A History of the Roman World (42 page)

For many years Roman governors administered and plundered Spain, and the provincials appealed, often with success, to Rome for justice. But in 154 war again broke out among the Lusitani and raged till 138. Meantime the Celtiberians made a bid for independence in 153 but were crushed by 151; this short Second Celtiberian War will be described before the longer struggle with Lusitania. The interest of these wars derives from the emergence of a national hero, whose brilliant guerrilla warfare recalls another great national leader, Owain Glyndwr; from the heroic resistance of the Celtiberians; from the demoralizing effect which they exercised on the Roman character; and
finally from their link with the present, for many of the camps which were built during them have been uncovered this century.
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Stimulated by the rebellion of the Lusitanians, the Belli in 153 refused to stop fortifying their town of Segeda in the upper Jalon valley, and encouraged the neighbouring tribes in Nearer Celtiberia to revolt. The Senate assigned four legions to Spain and sent the consul Q. Fulvius Nobilior, son of the victor of the Aetolians, against the Celtiberians. When he advanced up the Jalon valley, the Belli abandoned Segeda and took refuge with the Arevaci, thus spreading the disturbance into Further Celtiberia. Nobilior left a supply post at Ocilis and advanced to Almazan, twenty miles south of Numantia, where his summer camp still survives.
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But while his army threaded its way through the defile to Numantia it was attacked by the Arevaci; 6,000 legionaries fell near Monte de Matamala on 23 August, the day of the Vulcanalia. The Roman cavalry, however, succeeded in driving back the victors to Numantia. Nobilior followed and camped on a mountain named Gran Atalaya near Renieblas, some four miles east of Numantia, where he commanded the approaches to the Ebro. Communications with his base at Ocilis would be difficult; after his recent defeat he evidently mistrusted the route thither and preferred to rely on the Ebro valley. In the summer he failed to storm Numantia, notwithstanding the use of elephants, and the neighbouring Uxama (Osma), so that he was forced to encamp for the winter (153–152) at Gran Atalaya amid great cold and hardship; his impressive winter camp still exists (Camp III).

In 152 he was succeeded by M. Claudius Marcellus, who took Ocilis and the revolted Jalon valley. By the offer of favourable terms many tribes, including the Arevaci, were induced to send embassies to Rome. But the Senate, now accustomed to the obsequious compliments of the Greeks, was in no mood to listen to tribesmen who spoke as free men conscious of their rights; Scipio Africanus, with his courteous sympathy towards the Spaniards, was long dead and Rome had drunk too deep from the cup of military power and domination. After negotiations had broken down Marcellus encamped on a hill (Castillejo), just north of Numantia, where later Scipio Aemilianus camped. He then made peace with the Numantines in return for a very large sum of money; the terms were probably the same as those formerly imposed by Gracchus. When the new consul L. Licinius Lucullus arrived in 151 and found peace established, he savagely turned against the unoffending Vaccaei. He took the town of Cauca by treachery; but his brutality merely stiffened the resistance of Intercatia and Pallantia, which he assailed in vain. He then withdrew to Further Spain to help the equally unscrupulous Galba against the Lusitanians. For seven years peace reigned in Celtiberia.

Meanwhile in 154 the Lusitanians had raided Roman territory, defeated two praetors and stirred the Vettones to arms. The following year they discomfited Mummius, the future destroyer of Corinth, and sent the captured Roman
standards as an incentive to the Celtiberians; next, they attacked the Conii, raided Baetica and perhaps crossed to North Africa, but soon afterwards Mummius and his successor turned the tables on them. Consequently they made a treaty: only to break it the next year and to defeat Sulpicius Galba in a notable victory (151). Galba was reinforced by the arrival of Lucullus, but he found treachery more expedient than arms. After inducing the Lusitanians to submit, he disarmed, separated and finally butchered them. This cold-blooded atrocity was even more treacherous than Lucullus’ treatment of the Vaccaei, who had received no formal pledges from Rome when they surrendered. Rome’s name was dishonoured; such cruelty had never before stained her annals. On his return Galba was brought to trial, but though Cato, now aged eighty-five, supported the prosecution, a wise use of his ill-gotten gains and the tears of his little children obtained his acquittal. Rome truly was falling from her ancient greatness, as the ruins of Corinth, Carthage and Numantia were soon to testify.

