Lusitania Lusitania Lusitania (; ; ) or Hispania Lusitana was an ancient Iberian Roman province located where modern Portugal (south of the Douro river) and part of western Spain (the present autonomous community of Extremadura and a part of the province of Salamanca) lie. It was named after the Lusitani or Lusitanian people (an Indo-European people). Its capital was "Emerita Augusta" (currently Mérida, Spain), and it was initially part of the Roman Republic province of Hispania Ulterior, before becoming a province of its own in the Roman Empire. Romans first came to the territory around the mid-2nd century BC. A war
Lusitania "a country of waters", a root word that formerly meant a prince or sovereign governor of a region. Ancient Romans, such as Pliny the Elder ("Natural History", 3.5) and Varro (116 – 27 BC, cited by Pliny), speculated that the name "Lusitania" had Roman origins, as when Pliny says "lusum enim Liberi Patris aut lyssam cum eo bacchantium nomen dedisse Lusitaniae et Pana praefectum eius universae" [Lusitania takes its name from the "Lusus" associated with Bacchus and the "Lyssa" of his Bacchantes, and Pan is its governor]. "Lusus" is usually translated as "game" or "play", while "lyssa" is a borrowing