The history of Lisbon, the capital city of Portugal, revolves around its strategic geographical position at the mouth of the Tagus, the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. Its spacious and sheltered natural harbour made the city historically an important seaport for trade between the Mediterranean Sea and northern Europe. Lisbon has long enjoyed the commercial advantages of its proximity to southern and extreme western Europe, as well as to sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas, and today its waterfront is lined with miles of docks, wharfs, and drydock facilities that accommodate the largest oil tankers.
During the Neolithic period, pre-Celtic peoples inhabited the region; remains of their stone monuments still exist today in the periphery of the city. Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in western Europe, with a history that stretches back to its original settlement by its indigenous peoples, and the eventual establishment of Phoenician and Greek trading posts (c. 800–600 BC), followed by successive occupations in the city of various peoples including the Carthaginians, Romans, Suebi, Visigoths, and Moors. Roman armies first entered the Iberian peninsula in 219 BC, and occupied the city of Olissipo (Lisbon) in 205 BC, after winning the Second Punic War against the Carthaginians. With the collapse of the Roman Empire, waves of Germanic tribes invaded the peninsula, and by 500 AD, the Visigothic Kingdom controlled most of Hispania.
In 711, Muslims, who were mostly Berbers and Arabs from the Maghreb, invaded the Christian Iberian Peninsula, conquering Lisbon in 714. What is now Portugal first became part of the Emirate of Córdoba and then of its successor state, the Caliphate of Córdoba. Despite attempts to seize it by the Normans in 844 and by Alfonso VI in 1093, Lisbon remained a Muslim possession. In 1147, after a four-month siege, Christian crusaders under the command of Afonso I captured the city and Christian rule returned. In 1256, Afonso III moved his capital from Coimbra to Lisbon, taking advantage of the city's excellent port and its strategic central position.
Lisbon flourished in the 15th and 16th centuries as the centre of a vast empire during the period of the Portuguese discoveries, This was a time of intensive maritime exploration, when the Kingdom of Portugal accumulated great wealth and power through its colonisation of Asia, South America, Africa and the Atlantic islands. Evidence of the city's wealth can still be seen today in the magnificent structures built then, including the Jerónimos Monastery and the nearby Tower of Belém, each classified a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, in combination with subsequent fires and a tsunami, almost totally destroyed Lisbon and adjoining areas. Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, took the lead in ordering the rebuilding of the city, and was responsible for the creation of the elegant financial and commercial district of the Baixa Pombalina (Pombaline Lower Town).
During the Peninsular War, (1807–1814) Napoleon's forces began a four-year occupation of the city in December 1807, and Lisbon descended with the rest of the country into anarchy. After the war ended in 1814, a new constitution was proclaimed and Brazil was granted independence. The 20th century brought political upheaval to Lisbon and the nation as a whole. In 1908, at the height of the turbulent period of the Republican movement, King Carlos and his heir Luís Filipe was assassinated in the Terreiro do Paço. On 5 October 1910, the Republicans organised a coup d'état that overthrew the constitutional monarchy and established the Portuguese Republic. There were 45 changes of government from 1910 through 1926.
The right-wing Estado Novo regime, which ruled the country from 1926 to 1974, suppressed civil liberties and political freedom in the longest-lived dictatorship in Western Europe. It was finally deposed by the Carnation Revolution (Revolução dos Cravos), launched in Lisbon with a military coup on 25 April 1974. The movement was joined by a popular campaign of civil resistance, leading to the fall of the Estado Novo, the restoration of democracy, and the withdrawal of Portugal from its African colonies and East Timor. Following the revolution, there was a huge influx into Lisbon of refugees from the former African colonies in 1974 and 1975.
Portugal joined the European Community (EC) in 1986, and subsequently received massive funding to spur redevelopment. Lisbon's local infrastructure was improved with new investment and its container port became the largest on the Atlantic coast. The city was in the limelight as the 1994 European City of Culture, as well as host of Expo '98 and the 2004 European Football Championships. The year 2006 saw continuing urban renewal projects throughout the city, ranging from the restoration of the Praça de Touros (Lisbon's bullring) and its re-opening as a multi-event venue, to improvements of the metro system and building rehabilitation in the Alfama.
Prehistory to the Neolithic period
There are traces of human occupation for many thousands of years in the area of what is now Lisbon. Its terrain was made attractive by the advantages of dwelling near the River Tagus and its estuary. The first human inhabitants were probably the Neanderthals, who gradually became extinct about 30,000 years ago when modern humans entered the Iberian Peninsula. During the Neolithic period, the region was inhabited by an unknown people who lived in farming communities near the coast. Some of the megalithic burial chambers in the region around Lisbon appear to have been built by Mesolithic pastoral-hunting peoples. They built religious monuments called megaliths, dolmens and menhirs that still survive in the periphery of the city. Permanent settlements are not shown in the archaeological record until c. 2500 BC.
