contributions and military service; and this was the fact, says Appian.

The consuls of the year B.c. 153, Q. Fulvius Nobilior and T. Annius Luscus, entered on their office on the 1st of January, the usual time since the commencement of the second Punic war having been the Ides, or 15th of March. The Spanish war is said to have been the cause of this alteration, in order that the new consuls, or one of them, might commence the campaign sooner; or, it has been suggested, the change was made that the consular and the civil year might begin at the same time.

Fulvius, it is said, was sent into Spain with near 30,000 men; but probably a large part of this force was furnished by the Spaniards who acknowledged the Roman dominion; for it was usual for each consul to have only two Roman legions and the contingents of the Italian allies. The Belli not having yet finished their walls fled with their families to the Arevaci, who took them under their protection. The Arevaci, themselves a people of Celtiberian stock, occupied the highest part of the basin of the Durius (Duero), and the Belli were probably their neighbours. A man named Carus, a native of Segede, was made commander of the Spanish troops. He collected a large force of infantry and cavalry, and lying in ambuscade fell upon the Romans on their march. The Romans made a stout resistance, but they were defeated with the loss of 6000 men, all Roman citizens. As Carus was pursuing the flying enemy, he was fallen upon by the Roman cavalry that was protecting the baggage and killed with those about him. The battle was fought on the feast of Vulcanus, the 23rd of August, which from this time was considered an unlucky day.

The Arevaci withdrew at nightfall to Numantia, their strongest city, which was situated in the highest part of the valley of the Duero, and in that elevated tract which here forms the boundary between the basins of the Duero and the Ebro. The Roman consul came up to the city three days after, and having been reinforced by 300 Numidian horsemen, and ten elephants, sent by the African king Massinissa,

the ally of Rome, he offered the enemy battle. The elephants were placed in the rear, where they could not be seen, and when the fight began, the Roman soldiers opened their ranks, and the huge beasts showed themselves to the Spaniards. Neither the men nor the horses, it is said, had seen an elephant before, and the enemy fled in disorder to the city. The consul brought his elephants up to the walls, and the fight was continued successfully, till one of the elephants being wounded in the head by a large stone became frantic with pain, and turning about with a furious roar trampled down all the Romans who were in his way. The rest of the elephants being frightened by the noise crushed the soldiers under their feet, ripped them up, and tossed them in the air. The Romans were in helpless confusion, when the Numantines sallying from the town, killed 4000, and took many arms and standards.

The consul was now in want of supplies, and he attempted to seize Axinium, where the enemy had stores. The site of this town is unknown, unless it is the place named Uxama, or Vasama by other writers, which may be Osma near the Duero and on the road from Valladolid to Soria. But the unlucky consul failed here also, and he returned emptyhanded to his camp, somewhere in the highest part of the basin of the Duero. These disasters were followed by the loss of Ocilis, which went over to the Celtiberi. Ocilis was the place where the Roman general had put his winter stores and his military chest, and he had either imprudently relied on the fidelity of the people or had left an insufficient force to guard the town. He could not trust any of the Spanish people around him, and we may assume that he could not safely retreat. Accordingly he passed a rigorous winter in the camp under such cover as he could make, with a poor supply of food, in the midst of deep snow and excessive cold. Many of the soldiers perished while they were looking for fire-wood, or died in the camp of hunger. This was the unfortunate beginning of the Numantine war, which lasted twenty years and cost the Romans an enormous amount of men and money. It differed, says Polybius, from other wars both in its character and its continuance. For the wars in

Asia and Greece were generally decided by a single battle, or two at most, and a battle was decided by the first onset. But it was quite different in the Celtiberian war, which was hardly interrupted by winter, and a fight, after being continued to nightfall, would be resumed on the first opportunity. The Celtiberi occupied the centre of Spain, and a large part of the two Castiles, an elevated table land bordered and intersected by mountains. They were the most warlike race in the Spanish peninsula. Polybius describes a peculiar practice among them. When the cavalry saw that the infantry was hard pressed, they would quit their horses and leave them standing in their place, while they helped the infantry. Of course we must understand that this was done on occasions when the mounted men for some reason could be

of no use. The cavalry had small pegs fastened to the end of their reins, and they used to fix these pegs in the ground and train their horses to stand by them till the riders returned and took them up. The Celtiberi also excelled other nations in their swords, which were well adapted for piercing with the point and also for cutting with both sides. The Romans, says Polybius, after the wars with Hannibal, laid aside the Italian sword and used the Iberian form, but they were unable to equal either the goodness of the metal or the other qualities. Such were the people with whom the Romans carried on war, in a country where supplies were got with difficulty, where the summers are hot and the winters cold, and the commanders would lose more men from insufficient food, clothing, and sickness, than by the risks of war. The nature of war in such a land is always the same. In a rich, well cultivated country, a defeat of the enemy in a great battle and the occupation of a capital city may decide the fortune of a campaign; but in a poor country with a scattered population, whose chief employment is agriculture, where the roads are bad and the ground is difficult for the movements of a regular army, a war may be indefinitely prolonged, and the invader may finally retire before the obstacles of nature and the resistance of a brave people fighting for their homes.

