Numantia Castile y Leon Spain

The warlike Lusitani, a Celtic federation of central Portugal and western Spain, successfully resist Roman expansion, primarily through the construction of massive hill forts, the most formidable of which is Numantia.

Similarly, the Celtiberian tribes of mountainous north-central Spain also offer strong resistance to Roman penetration. Among them, the Belli, the most culturally advanced of the southern Celtiberian peoples, are the first Celtiberian tribe to adopt coinage following the Second Punic War. They also introduce written laws, inscribing them on bronze tablets (Tabulae) using a modified Northeastern Iberian script for their own language.

Celtiberian Hospitality Tokens and Communications System

The Belli use this script to engrave Celtiberian hospitality tokens, small bronze objects split into two halves, each retained by individuals in a hospitality relationship. These tokens likely served as identity markers, safe-conducts, or warranties. The discovery of matching halves hundreds of kilometers apart suggests that various Celtic groups maintained an extensive communication network across central Spain.

Celtiberian Confederacy and Resistance to Rome

During the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, the Belli join the Celtiberian Confederacy, allying with the Arevaci, Lusones, and Titii, forming a strong political and military coalition.

Although the Belli were forced to accept Roman suzerainty in 181 BCE under Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, they continue to resist Roman encroachment while also defending against raids by the Turboletae and the Iberian Lobetani.

Roman Campaigns and the First Numantine War

The Roman general Quintus Fulvius Nobilior leads a major military campaign in Hispania, but his efforts meet stiff resistance.

Initially, Roman forces attack Segeda, a Belli oppidum near modern Zaragoza, whose inhabitants are reinforcing its walls. Although the Romans destroy Segeda, the Belli regroup and elect Caros as their leader. Under his command, the Celtiberian coalition ambushes Nobilior at the Battle of Ribarroya, near the Baldano River Valley, marking the beginning of the First Numantine War.

Nobilior then advances westward onto the meseta, laying siege to Numantia, an oppidum whose inhabitants will defy Rome for years. However, harsh winter conditions force the Roman army to retreat, and in 152 BCE, Nobilior is replaced as consul by Marcus Claudius Marcellus.

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.

Metellus had been elected consul in 143.

As the new governor in Hispania, he attacks the territory of the Vettones, but is not able to take the city of Numancia.

Rome's campaigns in Spain against the belligerent Iberians have been protracted, unprofitable, and costly in Roman casualties.

Following the defeat of Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus by Lusitanian leader Viriathus in 142 BCE, Rome had sent one of its best generals, Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus, to Iberia.

Near Sierra Morena, the Romans fall into a Lusitanian ambush.

Viriathus does not harm the Romans and lets the soldiers and Servilianus go.

Servilianus makes a peace term that recognizes the Lusitanian rule over the land they have conquered.

This agreement is ratified by the Roman Senate and Viriathus is declared "amicus populi Romani", an ally of the Roman people.

However, the peace brought by the treaty displeases Quintus Servilius Caepio, who had gotten himself appointed successor of his brother, Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus, in the command of the army and administration of affairs in Iberia.

In his reports to the Roman Senate, he sustains that the treaty is in the highest degree dishonorable to Rome. (Livy seemed to have a different opinion, as he said it was a stain in Servilianus' military career but comments that the treaty was aequis, fair.)

The senate authorizes Q. Servilius Caepio, on his request, to distress Viriathus as long as it is done secretly.

The treaty between Rome and the Lusitanians is in effect for one year, during which time Servilius Caepio harasses Viriathus and keeps making pressure with his reports until he is authorized to publicly declare war.

Knowing that the Lusitanian resistance is largely due to Viriathus' leadership, Servilius Caepio bribes Audax, Ditalcus and Minurus, who had been sent by Viriathus as an embassy to establish peace.

According to Appian, these ambassadors returned to their camp and killed Viriathus while he was sleeping.

The three men have escaped by the time the Lusitanians discover the death of their leader.

Unable to avenge him they instead hold feasts, gladiator battles and a grand funeral.

Eutropius claims that when Viriathus' assassins asked Servilius Caepio for their payment he answered that "it was never pleasing to the Romans, that a general should be killed by his own soldiers.".

In another version more common in modern Portugal and Spain, "Rome does not pay traitors who kill their chief".

In any event, Servilius Caepio is refused his Triumph by the Senate and the Lusitanians keep fighting under the new leadership of one Tantalus.

The Numantians themselves fight on, forcing the surrender, in 137 BCE, of a twenty thousand-man Roman consular army led by Gaius Hostilius Mancinus, Roman consul for this year, who allegedly put out his fires and tried to flee by night before being surrounded and forced to make peace.

According to Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus was instrumental in bringing about the peace and saving twenty thousand Roman soldiers.

He returns home something of a hero, but Mancinus is put on trial by the Senate, which refuses to accept the treaty.

While Gracchus and other lieutenants are saved by Scipio Africanus Minor, the Senate decrees that Mancinus be handed over to the Numantines, as some twenty Roman commanders were handed over to the Samnites after the defeat at Caudine Forks in 321 BCE.

Plutarch does not relate Mancinus' further fate; Appian, however, noted that he was taken to Spain and handed over naked to the Numantines, but that they refused to accept him.

The Roman Senate, however, refuses to acknowledge defeat and elects to continue the struggle.

Scipio Aemilianus, sent as consul to Hispania Citerior in 134 CE to end the war, recruits twenty thousand Roman soldiers and forty thousand allies, including Numidian cavalry under Jugurtha.

Scipio builds a ring of seven fortresses around Numantia itself before beginning the siege proper.

Scipio is accompanied by his brother-in-law Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, the younger brother of Tiberius.

Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, Scipio’s elder brother, had served under his blood father in the Third Macedonian War and was sent by his father to Rome to announce the news of the Roman victory at Pydna.

Fabius had served as praetor in Sicily during 149 BCE - 148 BCE and was elected consul for 145 BCE.

After his consulship he had gone as proconsul to Hispania where he fought and defeated Viriathus in an episode of the Lusitanian War but had failed to capture him.

He serves at Numantia as Scipio’s legate.

After suffering pestilence and famine during an eight-month siege, most of the four thousand surviving Numantines commit suicide rather than surrender to Rome.

The Romans completely raze Numantia and enslave or kill its inhabitants.

The great Roman victory ushers in an era of peace in Hispania that will last until the Sertorian War over half a century later.