The History of Rome, Book V - Theodor Mommsen
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Outbreak of the War
Lepidus Defeated
Death of Lepidus
Thus war was declared. The senatorial party could reckon, in addition to
the Sullan veterans whose civil existence was threatened by Lepidus,
upon the army assembled by the proconsul Catulus; and so, in compliance
with the urgent warnings of the more sagacious, particularly of Philippus,
Catulus was entrusted by the senate with the defence of the capital
and the repelling of the main force of the democratic party stationed
in Etruria. At the same time Gnaeus Pompeius was despatched with another
corps to wrest from his former protege the valley of the Po, which was held
by Lepidus' lieutenant, Marcus Brutus. While Pompeius speedily
accomplished his commission and shut up the enemy's general closely
in Mutina, Lepidus appeared before the capital in order to conquer
it for the revolution as Marius had formerly done by storm.
The right bank of the Tiber fell wholly into his power, and he was able
even to cross the river. The decisive battle was fought
on the Campus Martius, close under the walls of the city.
But Catulus conquered; and Lepidus was compelled to retreat to Etruria,
while another division, under his son Scipio, threw itself
into the fortress of Alba. Thereupon the rising was substantially
atan end. Mutina surrendered to Pompeius; and Brutus was,
notwithstanding the safe-conduct promised to him, subsequently
put to death by order of that general. Alba too was, after a long siege,
reduced by famine, and the leader there was likewise executed.
Lepidus, pressed on two sides by Catulus and Pompeius, fought another
engagement on the coast of Etruria in order merely to procure
the means of retreat, and then embarked at the port of Cosa for Sardinia
from which point he hoped to cut off the supplies of the capital,
and to obtain communication with the Spanish insurgents.
But the governor of the island opposed to him a vigorous resistance;
and he himself died, not long after his landing, of consumption (677),
whereupon the war in Sardinia came to an end. A part of his soldiers
dispersed; with the flower of the insurrectionary army
and with a well-filled chest the late praetor, Marcus Perpenna,
proceeded to Liguria, and thence to Spain to join the Sertorians.
Pompeius Extorts the Command in Spain
The oligarchy was thus victorious over Lepidus; but it found itself
compelled by the dangerous turn of the Sertorian war to concessions,
which violated the letter as well as the spirit of the Sullan
constitution. It was absolutely necessary to send a strong
army and an able general to Spain; and Pompeius indicated,
very plainly, that he desired, or rather demanded, this commission.
The pretension was bold. It was already bad enough that they
had allowed this secret opponent again to attain an extraordinary
command in the pressure of the Lepidian revolution; but it was far
more hazardous, in disregard of all the rules instituted by Sulla
for the magisterial hierarchy, to invest a man who had hitherto
filled no civil office with one of the most important ordinary
provincial governorships, under circumstances in which the observance
of the legal term of a year was not to be thought of.
The oligarchy had thus, even apart from the respect due to their
general Metellus, good reason to oppose with all earnestness
this new attempt of the ambitious youth to perpetuate his exceptional
position. But this was not easy. In the first place, they had
not a single man fitted for the difficult post of general in Spain.
Neither of the consuls of the year showed any desire to measure
himself against Sertorius; and what Lucius Philippus said in a full
meeting of the senate had to be admitted as too true--that, among
all the senators of note, not one was able and willing to command
in a serious war. Yet they might, perhaps, have got over this,
and after the manner of oligarchs, when they had no capable candidate,
have filled the place with some sort of makeshift, if Pompeius had
merely desired the command and had not demanded it at the head
of an army. He had already lent a deaf ear to the injunctions
of Catulus that he should dismiss the army; it was at least doubtful
whether those of the senate would find a better reception,
and the consequences of a breach no one could calculate--
the scale of aristocracy might very easily mount up, if the sword
of a well-known general were thrown into the opposite scale.
So the majority resolved on concession. Not from the people,
which constitutionally ought to have been consulted in a case
where a private man was to be invested with the supreme magisterial
power, but from the senate, Pompeius received proconsular authority
and the chief command in Hither Spain; and, forty days after he had
received it, crossed the Alps in the summer of 677.
Pompeius in Gaul
First of all the new general found employment in Gaul,
where no formal insurrection had broken out, but serious disturbances
of the peace had occurred at several places; in consequence
of which Pompeius deprived the cantons of the Volcae-Arecomici
and the Helvii of their independence, and placed them under Massilia.
He also laid out a new road over the Cottian Alps (Mont Genevre,(21)),
and so established a shorter communication between the valley
of the Po and Gaul. Amidst this work the best season of the year
passed away; it was not till late in autumn that Pompeius crossed
the Pyrenees.
Appearance of Pompeius in Spain
Sertorius had meanwhile not been idle. He had despatched
Hirtuleius into the Further province to keep Metellus in check,
and had himself endeavoured to follow up his complete victory
in the Hither province, and to prepare for the reception of Pompeius.
The isolated Celtiberian towns there, which still adhered to Rome,
were attacked and reduced one after another; at last, in the very
middle of winter, the strong Contrebia (south-east of Saragossa)
had fallen. In vain the hard-pressed towns had sent message
after message to Pompeius; he would not be induced by any entreaties
to depart from his wonted rut of slowly advancing. With the exception
of the maritime towns, which were defended by the Roman fleet,
and the districts of the Indigetes and Laletani in the north-east
corner of Spain, where Pompeius established himself after he had
at length crossed the Pyrenees, and made his raw troops bivouac
throughout the winter to inure them to hardships, the whole
of Hither Spain had at the end of 677 become by treaty or force
dependent on Sertorius, and the district on the upper and middle
Ebro thenceforth continued the main stay of his power. Even
the apprehension, which the fresh Roman force and the celebrated name
of the general excited in the army of the insurgents, had a salutary
effect on it. Marcus Perpenna, who hitherto as the equal
of Sertorius in rank had claimed an independent command over the force
which he had brought with him from Liguria, was, on the news
of the arrival of Pompeius in Spain, compelled by his soldiers
to place himself under the orders of his abler colleague.
For the campaign of 678 Sertorius again employed the corps
of Hirtuleius against Metellus, while Perpenna with a strong army
took up his position along the lower course of the Ebro to prevent
Pompeius from crossing the river, if he should march, as was
to be expected, in a southerly direction with the view of effecting
a junction with Metellus, and along the coast for the sake
of procuring supplies for his troops. The corps of Gaius Herennius
was destined to the immediate support of Perpenna; farther inland
on the upper Ebro, Sertorius in person prosecuted meanwhile
the subjugation of several districts friendly to Rome, and held himself
at the same time ready to hasten according to circumstances
to the aid of Perpenna or Hirtuleius. It was still his intention
to avoid any pitched battle, and to annoy the enemy by petty
conflicts and cutting off supplies.
Pompeius Defeated
Pompeius, however, forced the passage of the Ebro against Perpenna
and took up a position on the river Pallantias, near Saguntum,
whence, as we have already said, the Sertorians maintained their
communications with Italy and the east. It was time that Sertorius
should appear in person, and throw the superiority of his numbers
and of his genius into the scale against the greater excellence
of the soldiers of his opponent. For a considerable time the struggle
was concentrated around the town of Lauro (on the Xucar, south
of Valencia), which had declared for Pompeius and was on that account
besieged by Sertorius. Pompeius exerted himself to the utmost
to relieve it; but, after several of his divisions had already been
assailed separately and cut to pieces, the great warrior found
himself--just when he thought that he had surrounded the Sertorians,
and when he had already invited the besieged to be spectators
of the capture of the besieging army--all of a sudden completely
outmanoeuvred; and in order that he might not be himself
surrounded, he had to look on from his camp at the capture
and reduction to ashes of the allied town and at the carrying off
of its inhabitants to Lusitania--an event which induced a number
of towns that had been wavering in middle and eastern Spain
to adhere anew to Sertorius.
Victories of Metellus
Meanwhile Metellus fought with better fortune. In a sharp
engagement at Italica (not far from Seville), which Hirtuleius had
imprudently risked, and in which both generals fought hand to hand
and Hirtuleius was wounded, Metellus defeated him and compelled him
to evacuate the Roman territory proper, and to throw himself
into Lusitania. This victory permitted Metellus to unite with Pompeius.
The two generals took up their winter-quarters in 678-79
at the Pyrenees, and in the next campaign in 679 they resolved
to make a joint attack on the enemy in his position near Valentia.
But while Metellus was advancing, Pompeius offered battle beforehand
to the main army of the enemy, with a view to wipe out the stain
of Lauro and to gain the expected laurels, if possible, alone.
With joy Sertorius embraced the opportunity of fighting with Pompeius
before Metellus arrived.
Battle on the Sucro
The armies met on the river Sucro (Xucar): after a sharp conflict
Pompeius was beaten on the right wing, and was himself carried
from the field severely wounded. Afranius no doubt conquered
with the left and took the camp of the Sertorians, but during its pillage
he was suddenly assailed by Sertorius and compelled also to give way.
Had Sertorius been able to renew the battle on the following
day, the army of Pompeius would perhaps have been annihilated.
But meanwhile Metellus had come up, had overthrown the corps
of Perpenna ranged against him, and taken his camp: it was not
possible to resume the battle against the two armies united. The
successes of Metellus, the junction of the hostile forces, the
sudden stagnation after the victory, diffused terror among the
Sertorians; and, as not unfrequently happened with Spanish armies,
in consequence of this turn of things the greater portion
of the Sertorian soldiers dispersed. But the despondency passed away
as quickly as it had come; the white fawn, which represented
in the eyes of the multitude the military plans of the general,
was soon more popular than ever; in a short time Sertorius appeared
with a new army confronting the Romans in the level country
to the south of Saguntum (Murviedro), which firmly adhered to Rome,
while the Sertorian privateers impeded the Roman supplies by sea,
and scarcity was already making itself felt in the Roman camp.
Another battle took place in the plains of the river Turia
(Guadalaviar), and the struggle was long undecided. Pompeius
with the cavalry was defeated by Sertorius, and his brother-in-law
and quaestor, the brave Lucius Memmius, was slain; on the other hand
Metellus vanquished Perpenna, and victoriously repelled the attack
of the enemy's main army directed against him, receiving himself
a wound in the conflict. Once more the Sertorian army dispersed.
Valentia, which Gaius Herennius held for Sertorius, was taken
and razed to the ground. The Romans, probably for a moment,
cherished a hope that they were done with their tough antagonist.
The Sertorian army had disappeared; the Roman troops, penetrating
far into the interior, besieged the general himself in the fortress
Clunia on the upper Douro. But while they vainly invested
this rocky stronghold, the contingents of the insurgent communities
assembled elsewhere; Sertorius stole out of the fortress and even
before the expiry of the year stood once more as general
at the head of an army.
Again the Roman generals had to take up their winter quarters
with the cheerless prospect of an inevitable renewal of their Sisyphean
war-toils. It was not even possible to choose quarters in the region
of Valentia, so important on account of the communication with Italy
and the east, but fearfully devastated by friend and foe;
Pompeius led his troops first into the territory of the Vascones(22)
(Biscay) and then spent the winter in the territory of the Vaccaei
(about Valladolid), and Metellus even in Gaul.
Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War
For five years the Sertorian war thus continued, and still
there seemed no prospect of its termination. The state suffered
from it beyond description. The flower of the Italian youth perished
amid the exhausting fatigues of these campaigns. The public treasury
was not only deprived of the Spanish revenues, but had annually
to send to Spain for the pay and maintenance of the Spanish armies
very considerable sums, which the government hardly knew how
to raise. Spain was devastated and impoverished, and the Roman
civilization, which unfolded so fair a promise there, received
a severe shock; as was naturally to be expected in the case
ofan insurrectionary war waged with so much bitterness,
and but too often occasioning the destruction of whole communities.
Even the towns which adhered to the dominant party in Rome had countless
hardships to endure; those situated on the coast had to be provided
with necessaries by the Roman fleet, and the situation of the faithful
communities in the interior was almost desperate. Gaul suffered
hardly less, partly from the requisitions for contingents
of infantry and cavalry, for grain and money, partly
from the oppressive burden of the winter-quarters, which rose
to an intolerable degree in consequence of the bad harvest of 680;
almost all the local treasuries were compelled to betake themselves
to the Roman bankers, and to burden themselves with a crushing load
of debt. Generals and soldiers carried on the war with reluctance.
The generals had encountered an opponent far superior in talent,
a tough and protracted resistance, a warfare of very serious perils
and of successes difficult to be attained and far from brilliant;
it was asserted that Pompeius was scheming to get himself recalled
from Spain and entrusted with a more desirable command somewhere
else. The soldiers, too, found little satisfaction in a campaign
in which not only was there nothing to be got save hard blows
and worthless booty, but their very pay was doled out to them
with extreme irregularity. Pompeius reported to the senate, at the end
of 679, that the pay was two years in arrear, and that the army
was threatening to break up. The Roman government might certainly
have obviated a considerable portion of these evils, if they could have
prevailed on themselves to carry on the Spanish war with less
remissness, to say nothing of better will. In the main, however,
it was neither their fault nor the fault of their generals
that a genius so superior as that of Sertorius was able to carry on
this petty warfare year after year, despite of all numerical
and military superiority, on ground so thoroughly favourable
to insurrectionary and piratical warfare. So little could its end
be foreseen, that the Sertorian insurrection seemed rather
as if it would become intermingled with other contemporary revolts
and thereby add to its dangerous character. Just at that time
the Romans were contending on every sea with piratical fleets,
in Italy with the revolted slaves, in Macedonia with the tribes
on the lower Danube; and in the east Mithradates, partly induced
by the successes of the Spanish insurrection, resolved once more
to try the fortune of arms. That Sertorius had formed connections
with the Italian and Macedonian enemies of Rome, cannot be distinctly
affirmed, although he certainly was in constant intercourse
with the Marians in Italy. With the pirates, on the other hand,
he had previously formed an avowed league, and with the Pontic king--
with whom he had long maintained relations through the medium
of the Roman emigrants staying at his court--he now concluded
a formal treaty of alliance, in which Sertorius ceded to the king
the client-states of Asia Minor, but not the Roman province of Asia,
and promised, moreover, to send him an officer qualified to lead
his troops, and a number of soldiers, while the king, in turn,
bound himself to transmit to Sertorius forty ships and 3000 talents
(720,000 pounds). The wise politicians in the capital were already
recalling the time when Italy found itself threatened by Philip
from the east and by Hannibal from the west; they conceived
that the new Hannibal, just like his predecessor, after having
by himself subdued Spain, could easily arrive with the forces
of Spain in Italy sooner than Pompeius, in order that,
like the Phoenician formerly, he might summon the Etruscans
and Samnites to arms against Rome.
Collapse of the Power of Sertorius
But this comparison was more ingenious than accurate. Sertorius
was far from being strong enough to renew the gigantic enterprise
of Hannibal. He was lost if he left Spain, where all his successes
were bound up with the peculiarities of the country and the people;
and even there he was more and more compelled to renounce
the offensive. His admirable skill as a leader could not change
the nature of his troops. The Spanish militia retained its character,
untrustworthy as the wave or the wind; now collected in masses
to the number of 150,000, now melting away again to a mere handful.
The Roman emigrants, likewise, continued insubordinate, arrogant,
and stubborn. Those kinds of armed force which require that a corps
should keep together for a considerable time, such as cavalry
especially, were of course very inadequately represented
in his army. The war gradually swept off his ablest officers
and the flower of his veterans; and even the most trustworthy
communities, weary of being harassed by the Romans and maltreated
by the Sertorian officers, began to show signs of impatience
and wavering allegiance. It is remarkable that Sertorius,
in this respect also like Hannibal, never deceived himself
as to the hopelessness of his position; he allowed no opportunity
for bringing about a compromise to pass, and would have been ready
at any moment to lay down his staff of command on the assurance
of being allowed to live peacefully in his native land.
But political orthodoxy knows nothing of compromise and conciliation.
Sertorius might not recede or step aside; he was compelled inevitably
to move on along the path which he had once entered, however narrow
and giddy it might become.
The representations which Pompeius addressed to Rome, and which
derived emphasis from the behaviour of Mithradates in the east,
were successful. He had the necessary supplies of money sent
to him by the senate and was reinforced by two fresh legions.
Thus the two generals went to work again in the spring of 680
and once more crossed the Ebro. Eastern Spain was wrested
from the Sertorians in consequence of the battles on the Xucar
and Guadalaviar; the struggle thenceforth became concentrated
on the upper and middle Ebro around the chief strongholds
of the Sertorians--Calagurris, Osca, Ilerda. As Metellus had done
best in the earlier campaigns, so too on this occasion he gained
the most important successes. His old opponent Hirtuleius, who again
confronted him, was completely defeated and fell himself along with
his brother--an irreparable loss for the Sertorians. Sertorius,
whom the unfortunate news reached just as he was on the point
of assailing the enemy opposed to him, cut down the messenger,
that the tidings might not discourage his troops; but the news
could not be long concealed. One town after another surrendered,
Metellus occupied the Celtiberian towns of Segobriga (between Toledo
and Cuenca) and Bilbilis (near Calatayud). Pompeius besieged
Pallantia (Palencia above Valladolid), but Sertorius relieved it,
and compelled Pompeius to fall back upon Metellus; in front
of Calagurris (Calahorra, on the upper Ebro), into which Sertorius
had thrown himself, they both suffered severe losses. Nevertheless,
when they went into winter-quarters--Pompeius to Gaul, Metellus
to his own province--they were able to look back on considerable
results; a great portion of the insurgents had submitted or had
been subdued by arms.
In a similar way the campaign of the following year (681) ran
its course; in this case it was especially Pompeius who slowly
but steadily restricted the field of the insurrection.
Internal Dissension among the Sertorians
The discomfiture sustained by the arms of the insurgents failed
not to react on the tone of feeling in their camp. The military
successes of Sertorius became like those of Hannibal, of necessity
less and less considerable; people began to call in question
his military talent: he was no longer, it was alleged,
what he had been; he spent the day in feasting or over his cups,
and squandered money as well as time. The number of the deserters,
and of communities falling away, increased. Soon projects formed
by the Roman emigrants against the life of the general were reported
to him; they sounded credible enough, especially as various officers
of the insurgent army, and Perpenna in particular, had submitted
with reluctance to the supremacy of Sertorius, and the Roman
governors had for long promised amnesty and a high reward to any
one who should kill him. Sertorius, on hearing such allegations,
withdrew the charge of guarding his person from the Roman soldiers
and entrusted it to select Spaniards. Against the suspected
themselves he proceeded with fearful but necessary severity,
and condemned various of the accused to death without resorting,
as in other cases, to the advice of his council; he was now
more dangerous--it was thereupon affirmed in the circles
of the malcontents--to his friends than to his foes.
Assassination of Sertorius
A second conspiracy was soon discovered, which had its seat
in his own staff; whoever was denounced had to take flight or die;
but all were not betrayed, and the remaining conspirators,
including especially Perpenna, found in the circumstances only
a new incentive to make haste. They were in the headquarters
at Osca. There, on the instigation of Perpenna, a brilliant victory
was reported to the general as having been achieved by his troops;
and at the festal banquet arranged by Perpenna to celebrate
this victory Sertorius accordingly appeared, attended, as was his wont,
by his Spanish retinue. Contrary to former custom in the Sertorian
headquarters, the feast soon became a revel; wild words passed
at table, and it seemed as if some of the guests sought opportunity
to begin an altercation. Sertorius threw himself back on his couch,
and seemed desirous not to hear the disturbance. Then a wine-cup
was dashed on the floor; Perpenna had given the concerted sign.
Marcus Antonius, Sertorius' neighbour at table, dealt the first
blow against him, and when Sertorius turned round and attempted
to rise, the assassin flung himself upon him and held him down
till the other guests at table, all of them implicated
in the conspiracy, threw themselves on the struggling pair,
and stabbed he defenceless general while his arms were pinioned (682).
With him died his faithful attendants. So ended one of the greatest
men, if not the very greatest man, that Rome had hitherto produced--
a man who under more fortunate circumstances would perhaps
have become the regenerator of his country--by the treason
of the wretched band of emigrants whom he was condemned to lead against
his native land. History loves not the Coriolani; nor has she made
any exception even in the case of this the most magnanimous,
most gifted, most deserving to be regretted of them all.
Perpenna Succeeds Sertorius
The murderers thought to succeed to the heritage of the murdered.
After the death of Sertorius, Perpenna, as the highest among
the Roman officers of the Spanish army, laid claim to the chief
command. The army submitted, but with mistrust and reluctance.
However men had murmured against Sertorius in his lifetime, death
reinstated the hero in his rights, and vehement was the indignation
of the soldiers when, on the publication of his testament, the name
of Perpenna was read forth among the heirs. A part of the soldiers,
especially the Lusitanians, dispersed; the remainder had a presentiment
that with the death of Sertorius their spirit and their
fortune had departed.