Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain by Philip Matyszak

Author:Philip Matyszak
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: HISTORY / Ancient / General
ISBN: 9781473829886
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

Having suffered this major setback, Manlius pulled back to his own province. A fragment which has survived from a text by the historian Sallust suggests that Hirtuleius did not let Manlius get away easily. ‘He occupied the highest hill, and built many siege works around him and Ilerda.’15 When Manlius did get back over the Pyrenees an already bad proconsulship was made worse by the warriors of the local Aquitani. These took advantage of the battered state of the Manlius’ army to give it yet a further mauling. This effectively knocked Manlius out of the picture in Hispania where once again the only serious Sullan presence was the army of Metellus – and that was effectively pushed out of Hispania Ulterior for the remainder of the year.

In 78 Metellus decided to attack the one element of Sertorius’ support which could not easily evade him – those cities which had joined in the insurgency. In fact as the war went on, cities – both on the Sertorian and Sullan side – gained in importance for just that reason. Though Sertorius was impossible to pin down in the countryside, he had to stand his ground when either attacking a city or in defending one from capture. Consequently the terrain around the cities were one of the few places in the war where Hispanian arms could be counted on to directly confront the Roman.

Langobriga (probably today’s Laccobriga, not far from Lisbon in Portugal) seemed an easy target.16 The town had a single well, which was nowhere near adequate for the needs of the population. This was not normally a problem, because there were springs that ran right alongside the city walls. Anyone in need of a refreshing glass of mineral water need only step outside the city gates with a bucket – unless there was a Roman army sitting in front of those gates.

Separate the town from its water supply, Metellus reasoned, and thirst would quickly force a surrender. And surrender would be highly significant, because it would demonstrate to the cities of Hispania that Sertorius could not defend them – even here in Lusitania at what was probably the furthest point that Metellus had managed to penetrate into Sertorian territory. Two days, Metellus estimated, would be enough to subdue the city. But his experiences in Hispania had turned him into an incorrigible pessimist, so he ordered his men to take supplies for five.

We hear little of the intelligence gathering operations of Sertorius, but from the results of its performance, we know that it was superb. Every town had its share of Sertorian sympathizers, and some of these worked as servants in the Roman camps, plied legionaries with wine in taverns and noted the Roman army’s direction of march. Thereafter swift Iberian horses and local knowledge of short cuts carried the news to Sertorius or his lieutenants. It is quite probable that Sertorius was informed of Metellus’ plans for Langobriga before some of Metellus’ lieutenants.

Metellus eventually worked out this security problem for himself, and decided that the only way to keep a secret in Iberia was to share it with no-one.

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