While the Romans were suffering defeat in the countries

which lie about the sources of the Duero and the Tagus (Tajo), their arms were also employed in the remote western parts of the peninsula. The Lusitani, a warlike people, occupied the parts between the lower Duero and the Tagus, the country which is traversed by the Mons Herminius or Serra de Estrella, a large mountain mass which here separates the basins of the two rivers. The Lusitani, headed by some Carthaginian adventurer, plundered the parts which were under the Roman dominion, defeated the Roman praetor L. Calpurnius Piso with great loss, and killed his quaestor Terentius Varro (B.c. 154). The Lusitani being joined by their neighbours the Vettones, carried their incursions to the country of the Blastophoenices, as Appian names these people, who were Punic settlers established in Spain by Hannibal, and who mingled, as we may assume, with the native people. If Appian's Blastophoenices are the same as the Bastuli and Bastitani, this Lusitanian invasion extended across the Guadiana and Guadalquivir. L. Mummius, who afterwards distinguished himself by the capture of Corinth, was sent the next year (B.c. 153) against the Lusitani, who having lost their Carthaginian commander had chosen a new one named Caesaras. Mummius defeated Caesaras, but as the Romans pressed on the flying enemy in disorderly pursuit, Caesaras facing about converted his defeat into a victory. He killed 9000 of the Romans, recovered his own camp with all the booty that he had collected, and also took the camp of Mummius. In all these Spanish campaigns the killed are set down at very high numbers. The Roman general placed his remaining 5000 men in a fortified camp, and drilled them till they had recovered their courage. An opportunity soon offered for retrieving his disgrace. He fell suddenly on a detachment of the enemy who were carrying off their plunder, and took from them their booty and the Roman standards which had been lost in the camp.

The people south of the Tagus now rose in arms and attacked the Cunei or Conii, who were under the Roman dominion. The Conii occupied the south-western part of Portugal, which terminates in the Sacrum Promontorium, or Cape St. Vincent. The invaders took Conistorgis, a large

town in this district. The site of this place is not determined. It is mentioned by Appian and by Strabo, who says that it was the largest town belonging to the Celtici, or Celtic population of the south-west part of the peninsula. Some of these marauders crossed the Straits into Africa, and the rest laid siege to a town on the European side, named Ocile. Mummius, who had raised his troops to the number of 9000, and had got 500 horsemen, killed 15,000 of the enemy who were ravaging the country, and he raised the siege of Ocile. He then fell on those who were carrying off the plunder, and slaughtered them till not a man was left to report the news of the defeat. Such a signal destruction of nimble-footed barbarians might have been believed at Rome on the general's report more readily than we should believe it now. Mummius gave his men as much of the booty as they could carry off, and he burnt the rest in honour of the deities of war, in conformity to a fashion of which other instances are recorded in Roman history. On his return to Rome Mummius had a triumph.

Fulvius was succeeded in the command in north Spain (B.C. 152) by the consul M. Claudius Marcellus, and Mummius by M. Atilius. Marcellus led his men carefully through a hostile country and reached Ocilis, where Fulvius had lost his stores. This town surrendered, and gave the consul hostages and thirty talents of silver; the townsmen received pardon for their defection. The Nergobriges, as Appian names them, hearing of the consul's clemency offered to submit on terms. Marcellus demanded a hundred horsemen to serve in his army, and the men and horses were sent. But in the mean time some of the Nergobriges had fallen on the rear of the Roman army and plundered the baggage, knowing nothing of the terms with the Romans, as the Nergobriges alleged. The consul however made the hundred men prisoners, and sold the horses, which may mean that he had no men to mount them. He then ravaged the territory of the Nergobriges, and began the siege of the chief city, Nergobriga, by raising mounds of earth and bringing up the vineae on them close to the walls. This place is the Nertobriga of other writers, a town on the river Salo