Brief history of Ibiza (3rd part)

(by Pablo Burgués)

Hi, friends, as I’ve been telling you in the last two weeks, throughout history there have been many nations that have come to show off at the heavenly beaches in Ibiza. Today I come to tell you about the Romans, those nice beings who, after being a pain for the Carthaginians, turned the Mediterranean into their private Aquapark (or mare nostrum, for the purists).

All began in 123 B.C. (before Christy) when, after conquering Carthage, Rome decided it was time to get those little islands at the Western Mediterranean that weren’t under their domain yet. The soldier chosen for that mission was somebody called Quintus Caecilius Metellus, who, thinking that would be a piece of cake, went there dressed with a skirt and flip-flops.

Talking about the always-elegant Italian fashion, I’ll tell you a joke: do you know why Caesar always wore sandals?... because he was Julius (July) Caesar.

Having said this and waiting to get an email from Typic Hotels telling me that I’m so funny that from now on they’ll order the blog to Arévalo, let’s go on with the story…

It turns out that the conquest of the islands was not as easy as the Romans thought it would be, because at that time neither Tourism Degree nor Protocol Degree existed yet. And the hardened islanders, instead of welcoming the visitors with discount vouchers and free shots at Amnesia, welcomed them throwing stones. For this reason the archipelago began to be known as The Balearics, that etymologically means more or less “land of slingers”, or “girl, you cannot imagine the enviable aim of those mad guys who throw stones with a rope”.

After two years of stone after stone, open wound after open wound, Rome could finally add The Balearics to its empire, and thus they got complete control on the Mediterranean Sea routes. Ibiza became Ebusus and together with Formentera it was named as the Pityusic Islands, that means “land of pine trees”, or “girl, thanks goodness this is full of trees, because with this suntrap I was burning”.

Ebusus was equipped with all the picturesque gadgets of the Roman cities, such as the S’Argamassa aqueduct (in Santa Eulària des Riu), a forum (which location is unknown nowadays) and a good number of statues of the influencers who were on top in Rome at those times (such as the goddess Juno or the soldier Gaius Julius Caesar, that today we can gaze at the main entrance of the Dalt Vila walls.

However, little by little the commercial relevance of Ibiza went into decline because the Romans took all their business to Mallorca harbour. In the V century, after the fall of the Roman Empire, all the Balearics were under the control of the Vandals, some altruistic and very nice guys who had a very bad press, poor guys. But I’ll tell you about this and much more next week.

To be continued…

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Translation: Dora Sales