Carlos Goñi: "Hispanic heroism is more like that of the loser"

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Carlos Goni

.

Pamplona, ​​1963. Philosopher and writer.

In

(Arpa) he analyzes the immense contribution to the

, the unique character of that town that took two centuries to be conquered by the Romans, and the immense value of its legacy.

What is the origin of the word Hispania?

Hispania is the name that the Phoenicians gave to the Iberian Peninsula.

The Greeks called it Iberia because of its resemblance in terms of landscape and mineral resources to a region in the South Caucasus (present-day Georgia) where the Iber River is. Hispanics are those men and women who lived in the Iberian Peninsula while it was under the power of Rome, right?

Yes. After two centuries of fighting and after having shed a lot of blood in Hispania, the Romans managed to turn Hispania, or the Hispanias, into a Roman province because there was great pluralism.

And, after that, Hispania became Romanized, but Rome also became Hispanicized: we began to bring important characters to the Roman world, that is, to the world, because at that time the world was the Roman world.

It did cost Rome much blood and sweat to conquer Hispania.

Can one speak of Hispanic heroism? The Romans made us discover Viriato, Hannibal, Numancia, all those who fought against them, and that Quevedo wrote that they acted "with generous disregard for their lives."

The Hispanic hero is not mythological, but real.

Hispanic heroism is more like that of the loser, abandoned by the gods and without godparents, who leaves his skin trying and who wins battles but ends up losing the war.

It took two centuries for Rome to provincialize Hispania, which is no small thing.

And we fought and fought and fought, but in the end we lost.

And then we romanize completely, right?

Later, logically, we became as Roman as the Romans.

Hispania brought to Rome no less than three emperors, which is not bad.

It is something like if now a Spaniard will become president of the United States.

Trajan, Hadrian and Theodosius, the three Roman emperors of Hispanic origin, did they have any distinctive features in their way of governing, of doing politics?

Trajan seems to have been a good emperor who cared for the people.

He said that he treated everyone as he would like the emperor to treat him and brought the empire to its full extent, so he is one of the great emperors.

He was a very practical ruler.

And Adrian?

Hadrian was very, very cultured, he was capable of arguing with architects, with poets, with anyone.

He was very concerned about trying to make all the provinces equal in Romanity.

Also, he was the first emperor to grow a beard.

Until then, the emperors appeared in sculptures with shaved beards;

and from Adriano they began to do it with a beard.

Adriano liked hunting very much and there are those who say that perhaps while hunting he got a scar on his face and to cover it, because he must have been presumptuous, he grew a beard.

From him all the emperors are sculpted with beards.

Also, Hadrian was married, although he was homosexual and fell madly in love with Antinous.

And when he drowned in the Nile, Hadrian deified him.

I think that's a bit of what we all do with our lovers: we deify them, we turn them into gods, because otherwise love would be too mundane.

And then we have Theodosius... Theodosius was already from another era, he is the one who made Catholicism the official religion of the empire.

Something that in some way we have also experienced in the 20th century, when Spain was officially declared Catholic.

And those three emperors, did they have common traits, something that could be defined as a Hispanic way of doing politics?

I think so, but when I speak of a Hispanic way of doing politics, I refer more to other politicians than to the three emperors.

Perhaps the one who best embodied that Hispanic way of doing politics was Trajano: when he said that he wanted to treat others as he would like to be treated by the emperor, he was showing himself folksy, very close to the people, and today we also have politicians and rulers who make a show of being folksy.

It is possible that this is a characteristic that we have inherited from the Hispanics.

And perhaps also a certain humor, a certain wit.

Hispanic politicians also had a bit of vindication of oneself, of saying: "Here I am",

although in the case of the emperors that "I, I" was not at all exaggerated, perhaps a little more in Theodosius.

And it is possible that today we also have a little of that in our politicians.

Aristotle called the Hispanics a "warlike race."

But Cicero said that among the Hispanics there were also wise and learned men.

Seneca, without a doubt, is the best-known Hispanic thinker, isn't he?

