Editing Iberian Peninsula (section)

==Etymology==
[[File:Sesars.svg|thumb|[[Northeastern Iberian script]] from [[Province of Huesca|Huesca]]]]
The Iberian Peninsula has always been associated with the River [[Ebro]] (Ibēros in [[ancient Greek]] and Ibērus or Hibērus in [[Latin]]). The association was so well known it was hardly necessary to state; for example, Ibēria was the country "this side of the Ibērus" in Strabo. [[Pliny the Elder|Pliny]] goes so far as to assert that the Greeks had called "the whole of the peninsula" Hiberia because of the Hiberus River.<ref>III.3.21.</ref> The river appears in the [[Ebro Treaty]] of 226 BCE between Rome and Carthage, setting the limit of Carthaginian interest at the Ebro. The fullest description of the treaty, stated in [[Appian]],<ref>{{cite web|first=Horace|last=White|author2=Jona Lendering|title=Appian's History of Rome: The Spanish Wars (§§6–10)|url=https://www.livius.org/ap-ark/appian/appian_spain_02.html#%A77|publisher=livius.org|access-date=1 December 2008|pages=Chapter 7|archive-date=20 December 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081220045731/http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/appian/appian_spain_02.html#%A77|url-status=dead}}</ref> uses Ibērus. With reference to this border, [[Polybius]]<ref>{{cite web|title=Polybius: The Histories: III.6.2|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html|publisher=Bill Thayer}}</ref> states that the "native name" is ''Ibēr'', apparently the original word, stripped of its Greek or Latin ''-os'' or ''-us'' termination.

The early range of these natives, which geographers and historians place from the present southern Spain to the present southern France along the Mediterranean coast, is marked by instances of a readable script expressing a yet unknown language, dubbed "[[Iberian language|Iberian]]". Whether this was the native name or was given to them by the Greeks for their residence near the Ebro remains unknown. Credence in Polybius imposes certain limitations on etymologizing: if the language remains unknown, the meanings of the words, including Iber, must also remain unknown. 

In modern [[basque language|Basque]], the word ''ibar''<ref name="Morris">[http://www1.euskadi.net/morris/dictionary.htm Morris Student Plus], Basque-English dictionary</ref> means "valley" or "watered meadow", while ''ibai''<ref name="Morris"/> means "river", but there is no proof connecting the names with ''Ebro'' or ''Iberia''.

===Greek name===
The word ''Iberia'' comes from the [[Latin]] word {{lang|la|Hiberia}} originating from the [[Ancient Greek]] word {{lang|grc|Ἰβηρία}} ({{transliteration|grc|Ibēríā}}), used by Greek geographers under the rule of the [[Roman Empire]] to refer to what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula.<ref name="LyonsPapadopoulos2002">{{cite book|author1=Claire L. Lyons|author2=John K. Papadopoulos|title=The Archaeology of Colonialism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xB7EZ9L7y-gC&pg=PA68|year=2002|publisher=Getty Publications|isbn=978-0-89236-635-4|pages=68–69}}</ref> At that time, the name did not describe a single geographical entity or a distinct population; the same name was used for the [[Kingdom of Iberia]], natively known as [[Kartli]] in the [[Caucasus]], the core region of what would later become the [[Kingdom of Georgia]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Strabo|author-link=Strabo|title=Geographica|chapter=Book III Chapter 1 Section 6|quote=And also the other Iberians use an alphabet, though not letters of one and the same character, for their speech is not one and the same.|title-link=Geographica}}</ref> 

It was [[Strabo]] who first reported the delineation of {{transliteration|grc|Iberia}} from [[Gaul]] ({{transliteration|grc|Keltikē}}) by the [[Pyrenees]]<ref name="Ebel1976">{{cite book|author=Charles Ebel|title=Transalpine Gaul: The Emergence of a Roman Province|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lbwUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA49|year=1976|publisher=Brill Archive|isbn=90-04-04384-5|pages=48–49}}</ref> and included the entire land mass southwest (he says "west") from there.<ref name="Padrón2004">{{cite book|author=Ricardo Padrón|title=The Spacious Word: Cartography, Literature, and Empire in Early Modern Spain|url=https://archive.org/details/spaciouswordcart0000padr|url-access=registration|date=1 February 2004|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-64433-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/spaciouswordcart0000padr/page/252 252]}}</ref> With the fall of the [[Western Roman Empire]] and the consolidation of [[Romance languages]], the word "Iberia" continued the Roman word {{lang|la|Hiberia}} and the Greek word {{lang|grc|Ἰβηρία}}.

