Fifth Sertorius
Hans Holbein the Young
Finth Sertorius, in Latin Quintus Sertorius (Nursia, 122 BC - Osca, 72 BC), was a prominent Roman politician and military man of the final period of the Roman Republic, famous for the antisilian movement that he led in Hispania. Later he was mythologized as a national hero of Spain and Portugal.[citation required]
Belonging to a humble family although related to the republican aristocracy through his uncle, Cayo Mario, he served under his orders during the Jugurta war and during the Cimbrian war, where he would carve out some fame as a soldier. His political career began when he was appointed military tribune (97 BC) and assigned to Hispania, where he served under Titus Didius; Here he once again showed his military skills and was awarded a grass crown (93 BC) after defeating some rebels in Cástulo.
In the year 90 B.C. C. he was elected quaestor of Cisalpine Gaul. After his time in office expired, he fought as legatus during the course of the Social war. When civil war broke out between his uncle and his former lieutenant, Sulla, he declared himself an ally of the former; However, when he was appointed praetor by the Cinna y Carbón regime, he moved to Hispania before the conservatives took the capital.
After being named dictator by the Senate, Sulla decided to put an end to the last vestige of the rebel regime that still resisted submitting to his person; for this he would send two of his most skilled and loyal commanders, Metellus Pius (79 BC) and Pompey (76 BC).
The arrival of the latter would tip the balance of war in favor of the conservatives who, in a joint campaign, put an end to almost all the resistance (74 BC). These last defeats gave rise to the conception of a conspiracy led by Marco Perpenna Ventón that ended his life in 72 BC. C. Perpenna himself assumed leadership of the rebel regime, which Pompey crushed a few months later.
Youth
Sertorius was born in Nursia (Sabinia) around the year 122 B.C. C., within an equestrian family, and soon stood out as a good speaker. However, his prestige would come from his courageous military interventions in the battles of Arausio (105 BC) and Vercelae (102 BC) against the Cimbri and Teutons under the command of Gnaeus Malio Maximus and Key Mario, respectively. According to the sources, in this year Sertorio had entered the territory of the Cimbri to learn about their movements, taking advantage of his knowledge of the Celtic language. Later he served as a military tribune in Hispania under Titus Didius (97 BC to 93 BC), and won a grass crown by suppressing a military mutiny at Castulo.
In 90 B.C. C. he was named quaestor, remaining in Galia Cisalpina. A short time later he would take part in the Social War as a legacy. During the civil war he declared himself an enemy of Sulla, commanding, as Apiano tells us, one of the four legions that occupied Rome under the government of Mario and Cinna.
Despite this collaboration, he was opposed to the executions that followed the establishment of said government. Five days after the start of these, Sertorio ordered his troops (much more disciplined than Mario's, which had been recruited from gladiators, slaves and others) to annihilate the freedmen responsible for the atrocities, an action that Mario took with surprising Calm down, without taking any retaliation.
Opposition to Sulla
Sertorius was an active member of Cinna's government. In 83 B.C. C. traveled to Hispania Citerior as praetor, but after Sulla seized the city of Rome, he appointed Cayo Valerio Flaco governor of Citerior, so Sertorio became a rebel who led the fight against the dictator in the so-called Sertorian Wars. During this stage he tried to attract the support of the indigenous tribes of the peninsula through friendly treatment, relief from taxes and the lifting of the obligation to house soldiers in their towns.
The year 82 B.C. C. Valerio Flaco and Cayo Annio Lusco tried to evict Sertorio from his government with twenty thousand men. The army attached to Sulla marched towards the Pyrenees, whose eastern passes were fortified by order of Sertorio, who had entrusted their custody to his lieutenant Livio Salinator with six thousand men, and probably established a second defensive line at the height of the Ebro.
