Late Roman Hispania

Late Roman Hispania developed from the administrative reforms begun under Diocletian, when the Iberian provinces were reorganised within the Diocese of Hispania. Cities such as Carthago Nova remained connected to Mediterranean trade, while large rural estates, municipal offices, taxation and enslaved labour continued to structure economic and social life.

During the fourth century, Christian communities and bishops acquired increasing public influence alongside older religious practices. Imperial civil wars, military recruitment and competition among landowners connected the peninsula to wider struggles within the western empire. In 409, Vandals, Suebi and Alans crossed the Pyrenees, beginning a prolonged fragmentation of Roman rule.

For historical fiction, late Roman Hispania provides a setting in which urban decline, estate wealth, slavery, religious change and uncertain imperial authority exist together. James Hynes’s Sparrow and Peacock use Carthago Nova and the estate of Arcadia to explore these changes through people excluded from official political histories.