The Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was a process by which the Roman Republic occupied territories in the Iberian Peninsula that were previously under the control of native Celtic, Iberian, Celtiberian and Aquitanian tribes and the Carthaginian Empire. The Carthaginian territories in the south and east of the peninsula were conquered in 206 BC during the Second Punic War. Control was gradually extended over most of the Iberian Peninsula without annexations. It was completed after the end of the Roman Republic (27 BC), by Augustus, the first Roman emperor, who annexed the whole of the peninsula to the Roman Empire in 19 BC. This conquest of the peninsula started with the Roman acquisition of the former Carthaginian territories in southern Hispania and along the east coast as a result of their defeating the Carthaginians (206 BC) during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC), after which the Carthaginian forces left the peninsula. This resulted in an ongoing Roman territorial presence in southern and eastern Hispania. Four years after the end of this war, in 197 BC, the Romans established two Roman provinces. These were Hispania Citerior (Nearer Spain) along most of the east coast (an area roughly corresponding to the modern Spanish autonomous communities of Valencia, Catalonia and part of Aragon) and Hispania Ulterior (Further Spain) in the south, roughly corresponding to modern Andalusia. Over the next 170 years, the Roman Republic slowly expanded its control over Hispania. This was a gradual process of economic, diplomatic and cultural infiltration and colonization, with campaigns of military suppression when there was native resistance, rather than the result of a single policy of conquest. The Romans turned some of the native cities outside their two provinces into tributary cities and established outposts and Roman colonies (settlements) to expand their control. Administrative arrangements were ad hoc. Governors who were sent to Hispania tended to act quite independently from the Senate due to the great distance from Rome. In the latter part of this period, the Roman Senate attempted to exercise more control in Hispania, but this was to try to curb abuse and extortion by some Roman officials based in the peninsula. During this period, conquest was a process of assimilation of the local tribes into the Roman culture and its economic system and laws. This changed after the end of the Republic and the establishment of rule by emperors in Rome. After the