These are splendid tributes to the valour which resisted the then irresistible Roman power. The Cantabrian strength was broken, and they were temporarily subjected by Agrippa (Sueton. Octav. c. 20), but it was only to rise again the moment they had recovered their shattered forces.
Cantabria corresponded (as already observed) with the modern Basque Provinces, and gave with the neighbouring Asturia more trouble to the Romans than all the rest of Spain, the mountainous character of the country aiding them in that resistance to which they were prompted by the hardy mountaineer’s character, and by his inherent love of
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty!
“Two most powerful nations (says Florus, lib. iv. cap. 12), the Cantabri and the Astures, were still free from the Imperial sway. The determination of the Cantabrians was pejor (so the proud Roman calls it) and loftier, and more pertinacious in rebellion, for not content with defending their own liberty, they sought even to control their neighbours.... Beaten at last, they retired to the lofty mountain Vinnius, to which they deemed that the Ocean would ascend before the Roman arms.... But he in person drew them from these mountains, and reduced them beneath the crown by right of war.” Florus is here describing the last expedition against the Cantabrians in the reign of Augustus, of which Agrippa was commander. Suetonius gives the same narrative in substance in Octav. cap. xx., and Strabo, lib. iii. Silius Italicus pays even a still greater tribute to the indomitable spirit of the Cantabrians:
Cantaber ante omnes hyemisque, æstusque, famisque
Invictus.
Horace in that variety of refined flattery, with whose incense he knew how to intoxicate Augustus, returns frequently to his Cantabrian wars, and while his object is to praise the Roman pays unceasing tributes to Spanish valour. Thus:
Te Cantaber non antè domabilis
Miratur, ô tutela præsens
Italiæ dominæque Romæ!