The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from the [[Phoenicians]], by voyaging westward on the [[Mediterranean]].<ref name="WaldmanMason2006">{{cite book|author1=Carl Waldman|author2=Catherine Mason|title=Encyclopedia of European Peoples|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kfv6HKXErqAC&pg=PA404|year=2006|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-2918-1|page=404}}</ref> [[Hecataeus of Miletus]] was the first known to use the term {{transliteration|grc|Iberia}}, which he wrote about {{circa|500 BCE}}.<ref>{{cite book|last=Strabo|author-link=Strabo|others=Horace Leonard Jones (trans.) |title=The Geography|volume=II|date=1988|publisher=Bill Thayer|location=Cambridge|language=el, en|page=118, Note 1 on 3.4.19|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/3D*.html#note124}}</ref> [[Herodotus]] of Halicarnassus says of the [[Phocaea]]ns that "it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with [...] Iberia."<ref name="Herodotus1827">{{cite book|author=Herodotus|title=The nine books of the History of Herodotus, tr. from the text of T. Gaisford, with notes and a summary by P. E. Laurent|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rledbh92a0QC&pg=PA75|year=1827|page=75}}</ref> According to [[Strabo]],<ref name="III.4.19">Geography III.4.19.</ref> prior historians used {{transliteration|grc|Iberia}} to mean the country "this side of the {{lang|grc|Ἶβηρος}} ({{transliteration|grc|Ibēros}}, the [[Ebro]]) as far north as the [[Rhône]], but in his day they set the [[Pyrenees]] as the limit. [[Polybius]] respects that limit,<ref>III.37.</ref> but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as [[Gibraltar]], with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere<ref>III.17.</ref> he says that [[Sagunto|Saguntum]] is "on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia."

===Roman names===
{{main|Hispania}}
According to Charles Ebel, the ancient sources in both Latin and Greek use ''Hispania'' and ''Hiberia'' (Greek: ''Iberia'') as synonyms. The confusion of the words was because of an overlapping in political and geographic perspectives. The Latin word ''Hiberia'', similar to the Greek ''Iberia'', literally translates to "land of the Hiberians". This word was derived from the river ''Hiberus'' (now called [[Ebro]] or Ebre). ''Hiber'' (Iberian) was thus used as a term for peoples living near the river Ebro.<ref name="Ebel1976" /><ref name="Gaffiot1934">{{cite book|author=Félix Gaffiot|title=Dictionnaire illustré latin-français|url=https://archive.org/stream/FelixGaffiotDictionnaireIllustr.LatinFrancais/DictionnaireIllustr-Latin-Franais#page/n773/mode/2up|year=1934|publisher=Hachette|page=764}}</ref> The first mention in Roman literature was by the annalist poet [[Ennius]] in 200 BCE.<ref name="Woolf2012">{{cite book|author=Greg Woolf|title=Rome: An Empire's Story|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wb13HpLmecgC&pg=PA18|date=8 June 2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-997217-3|page=18|author-link=Greg Woolf}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Berkshire Review|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WJ4xAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Quintus%20Ennius%22|year=1965|publisher=Williams College|page=7}}</ref><ref name="Vega2003">{{cite book|author=Carlos B. Vega|title=Conquistadoras: Mujeres Heroicas de la Conquista de America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=60n1RxTE94EC&pg=PA15|date=2 October 2003|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-8208-5|page=15}}</ref> [[Virgil]] wrote ''impacatos (H)iberos'' ("restless Iberi") in his [[Georgics]].<ref name="Virgil1846">{{cite book|author=Virgil|title=The Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil|url=https://archive.org/details/ecloguesandgeor02virggoog|year=1846|publisher=Harper & Brothers|page=[https://archive.org/details/ecloguesandgeor02virggoog/page/n342 377]|isbn=9789644236174}}</ref> 

Roman geographers and other prose writers from the time of the late [[Roman Republic]] called the entire peninsula ''[[Hispania]]''. In Greek and Roman antiquity, the name ''Hesperia'' was used for both the Italian and Iberian Peninsula; in the latter case ''Hesperia Ultima'' (referring to its position in the far west) appears as form of disambiguation from the former among Roman writers.{{Sfn|Vernet Pons|2014|p=307}} Also since Roman antiquity, Jews gave the name ''[[Sepharad]]'' to the peninsula.{{Sfn|Vernet Pons|2014|p=297}}

As they became politically interested in the former Carthaginian territories, the Romans began to use the names ''Hispania Citerior'' and ''Hispania Ulterior'' for 'near' and 'far' Hispania. At the time Hispania was made up of three [[Roman province]]s: [[Hispania Baetica]], [[Hispania Tarraconensis]], and [[Hispania Lusitania]]. Strabo says<ref name="III.4.19"/> that the Romans use ''Hispania'' and ''Iberia'' synonymously, distinguishing between the ''near'' northern and the ''far'' southern provinces. (The name ''Iberia'' was ambiguous, being also the name of the [[Kingdom of Iberia (antiquity)|Kingdom of Iberia]] in the Caucasus.)

Whatever languages may generally have been spoken on the peninsula soon gave way to Latin, except for that of the [[Vascones]], which was preserved as a [[language isolate]] by the barrier of the Pyrenees.

=== Modern name ===
The modern phrase "Iberian Peninsula" was coined by the French geographer [[Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent]] on his 1823 work ''"Guide du Voyageur en Espagne"''. Prior to that date, geographers had used the terms 'Spanish Peninsula' or 'Pyrenaean Peninsula'.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://age.ieg.csic.es/hispengeo/documentos/quirosbory.pdf |title=La contribución de Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778–1846) al conocimiento geográfico de la Península Ibérica |access-date=5 April 2020 |archive-date=25 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200925133710/http://age.ieg.csic.es/hispengeo/documentos/quirosbory.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>