The power vacuum fostered by the Romans…

The Numantine War (from Bellum Numantinum in Appian's Roman History), a conflict between the Celtiberian tribes of Hispania Citerior and the Roman government, is the most recent of the Celtiberian Wars fought by the Romans to subdue these people along the Ebro.

Fought contemporaneously with the Lusitanian War in Hispania Ulterior, the Numantine War had begun in 154 BCE as a revolt of the Celtiberian Arevaci of Numantia on the Duero, the Arevaci, who inhabit an area near Numantia and Uxama, had formed through the mingling of Iberians and migrating Celts in the sixth century BCE.

The first phase of the war ends in 151 BCE when the Romans finally defeat the Celtiberians.

Lucius Licinius Lucullus, a novus homo who becomes consul in 151 BCE, had been imprisoned by the tribunes for attempting to enforce a troop levy too harshly.

Upon reaching Spain, he is disappointed to find that the Celtiberians have made peace, and attacks the Vaccaei—the most cultured group of the Celtiberians, according to Diodorus Siculus; Silius Italicus will define them as merchants and businessmen—and the Kaukaioi whose city is in the territory of the Vaccaei, massacring the second after having made an agreement with them.

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.

Polybius and other historians first apply the name Numidia during the second century BCE to indicate the territory west of Carthage, including the entire Maghreb as far as the river Mulucha (Muluya), about one hundred miles west of Oran.

The Romans conceive the Numidians as two great tribal groups: the Massyli in eastern Numidia, and the Massaesyli in the west.

On the eve of the Third Punic War, the eastern tribes take the side of the Romans, whereas the Massaesyli support the Carthaginians.

The Numidian prince Massinissa, supported by a party at Rome, is incessantly encroaching on Carthaginian territory.

Based on descriptions from Livy, the Numidians had begun raiding around seventy towns in the southern and western sections of Carthage's remaining territory.

The multi-ethnic confederacy Sarmatian confederacy of western Scythia, warlike nomadic pastoralists of varied backgrounds mentioned by classical authors from Herodotus onward, have by 150 BCE divided into three nations: the Alans, an Iranian people, to the East, living near the Sea of Azov; …

…the Roxolani, believed to be an offshoot of the Alans, between the Don and Dnieper Rivers; and …

…the Iazyges, or Jazyges, or Iazygians, of the lower Dnieper, in the steppes of what is now Ukraine.

Heracleides has persuaded the Roman senate to support the young pretender against Demetrius.

The Romans conspire in 150 with Attalus II of Pergamon to supply Alexander Balas with mercenaries in his challenge and subsequent slaying of Demetrius.

With the support of the Roman Senate and the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, Balas, also called Alexander Epiphanes, assumes control of Syria and the remains of the Seleucid Empire.

Thus the family of Timarchus has contributed in no small way to the disintegration of the Seleucid realms.

Laodice, the sister of Alexander Balas, had, after 152 BCE, married Mithridates V of Pontus, who reigns as king from 150 BCE–120 BCE.

Little is known regarding her relationship with her husband or her reign as Pontian Queen, although Laodice will bear Mithridates seven children: Laodice of Cappadocia, Mithridates VI of Pontus, Mithridates Chrestus, Laodice, Nysa (sometimes spelt as Nyssa), Roxana and Statira.