Roman dioceseIn the Late Roman Empire, usually dated 284 AD to 602 AD, the regional governance district known as the Roman or civil diocese was made up of a grouping of provinces each headed by a Vicarius, who were the representatives of praetorian prefects (who governed directly the dioceses they were resident in). There were initially twelve dioceses, rising to fourteen by the end of the 4th century. The term diocese comes from the dioecēsis, which derives from the dioíkēsis (διοίκησις) meaning "administration", "management", "assize district", or "group of provinces".
Visigothic KingdomThe Visigothic Kingdom, Visigothic Spain or Kingdom of the Goths (Regnum Gothorum) occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to the Western Roman Empire, it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of Gallia Aquitania in southwest Gaul by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of Hispania.
MunicipiumIn ancient Rome, the Latin term Municipium (pl. municipia) referred to a town or city. Etymologically, the municipium was a social contract among municipes ("duty holders"), or citizens of the town. The duties (munera) were a communal obligation assumed by the municipes in exchange for the privileges and protections of citizenship. Every citizen was a municeps. The distinction of municipia was not made in the Roman Kingdom; instead, the immediate neighbours of the city were invited or compelled to transfer their populations to the urban structure of Rome, where they took up residence in neighbourhoods and became Romans per se.
ReccopolisReccopolis (Recópolis; Reccopolis), located near the tiny modern village of Zorita de los Canes in the province of Guadalajara, Castile-La Mancha, Spain, is an archaeological site of one of at least four cities founded in Hispania by the Visigoths. It is one of only two cities in Western Europe known to have been founded between the fifth and eighth centuries. Reccopolis was founded in the year 578. The date is given in chronicle of John of Biclaro: With tyrants destroyed on all sides and the invaders of Spain overcome, King Leovigild had peace to reside with his own people.
Province of AlmeríaAlmería (ˌælməˈriːə, also USˌɑːl-, almeˈɾi.a) is a province of the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. It is bordered by the provinces of Granada, Murcia, and the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital is the homonymous city of Almería. Almería has an area of . With 701,688 (2014) inhabitants, its population density is 79.96/km2, slightly lower than the Spanish average. It is divided into 103 municipalities. The highest mountain range in the Province of Almería is the long Sierra de Los Filabres.
ItalicaItalica (Itálica) was an ancient Roman city in Hispania; its site is close to the town of Santiponce in the province of Seville, Spain. It was founded in 206 BC by Roman general Scipio as a colonia for his Italic veterans and named after them. Italica later grew attracting new migrants from the Italian peninsula and also with the children of Roman soldiers and native women.
Battle of GuadaleteThe Battle of Guadalete was the first major battle of the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, fought in 711 at an unidentified location in what is now southern Spain between the Christian Visigoths under their king, Roderic, and the invading forces of the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate, composed mainly of Berbers and some Arabs under the commander Ṭāriq ibn Ziyad. The battle was significant as the culmination of a series of Berber attacks and the beginning of the Umayyad conquest of Hispania.
CynetesThe Cynetes or Conii were one of the pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, living in today's Algarve and Lower Alentejo regions of southern Portugal, and the southern part of Badajoz and the northwestern portions of Córdoba and Ciudad Real provinces in Spain before the 6th century BCE (in what part of this become the southern part of the Roman province of Lusitania). According to Justin's epitome, the mythical Gargoris and Habis were their founding kings.
MértolaMértola (ˈmɛɾtulɐ) is a town and municipality in southeastern Portuguese Alentejo near the Spanish border. In 2011, the population was 7,274, in an area of approximately : it is the sixth-largest municipality in Portugal. Meanwhile, it is the second-lowest population centre by density with approximately 5.62 persons/ (second to the adjacent Alcoutim). The seat of the municipality is the town of Mértola, which has around 2800 inhabitants (2011), located on a hill over the Guadiana River.
Roman metallurgyMetals and metal working had been known to the people of modern Italy since the Bronze Age. By 53 BC, Rome had expanded to control an immense expanse of the Mediterranean. This included Italy and its islands, Spain, Macedonia, Africa, Asia Minor, Syria and Greece; by the end of the Emperor Trajan's reign, the Roman Empire had grown further to encompass parts of Britain, Egypt, all of modern Germany west of the Rhine, Dacia, Noricum, Judea, Armenia, Illyria, and Thrace (Shepard 1993).
