The Economy of Romanized Spain

The Economy in Roman Spain

The economy of Spain experienced a strong evolution during and after Rome’s conquest of the peninsular territory. Only after acquiring the land did the Roman Empire appreciate its value and potential. The Romans quickly maximized the land’s potential making it one of the largest financial supporters behind the surge of Rome.

Economy of the Romanized Spain

With their conquest of the Spanish peninsula, Rome acquired one of the largest labor forces of any of the Romanized territories. After quickly realizing this, Rome pushed to exploit this resource as soon as possible. During the era of Roman domination, Rome helped develop and expand Spain’s economy by creating road infrastructures and commercial routes which opened Spain’s markets to the rest of the empire.

Monetary Circulation

One of most obvious foreign cultural influences in Spain was the coining of currency to facilitate commercial transactions. Before the Roman occupation, the peninsula’s economy was based on the barter system, exchanging products rather than currency. At the beginning of the third century BC., Greek colonies began coining local currencies.

Later, Carthage introduced a more general currency so that their troops could have a uniformed form of payment. After the Roman invasion of Carthage, Rome imposed a uniformed currency in all of their territories, including the Spanish peninsula, which was supported and secured by the Roman treasury. Based on the large amount of low-value currency found dating back to this time, it appears that this currency was widely used for daily transactions. During Rome’s lengthy domination in Spain, many towns minted their own currencies to better facilitate local commercial trade in areas of low Roman control.

Rome maintained a Republic during their occupation in the Spanish peninsula. The senate completely controlled the minting of currency through local magistrates in each of their territories. With the increase of dictators within the empire, the Senate’s control was more limited, transferring control of several of their mints to imperial control.

Once power in the Spanish peninsula was united under the Roman Empire, there were already many mints producing currency, e.g. Tarragona, Italica, Barcelona, and Saragossa. Throughout the entire Roman Empire, around 400 currency mints provided currency to the majority of Europe, North Africa and in the Eastern Orient.

The Commerce of Salted Meats

Archaeologists accidentally uncovered evidence for a flourished salted meat industry while digging in the southern areas of the Spanish peninsula searching for amphora (ceramic vases. Historical evidence suggests the production and commercialization of salted fish and meats date back to the beginning of the 5th century BC, prior to the rise of the Carthaginians. Carthage has been credited responsibility for extending the trade of salted meats throughout the Mediterranean stretching to North Africa and the Spanish peninsula.

During the Roman period, Lusitania led the way in establishing the Spanish peninsula as an established salting commerce market that supplied salted meats to all of Western Europe. Spain’s productivity was evident not only in their salted meats and fish, but also with the garum sauce. This sauce was made by macerating and soaking the bowels of fish. The production of garum complemented another export of the Spanish peninsula, amphora, which in this case were used to package and transport garum. Because of conserved remains of garum found in vases throughout the Spanish peninsula, archaeologists were able to better understand the history of Spain’s industry and economy during the occupation of the Roman Empire.