ABSTRACT

This chapter explores how contact between Iberian and eastern Mediterranean cultures created hybrid cultures, and how hybridity is viewed by modern scholars. The evidence indicates that in the Roman period, local identities persisted, as terms such as Emporitani Hispani indicates a deep level of hybridisation of Greek and Iberian culture, so that Romans may not have been able to differentiate between the two groups at Emporion. The ancient world of the Mediterranean was neither 'Romanised' nor 'orientalised', but began to follow along a general cultural trend towards a very broad cultural homogeneity, and rather than losing all traces of original culture, local culture became hybridised with traits from several influences to appear somewhat more like those the Iberians interacted with. The most prominent Phoenician city in the far western Mediterranean is Gadir (modern Cadiz), and was perhaps the largest of the Phoenician communities in Spain.