CONNECTION, NOT IBERIAN PIECE · EPILOGUE · PEOPLE BETWEEN TWO FRAMES

Choosing under Rome

Romanisation was also negotiation, loss and opportunity

The Roman conquest changed the life of the Iberian communities, although many customs continued.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

Image of Choosing under Rome — **DECLARED VISUAL RECONSTRUCTION · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS**
Generated reconstruction · Declared visual hypothesis
Declared visual reconstruction, created for museographic contextualisation; not a photograph of the original nor does it constitute documentary evidence.

History and context

The conquest initiated in 218 BCE did not produce a homogeneous substitution. Communities, aristocracies and workshops negotiated with an unequal military and fiscal power: some families resisted, others collaborated and many changed strategy over generations.

Roman clothing, citizenship, military service, Latin writing or municipal offices could become tools of local competition. At the same time, there was violence, dispossession, enslavement, abandonment of cities and reordering of resources.

The museum closes with concrete decisions: a horseman accepting service, a potter adapting a form, a family latinising a name, and a sanctuary maintaining an ancient recipient on a new altar.

Evidence and interpretation

Documented fact: regional diversity in urban sequences, epigraphy, recruitment, production and cult. Interpretation and caution: 'romanisation' describes multiple and asymmetrical processes; it is not a single arrow of progress nor an instantaneous disappearance of the indigenous.

Catalogue facts

Narrative date: From the late 3rd century BCE to the High Empire
Location: Mediterranean and southern Hispania
Material: Inscriptions, cities, workshops, coins and sanctuaries
Context: Interpretative synthesis based on archaeological cases
Classification: Comparative connection · must not be presented as an Iberian piece
Visual reference: Comparative montage: inscription, potter's wheel and Iberian-Roman urban fabric

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: September 5, 2026.

An indigenous divine name written in Latin

The publication of the small altar of Betatun, from the surroundings of Fuerte del Rey, showed how a Latin dedication could preserve an Iberian religious name. Researchers studied it alongside reports of a Roman sanctuary and anatomical votives, although looting had severely damaged the context. The inscription allows us to observe a combination that rigid cultural labels conceal: using the language of Roman power did not require abandoning each local religious recipient. Nor do we know, from this single name alone, the entire mythology or ceremonies of the cult.

Research · S. Corzo, M. Pastor, A. U. Stylow and J. Untermann · Betatun, the first Iberian divinity identified, Palaeohispanica 7, 2007Access recorded: September 5, 2026.

Sources and references

Expand this information and consult its provenance

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