Numantia, Bastion of Spanish Resistance
“Swift and terrible was the appearance of the defenders, the signals being everywhere hoisted … the trumpets sounding on every tower, so that the whole circuit of fifty stades at once presented to all beholders a most formidable aspect.”1
Appian
In 195 BC, the Roman consul Porcius Cato marched eight cohorts into the Celt-Iberian lands of the River Salo (the Jalon). The Romans had followed the Salo up from its confluence with the mighty River Ebro. The tributary led the Romans through the Sistema Iberico mountain range and into the Meseta, the central plateau of Hispania.
Great and ancient stands of Holm oak grew amidst the massifs, cliffs and crags that rose above the Roman columns. In those days most of Spain remained covered in woodlands, the deforestation initiated by the Roman axe having barely begun. In the valleys the agricultural Celt-Iberian Belli and Titii plowed the soil, while fierce nomadic shepherds, the Arevaci, grazed their flocks up mountain meadows. The Belli, Titii and Arevaci formed a Celtiberii tribal confederation. Their walled villages provided safe havens from local bandits but could offer little resistance to Cato’s cohorts. The fortified towns of the Celtiberii, however, proved a more daunting task.
When Cato was unable to seize the stronghold of Segontia, he set up a base some four miles from another fortress town, Numantia. Numantia appears to have served as a Celtiberii tribal capital. As it happened, Cato’s base would be used by all subsequent Roman operations against Numantia. The war with the Celt-Iberians raged on but for a long time no other Romans came anywhere near as close to Numantia’s walls as had Cato. Nevertheless, after a series of massive Roman campaigns, in 179 BC the Celt-Iberians accepted Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus’ peace agreement. Like the Lusitani, the Celt-Iberians of central Hispania held Gracchus in high regard and put their faith in a Roman-led alliance. Gracchus’ peace settlement gave Rome control of most of Spain with the exception of the Atlantic coast.2
The Spaniards stayed true to the terms of the settlement but the Romans misused it as they saw fit.3 In 153 BC the Celt-Iberians rose in revolt, inspired by a Lusitani invasion of Hispania Ulterior in the previous year. With 30,000 soldiers, consul Fulvius Nobilior drove the Belli and Titii out of their valley and burnt the abandoned Belli capital of Segeda in 153. The homeless tribes allied themselves with other tribes in the Numantia region. Led by their warlord, Caros, some 25,000 Celt-Iberians ambushed the Roman column in a dry wooded valley on August 23, the day of the Roman feast of Vulcan. Roman discipline allowed Nobilior to fight his way out of the trap but not before losing 10,000 of his men. The Celt-Iberians too suffered heavily and Caros was counted among the dead.
Undaunted Nobilior pushed on, reinforced with Numidian war elephants and cavalry. Outside Numantia, Nobilior’s elephants threw the assembled Spaniards and their horses into a panic. The Spanish horses especially were completely startled by the gray titans. But during the ensuing siege, a large stone tumbled down from the battlements and struck one of the elephants on the head. The wounded beast went berserk. Its cries convinced the other elephants that danger was all around them. No longer distinguishing between friend and foe the elephants steam-rolled through the Roman ranks, squashing men into pulp and tossing them left and right like rag-dolls!
At this opportune moment the Numantians sallied out of the gates, killing 4,000 Romans and 3 elephants for a loss of 2,000 of their own warriors. The Romans suffered from further engagements with no concrete gains. Nobilior sat out the winter at Cato’s old site, his men hungry and shivering in the cold and wet weather. Nobilior’s army was reduced to 5,000 men. When Nobilior returned to Rome, he and members of his force unabashedly admitted to the “great losses suffered by the Romans and the valor of the Celtiberians.”4 Cary and Scullard aptly described the fiasco as “the first grave in the cemetery of Roman reputations at Numantia.”5
The following year, Nobilior’s successor, Metellus Claudius Marcellus barely avoided another enemy ambush. Marcellus proceeded to pillage the country and induced the Celt-Iberians to parlay for peace based on Gracchus’ settlement. When the warmongering Roman Senate scoffed at the Celt-Iberian’s pleas for peace, Marcellus defied his own government. He deftly negotiated a peace with the Belli, Titii and Arevaci that gave Hispania Citerior eight years of peace from central Spain.