Salinator having been assassinated, Sulla's supporters were able to enter the province, and Sertorius had to flee with his remaining three thousand men to Carthago Nova, and later to Mauritania (81 BC), where it existed a strong faction addicted to the popular ones of Rome. The sources, sometimes unreliable, mention Sertorio's collaboration with Cilician pirates in actions against the islands of Ibiza and Plana and, later, against the Mauritanian coast. Here he defeated the Roman garrison commanded by Pacciano, which Sulla had sent to the aid of Ascalis, a vassal of King Boco of Mauritania, and a little later laid siege to the city of Tingis, which fell into his power.
In the spring of 80 B.C. C., Sertorio was again on the peninsula at the head of an army of 3,300 men made up of 2,000 Roman soldiers who had remained loyal to him, 700 Mauritanian horsemen and 600 local auxiliaries. His comfortable victory in a naval combat against He told Mellaria about the propraetor Cayo Aurelio Cota, sent with a small fleet by Sulla, allowed him to disembark in Baelo Claudia and explains that Sertorio entered into an alliance with the Lusitanian rebels, who appointed him as chief, and he was then joined by an important contingent of four thousand infantry and seven hundred horsemen. In the Guadalquivir estuary he easily prevailed over the legions of Sulla's new propretor in Later Hispania, Lucio Fudidio, causing them two thousand casualties, he was able to reach Lusitania at the end of the year.
The arrival of Metellus
Sila, concerned about the course of events in Later Hispania, decided to send Quintus Cecilio Metellus Pío (79 BC) to the peninsula as proconsul of the Later, at the head of two legions and numerous auxiliaries (about 15,000 men). The confrontation between both armies took place, during that year and the following, in the south of Lusitania. Sertorio knew how to act correctly despite the numerical inferiority of his troops (barely 8000).He sent his lieutenant Lucio Hirtuleyo to stop the troops of the governor of Citerior, Marco Domitio Calvino, who came to the aid of Metellus following the line of the Block. Hirtuleius not only defeated Calvin near Consabura, but, moving further east, defeated the relief troops of the proconsul of Narbonensis, Lucio Manlio, near Ilerda (78 BC).
For their part, Sertorio's troops managed to break the siege that Metelo had placed around the city of Lacóbriga, forcing him to retreat to the Guadiana area.
Sertorio behaved like a skilful politician: he established a Senate and preserved the Roman forms of government, titled only proconsul. Through an effective policy of alliances, tolerance and justice, and with a soft treatment for the governed (reducing taxes among other things), he won the adhesion of the peoples of the Hispanias. His chivalry contributed to increasing the popular support and adherence of the provincials, especially the Citerior, which he completely dominated, along with a good part of the Ulterior.
According to Frontinus, Sertorio would appear before his Lusitanian soldiers with a white hind, to which he attributed the gift of prophecy, in order to obtain the obedience of the "barbarians".
Sertorio's main base was the Alto Ebro region: Calagurris (Calahorra, La Rioja), populated by Celtiberians; Osca (Huesca), headquarters of an Academy; and Ilerda (Lérida), in the territory of the Ilergetes Iberians. He also had strong support throughout the coastal area around the provincial capital Tarraco (Tarragona).
Sertorio had to reconcile with the Celtiberians, who lent him their support. This accession would arouse the misgivings of the Basques, who competed with the Celtiberians for possession of the Ebro Valley, and who had previously enjoyed Roman favour. The Celtiberians allied with Sertorio, the Basques would support their rivals.
Titus Livio indicates that in the year 77 B.C. C. Sertorio ordered Hirtuleyo to return to Lusitania, whose defense was entrusted to him, while he followed with his troops the course of the Ebro River, upstream, passing through Bursao (Borja, Zaragoza), Cascantum (Cascante, Navarra, south of Tudela) and Graccurris (Alfaro, La Rioja) to Calagurris (Calahorra, La Rioja), and the day after this journey he passed to the lands of the Berones. It seems to be clear from this text that the Basques had managed to establish a wedge or bridgehead to the south of the Ebro, beyond Calahorra, perhaps following the course of the Cidacos River, and had penetrated to the south to an indeterminate point where the territory of the berons, finally establishing their winter quarters of Castra Aelia.
