Gallaecia, also known as Hispania Gallaecia, was the name of a Roman province in the north-west of Hispania, approximately present-day Galicia, northern Portugal, Asturias and Leon and the later Kingdom of Gallaecia. The Roman cities included the port Cale (Porto), the governing centers Bracara Augusta (Braga), Lucus Augusti (Lugo) and Asturica Augusta (Astorga) and their administrative areas Conventus bracarensis, Conventus lucensis and Conventus asturicensis. Description The Romans named the northwest part of Hispania or the Iberian Peninsula Gallaecia after the celtic tribes of the area the Gallaeci or Gallaecians. The Gallaic make their entry into written history in the first-century epic Punica of Silius Italicus on the First Punic War: Fibrarum et pennae divinarumque sagacem flammarum misit dives Callaecia pubem, barbara nunc patriis ululantem carmina linguis, nunc pedis alterno percussa verbere terra, ad numerum resonas gaudentem plaudere caetras. (book III.344-7) "Rich Gallaecia sent its youths, wise in the knowledge of divination by the entrails of beasts, by feathers and flames— who, now crying out the barbarian song of their native tongue, now alternately stamping the ground in their rhythmic dances until the ground rang, and accompanying the playing with sonorous caetrae" (a caetra was a small type of shield used in the region). Gallaecia, as a region, was thus marked for the Romans as much for the Gallaeci's castros, a system of hillforts, as was for the lure of its gold mines. This culture extended over present day Galicia, the north of Portugal, the western part of Asturias, the Bierzo, and Sanabria and was distinct from the neighbouring Lusitanian culture to the south according to the classical authors Pomponius Mela and Pliny the Elder. At a far later date, the mythic history that was encapsulated in Lebor Gabála Érenn credited Gallaecia as the point from which the Gaels sailed to conquer Ireland, as they had Gallaecia, by force of arms. History Pre-Roman Gallaecia Strabo in his Geography lists the people of the northwestern Atlantic coast of Iberia as follows: ...then the Vettonians and the Vaccaeans, through whose territory the Durius [Douro] River flows, which affords a crossing at Acutia, a city of the Vaccaeans; and last, the Callaicans, [Gallaicans] who occupy a very considerable part of the mountainous country. For this reason, since they were very hard to fight with, the Callaicans themselves have not only furnished the surname for the man who defeated the Lusitanians [meaning Decimus Junius Brutus