The process of conquest of Iberia started in 218 B.C. when Publius Cornelius Scipio came to Emporium and from there went down in the peninsula to face Hannibal's Carthaginian army. Many years later the Cantabrian Wars took place with Caesar Augustus in 19 B.C. and almost all Iberia was under the Roman domination.
Several types of communities with different status can be distinguished in the Iberian Peninsula and the other Roman provinces in the years of the Republic (colonies, municipia, civitates foederatae, civitates liberae, civitates stipendiariae) The level of freedom to rule the city, privileges or tributes were the key to understand their differences. From the Roman Empire on, these differences began to disappear.
The new cities under construction were designed as image of Rome on a lower scale. All of them had the same urban structure and public buildings to offer all the services to the citizens: institutional buildings, religious buildings, buildings for entertainment and leisure activities, places for trade, libraries, court of justice, taverns, markets, laundries...