Among the survivors of Galba’s massacre was a shepherd named Viriathus.
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He persuaded some 10,000 Lusitanians, who had been cut off by the praetor Vetilius, to fight for their liberty instead of surrendering. Under his leadership they broke away and for eight years he withstood the arms of Rome. First he adopted guerrilla tactics without any definite fortress for a base; in a narrow pass of the Sierra Ronda he trapped and defeated the praetor Vetilius who followed him south from Urso in the valley of the Guadiaro, some twenty-five miles south of Ronda (147). He then established himself nearer home in a strong position in Carpetania on the Hill of Venus (Sierra S. Vincente; forty miles north-west of Toledo). From here he long dominated the surrounding district, striking northwards to Segovia, and eastwards to Segobriga; finally he won a number of towns near Corduba in the south (146–141). The Roman forces continued to meet with defeat, even after 145 when a consular army of two legions was sent out. In 141/0 Fabius Maximus Servilianus was surrounded, but Viriathus unexpectedly accepted a treaty and allowed the Roman army to withdraw. Though the terms were ratified at Rome, Servilianus’ successor, Servilius Caepio, took upon himself to renew hostilities. The last phase of the war opened, in which Viriathus was forced back on the defensive. Caepio advanced into Lusitania from the south (a Castra Servilia has been found north of Caceres) and after a defeat suborned three of Viriathus’ friends to cut his throat as he lay sleeping in full armour in his tent (139). This terminated the war, although Caepio’s successor, D. Junius Brutus, penetrated further north. In 138 he subdued Portugal up to the Douro and the next year while his fleet advanced along the coast he reached Galice and defeated the wild Callaici beyond the Oblivio (Minho). He fortified Olisipo (Lisbon) and settled the veterans of Viriathus at a place named Valentia (Valença do Minho?). His treatment of the natives was marked by a greater moderation than many of his predecessors had displayed.

So fell Viriathus, a great national leader and hero, by a fate similar to that of Sertorius whom he much resembles. His courage, his skill in guerrilla warfare, his inspiring and magnetic personality, all alike command respect. But like many leaders from the elder Scipios to Wellington, he underestimated the volatility of the Spanish temperament. He failed to discipline his men adequately, to obtain the co-operation of the Celtiberians and to weld the various tribes into a nation.

Encouraged by the initial success of Viriathus the Celtiberians had again broken into rebellion in 143. This Third Celtiberian, or Numantine, War was centred around Numantia, which was situated on a hill at the junction of two rivers which run through heavily forested valleys. It had been founded on the site of earlier settlements by the Iberians who penetrated the Celtic highlands about 300
BC
. The Iberian element was responsible for the town wall with an inner ring of houses, while the centre was laid out in accordance with Greek principles. The population gradually spread beyond the walls, and when the town was attacked in 153 the larger settlement would be protected by a palisade.
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Though their civilization was somewhat backward and their pottery coarse, the Numantines had magnificent iron weapons. Through scarcity of corn they continually raided the valleys of the Ebro and Jalon; they derived supplies from the Vaccaei and found pasturage among the Arevaci.

At the beginning of the war Numantia remained inviolate. Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus conquered the tribes of the Jalon valley in Nearer Celtiberia (143), and then advanced against the Vaccaei in the north-west in order to cut off the Numantines’ source of supplies (142). He was succeeded by an inefficient soldier, Q. Pompeius, who encamped on the hill Castillejo at Numantia, but although he commanded 30,000 men he failed to storm Numantia with its 8,000 defenders. Thereupon he advanced to annoy the walls of Termantia on the Douro, but in vain. Returning to Numantia, he attempted a blockade and even essayed to flood the eastern plain (140). But at the approach of winter his troops suffered from dysentery and intense cold, so that he was ready to induce the Numantines to accept terms. On the arrival of his successor, Popillius Laenas, in 139, Pompeius repudiated the terms, which had not yet been ratified by the Senate, but he carefully kept the money he had demanded for arranging the treaty; though later he was court-martialled at Rome he escaped the consequences of his treachery. Popillius campaigned against the Lusones, but his attack on Numantia miscarried (139–138). The year 137 was marked by disaster and further disgrace. The commander Mancinus was cut off in the pass of Tartajo near Nobilior’s former camp at Renieblas while attempting to withdraw from Numantia to
the Ebro. He surrendered with 20,000 men, and the young Tiberius Gracchus, who was trusted for his father’s sake, undertook responsibility for the fulfilment of the terms. The Senate disgracefully refused to accept the conditions and with shameful hypocrisy made a scapegoat of Mancinus by sending him back to Numantia, naked and with his hands bound behind him. The Numantines with dignity refused the offering. They had lost the chance of a signal victory over their enemies through treachery. Rome’s name was again dishonoured, and one more incident could take its place alongside those for which Lucullus, Galba and Pompeius were responsible. Mancinus’ successors left Numantia alone and were content to plunder the Vaccaei. So the war dragged on, until in 135 the Roman people again elected to the consulship (before the legal interval had elapsed) the recent conqueror of Carthage, Scipio Aemilianus, son of Aemilius Paullus the victor of Pydna and adopted grandson of Scipio Africanus the Elder.