Antiquity Writers in the Middle Ages such as theologian Isidore of Seville, and historian Lucas de Tuy, Bishop of Tuy, refer to ancient popular legends that the city of Lisbon was founded by the mythical hero Odysseus. The Estrímnios (in Portuguese) are given by some historians as the first known native people of Portugal. Called Oestrimni (Latin for "people of the far west") by the Romans, they extended their territory from present-day Galicia to the Algarve during the Late Bronze Age (1200–700 B.C.). These indigenous communities engaged in maritime and overland commerce, their fortified settlements dominating trade on the larger rivers and coastal estuaries of central southern Portugal.
The Indo-European Celts entered the Iberian peninsula in the first millennium BC and gradually spread west to the Atlantic, intermarrying with the native Pre-Indo-European population, and thus giving rise to Celtic-speaking local tribes such as the Cempsi and Sefes or Ophis ("People of the Serpents"). They colonised the fertile lands of Oestriminis and formed a territory known to the Greeks as Ophiussa (Land of Serpents), stretching from the Douro to the Tagus.
Although the first fortifications on Lisbon's Castelo hill are known to be no older than the 2nd century BC, recent archaeological finds have shown that Iron Age people occupied the site from the 8th to 6th centuries BC. This indigenous settlement maintained commercial relations with the Phoenicians, which would account for the recent findings of Phoenician pottery and other material objects. Archaeological excavations made near the Castle of São Jorge (Castelo de São Jorge) and Lisbon Cathedral indicate a Phoenician presence at this location since 1200 BC, and it can be stated with confidence that a Phoenician trading post stood on a site now the centre of the present city, on the southern slope of the Castle hill.
The Phoenicians are known to have traded with the resident Oestrimni and related tribes. The harbour of the Mar da Palha (Sea of Straw), a large basin in the estuary of the River Tagus near the river's mouth, is the best natural port on the Atlantic coast of Portugal, stretching 23 km at its widest point. This would have made it an ideal location for a settlement to unload and reprovision Phoenician ships sailing on trade voyages. Legend tells that they sailed to Cornwall in Britain and the legendary Tin Islands, or Cassiterides, to buy tin from the natives, but this is unsubstantiated.Pilkington 2013, p. 89. "The only other evidence for tin trading in the 9th–7th centuries BC is a small set of Phoenician settlements along the Atlantic coast of Iberia. None of these settlements was permanently inhabited and no settlement yields a necropolis. If tin was so central to the economic health of Phoenician colonies in the western Mediterranean, then Phoenician colonies should concentrate in the areas with access to this resource. However, Phoenicians never settled these areas permanently and peacefully abandoned most of their trading stations in modern Portugal during the mid-6th century BC."
The Phoenicians established a trading post at the site, supposedly called Alis Ubbo, meaning "Pleasant Haven" or "Safe Harbour" in the Phoenician language. It may have been an outpost of the Tyrian colony at Gadir (Cádiz).Pilkington 2013, p. 160. "In modern Portugal, by 700, the Phoenicians had developed some form of seasonal presence at Setubal, Almaraz, Lisbon, and Santarem. Expansion continued throughout the 7th century with foundations at Abul, Santa Olaia, and Cerro de Rocha. It must be noted that none of the sites in Portugal have yet to produce a necropolis, a fact which suggests some dependence on larger colonies in the southern Iberian Peninsula." The indigenous settlement extended from the highest hill in the vicinity, where the Castle and Cathedral now stand, to the Tagus.
For centuries, the Phoenicians had cultivated relationships with the indigenous peoples on the Atlantic coast of Iberia. From what was a simple outpost for trade with northern Europe, the Tagus settlement became an important centre of commercial trade where they exchanged their manufactured products for valuable metals, salted fish and salt with the inland tribes of the region accessible by the Tagus. Although Phoenician remains from the 8th century BC have been found beneath the medieval Sé de Lisboa (Lisbon Cathedral), most modern historians believe that Lisbon was founded as an ancient indigenous settlement that maintained commercial relations with the Phoenicians (accounting for the discovery of Phoenician pottery and artefacts at the site). It is possible that the Phocaean Greeks at one time also had a trading station at the mouth of the Tagus, but were eventually driven out as the Phoenician colony of Carthage increasingly dominated maritime commerce in the western Mediterranean and expanded its naval power, with control of localised mercantile relations with Olissipo passing to that city.
A multitude of Lusitanian deities, including Aracus, Carneus, and Bandiarbariaicus were worshiped at the city by the original inhabitants of the Turduli settlement.
Olisipo: Roman Lisbon
The suffix "-ippo" (-ipo), present in "Olissipo" (the Roman name of Lisbon), is typical of Tartessian or Turdetani linguistic influence. Lisbon's name was written Ulyssippo in Latin by the geographer Pomponius Mela, a native of Hispania. It was referred to as "Olisippo" by Pliny the Elder and by the Greeks as Olissipo (Ὀλισσιπών) and Olissipona (Ὀλισσιπόνα). According to local legend, the location was named for the mythical Ulysses, who founded the settlement.Bartrolí 2013, p. 13 Later, the Greek name appeared in Vulgar Latin in the form Olissipona, mentioned in the Etymologies of Saint Isidore of Seville.