Spania
| Province of Spania Provincia Spaniæ |
|||||
| Province of the Byzantine (Roman) Empire | |||||
|
|||||
 |
|||||
| Capital | Malaca (Málaga) or Carthago Spartaria (Cartagena) | ||||
| Historical era | Early Middle Ages | ||||
| • | Established | 552 | |||
| • | Disestablished | 624 | |||
| Today part of |
 Gibraltar Portugal Spain
|
||||
Spania (Latin: Provincia Spaniae) was a province of the Byzantine Empire from 552 until 624 in the south of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands. It was established by the Emperor Justinian I in an effort to restore the western provinces of the Empire.
In 409 the Vandals, Suebi and Alans, who had broken through the Roman border defences on the Rhine two years before, crossed the Pyrenees into the Iberian peninsula. Nevertheless, effective Roman rule was maintained over most areas through the death of Emperor Majorian in 461. The Visigoths, vassals of the Roman Empire who had settled in Aquitaine by imperial invitation (416), increasingly filled the vacuum left as the Vandals moved into Africa. In 468 they attacked and defeated the Suevi, who had occupied Roman Gallaecia were threatening to expand. A large scale migration of the Visigoths into Iberia began in 494 under Alaric II, and their overlordship of most of the eastern and central peninsula was established by 476. The Visigoths ended the Roman administration in Spain in 473, but they did not replace it with a provincial administration of their own until the early 6th century.
In 534, Roman general Belisarius re-established the Byzantine province of Mauretania with the conquest of the Vandal Kingdom in northern Africa. Despite his efforts, the Vandal king Gelimer had been unable to effect an alliance with the Gothic king Theudis, who probably took the opportunity of the collapse of Vandal authority to conquer Ceuta (Septem) across the Straits of Gibraltar in 533, possibly to keep it out of Byzantine hands. This citadel was nevertheless seized the following year by an expedition dispatched by Belisarius. Ceuta (which was briefly recaptured by the Visigoths in 540) became a part of Mauretania. It was an important base for reconnaissance of Spain in the years leading up to the peninsula's invasion by Justinian's forces in 552.
...
Wikipedia