Hispanics in the Roman army

Peoples from the Iberian Peninsula played a vital role in the Roman army even before their Roman conquest was finished. The resultant province of Hispania would become the biggest source of military manpower for Rome, with Hispanics (Hispanorum) numbering only second to Italics in the imperial Roman army for the first two centuries AD, until being eventually displaced by recruited Germanic peoples in the mid-3rd century. The Hispanics, famous by their singular warrior culture, transferred to Rome the military services they had played for Carthage during the Punic Wars, serving first as auxilia and later as soldiers, bodyguards and praetorians.