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The Ancient Age was a period characterised by conquest and Romanisation of the Iberian Peninsula. This Roman control over the Peninsula led to the widespread use of the Roman term ''Hispania'' when referring to the collective peninsular territories. Gradually, the inhabitants of Hispania adopted the politics, language, culture, way of thinking and lifestyles of the Roman empire.
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Thirty years later, the Cantabrian Wars broke out (26-19 BC), initiated by Augustus, the first Roman emperor, with the objective of defeating the Galicians, Asturians and Cantabrians. A year before, he had reorganised the Peninsula into three provinces: ''Tarraconensis, Lusitania'' and ''Baetica''. Hispania was then completely under the new Roman rule, officially converting into an empire. By this time, its inhabitants had forgotten their old, native traditions and customs and had developed a well-formulated idea of their identity as Hispano-Romans.}}
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[[File:Enelaboracion.jpg|left|thumb|none|300px|Map: Roman Hispania. The start of the conquest (since 218 BC). Spain.
<span style="color: #b20027; ">14006 [PDF]. [Datos]. </span>]]
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[[File:Enelaboracion.jpg|left|thumb|none|300px|Map: Roman Hispania. Celtiberian and Lusitanian wars (155-133 BC). Spain.
<span style="color: #b20027; ">14007 [PDF]. [Datos]. </span>]]
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[[File:Enelaboracion.jpg|left|thumb|none|300px|Map: Roman Hispania. Cantabrian wars (circa 30 BC)
<span style="color: #b20027; ">13986 [PDF]. [Datos]. </span>]]
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The construction of Roman roads uniting the now very Romanised 150 cities in Hispania facilitated a rapid distribution of raw materials and merchandise. The development of highly-advanced technology enabled them to go through mountains and rivers as well as the construction of aqueducts, civic centres, sports complexes, institutional buildings and recreational spaces. The road system ran north-south with two major thoroughfares: ''Vía de la Plata'', from sea to sea, and ''Vía Augusta'', extending all the way to the city of Rome. These two roads were linked in turn from east to west by two parallel roads originating in Asturica Augusta and Italica. And lastly, there was a diagonal causeway joining Emerita Augusta with Cesaraugusta.
Navigating the coastline along the extension of the ''Mare Nostrum'' and up to Rome was faster and cheaper than travelling by land. Transport ships enabled the crossing of rivers such as the Guadalquivir to reach Corduba (Córdoba), the Guadiana to reach Emerita Augusta, and the Ebro to arrive in the cities of Cesaraugusta (where the port is visible) and Calagurris.
Production on the Peninsula at this time was primarily based on agriculture, livestock and mining. Cultivation of the Mediterranean dietary trilogy of wheat, olives and wine as well as the herds of horses and flocks of sheep were the basis of wealth in Hispania. While the successful exportation of wine, oil, wool and ''garum'' (a unique seasoned sauce produced in the southwest) brought prosperity to prominent Hispano-Roman families, the mining of metals was an even more lucrative enterprise. There were numerous mining settlements and drilling was commonplace. Sophisticated extraction techniques such as the ''ruina montium'' were used. This technique involved the digging of cavities in mountains, which when filled with water, fragmented the rock walls. Though inadvertent, this technique produced spectacular landscapes like Las Médulas. Mining also greatly increased the wealth of the Roman State, both from its own mining operations or by collecting money from private mining companies financed by aristocratic capital.
The strong economic growth of Hispania and its integration into the Roman Empire afforded the wealthy Hispano-Roman clans the privilege of obtaining Roman citizenship. Three centuries later, in 212, the Edict of Caracalla granted citizenship to all inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula.
In the rural areas, a rich, ancestral palace of a noble man was called a villa; the same name was indistinctively given to a nobleman's agricultural exploitation of his land and his peasants' small villages, which included their bakeries, blacksmith's, carpenter's, mills and ponds. The aristocratic land owners retreated to these villas during the crises of the 2<sup>nd</sup> and 3<sup>rd</sup> centuries, periods which brought economic insecurity and in effect, misery. Rural life guaranteed a level of subsistence that the cities could no longer provide.
Facing the crisis of the 3<sup>rd</sup> century, Diocletian (284-305) carried out an administrative, military and economic restructuring of the Roman Empire. The three provinces of Hispania were divided into five regions: ''Tarraconensis, Cartaginensis, Baetica, Lusitania'' and ''Gallaecia''. However, economic reform brought poverty. Slaves, who were very costly, were emancipated and inevitably became peasants, servants, manual labourers, and even, personal bodyguards for the lords and their possessions. The development of this system of multiple autonomous regions with a central governing power (which also protected life against hunger or thieves), forebode the manorial system of feudalism.
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