Marcellus’ peace agreement came in the nick of time because a second Roman army under his replacement, Licinius Lucullus, was already on the way. As was previously mentioned, the avaricious Lucullus went on to commit atrocities in the neutral lands of the Vaccaei. Despite such acts by their new Roman allies, the Celtiberii remained loyal to Rome. For a while, the Belli and Titii even supplied warriors to fight against the indomitable Lusitani guerrilla chieftain Viriathus. By 143 BC, however, Viriathus’ successes inspired the Celtiberii to switch sides once again.
Roman retribution was swift and ruthless as consul Q. Caecilius Metellus swept up central Spain in a campaign of conquest that left only a handful of fortresses in Celtiberii hands. Although at this point the Belli and Titii were again subdued, Numantia remained defiant and turned the tables on besieging Romans in 141–140 BC and in 137. Incredibly, each time the Roman commander was able to worm his way out of the situation through lies and empty promises. In 140, Q. Pompeius even duped the Numantians into paying an indemnity. In 137, Hostilius Mancinus’ army was saved by Gracchus’ son, Tiberius, whose father’s name was still held in respect by the Numantians. Tiberius, who was a quaestor in Mancinus’ beleaguered army, reached an agreement with the Numantians. The Senate, however, was of other mind and called Mancinus back to Rome to stand trial.
During the ensuing two years no Roman army dared to challenge Numantia. Instead, Hispania Citerior’s commanders falsely accused the hapless Vaccaei of supplying Numantia with provisions. The Romans laid siege to the Vaccaei city of Pallantia but achieved only more bloodshed and a humiliating retreat in which many Roman soldiers succumbed to starvation. Although the Roman commander was chastised, his replacement was back raiding the Vaccaei lands in 135 BC. Meanwhile, the Senate rejected Mancinus’ peace agreement after a lengthy dispute with Numantian envoys. Mancinus was made the scapegoat and delivered naked to the Numantians, who, however, refused to receive him.
Just as Rome had no intention of coming to any sort of peaceable agreement with Viriathus, so she would not be satisfied with anything but the total destruction of Numantia. Unfortunately Rome’s commanders in Hispania Citerior seemed more eager to pillage the Vaccaei lands than risk themselves in a confrontation with Numantia.
Ever since Nobilior’s defeat, fear of the Celt-Iberians pervaded the Roman army. Young men avoided enrollment with whatever excuses they could find and even the posts of legates, tribunes and lesser officers remained unfilled. Veteran legionaries had never seen such fear of the enemy as filled the new recruits. The man that Rome hoped would change all this was consul P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus. He hailed from the renowned Scipio family that gave Viriathus such trouble. Scipio Aemilianus had already shown his qualities in 146 BC, when, through sheer tenacity and will power, he burst asunder the stout defenses of Carthage and razed the city to the ground. In 134, Scipio Aemilianus took command of Rome’s legions in Spain.
With Scipio Aemilianus’ arrival a new wind blew through the Roman army in Spain, which had lost its zeal due to idleness, discord and luxury. Prostitutes, traders, soothsayers and diviners were booted out of the camps along with all unnecessary items. Scipio Aemilianus got rid of animal sacrifices used for divination purposes because the soldiers, demoralized by defeats, had become used to relying on omens. The soldiers’ food was limited. Each one was ordered to carry a month’s rations and they were forbidden to have beds. As an example to his men, Scipio Aemilianus was the first to sleep on straw. While on the march the soldiers were no longer allowed to ride on mules. “For what can you expect in a war,” said Scipio Aemilianus, “from a man who is not even able to walk?”6 Any offences were punished with the vine stick.
Along with the new restrictions came severe training. Scipio Aemilianus marched his men all over the nearby plains, building, fortifying and then demolishing one camp after another. Trenches were dug and then filled in, walls erected and then torn down. Scipio Aemilianus was always there to oversee everything. A guard was always deployed and cavalry sent to scour the countryside.
Scipio Aemilianus was harsh but this does not mean he was a man without a heart. When he saw sick soldiers on the march, he mounted them on the horses of his cavalry and told the latter to walk on foot. He even lightened the load of overburdened mules and made his foot soldiers carry the extra load. Scipio Aemilianus commented on his strict discipline: “Those generals who were severe and strict in the observance of law were serviceable to their own men, while those who were easy going and bountiful were useful only to the enemy.”7
One soldier who appreciated Scipio Aemilianus’ reforms was Gaius Marius. The young Marius had grown up in a village near Arpinum, in central Italy. Scipio’s campaign against the Celtiberii was Marius’ first assignment as a soldier. Marius detested the corruption that had beset his fellow soldiers and cheerfully complied with the hard but effective new training. Marius’ keenness was noted by Scipio Aemilianus but even he could not have guessed just what an exceptional soldier Marius was to become.
