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.13 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.
4. THE NUMANTINE WAR
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.14 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 i
n 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.
5. CARTHAGE AND MASINISSA
The terms imposed on Carthage after Zama had put an end to her independent political life, but within the prescribed limits she could still develop her territory and foster her commerce. She was hampered less by external circumstances than by internal moral weakness. Her oligarchical government was selfish and corrupt. Though she paid her annual indemnity to Rome, notwithstanding the loss of her Spanish mines, it was the lower classes that bore the burden. The exploitation by a vicious oligarchy of a state whose treasury was nearly empty could not continue indefinitely: at last the people called on Hannibal to cleanse the administration. Elected Sufete in 196,15 he at once struck at the power of the oligarchs. He skilfully manoeuvred an official appeal to the people by getting at variance with the Senate. In the popular assembly he vigorously attacked the Council of One Hundred and Four Judges and passed a law which made membership subject to annual election by the people, with the proviso that no judge should hold office for two consecutive years. At one blow the tyrannical control of the oligarchs was undermined. Hannibal followed up this triumph by a masterly reorganization of the public revenues and by encouraging commerce and agriculture. So happy were his reforms that by 191 Carthage could offer to pay off the rest of her war indemnity in a lump sum, whereas the instalment of 199 had been paid in such poor silver that the Roman quaestors had rejected it.
But Hannibal’s very success caused his downfall. Though supported by the people, he could hope for little mercy from the disgruntled oligarchs, who setting party before state appealed to Rome on the pretext that Hannibal was intriguing with Antiochus. A stir was caused in political circles. Cato had just entered office (195) and the anti-Barcid faction had unwittingly provided him with powder and shot to attack his enemy, Scipio Africanus. It would be argued that Scipio’s generous peace terms had enabled Hannibal to overthrow the nobility of Carthage and to seize the helm himself: with the east so unsettled, what might this not mean? Scipio himself maintained that it was beneath the dignity of the Roman people to meddle with the party politics of Carthage or to treat as a common criminal the man whom they had defeated in open war. This was the wiser, as well as the more generous, policy, for there is no evidence, beyond the accusations of his political opponents, that Hannibal had any far-reaching designs. As it was, Scipio’s rivals won the day and succeeded in driving Hannibal into the arms of Antiochus, thereby creating the very situation they were trying to avoid. They sent three commissioners to Carthage, nominally to arrange a frontier question between Masinissa and Carthage, but actually to complain to the Carthaginian Senate that Hannibal was intriguing with Antiochus. Hannibal perceived their real purpose and fled by night from the city, ultimately reaching the court of Antiochus; that he sought asylum beyond the reach of Rome does not prove that he had previously been intriguing with the king. The Punic government then humbled itself and formally exiled its greatest citizen.
After sacrificing Hannibal to Punic jealousy and Roman revenge, the Carthaginian government would long keep the anti-Roman party under its heel; indeed Hannibal himself had aimed at avoiding giving any cause of complaint to Rome. He received no encouragement from Carthage when plotting with Antiochus. With continued humility Carthage sent large quantities of corn to support the Roman armies in Greece and Asia, and as Rome’s ally, promptly gave military and naval assistance when required. True, in 174 and 171 BC Masinissa accused Carthage of plotting with Perseus, but the suspicions were unfounded. During the first half of the second century Rome and Carthage lived, if not in harmony, at least in unbroken peace. Roman policy was non-aggressive, while trade and the coming and going of embassies taught the two peoples to know each other better. The final breakdown was caused not by Carthage, but by the ambitious Masinissa.
Masinissa, who was thirty-seven years old at Zama, preserved his vigour into a ripe old age: at eighty-eight he still commanded his army in battle, mounting his horse unaided and riding barebacked. But he had other outstanding qualities besides physical vigour. Fearless and unscrupulous, diplomatic and masterful, he conceived the tremendous ideal of welding the native tribes of North Africa into a nation. He successfully developed agriculture and commerce, and encouraged the spread of Punic civilization. His fame soon exceeded the confines of Africa; he cultivated relations with the Greek world, and at Delos at least three statues were erected in his honour. Throughout he remained the faithful ally of Rome, aiding her with supplies and troops in her eastern and Spanish wars. But his territorial aggressions soon caused friction with Carthage.16 After Zama he had been rewarded with the Numidian empire of the defeated Syphax and with any territory which either he or his ancestors had held. With this exception Carthage had retained her possessions inside the Phoenician Trenches and her control of Emporia.17 Obviously difficulties would arise in interpreting Masinissa’s claim within the Trenches, and these would be increased by the fact that Carthage was forbidden to wage war on any ally of Rome in Africa. Masinissa gradually but systematically proceeded to occupy Emporia, other maritime colonies of Carthage, and much territory within the Trenches. Whenever he rattled the sabre, Carthage always declined the challenge and merely appealed to the Romans, who sent out boundary commissions, but these always decided in the king’s favour or else left the question unsettled (e.g. in 193, 182, 174 and 172 BC). Finally Carthage became restive, and after a series of razzias Masinissa occupied a district in the Great Plains called Tusca (perhaps the modern Dougga). Again Carthage appealed to the Roman Senate, with the usual result that a commission headed by Cato left the question undecided (probably in 153). But not all the Senate was willing to follow the revengeful advice of Cato, who now urged the destruction of Carthage. The next year another commission was despatched under Scipio Nasica who forced Masinissa to withdr
aw a little way.
In Carthage party strife was rife and the popular party succeeded in exiling the leaders of the faction which desired to come to an agreement with Masinissa (151–150). When the king tried to insist on the reinstatement of these exiles, the patience of the Carthaginians broke down and they declared war, unmindful of the restrictions of the Zama treaty. A fierce engagement gave a slight victory to the Numidians, so that the Carthaginians were ready to negotiate for terms through the good offices of Scipio Aemilianus, who had just arrived from Spain in order to obtain some elephants. Negotiations, however, broke down, and Masinissa managed to cut off his enemy’s supplies. Starvation and disease at length forced the Carthaginians to capitulate; they agreed to cede the debated territory and to pay 5,000 talents in fifty years. But as the survivors marched out they were treacherously attacked by the king’s son, Gulussa; few escaped to Carthage. The attempt to check Masinissa’s advance had thus proved abortive; it had merely established the king in more territory and had roused the anger of Rome.
A History of the Roman World Page 41