At this time Sertorio was able to cross the Basque territory without difficulties. Probably the hostility was latent. The Basques would wait for the arrival of forces addicted to the optimates to unleash their opposition. On the other hand, Sertorio was at the height of his power and little opposition could be offered by the Basques in the area beyond the Ebro, who probably only represented a part of the Basques, and who had managed to establish a wedge on the other side of the Ebro, it would have been either with the consent of Rome or at the cost of fights, which if they continued, could weaken them. Perhaps the Celtiberians expected their alliance with Sertorio to get rid of the pressure of the Basques.
In any case, in this same year, Marco Perpenna joined his troops to those of Sertorio, thus swelling his army with 40 cohorts (about 20,000 infantry men) and 100 turmas (about 3,000 horsemen) that allowed him to dominate almost all of the Inner Hispania. Nor did Sertorio renounce to rearrange the territory under his control. He created a Senate made up of Roman exiles, founded an Academy at Osca for the Roman education of the sons of the indigenous aristocracy, and trained the Celtiberian tribes in accordance with Roman military tactics. By then, following Orosio Sertorio already had some 8,000 cavalry and 60,000 infantry in his forces, two-thirds of them Iberian allies and only 2,000 veteran legionnaires under Perpenna's command.
The Arrival of Pompey
The Senate of Rome sent Gnaeus Pompey the Great to Citerior, who crossed the eastern Pyrenees at the head of six legions (30,000 legionaries and about 2,500 cavalry) plus 20,000 auxiliaries, and penetrated into the province in 76 B.C. That same year, Pompey failed miserably in his attempt to liberate the city of Lauro from the Sertorian siege, also known then as Edeta, today Liria, which had changed sides due to internal dissensions. The Sabino general carried out a skilful tactical maneuver that caused Pompey to lose 10,000 men and some of his officers. In a brilliant military action, while the bulk of his forces were fighting against Pompey, he sent a force of 6,000 men to attack from the rearguard the enemy. Pompey, humiliated and defeated, without supplies and locked up in his camp, witnessed the lesson of the Sabine. Sertorius was lenient with the civilian population but not with the city, which was sacked and burned, and sent two cohorts to plunder the remains of the Pompeian camp. As Pompey retreated during the night, he was ambushed by 2,000 cavalry and 20 cohorts of foot soldiers. by Tarquino Prisco and Octavio Grecimo, he suffered the loss of another 10,000 soldiers. Another 5,000 of his allies who tried to defend his rear were massacred and scattered.
A year later, thanks to the collaboration of the two proconsuls, the course of the war began to change: Metellus managed to defeat Hirtuleius in Itálica and, months later, destroy his army in the battle of the Silingis River (probably in the surroundings of a difficult-to-locate Segovia) in which Hirtuleius himself lost his life with 20,000 of his men. Next, Metellus left by forced marches to meet Pompey, who after defeating Cayo Herennio and 20,000 of his men near from present-day Valencia, one of Sertorio's lieutenants, who died in front of the city walls along with more than 10,000 soldiers, and conquering the allied colony of the Valentia Edetanorum rebels, had an unfortunate encounter with General Sabino on the Sucro River. The battle had a doubtful outcome, 3,000 Sertorians and 6,000 Pompeians died in it. On one flank, Lucius Afranius, one of Pompey's most prestigious officers, emerged victorious, while on the other flank it was Sertorius himself who stopped the partial defeat of his lieutenant Perpenna. In this bloody battle Pompey himself was wounded after the scuffle with an Iberian. Sertorius and Perpenna lost about 15,000 of their men, and the senatorials a similar number. Sertorius fled from Sucrone after the battle, ascertaining that the outposts of Metellus's army appeared from the southwest of the Sucrone plain. There was a third field confrontation in front of the walls of Ars shortly after, with the same ambiguous result, which resulted in the death of Lelio, Pompey's brother-in-law, and the spectacular wounding in combat of Metellus, with whom the campaigns from 75 to 75 ended.. c.