In May of 134 BC, when Scipio Aemilianus deemed his men ready, he marched toward Cato’s old camp near Numantia. Numantia covered some 54 acres, with around 2,000 houses and a population of 10,000 men, women and children. Including warriors who would have drifted in from nearby villages, its defensive strength was therefore no more than 4,000–6,000 men.8 However, the Numantians could feel secure behind practically unconquerable natural defenses, boosted by three concentric rings of formidable walls strengthened by towers. Although the walls were damaged on the south and western sides, the Numantians had thrown up stakes, stones and ditches. The walls and city towered on a hill top, today’s Muela de Garray, some 3,540 feet above sea level. Two rivers, the Duero and the Merdancho, flanked the fortress-city from the southwest and the west, while to the north small lakes were fed by a tributary of the Duero. A slope to the northeast provided the only means of attacking the city.
Scipio Aemilianus had no intention of letting his army bleed itself to death by futile assaults. For the time being he remained on the defensive, studying the lie of the land and the intentions of his enemy. His foraging units cut down the unripe grain in the fields. Instead of tackling Numantia, Scipio Aemilianus decided to pillage the Vaccaei. Not surprisingly, the latter were now hostile to Rome and were selling food supplies to Numantia. Scipio Aemilianus took what food he needed from the Vaccaei lands and burnt everything else. The Vaccaei retorted by ambushing a Roman foraging party and came close to trapping a number of retaliatory Roman cavalry squadrons. Scipio Aemilianus barely avoided another ambush at a river crossing, but the alternate route he took caused him to lose some of his horses and pack animals which perished from thirst.
When Scipio Aemilianus arrived back in Numantian territory in late summer he was joined by Jugurtha, grandson of the Numidian King and Roman vassal, Masinissa. Jugurtha brought with him twelve elephants and accompanying archers and slingers. Scipio Aemilianus now commanded around 60,000 men, including a personal guard of 4,000 under Bueto his nephew, which he brought with him from Italy and which, alongside 10,000 Roman and Italian troops, made up the core fighting strength of his army. Then there were 10,000 auxiliaries, 5,000 warriors rallied from the conquered Belli and Titii and thousands of other unspecified and less than reliable troops. Still, Scipio Aemilianus avoided an assault on Numantia. Instead he continued to loot the countryside, fighting off an ambush in the Guadarrama valley without serious casualties.
Scipio Aemilianus established two camps very close to Numantia, one to the north, under his direct command, the other to the southeast, under his brother Maximus. When the Numantians sallied forth he refused to be taunted into battle. In light of the previous failed Roman assaults, Scipio Aemilianus was determined to reduce the Numantians by starvation. Within a single day, the Romans erected a 2.5-mile long palisade, reinforced with stones and with a halfyard deep ditch lined with stakes, across the city’s approachable northeastern slope. A strong Roman guard was always present and prevented the Numantians from seriously disrupting the work.
Behind the palisade Scipio Aemilianus built another stone wall, 13 feet thick at the base, 8 feet thick at the 10-foot high top and protected by a further “V” shaped ditch. The second wall spanned 5.6 miles, virtually enclosing the whole city. The wall linked together 300 separate towers, one every plethron (103 feet), plus a total of seven roughly equally spaced forts. The forts were located on naturally defensive positions.9
Within the forts and mounted on the towers were catapults and ballistae, hurling 1 to 2-lb balls or shooting bolts to a range of a 1,000 feet. Furthermore within the forts there were 50 heavy ballistae with 10lb shot, although some super-heavy siege engines may have thrown 27lb, 76lb or even 156lb stones.
The potential weak points in Scipio Aemilianus’ wall were a lake or marsh to the north and the river systems that flanked Numantia to the west. The marsh was breached with a dike which was surmounted by the wall. Bridges were thrown across most of the rivers, except the Duero whose deep sloping banks and 270-foot width thwarted even the Roman engineers. When the Numantians used boats to bring in supplies, the Romans threw booms of iron-spiked wooden beams moored into the water and erected another two forts to cover the waterway.
Thirty thousand troops were held in the forts and camps as support while the other 30,000 manned the walls. A red flag was used to signal any point that was threatened in the daytime while lanterns and torches were used at night. The Roman soldiers lived in houses built in the Celt-Iberian manner. Each house had two floors, one on ground level and a cellar room below to give shelter from extreme heat or cold.
