WARS IN SPAIN. VIRIATHUS. DESTRUCTION OF NUMANTIA.
In Spain, fortune was so far from smiling on the Romans, that it seemed as if fate wished to remind them of a Nemesis, as the slave did the warrior in his triumph. The Spanish wars may be divided into periods. The first goes down to the end of the second Punic war; the second, to the treaty of Gracchus by which the Romans ruled over Catalonia, Valencia, Andalusia, as well as western Aragon and eastern Castile, and also acquired a kind of supremacy over the Celtiberians. The violation of this peace by the fortification of Segida, called forth a fresh struggle which we may name as the first Celtiberian war: M. Claudius Marcellus had then the command; it lasted three or four years.
Out of the war against the Lusitanians, in which Galba by his faithlessness had branded the Roman name with dishonour, that of Viriathus sprang. This man, who was a Lusitanian, had been a common shepherd and also a robber, as is very often the case with herdsmen in southern Europe, even as it is to this very day in Italy; and having been among those Lusitanians towards whom Galba had behaved with such infamous treachery, he had vowed implacable revenge against the Romans. He placed himself at the head of a small band; for in Spain it is characteristic of the nation to have a continual guerilla warfare, for which the Spaniards have a turn, owing to the nature of their country, and also from their disposition, law and order not having the least power over them, while personal qualities are everything. Viriathus enjoyed unbounded confidence as the hero of the nation. He seldom engaged with the Romans in a pitched battle; but to lie in ambush, to cut off supplies, to go round the enemy, to scatter quickly after a defeat, were the ways in which he would wage war. By his great skill he wore out the Roman generals, more than one of whom lost his life against him. The history of his achievements, imperfectly as we know it, is exceedingly interesting. For eight years[61] (605-612), he maintained himself against the Romans; they would march against him with a superior force, and yet he always got out of their reach, and then would suddenly show himself in their rear, or hem them in on impassable roads, and rob them of their baggage, and cut them to pieces in detail. By these means, he gained the whole of the country for himself; only the inhabitants of the coast of Andalusia, who had ever been the least warlike, remained subject to the Romans, being quickly latinized. Among these, therefore, Viriathus made his appearance as a foe; but the ground which was particularly friendly to him, lay from Portugal, all through Estremadura, as far as Aragon: here he moved remarkably quickly with his light horse and foot. Seldom did he meet with loss against the Romans. The Celtiberians also he managed to win over to his side: they did not indeed carry on their warfare according to his plan, but still, as is always the case with Spaniards, they sought the same end in a way of their own. The Romans saw themselves reduced to the necessity of concluding with him a formal peace, in which they acknowledge him as socius and amicus populi Romani æquissimo jure, and by which he and his people became completely sovereign,—a peace the like of which the Romans had hardly ever made before. On his side it was honestly meant; whereas the Romans, on the contrary, did not deem themselves bound to keep a treaty which was so utterly at variance with their maxims. The Roman proconsul Cæpio wished for a triumph and booty, like all the Roman generals of that time; and so he rekindled the war, having with an utter want of faith been authorized by the senate to do harm to Viriathus, wherever it was in his power. Thus the war broke out anew, though negotiations were seemingly going on. Traitors were found who offered to murder Viriathus: they accomplished the deed in his tent, and, before any body was aware of his death, escaped to the Romans, from whom they received the price of blood. All that the Lusitanians could now do, was to bury him with an enthusiasm which has become famous in history (612): the friends of this great man fought with each other over his grave, until they fell. Treachery like this is often met with among the Iberians:—the Celtiberians, however, are to be excepted. The character of the Spaniards has in many points remained entirely the same; and though we must lay not a few such cases to the charge of that fearful party spirit of theirs, which still displays itself as strong as ever, of them most particularly the saying holds good, that friendship dies, but that hatred is immortal. Another characteristic has continued to distinguish them even to this day: they are hardly fit for any thing in the lines, and they have shown themselves great in battles only at times, and under great generals,—under Hamilcar and Hannibal, in ancient history; in the middle ages and afterwards, under Gonsalvo de Cordova who formed the Spanish infantry, down to the duke of Alva, under whom it still was excellent: from thence it began to decline.[62]
The Lusitanians now went on with the war under several other generals; but none of the successors of Viriathus was as great as he was,—there was not the same confidence in their personal qualities. D. Junius Brutus Callaicus concluded a peace with them, and they accepted the offer of settling as a sort of Roman colony in Valencia, where they founded the town of that name: the climate there is most softening, so that they soon lost their warlike character. It is remarkable with what ease the same Brutus made conquests in the north-west of Spain, and the north-east of Portugal; and also in modern times, these peoples have shown little perseverance, except against the Moorish rule. He is the first Roman who advanced beyond the Minho into the country of the Callæcians; but his campaign did not leave any lasting consequences, although it made a deep impression in those parts.
These conquests, which shed such lustre upon Rome, took place at the very time when the wars with the Celtiberians were carrying on so unsuccessfully. This people was divided in several small tribes, of which the Belli, Titthi, and Arevaci were the chief. Of their constitution we have no satisfactory idea. Southern Spain seems to have been ruled by kings; the Celtiberians were republican, and perhaps had highly popular institutions: besides which, as in Greece, the most important towns had a free and independent existence of their own, Termantia or Termestia, and Numantia being in the first rank among those of the Arevaci. The Celtiberian wars began in 609, and ended in 619 or 620: when we bear in mind what the races were which held out in them, their great length is well nigh inconceivable. At first, most of the Celtiberians were under arms; little by little, one place after the other fell off. Numantia lay in a very strong position, amid ravines and torrents, near the spot where Soria now stands: whether it is true that it had no walls, or whether this be only said in imitation of the accounts of Sparta, can no longer be made out. They were able to send but eight thousand men into the field, a number which was greatly lessened in the course of the war: at the time of the blockade, there were not more than four thousand left. Twice the Romans make a peace with them, and twice did they break it again: at last, Scipio was once more charged with the commission of torturing to death a noble people.