Instead of regular reinforcements Scipio took to Spain a number of volunteers and a corps of five hundred friends and dependants as a kind of private bodyguard to protect him while he redisciplined the army. This cohort, devoted to the person of its general, gave him personal protection and was in essence the prototype of the later imperial Praetorian Guard. Scipio’s first task was to restore efficiency among the demoralized troops in Spain. Camp-followers, women and soothsayers were sent packing; the men were vigorously dragooned and made to use the spade as well as the sword. But such an army, though redisciplined, could not take Numantia by storm, so that Scipio determined to reduce it by blockade and starvation. But first he cut off its source of supplies. Marching up the Ebro to Deobriga he turned westwards against the Vaccaei and reduced Pallantia and Cauca. Then he approached Numantia from the west along the Douro, scouring the fields as he went (autumn 134).

Behind a defensive palisade he built seven camps around the town and linked them together with a strong wall, set with towers, so that Numantia was completely invested. The two chief camps were at Castillejo in the north where he had his headquarters, and at Peña Redonda in the south; each held a legion, while the other camps were manned by Italian and Iberian allies. Scipio’s forces numbered some 20,000 Italians and 40,000 Iberians. Although the besieged were not more than 4,000, they held out with heroic and tragic courage for eight months, resorting in their desperation even to cannibalism. All attempts to break through Scipio’s iron ring failed, though finally a chief and four companions slipped out on a cloudy night and even got their horses over the wall by a folding scaling-bridge. But in vain. They could not rouse the countryside to arms again. Scipio refused to accept any terms short of unconditional surrender. Finally famine did its work and the heroic Numantines capitulated. Without consulting the Senate Scipio burnt the town
to the ground, as a red layer of burnt material still bears tragic witness (August 133). Many famous men saw the smoke and flames of Numantia rising to the sky: Scipio’s brother-in-law, Gaius Gracchus; a young cavalryman, Gaius Marius; the poet Lucilius; the young Numidian prince Jugurtha; two military tribunes Asellio and P. Rutilius Rufus, who both wrote histories of the war; and perhaps Scipio’s friend, the historian Polybius.

The fall of Numantia established beyond question the dominion of Rome in Spain. The story is a painful one and Rome’s methods of diplomacy had deteriorated. But this declension from her pristine standards of honesty resulted in part from contact with more barbarous races than those encountered in Italy or the east. Differences of custom may often have led to misunderstanding. The Spaniards when forced to come to terms did not always intend to keep them, and so Rome learnt to meet treachery by treachery and to fight with Spanish weapons. Further, the Senate was jealous of its power and reserved the right to revise arrangements made by its generals, so that treaties made in good faith in Spain might not always be ratified at Rome. The Senate may have underestimated the difficulty of campaigning in Spain and good generals may have fought shy of the province, but Rome’s chief mistake was her failure to understand the Spanish character. The successes of Scipio Africanus the Elder, the elder Gracchus and Sertorius show that more could have been accomplished by sympathy and moderation than by brute force. Yet Rome gave Spain something, although at the point of the sword, which she could not give herself: out of the blood and tears of conquest a new race painfully raised itself on the first steps of civilized life. By lifting the conquered to the same level of culture as the conquerors Rome abolished the need for opposition and laid the foundations of that great prosperity which Spain enjoyed under the Roman Empire.