Scipio Aemilianus’ fortifications, completed by November 134 BC, were a deadly marvel of Roman engineering skills. In effect they enclosed the fortress-town of Numantia within an even greater fortress. The Numantians lacked archers and since their spears and slings had a maximum range of 150 and 300 feet respectively, they could not fire upon the Romans from the safety of Numantia’s walls. The range of the Roman siege engines, however, reached well within the city walls. The terrifying racket of catapult balls and spears, as they fired and hurled through the air, and the impending boom of their impact, further tore away at the morale of the defenders. Attempts to sally forth and stop the constructions floundered in face of superior Roman numbers. One can imagine how disheartening the awesome display of Roman military power must have seemed to the trapped Numantians.
Yet the brave Spaniards did not sit idly by to await their doom. Diversionary sorties were launched against the Roman walls and attempts were made to lure the Romans out into open battle. But they were like gnats biting a giant. Scipio Aemilianus refused to budge. The Romans even had orders not to stop Numantians from gathering firewood and water in the enclosed area. The quicker they used up their last meager resources, the sooner starvation would set in.
Often at the forefront of the fighting was the aforementioned young Roman soldier Gaius Marius. His courage was far above that of his comrades and once, in front of Scipio’s eyes, Marius defeated an enemy in single combat. As a reward Marius earned several honors.
With the future of the city looking grim, a Numantian named Retogenes Caraunios made a last ditch attempt to summon help. At night, he and five friends and their five servants scaled the Roman walls with a rope ladder and killed the sentries. They stole some horses and rode to the Vaccaei, seeking help. The Vaccaei, however, had suffered so much under Roman brutality that the fear of Rome was instilled into them. Town after town refused to aid Retogenes until he came to Lutia. Against the wishes of the town elders, 400 bold young warriors volunteered to come to Numantia’s aid. The town elders sought to avoid Roman reprisal by sending word to Scipio Aemilianus. At dusk the next day, Roman light troops led by Scipio Aemilianus himself surrounded the town. Scipio Aemilianus threatened to sack the town if the rebels were not immediately surrendered. The citizens told him that the rebels had already fled with Retogenes. Scipio Aemilianus refused to believe their words and did not leave until the town surrendered 400 innocent youths. Their right hands were struck off as punishment.
With Retogenes’ relief attempt having come to naught, the Numantians sent an envoy to Scipio Aemilianus to reach some sort of peace agreement. It was the spring of 133 BC and Scipio, aware of the desperate condition of his trapped foe, demanded nothing less than unconditional surrender and the handing over of all weapons. The envoys returned to Numantia and presented Scipio Aemilianus’ terms. The Numantians became enraged over Scipio’s demands. After all the hardship Numantia had endured, her people were to surrender like helpless sheep? Frustration, desperation and fear fed the Numantians’ anger and clouded their judgment so that they falsely accused the envoys of doubledealing with the Romans. The envoys were murdered as punishment.
Severe starvation nagged at the Numantians’ bodies and minds like an evil specter. Their plight took on an increasingly morbid countenance. When all the meat, bread and animal forage were exhausted, the Numantians ate the boiled hides of animals. After the hides, there was nothing left to eat but themselves. First the dead, then the ill and the weak, became victims of cannibalism. Others chose a more heroic end, fighting each other to the death. One Numantine of wealthy standing set all his beautiful houses aflame and then threw himself into the fire.
By flame, by iron or by poison, many took their own lives. Those that were left surrendered to Scipio Aemilianus at the end of July or early August 133. After enduring nine months of siege, the emaciated Numantians that shuffled out of the city gates and surrendered their weapons were more akin to walking skeletons than human beings. Eyes within sunken sockets reflected the mental horrors of hunger, and of the eating of human flesh. For those that survived, a life of slavery awaited. Fifty of them, presumably the handful that remained in presentable shape, were selected for Scipio Aemilianus’ coming triumphal march in Rome. Scipio Aemilianus, the destroyer of Carthage, did the same to Numantia. The city was razed to the ground, its rebuilding was forbidden and Roman soldiers were stationed to prevent anyone from living in the ruins.
Scipio Aemilianus was honored with the title of “Numantinus”. While attending an entertainment, someone asked Scipio Aemilianus where the Romans, after Scipio, could find another great general? Scipio turned to Gaius Marius, who sat next to him, gently clapped the young soldier’s shoulder, and replied “Here perhaps.”10
The siege of Numantia and the war against Viriathus marked the most dramatic events in the Roman conquest of Spain. But even after both city and man yielded to the might of Rome, resistance in Spain continued for many years. Not until the age of Emperor Augustus in 19 BC, was all of Spain truly subdued.