The several centuries of Roman domain changed profoundly the Hispanic landscape,
physical and human, through a continuum process, we may refer to as Romanization. The
establishment of an urban web and a long distance communications network, both well adapted
to the local reality and serving a new administrative structure, contributed, as much as the rural
settlement patterns then introduced, to the development of the Lusitanian-Roman culture, the
way of life mentioned by Aelius Aristides as the greatest benefit offered to the people of the
Empire. Many of these fundamental changes endured beyond the time of Rome, marking the
land and the people of what was once Lusitania.