Why no Classical Iberian Empire?

With great civilizations coming up in the Eastern Mediterranean, Along North Africa, in Greece, and the Italian Peninsula why was there no indigenous Classical Empire in today's Spain and Portugal, rather than just colonies of Carthage and Rome?
 
I think the main reason is just distance. Cities in this time period got rich on trade, and the further you were other rich places, the more difficult trade was. The greatest wealth was in Asia Minor and the Levant, which meant the Eastern Med was the place to be. However, Sicily was also pretty wealthy, which helped out the Italian peninsular and what is now Tunisia. This map shows you the various colonies of the time period, and you can tell by how densely packed the colonies were in different places where people thought was best to be:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/AntikeGriechen1.jpg
 
Having one of those Phoenician colonies become the Iberian version of Carthage might work. In fact, instead of going to Carthage, the founders of the city-assuming they were political exiles, which might not be the case-could go to Spain. North Africa after all already had its dominant Phoenician colony-Utica.
 
Which was one of the nations that had interactions and rivalry in Stirling's ISOT series. Right?

Right that one. They were probably the initial middle men for the Isles Tin Trade before the Phoenicians took it over at some point.
 
Tartessos wasn't per se Iberian. Actually, the few things we know about them were they were really distinct of their neighbors. It probably developed according the economical and commercial development on western Mediterranean basin.

That's one of the issue : Iberian covers many situations, cultural, political, economical. It's a comfortable name that Greeks gave to the inhabitants of eastern part of the peninsula, then to everything not Greek or Phoenician in this same peninsula. More or less like they named Ligurians peoples living in the mediterranean shores without caring too much if they were related.

Then, you need to have Iberic peoples to be more than tribal states or confederations, and more of develloped city-states.
The issue is that appeared in Spain and Gaul mostly because of Greek presence that influenced culturally, politically, urban life, etc. the surrounding populations.

Now, OTL, you had progression of Iberian settlement and economical influences : in mediterranean oppida of southern Gaul, the iberian presence is well attested even if it's more of a Celto-Iberian one as it was mainly the case in S-W Gaul.
 
Tartessos wasn't per se Iberian. Actually, the few things we know about them were they were really distinct of their neighbors. It probably developed according the economical and commercial development on western Mediterranean basin.

That's one of the issue : Iberian covers many situations, cultural, political, economical. It's a comfortable name that Greeks gave to the inhabitants of eastern part of the peninsula, then to everything not Greek or Phoenician in this same peninsula. More or less like they named Ligurians peoples living in the mediterranean shores without caring too much if they were related.

Then, you need to have Iberic peoples to be more than tribal states or confederations, and more of develloped city-states.
The issue is that appeared in Spain and Gaul mostly because of Greek presence that influenced culturally, politically, urban life, etc. the surrounding populations.

Now, OTL, you had progression of Iberian settlement and economical influences : in mediterranean oppida of southern Gaul, the iberian presence is well attested even if it's more of a Celto-Iberian one as it was mainly the case in S-W Gaul.
I think he meant just any city/state in Iberia forging some sizeable and powerful state. Kind of like Carthage.
 
My answer doesn't really change, even in this case.
Iberia was too far from other classical great civilisation to expand from its own.
The development of Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Minoan, Greek, etc cultures was possible precisely because they had contacts, commercial or others between them.

The development of city-states from tribal states in Iberic peninsula (without talking of empires) doesn't avoid this : right after Phoenicians and Greek began to trade with from closer points (while you had a trans-Mediterranean trade existing before, but clearly less important), you had an incitative for Iberian peoples to have such.

To have a thallasocratic dominion, as Carthage or Massalia or even Etrusceans city-states, ask for a certain level of development, enough strength to hold or attack rivals and of course not being dependent on your rival's trade aera.
Iberian cities-states simply developed too late (when they existed) and couldn't have without a comparable situation to what you have in Eastern Mediterranean basin.

To challenge that, you'll need a PoD making today's Spain, Portugal, North Africa and southern Gaul knowing an independent cultural, economical and political development comparable to Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia.
Maybe a greater trade incitative from Levantine early city-states?
 
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