Viriato

Viriato —or Viriathus in Latin, as recorded in Roman sources— (died 139 BC) was a Lusitanian leader who faced the the expansion of Rome in Hispania in the middle of the s. II a. C. in the southwestern territory of the Iberian Peninsula, within the so-called Lusitanian wars. His position at the head of the Lusitanians was apparently of an elective nature, that is, it was not hereditary, but was due to his military successes. He has come to be considered "the terror of Rome". For his part, Theodor Mommsen said of him: "It seemed that, in that prosaic time, a Homeric hero had reappeared."

Biography

Primary sources

The sources for the study of Viriato are all classical, from Roman historians, and among them those of Apiano and Diodoro of Sicily stand out. While the work of the former focuses more on a chronological enumeration of events, giving special importance to the military, that of the latter has more of "a moralizing and dramatic purpose", idealizing the figure of the Lusitanian leader. Eutropius also wrote about him, Orosio and Suidas, Tito Livio or Floro.

Origins

Birth

Painting representing Viriato, the work of the painter Eugenio Oliva, dating from 1881.

The available bibliography on Viriato does not allow us to determine either his place of birth or his date, and it is not clear if the geographical origin of the Lusitanian leader corresponded to the current territories of Portugal or Spain. There are authors who consider Beturia —southwest of the peninsula, between the middle and lower courses of the Guadiana and Guadalquivir rivers— as a possible origin of Viriato. Marginal research between the centuries XIX and XX even went so far as to locate Viriato's area of influence between the Ebro and Tagus rivers: In 1900, Anselmo Arenas López published a work titled Viriato was not Portuguese if not Celtiberian [sic] in which he erroneously related Viriato to the tribe of the Lusones instead of the of the Lusitanos, while around 1926 M. Peris described him as a Valencian Ibero.

A place supposedly used as a refuge by Viriato would have been the so-called Mount of Aphrodite or of Venus, which the German historian Adolf Schulten placed in the current San Vicente mountain range In Portugal, the traditional option —supported by Schulten— was that Viriato had its origin in the Montes Herminios, associated with the current Sierra de la Estrella, also considering that its origin was circumscribed to the limits of the old province Portuguese from Beira Alta. However, more recently it has been proposed that he was born in the south of present-day Portugal, next to the Atlantic Ocean, in the Alentejo region. There are authors who question Viriato's belonging to the Lusitanians, in the sense that at that time the term Lusitano could encompass other peoples, such as the Celtics.. For me, as for the illustrious Oliveira Martín, he rides both Portugal and Spain ».

According to most sources, especially Tito Livio, Viriato was originally a shepherd who became a hunter and soldier. Other sources propose that he belonged to the warrior class, the occupation of the Lusitanian ruling elites. For Apiano, he was one of the warriors who escaped from the trap of the praetor Servio Sulpicio Galba to the flower of the Lusitanian youth described later. According to him, Viriato was not a hereditary leader, but one chosen for being the one "who had the greatest leadership skills among the barbarians and the most ready to daring danger (...) and the fairest when it came to distributing the booty." ", which meant that during the eight years of war his heterogeneous army never rebelled against him and was "the most resolute in the hour of danger". Whatever the case, Roman authors refer to him as the dux of the Lusitanian army and as the adsertor —protector— of Hispania, or as an imperator —conductor— of the Lusitanian and Celtiberian tribes.

Name

The name of Viriato derives from the Celtic word "viria", equivalent to the Latin term Torquatus, which would refer to the torque, a type of adornment characteristic of Celtic warriors. It can also come from the Iberian "viria", also equivalent to Torquatus and which would mean "bracelet" or "bracelet", in short, an ornament.

