Iberia Won; A poem descriptive of the Peninsular War / With impressions from recent visits to the battle-grounds, and copious historical and illustrative notes

by T. M. Hughes

Se não quizera ir ver a terra Iberia.”

Lus. iv. 54.

Both names are properly applicable to the entire Peninsula, including Spain and Portugal, the second epithet, modified by the prefix Celto into “Celtiberia,” being the ancient name of Aragon and Catalonia, and Iliberia that of Granada. The name Iberia as applied to Spain is found in Virgil, Æn. ix. 582:

Pictus acu chlamydem, et ferrugine clarus Iberâ,

and under this name the country is described elaborately by Avienus (P. C. 380).

Quamque suis opibus cumulavit Iberia dives, &c.

Ausonius (also P. C. 380) makes use of both the names “Hispania” and “Iberia:”

His Hispanus ager tellus ubi dives Iberum.

Juvenal (P. C. 120) uses the name “Hispania” as the distinctive appellation of the country, which became better and more perilously known in his time than in the days of Horace and Virgil: