in the Spain of the 20th century, with the active repression of languages other than Castillian). Furthermore, if you call Spain to the Iberian peninsula, this not only is simply not true, but is felt as profoundly offensive at least by the Portuguese. For all these reasons and more, the Template Campaignbox Roman conquest of Spain should be renamed Campaignbox Roman conquest of Hispania. I'm doing just that.
The Ogre 17:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)reply