Uprising

During the s. III a. C. Rome began the conquest of Hispania during the Second Punic War, when the Senate sent an army to block the arrival of reinforcements to Hannibal, who was in Italy. The conquest lasted two hundred years, and the Lusitanian war is one of the best documented of that period. The first incursion of Rome would be in Lusitania took place in 185 a. C. Given the constant attacks of the Roman armies on the Lusitanians, with whom the praetor Marco Atilio Serrano had signed a peace treaty in 151 BC. C. —which the Lusitanos quickly broke up—, a retinue of these —30,000 according to the sources— went in peace before Galba, who promised them a distribution of land. Claiming this purpose, he divided them into various groups and treacherously killed many of them —from 8,000 to 9,000—, after which he sent the survivors to Gaul as slaves, prisoners that would add up to a total of 20,000 Lusitanos. Viriato was among the few Lusitanos —about 1,000— who managed to flee the massacre. Galba would later be tried by the Senate of the Roman Republic but would be acquitted. Thus, this poverty of the Lusitanian tribe, together with the affront suffered by the Galba massacre, made Viriato rebel.

Campaigns against Rome

Early victories (147 BC-145 BC)

Map of Viriato campaigns against the Romans.

In the year 147 B.C. C. Viriato and a contingent of 10,000 surviving Lusitanians decided to make an incursion into Turdetania, although they would be surrounded —in the surroundings of Urso— by the army of the praetor Gaius Vetilio, who offered them a a peace proposal that would be rejected by Viriato due to fear of a breach of the pact by the Romans. Finally, Viriato and the Lusitanians managed to reverse the situation, managing to flee from Vetilio's siege and ambushing his troops, supposedly in the gorge of the Barbesuda River, with which they managed to inflict 4,000 casualties on Vetilio's army and defeat the praetor. A Lusitanian warrior ended Vetilio's life by taking him for a worthless soldier, given the old age and fatness of the Roman. Vetilio's defeat would take place near the polis of Tribola and allowed the subsequent sacking of Carpetania by the Lusitanians, as well as attacks on Roman detachments in the Guadiana and the Tagus, in addition to assuming the elevation of Viriato as Lusitanian leader. In the year 146 B.C. C. Viriato achieved new military victories against the praetor Cayo Plaucio, in Carpetania, and the governor of Citerior, Claudio Unimano. The year 146 BC is cited. C. as the date on which Viriato allegedly attacked the pro-Roman city of Segobriga, identified by Schulten at the Cabeza del Griego site, near present-day Saelices (Cuenca). It could also have been around these dates that the difficultly datable expeditions against the Ebro region mentioned in sources.

Apian stated that the warlord, during the battle against Plautius, strategically withdrew to a mount called Venus or Mons Veneris. to Viriato, but only to fall into an ambush by the Lusitanian that ended with the expulsion of his entire garrison (App. Iberike, 66). This hill has today been related to the hill of San Vicente, by virtue of being north of the Tagus, the cultivation of olive trees and its nature as a natural watchtower.

The Roman province of Lusitania, which emerged more than a century later — in 27 a. C.—of the division of Hispania Ulterior.

He crossed the Tagus River and camped on a hill covered with olive trees, called Mount Venus.

Apiano, Iberike, 64,

During these campaigns, as mentioned, Viriato defeated after Vetilio the aforementioned Plaucio near Viseo, between the Duero and the Mondego, and Claudio Unimano near Ourique —after which, according to Floro and Orosio, Viriato would become with the Roman banners and would decide to place them as a war trophy on top of the mountains—and to Gaius Nigidius, governor of the Citerior. At the height of these campaigns against Rome, the Lusitanians and their allies controlled a large part of the Ulterior and the south of the Citerior.

Open warfare (145 BC-140 BC)

The year 145 B.C. C. was a certain turning point in the development of the Lusitanian wars, since Rome, after finishing the war against Carthage, could allocate more troops and attention to the province of Hispania. Quinto Fabio Máximo Emiliano —who replaced Gaius Plaucio, exiled for his military failures—brought new troops and installed his operations center in the city of Orsona to reinforce the governor of Citerior, Gaius Lelio the Wise. These reinforcements, as well as Emiliano's military experience, caused the withdrawal of Viriato in the year 144 a. C., with which he had to cede the main cities dominated by the Lusitanians in the south of the peninsula, after which he would retreat to the city of Baikor —which Schulten related to Baecula. , the current Bailén, although it can also be associated with Baena—. However, Emilian returned to Rome without having managed to capture Viriato, and most of his reinforcements would end up being lost in skirmishes and ambushes at Orsona and Pax Iulia.