The year 611 was that of the consulship of Q. Pompeius, who, to distinguish him from another of the same name, is called Auli filius: he was appointed to the command in Spain. He is the ancestor of Cn. Pompeius Magnus, who stood at the head of the aristocracy of his day, and he himself figured as one of the leaders of that class, although the son of a very humble musician. As he leagued himself with the nobiles, he was welcome to them, and was received into their ranks; so that even before he was consul, he had already a powerful party. How he raised himself, is uncertain: according to some, he did it by dishonourable means; yet he was a man of talent. His very opposite was Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, who was of a plebeian house, but of most ancient nobility: the latter was at the head of the popular party. Q. Pompeius led his army against the Numantines, and was unsuccessful: they took his camp, and brought him to very great straits. Being in this plight, he offered peace: the Numantines, but only for form’s sake, were to give hostages, whom he was to return to them; they were also to pay a certain sum, and to promise to serve in the field. This they also did. But this most reasonable peace did not please at Rome, nor was Pompeius fool enough to believe that it would; his successor, by order of the senate, disregarded it altogether. The Numantines sent ambassadors to Rome, and appealed to the treaties, in which they were borne out by the Roman staff-officers: but the senate annulled the peace, Pompeius himself doing his utmost to bring this about, that he might not be called to account for the way in which he had conducted the war. Hostilities were renewed on a greater scale; and a few years afterwards the command fell to C. Hostilius Mancinus, a man who had the ill luck to gain a great celebrity and a sort of moral notoriety which indeed is of a very doubtful nature. The frightened Spaniards had abandoned Numantia to its fate, and Mancinus had reached as far as the suburbana, the gardens and cemeteries of the town: there he was driven back in an engagement; the Numantines pursued, and the Romans, retreating in blind haste, got into a place from which there was no way out, so that they had to make up their minds either to sue for peace or perish. At first, the Numantines would have nothing to say to the conditions offered by Mancinus, favourable as they were; it was only Tib. Gracchus, then serving as a quæstor, who could save the army. The Numantines had not forgotten the equitable peace which his father had made, but the remembrance of his upright conduct towards all the Celtiberians was so dear to them, that they accepted the son as a mediator, being convinced that he meant honestly. So great was the respect in which he was held by them, that he betook himself in the midst of them to Numantia, to get back his account-books, which, as well as the camp, had fallen into their hands; and these were also returned to him uninjured. The army, which, without reckoning the allies, numbered twenty thousand men, was allowed to march off without disgrace, and independence and friendship were stipulated for Numantia. Mancinus afterwards played at Rome the same part which Sp. Postumius had done after the Caudine peace: he recommended the senate to yield up himself and the officers, to atone for the unauthorized peace. The people agreed to this, so far as he was concerned; but it threw out the clause as to the officers, out of regard for Tib. Gracchus. Mancinus was delivered up: the noble-minded Numantines would not have him, that the curse of a broken oath might fall upon those who were guilty.
The war lasted yet a few years longer without any result; so that the Romans were driven, in spite of the laws, (as Appian says,) to elect Scipio Africanus consul. Ten years had already passed away since his first consulship, and the leges annales could not have prescribed an age which he had not reached already; perhaps there was a law that no one should be consul twice. Scipio went forth with many recruits, allies, and volunteers from all parts, with Numidians and men from the far East, against that small people, to root it out from the earth. All the proffers of the Numantines were rejected. Scipio found a great degeneracy in the Roman troops; and it cost him a vast deal of trouble to restore discipline, as the loose morals and the luxury which were rife among individuals, were likewise spreading in the army: he purified it, and then marched with sixty thousand men against Numantia. This city was surrounded on three sides by the Douro, and it lay therefore on an isthmus, which was strongly fortified. Around the town, the circumference not being more than three Roman miles, (one German,) Scipio now drew a line of pallisades with a rampart, and behind it a second one,—just as Platææ was shut in by the Spartans,—and here he distributed his army. On these lines, he placed engines for hurling missiles, with which the Romans tried to keep off their desperate foes, as they wanted to destroy them by hunger. For a while, some of them escaped on the Douro, by which the besieged also got supplies; but he cut them off even from this, by sinking above the town huge beams armed with saws into the river, so that the rafts with flour could no longer float down that way. How long this dreadful blockade lasted, is more than we can tell. Once, however, some Numantines climbed over the walls, and came to a distant town where some hundred youths enthusiastically took up arms; and thus a general rising against the Romans was on the eve of bursting forth. When Scipio found this out, he forthwith marched thither, and had the hands of those who were guilty cut off. Such an atrocity stamps the man. The Numantines, when they had fed, first on the dead bodies of the enemy, and then on those of their own countrymen, and gone through all those horrors which Missolunghi had to suffer, wished at length to capitulate. Scipio demanded that their arms should be given up, and that they should surrender at discretion: they asked for three days, which they spent in freeing their wives and children by death from slavery; so that a few of them only came out, who were like skeletons. Of these, Scipio picked out fifty for his triumph, who seem to have been beheaded afterwards: the rest were sold; but they are said to have broken out with such rage, some of them killing themselves, and others murdering their masters, that after a short time not a Numantine was left alive. The place where the town had stood, from henceforth became a waste.