The first signs of the struggle had already taken place in 155-154 with a new, more fierce invasion by the Lusitani and the Vettoni, led first by Punico then by Cesaro, in the province Ulterior, where first the praetors M. Manilio and L. Calpurnio Pisone, then L. Mummio in 153 they had been seriously beaten; the latter, however, had managed to avenge the defeat. In the same year the revolt broke out in Celtiberia, which was given the occasion by the prohibition opposed by the senate to the construction of the walls of the city of Segeda (or Begeda), in the territory of the Belli. The gravity of the situation can be seen from the fact that the Senate deemed it necessary to send a consul, M. Fulvio Nobiliore, to the province with a large army of foot soldiers, horsemen and elephants. Despite the bravery and audacity shown, leading the troops to the heart of the Arevaci countryVolcanalia, 23 August), then under the walls of Numantia suffered serious and painful losses. The winter in the field near Numantia accentuated these losses even more. The following year (152) the new consul M. Claudio Marcello assumed command of the army, arrived with new reinforcements. Working together with strength and meekness, he managed to seize some cities, Ocili and Nertobriga, and induced the Celtibers to negotiate peace: despite the senate rejecting the proposed pacts and sending a new general to Spain, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, he nevertheless anxious to bind his name to peace, he managed to bend the rebellious Celtiberian tribes to it.
According to HEALTHINCLUDE.COM, Lucullus, arriving, above all greedy, to say of Appiano, to procure rich booty, invaded, without just reason, the territory of the Vaccei beyond the Tagus, but after a series of undertakings, neither happy nor glorious (the taking of Cauca, the siege of Intercazia and the attempted siege of Pallanzia), crossed the Duero and wintered in the town of the Turdetani. In the following spring (150) he descended in the south of the peninsula, in the province Ulterior, where the praetor Servius Sulpicius Galba was squeezed by the Lusitanians, who, after being defeated by Mummio, had returned again repeatedly to attack the Romans. Lucullus sacked the territory of the Lusitanians and made a large massacre of them, but much more fatal for them was the perfidious deception with which Galba managed to tame them, killing their valid arms by selling slaves, women and children: a fleeting success, because the very person who was to later lead the new resistance against Rome and pass to posterity as the champion of Iberian independence, Viriato, was saved from the massacre. For nine years, from 147 to 138, he stood up to the armies of Rome, defeating one after the other the generals sent to fight him, C. Vetilio, C. Plautius, Fabio Massimo Emiliano, Fabio Massimo Serviliano, or perhaps the he last of them, Servilio Cepione, would have managed to put an end to the war if, as usual, he hadn’t resorted to treason. Viriato’s successor, Tantalus, quickly surrendered after a defeat on from 147 to 138, he stood up to the armies of Rome, defeating one after the other the generals sent to fight him, C. Vetilio, C. Plautius, Fabio Massimo Emiliano, Fabio Massimo Serviliano, nor perhaps the last of them, Servilio Cepione, would have been able to put an end to the war if, as usual, he hadn’t resorted to treason. Viriato’s successor, Tantalus, quickly surrendered after a defeat on from 147 to 138, he stood up to the armies of Rome, defeating one after the other the generals sent to fight him, C. Vetilio, C. Plautius, Fabio Massimo Emiliano, Fabio Massimo Serviliano, nor perhaps the last of them, Servilio Cepione, would have been able to put an end to the war if, as usual, he hadn’t resorted to treason. Viriato’s successor, Tantalus, quickly surrendered after a defeat onBaetis. On the other hand, Viriato, like others who like him in other provinces were the soul of the resistance in Rome, Vercingetorix, Arminius, etc., had to fight against the indiscipline and particularism of his own followers, indeed perhaps more than them, as this spirit was more widespread among the trees divided into an incredibly large number of tribes, each centered around its own fortress.
Other tribes had taken advantage of the Lusitanian insurrection to rebel: by swiftly flowing throughout the central part of the peninsula and boldly reaching the distant regions of Galicia, beyond the Duero and the Miño, he had reduced them to obedience D. Giunio Bruto, who for his enterprise he had the title of Callaico.
Now the Celtiberians of the Hither remained to be tamed: Q. Cecilio Metello, who succeeded Fabio Emiliano, defeated the Arevaci and Vaccei, but two cities still resisted, Termanzia and Numanzia. It was around this, protected by particular soil conditions, that the war intensified and burned for another ten years. Q. Pompeo, M. Popilio Lenate, Ostilio Mancino, Emilio Lepido, Calpurnio Pisone succeeded each other in command of the armies: the Numantines resisted the siege and inflicted hard defeats on the Romans; no less seriously was Emilio Lepido dai Vaccei, whose city he had besieged in vain, Pallanzia; nevertheless, the senate persisted in the war, rejecting the peace negotiations initiated several times on the site between the Numantines and the Roman commanders. It therefore seemed to the senate and to the people that no one was able to put an end to the struggle except the victor of Carthage, Scipio Emiliano, who had already been in Spain as a legate of Lucullus, and who since then had led the policy in favor of of the resistance and of the struggle against the trees. Scipio was elected consul for the second time in 134. Reorganized and revived the army, Roman superiority affirmed in the surrounding territories, Scipio tightened the siege with skilful works of attack, so that the city was forced to capitulate. The city was destroyed, and its territory divided among the neighboring peoples. It is interesting to note that, according to Appiano, a commission of ten senators was now sent to Spain, as was the custom for the newly conquered provinces. in order to give due order to the populations tamed by Scipio, and to those already a few years before submitted by Giunio Brutus: if the historian’s testimony is correct, we must believe that the senate considered truly important and decisive, for the effects of the conquest of the peninsula, the results obtained in the two recent campaigns.