In order to repair his forces, Viriato managed to extend the revolt that same year to Celtiberia with the participation of the Arevacos, Tittos and Bellos, since until then only Lusitanos and Vetones had taken part, which began to the third celtiberian war. During the following years, despite Lelio's attack, Viriato would harass the Citerior Romans led in 143-142 BC. C. by the consul Quinto Cecilio Metelo and the legacy Quinto Cocio Aquiles, and would conquer the city of Itucci or Tucci —the current Martos or Tejada la Vieja— and the Bastetania region.

Viriathus, ex latrone dux Celtiberorum, cedere se Romanis equitibus simulans usque ad locum voraginosum et praealtum eos perduxit et, cum ipse per solidos ac notos sibi transitus evaderet, Romanos ignaros locarum immersosque limo cecidit.

Viriato, who, if he were a bandit, became the leader of the celtibers, on one occasion, while trying to retire in front of the enemy cavalry, led them to a place full of holes on the ground. There, as he rode on a path he knew well, the Romans, unaware of the land, plunged into the swamp and died.

Frontino, Stratagems

Viriato, imagined by Ramón Padró and Pedret, work of 1882.

After a series of victories by Viriato against the Roman armies, with continuous raids and Lusitanian razzias around 143 BC. C., the Romans sent the consul Quinto Fabio Máximo Serviliano with a greater number of troops and with elephants —18,000 infantry units and 1,600 cavalry, as well as 10 elephants and 300 Numidian horsemen sent by King Micipsa—. This would begin by liberating cities in the south of Hispania such as Itucci to continue in pursuit of Viriato towards Lusitania, having to delay when he was then attacked by the captains Curio and Apuleius, who are suspected to be nothing more than Roman deserters, but who in any case they commanded a large force of Lusitanian bandits. Although with great difficulties, Serviliano defeated them and ended Curio's life. Viriato ended up finally surrounding Serviliano when he was besieging the city of Erisana (traditionally identified with Arsa, near the current Zalamea de la Serena or Azuaga). The Iberian leader secretly entered the compound and made a night raid that cornered the Roman army.

In this situation of superiority, the caudillo would force Serviliano to sign a peace agreement in 140 B.C. C., ratified by the Roman Senate. In this pact - foedus - independence was granted to the lands of Lusitania owned by Viriato, the Romans recognized Viriato as doge (chief) of the Lusitanos and granted him the title of friend of the Roman people ("amicus populi romani"). Viriato's motivations for signing peace with Serviliano could be due to some possible pretensions of the caudillo to manage to convert in a kind of king of an independent Lusitania and at peace with Rome, as well as the weariness of the war that would have become general among its people.

Restart of the war (140 BC-139 BC)

The foedus with the Lusitanians would be frowned upon by other Roman generals —deformem pacem—, considering it an unacceptable and shameful assignment before Viriatus, and Servilianus he would be replaced by his brother Quinto Servilio Cepión, who would resume the war in the region with the prior permission of the Senate.

Viriathus in Hispania, primum ex pastore venator, ex venatore latro, mox iusti quoque exercitus dux factus totam Lusitaniam occupavit.

In Hispania, Viriato, who first passed from shepherd to hunter, then to bandit and soon to head of an army, occupied the entire Lusitania.

Tito Livio, Periochae52.

After the arrival of Cepion, it is stated that Viriato fled from Arsa towards Carpetania. Cepion entered deeply into Hispania in pursuit of the caudillo, in territories belonging to the tribes of the Vetones and the Callaicos. Viriato also had to face harassment by the troops of Marco Popilio Lenas from the Citerior province. In this situation, the Lusitanian leader was finally forced to negotiate with Rome, through Popilio Lenas, who demanded Viriato's delivery of deserters, as well as weapons, to which he refused, withdrawing. However, in the year 139 a. C. Viriato had to try again to agree with Rome, this time directly with Cepión. The caudillo would have sent the Turdetans Audax, Ditalco and Minuro as ambassadors.

Death

The Death of Viriato (1890), by José Villegas Cordero.

According to Apiano, Cepión promised Audax, Minuro and Ditalco the delivery of great wealth, personal advantages and land if they took charge of assassinating Viriato. Cepion in exchange for a reward, as if it came from Cepion himself, who would have bribed them after coming without bad faith. This event would take place in 139 or 138 B.C. C. Legend has it that, when he returned to his camp after the meeting with Cepion, they killed him while he slept, sticking a dagger into his neck, since Viriato would always sleep with his armor on. They then marched to the camp Roman to collect the reward, where Quintus Servilius Cepión would have denied them with the phrase: "Roma traditoribus non praemiat", that is, "Rome does not pay traitors". Later historiography admits the possibility that this phrase was a later invention. In any case, it conveys the idea of the traditional version that the Romans had never approved of the death of a rival leader at the hands of their own men. It is also possible that this version of Rome's reaction to the crime was later and the Roman Republic wanted to hide the fact that it was responsible for such a treacherous murder.

The death of Viriato, head of the Lusitans (1807), by José Madrazo.

After his death, he received a magnificent funeral from the Lusitanian army, in which he was cremated, with different animal sacrifices —possibly also human, in the Lusitanian manner— and more than two hundred combats in honor of the deceased. This funeral was significant of the great charisma of the warrior among his soldiers, since under his leadership there were no mutinies or dissensions within his army. The poet Federico Muelas legendarily places the tomb of Viriato on the Tormo Alto, one of the Limestone figures from the Enchanted City of Cuenca. Viriato's death marked the beginning of the end of the Lusitanian resistance in Hispania.

Tautalus, the successor of Viriatus, after attempting to take Saguntum in 139 B.C. C. -attack that was rejected- and invade the valley of the Betis river, he was forced to sign peace with Quinto Servilio Cepión. Finally the consul Marco Popilio Lenas handed over to the Lusitanos the lands that had been the cause of the long war. However, full pacification was only achieved in the time of Augustus, since they arose throughout the remainder of the century II a. C. different sources of Lusitanian rebellion.

Legacy

Statue in honor of Viriato located in the city of Zamora, work of Eduardo Barrón.

Monument to Viriato, Viseo.

Idealized figure

The figure of Viriato has reached the present day deformed, mythologized through classical authors and nestled within the "myth of the noble savage". The Latin poet Lucilio considered him as "the barbarian Hannibal", Coming to be compared to the slave Spartacus. In any case, there were also classical authors, such as Veleyo Patérculo and Ammiano Marcelino, who branded him a simple bandit. More recently, Schulten tried to associate the figure of Viriato with that of other popular heroes such as Vercingétorix, Arminio, Tacfarinas, Decebalus, or with Sertorio, who fought against the Republic and the Roman Empire.

According to Roman sources, Viriato was a charismatic warrior and leader, with good oratory skills. A great strategist and sober man, Viriato used a guerrilla tactic, ambushing the Roman armies in rough and narrow terrain and making use of the night and the use of unknown routes for escape, in addition to keeping his troops in constant movement. He did not seek direct attack or the lasting conquest of enemy territories, but looting and the capture of loot. He used the resource of feigned flight from the battlefield, to later launch ambushed attacks on the enemy, who pursued him from in a disorderly manner, as well as attacking the Roman legions with small military contingents to mislead them and allow the bulk of their army to flee in the meantime.

Diodoro conveyed an image of Viriato in the role of a wise, upright, frugal, austere leader, a man who liked to give gifts to his soldiers, within the archetype of noble savage, uncorrupted by luxury and civilization. One of the events in which Diodoro elaborated most —of doubtful veracity— was at Viriato's wedding, which according to his account took place with the daughter of a wealthy Iberian man, named Astolpas. Roman citizens were invited to this wedding by the father-in-law. It is also said that Viriato showed contempt for the gold and silver tableware that was exposed at the wedding and distributed the food and drink among his family, after which he would have mounted the bride on a horse and fled to the mountain with her. In another fragment Diodorus praised the justice and generosity of the Lusitanian warrior, seeming to want to display the qualities of an ideal ruler.

Nationalist symbol

The figure of Viriato was taken throughout the XX century as a reference for the exaltation of nationalist feelings by both dictatorships rulers in the Iberian Peninsula, who misrepresented textbooks and deliberately concealed information in them to each try to nationalize for themselves in a chauvinistic way the figure of the Lusitanian hero.

In Portugal, Viriato has traditionally been considered a national hero, due to a direct identification of the tribe of the Lusitanos with the current Portuguese or lusos. Since the century XVI, with the rise of the Renaissance and Humanism, this Portuguese appropriation of the figure of Viriato began to be given, in which Viriato was considered the Lusitania as a kind of primitive Portugal, highlighting in this line of thought the authors André de Resende and Fray Bernardo de Brito. This line of continuity was denied in the XIX by the Portuguese historian Alexandre Herculano, a position that would later be opposed by the philologist Leite de Vasconcelos and Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins in their História de Portugal of 1879. It was used as a symbol by the Salazar dictatorship until, with the emergence in the 1960s of the independence movements of Angola and Mozambique —although curiously still in 1961 the government Luso designated one of his military operations in Angola as Operação Viriato—, his imprint relatively disappeared from school books from 1968 due to the risk that the African colonies would identify with the Lusitanian leader. In addition, during the Spanish Civil War, a contingent of Portuguese volunteers who joined Franco's troops called themselves Los Viriatos.

In Spain, the writer Bernardo de Balbuena had already traced in the XVII century a supposed continuity between Lusitanians and Spanish in his epic poem El Bernardo. In the heat of the rise of the liberal state, in the 19th century Authors such as Modesto Lafuente also extolled the patriotic virtues of Viriato and his supposed idea of a common homeland in his work General History of Spain (1850-1867). In 1860 the Spanish politician Emilio Castelar defined, in an article for the newspaper La Discusión, to Giuseppe Garibaldi as the «Italian Viriato». Already in the century XX, during the Franco dictatorship, the use of the figure of Viriato as a national hero was promoted, a model of conduct, promoting the idea of national patriotism and heroism, the Volkgeist or Spanish "spirit of the people." who were, in addition to Viriato himself, the Iberian leaders Indíbil and Mandonio, Don Pelayo, the Cid Campeador, Guzmán el Bueno, the Catholic Monarchs, the Cura Merino in the Spanish War of Independence or Eloy Gonzalo —The Hero de Cascorro— in the war in Cuba, and so on until the coup that would lead to the Spanish civil war. In the work The History of Spain by Lluís Pericot García, represented Viriato as the archetypal symbol of the Spanish guerrilla fighter.

Viriato in art and folklore

In his poem Punica, Silio Itálico represents another Lusitanian and Galician leader named Viriato, who in the text kills a Roman from the Servilia family (presumably Gnaeus Servilius Geminus) before falling himself before Lucio Emilio Paulo, and accompanies it with a reference to the most famous Viriato. Some authors, such as the Portuguese writer Luís Vaz de Camões, take this character for a homonymous and real predecessor of Viriato, while others consider the episode an invention of the poet based on the historical character, designed both to embellish the song and to embellish the song. to evoke the military confrontation of the Lusitanian with Quintus Servilius Cepión. In any of the cases, it is noteworthy the impression that the Lusitanian arouses among the Romans as to justify this lyrical turn in a later work.

In Spain, one of the first mentions dates from around 1270, in the work Estoria de España by the Castilian monarch Alfonso X the Wise. From the XVI, while in the Spanish sources the appearances of Viriato predominate, representing the archetype of a humble individual who manages to rise in society, in the Portuguese he is recognized as a leader and virtuous monarch, circumscribing, however, in both generally works of a historical-humanistic type.

In the XVI century, the aforementioned Luís Vaz de Camões in his work Os lusíadas he dedicated one of the poems to the figure of Viriato. In the middle of the following century, the poet Brás Garcia de Mascarenhas —who took part in the Portuguese Restoration War— wrote the epic poem Tragic Viriato. In 1904 the intellectual Teófilo Braga —who would become president of the First Portuguese Republic— wrote a historical romance about Viriato titled in honor of the caudillo. In the 1930s the writer Fernando Pessoa also dedicated one of the poems from his book Messagem to the Lusitanian guerrilla.

Portrait of Joaquín Costa.

Miguel de Cervantes mentioned the name of Viriato in different works, such as in Don Quixote de la Mancha, in which he mentions him in a list of kings, and in The Siege of Numancia —which deals precisely with the Celtiberian wars— with an appearance of a character named Viriato in the form of a shepherd. However, the historical figure of Viriato is not included, but rather the writer chose the name of the Lusitanian leader to name other of his characters. Lope de Vega mentioned the caudillo in his work Arcadia, indicating a supposed mixed character of Viriato, both Spanish and Portuguese. Juan de Mariana dedicated three chapters of his work General History of Spain, from 1606, to the warlord's fights against Rome. Francisco de Quevedo, also in the XVII century, also used Viriato as the inspiration for his poems. The regenerationist historian Joaquín Costa dedicated in 1895 part of his work to the figure of Viriato in The land and the social question, in which he pointed out a supposed Celtiberian character of the caudillo. Ángel Ganivet, in his Spanish Idearium, highlighted the characteristic disorganization of the Lusitanos in contrast to the iron discipline typical of the Roman armies. of Che Guevara in his work Crónicas Romanas. Cartoonist Manuel Gago dedicated a comic to him, while more recently, in Portugal and Spain, the figure of Viriato has been compared with that of the well-known comic book character Asterix. a television series: Hispania, la leyenda, with three seasons and 20 episodes in which the story of Viriato and his fight against the Romans is told. video game Imperivm III: The Great Battles of Rome, which deals with Viriato in a playable way.

In the field of painting, the painting by José Madrazo The death of Viriato stands out, which was painted in Rome around 1808. Later other pictorial representations of the caudillo were made, as they could be that of Eugenio Oliva y Rodrigo from 1881, the Viriato painted by Ramón Padró y Pedret in 1882 or that of Ricardo Villegas Cordero, also titled The Death of Viriato.

Signature Bermeja, whose eight red bands refer to different victories of Viriato against Roman armies.

The figure of the Lusitanian caudillo has reached our days also through folklore, popular tradition and legends. This is especially evident within the Spanish sphere in the province of Zamora. In the city of Zamora, the figure of Viriato has been included in the heraldic shields of the coat of arms and the flag of the provincial capital. In the first, "Viriato's arm holding the Seña Bermeja" is mentioned, while the flag —precisely this "Seña Bermeja"— is made up of eight red strips that would represent eight victories obtained by Viriato over various praetors and Roman consuls. The statue of the sculptor Eduardo Barrón, located in the Plaza de Viriato, is also characteristic of the city of Zamora. which, however, dates from the 18th century; the town has traditionally been mentioned as the possible origin of the caudillo. In Fariza, a pilgrimage known as "Romería de los Viriatos" is held, considered of Regional Tourist Interest in Castilla y León. A small elevation in the Sayago region, known as Teso de Bárate, has been popularly related to the presence of Viriato. In the province of Cáceres the figure of Viriato has ended up associated with different towns, such as Guijo de Santa Bárbara, Coria or Santa Cruz de la Sierra, among others.

In the Portuguese city of Viseo, also traditionally related to the Lusitanian warrior, there are remains of a walled enclosure with octagonal symmetry, known as "Cava de Viriato", which was attributed in the past to a Roman settlement or Portuguese, although other more recent lines of research point to an Andalusian origin or even from the XVII century. In Viseo it is also found there is a sculpture by Viriato, the work of Mariano Benlliure and inaugurated on September 17, 1940. In the district of the same name there is a freguesia with the name of Cabanas de Viriato. In Lisbon there is also a representation of the caudillo —the work of the sculptor Víctor Bastos— dating from 1862 and forming part of the Rua Augusta Arch. Other Portuguese towns related to Viriato —according to Teófilo Braga, in his historical novel Viriatho — are Loriga, Viseo, Folgosinho, Ceia and Covilana, all of them cited as possible places of origin of the caudillo.