BÆTICA, a province of ancient Spain, so called from the famed river Bætis, afterwards Tartessus, now Guadalquivir or the great river. It was bounded on the west by Lusitania, on the south by the Mediterranean and Sinus Gaditanus, and on the north by the Cantabric Sea, now the Bay of Biscay. On the east and north-east its limits cannot be so well ascertained, since they are thought to have been in a continual state of fluctuation, as each petty monarch had an opportunity of encroaching upon his neighbour.