Yes. Seneca was perhaps the only person to have been sentenced to death three times: Caligula sentenced him and pardoned him, Claudius sentenced him and was in exile for eight years and did not return until things settled down, and he was also sentenced Nero.

Nero ordered him to take his own life and Seneca, very stoic, cut his wrists and took the hemlock.

But I'm not sure that taking one's own life is very Hispanic.

risk life, yes,

but to despise it, as if it didn't matter to you, I consider it to be much more Roman than Hispanic.

The Romans had no problem getting out of the way if that was the case, but I don't see it as something very Hispanic, really.

Seneca was a Stoic, but you say that he was a very particular Stoic, why?

Seneca was a Stoic who lived very well, he was one of the richest men in Rome.

He embodied a bit of what I think is the Hispanic philosophy: stoic without being severe and hedonistic without being voluptuous.

And Seneca was there, between hedonism and stoicism: he lived very well and tried to make the most of life.

He even wrote "De brevitate vita", a treatise on the brevity of life.

I think that this idea that life is four days and you have to enjoy it is something very Hispanic.

Seneca said that life is short,

that you have to take advantage of it and try not to complain so much, because complaining a lot is also Hispanic.

Quintiliano was also Hispanic, right?

Effectively.

He was a great teacher and pedagogue who interrupts the work on oratory and pedagogy to tell us about the death of his wife and his two sons, he stops talking about grammar to unfold the grammar of feelings.

Quintiliano says many interesting things, but there is one that has served me a great deal: "The teacher put on the nature of a father."

Each teacher has his booklet, but the good teacher (not a teacher) has Quintiliano's.

He said earlier that Theodosius made Catholicism the official religion of the Roman Empire.

Is there a Hispanic religiosity?

I think so.

We are more papist than the Pope,

but that also means that we do a little what we want.

Silvano de Calahorra had problems here, because he appointed bishops without permission from the hierarchy.

We have always been more papist than the Pope, but we have also founded a heresy: Priscillianism, whose followers were ascetic and basically wanted to live the faith in their own way.

Prisciliano, the founder of that heresy, was Galician and ended up executed after being convicted by magic by a civil court, because that court was not authorized to judge crimes of heresy.

Prisciliano had many followers and people in Galicia really appreciated him, in fact, the expression was used: "I swear by Prisciliano".

We even have a Hispanic Pope, Pope Dámaso,

who ordered the care of the cemeteries and Jerome to translate the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate) and who introduced the Alleluia and the Gloria into the liturgy.

He says in his book that perhaps the greatest weakness of Hispania was the lack of unity among its various peoples... Yes. Ortega y Gasset recounts that the young ambassador from Florence in Spain asked Ferdinand the Catholic how it was possible that such a people warlike as the Spanish would have always been conquered by the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Arabs... And the king replied: "The nation is quite capable of arms, but disordered, so that only the Spanish can do great things with it." who knows how to keep it together and in order".

It seems that the main drawback of Hispania, both yesterday and today, to get to "do great things with it" (sic) is its indomitable plurality,

virtue or defect -depending on how you look at it- that constitutes, if not its essence, then its "second nature".

And do you agree with that statement?

Is plurality negative?

From the point of view of war, the invaders, guided by the premise: "divide and conquer", have always found Hispania to lack unity.

Which, logically - the logic of war - has led to the inevitable conclusion warned by the Florentine ambassador.

The Hispania of yesterday and today has been and is plural, an idiosyncrasy that enriches us, but also requires us to seek strength, which others find in unity, in differences.

Guided by the premise: "divide and conquer", they have always found a lack of unity in Hispania.

Which, logically - the logic of war - has led to the inevitable conclusion warned by the Florentine ambassador.

The Hispania of yesterday and today has been and is plural, an idiosyncrasy that enriches us, but also requires us to seek strength, which others find in unity, in differences.

Guided by the premise: "divide and conquer", they have always found a lack of unity in Hispania.

Which, logically - the logic of war - has led to the inevitable conclusion warned by the Florentine ambassador.

The Hispania of yesterday and today has been and is plural, an idiosyncrasy that enriches us, but also requires us to seek strength, which others find in unity, in differences.

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