The coloniser peoples

The Phoenicians came from the city-States of the East coast of the Mediterranean, such as Tyre and Sidon. Trade was a fundamental activity in its economy. For this reason, they sailed through the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic coast in search of areas to trade

During the First millennium BC, they established settlements, called factories, in Sicily, in the north of Africa, where they founded Carthage, and in the Iberian Peninsula. Among the factories of the Peninsula were Gadir (area of the current Cadiz), Sexi (Almuñécar), Malacca (Málaga) or Abdera (Adra). The Phoenicians had relations with the people who inhabited the Peninsula, especially with Tartessos.

The Phoenician commercial control fell towards the year 539 BC, when the Persians conquered their most important cities-State.

Phoenicia - Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)

The Greeks were the great commercial rivals of the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean Sea. They arrived in the Iberian Peninsula between the 8th and 7th centuries BC in search of metals, and were installed mainly in the Levant.

The Greeks founded colonies, such as Rhodes (Roses), Hemeroskopeion (Dénia) and Emporion (Ampurias).

Mediterranean colonies (Dominio público)

The Carthaginians were the successors of the Phoenicians. They came from Carthage, located in North Africa, near the current Tunisia

They Controlled the Phoenician factories and founded other ones, such as Carthago Nova (Cartagena) and Ebyssos (Ibiza). But, unlike the Phoenicians, Carthaginian colonization had a military character, occupying areas of the South Peninsular and expelling the Greeks from the western Mediterranean

However, in the 3RD century B.C., the Carthaginian interests collided with those ones of Rome. The Romans and Carthaginians faced in the Punic Wars. The Second Punic War was partly developed in the Iberian Peninsula. When the Romans defeated the Carthaginian army, led by Aníbal, the Carthaginians were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands.