Servius Sulpicius Galba, praetor in 151 BCE,…

Servius Sulpicius Galba, praetor in 151 BCE, receives Spain as his province, where the Romans are waging a two-front war against the Lusitanians and the Celtiberians.

On his arrival, he hastens to the relief of some Roman subjects who are hard pressed by the Lusitanians, who have been fighting the Romans since 193; the Roman Republic is now having difficulty in recruiting soldiers for the wars in Hispania, deemed particularly brutal.

Galba succeeds so far as to put the enemy to flight; but as, with his exhausted and undisciplined army, he is incautious in their pursuit, the Lusitanians turn around, and a fierce contest ensues, in which seven thousand Romans fall.

Galba then collects the remnants of his army and his allies, and takes up his winter-quarters at Conistorgis.

The younger son of Lucius Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus, the conqueror of Macedonia, had fought when he was seventeen years old by his father's side at the Battle of Pydna, which had decided the fate of Macedonia and made northern Greece subject to Rome.

Later adopted by Publius Cornelius Scipio, the eldest son of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, his name was has been changed to Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus.

He therefore is the nephew of Publius Cornelius Scipio's wife, Aemilia Tertia—as Aemilia and Lucius are siblings and their father was Lucius Aemilius Paullus.

Aemilianus further complicates his relationships by marrying Sempronia, granddaughter of the elder Africanus and daughter of censor Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus.

Now a leading general and politician of the Roman Republic and a man of culture and refinement, Aemilianus has gathered round him such men as the Greek historian Polybius, the philosopher Panaetius, and the poets Lucilius and Terence.

In 151, a time of disaster for the Romans in Spain, he voluntarily offers his services in this province and develops an influence over the native tribes similar to that which Scipio Africanus, his grandfather by adoption, had acquired nearly sixty years before.

Accompanied by Polybius, Aemilianus brings valuable aid from his adoptive grandfather's old friend Masinissa, prince of Numidia.