No doubt during these months the Basques, or a part of them, made an alliance with Pompey, who later in the year and finding himself short of food, withdrew to his territory. That same winter he founded the city of Pompaelo , perhaps on a pre-existing village.
In the year 74 B.C. C. Pompey had 45,000 men in his army thanks to the reinforcements he received from Rome, while Sertorius had close to 20,000 and also saw his forces dwindle, more due to desertions than combat casualties. Then the senatorials changed their tactic: Instead of facing the skilled Sertorius in costly field campaigns, they chose to besiege and conquer the enemy strongholds one by one. However, Sertorio managed to cause them numerous casualties by timely helping his cities. To this is added that the senatorials, after seizing the coastal areas, took the war to the interior of the peninsula, thus avoiding the arrival of reinforcements and supplies by sea to the Sertorians.
Death of Sertorius
In 74 B.C. C., both Pompey and Metellus—advanced on two fronts (the first through the Duero Valley to the west, and the second on the eastern front, along the Jalon Valley), besieging the strongpoints of Sertorio, destroying the fields and trying to attract the indigenous population. Sertorio's difficulties seem to be confirmed by the pact signed with Mithridates VI, king of Pontus and eternal enemy of Rome, perhaps already at the end of 75 BC. C. Pompeyo and Metelo joined, at the end of this campaign, in their attempt to take Calagurris, a city personally defended by Sertorio. The failure of both proconsuls cost them 10,000 soldiers, compared to Sertorius' 1,200, and forced them to withdraw and wait, after the winter, for a new campaign.
During the year 73 B.C. C., Pompeyo, without the help of Metellus, carried out an intense campaign of conquests in Celtiberia, which forced Sertorio to become strong in the Ebro valley (especially in the cities of Ilerda, Osca and Calagurris). Sertorio's strongholds in the Levant—Tarraco and perhaps Dianium—also fell during these months. Finally, already in the year 72 a. C., a conspiracy of his most direct collaborators, headed by the instigator Marco Perpenna and seconded by Aufidio, Octavio Graecino, Fabio el Hispaniense, Antonio and a few other relatives of the Sabine, put an end to his life during a banquet organized by the sabino himself. Perpenna at his villa in Osca under the pretense of entertaining Sertorius for a false victory.
Marcus Perpenna assumed the government of the few places that remained firm to the rebellion in Citerior as Sertorio's successor, but shortly after he was defeated in combat when he presented battle to Pompey, he was taken prisoner in the act and executed shortly after by direct order of Pompey. With his execution, he prevented Marco Perpenna from using some compromising correspondence that he obtained after Sertorio's death that blamed many Italian aristocrats for the revolt.
At this time, various cities submitted to Pompey, including Osca. Vascones loyal to Sertorio also submitted. Only four cities resisted: Tiermes, Uxama (Osma), Clunia and Calagurris, but all four were taken by the Roman legionaries. It is worth mentioning in a special way the final obstinacy of Calagurris, in whose siege, according to the propaganda of the time, the most radical Sertorians reached anthropophagy before surrendering to the Pompeian troops. This fact transcended public opinion so much that well into the Empire there was still talk of the fames calagurritana. Most of the Sertorian fugitives fled to Mauritania or joined the Cilician pirates.
Sertorio's personality was presented in a very different way, both by the Roman tradition (Plutarch is favorable to his person, while Appian is contrary to it) and by modern historiography. (Rome does not pay traitors)
Legacy
Sertorius is remembered for having demonstrated a sincere desire to integrate the locals into classical civilization, to make them Romans, unlike many of his compatriots, who viewed them with contempt and considered the conquered lands as a mere source of booty, glory, resources, slaves and taxes. The caudillo managed to create "a pocket Roman Republic" or "parallel Roman State" in the most important province for the Republic at the time.
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