Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/330

 306 SPAIN [HISTORY. Gracchus Mum- mius. involving the greater part of Spain. In 195 the elder Cato. Cato had to put down a rising in the country, in which the Celtiberi took the lead, but he offered them favour- able terms, and showed himself particularly anxious to conciliate them. His Spanish campaigns were so far a success as to establish the Roman power east of the Ebro, and along with peace and order came better administra- tion and a development of the resources of the district now known as Hither Spain (Hispauia Citerior). Cato is said to have disarmed the inhabitants of this part of Spain, and to have even compelled the Spaniards, from the Pyrenees to the Guadalquivir, to pull down their fortifications, but still the smouldering fires of rebellion were not trampled out. Some few years afterwards, in 179 and 178, we find the father of the famous Gracchi governor of Hither Spain, and fighting with the troublesome Celtiberi, win- ning victories over them, capturing one hundred and three of their towns, and then securing his conquests by show- ing himself as great in peace as he had been in war. He seems to have anticipated in Spain the work attempted by his sons in Italy, making grants of land on favourable conditions to the poorer natives. Much must have been accomplished by Gracchus towards producing contentment with the Roman rule, but in the west, in the valleys of the Douro and the Tagus, and in the region known as Lusitania, answering to Portugal, there seems to have been almost incessant fighting, and what one general won another general often lost. Under Mummius, a governor of Further Spain (154), the Mummius who in 146 took and sacked Corinth, the Romans suffered a disastrous defeat from the Lusitanians, of which the Celtiberi took prompt advantage, and there was another Roman defeat, with a massacre of Roman citizens in one of the towns of the interior. These losses were avenged in 152 by Claudius Marcellus, grandson of Hannibal's illustrious antagonist, during whose command in Spain Corduba is said to have been established as a Roman colony. Marcellus was too humane and considerate to the Spaniards to suit the ideas of the Roman senate, which we may well suppose to have been greatly provoked by the trouble which Spain had given them. The new governors, Lucius Lucullus and Servius Galba, by a combination of perfidy and extortion, drove the country into a most formidable revolt, with which the Romans, whose hands were tied by the Third Punic War, could not for some time effectually deal. A guerilla chief of Lusitania (which had been specially ill-treated by the Romans), Viriathus, headed the revolt, and from 147 to 140 army after army of the Romans was cut to pieces ; the formidable Celtiberi had joined his standard, and Spain seemed well-nigh lost to Rome. A treaty was even extorted by Viriathus from one of the Roman commanders, declaring the independence of the Lusitanians, and it is said to have been acknowledged and accepted by the senate. The brave man, however, could not hold together his fickle Spanish levies, and he fell at last by native treachery, encouraged by or at least connived at by the Romans. The Celtiberi, however, were still in arms ; the strong city of Numantia, the capital of the Arevaci, the most powerful Celtiberian tribe, witnessed more than once the defeat of a Roman consul before its walls (141 to 140). The besieging army became despondent and demoralized, and its commander, supplies failing him, had to retire, leaving his sick and wounded behind him. It was humiliation indeed for Rome to be thus baffled by a half-barbarous country-town of no great size, in the interior of Spain. She now sent her best general, the Scipio. younger Scipio, into the country, and in 133 the cap- ture and destruction of Numantia gave Rome a hold over the inland district of Spain which she had never Mar- cellus. Viri- athus. Siege of Nu- mantia. before had (see SCIPIO). The province of Hither Spain was rendered safe from Celtiberian incursions. Shortly afterwards Lusitauia and its towns, after some obstinate fighting, were reduced to submission by the consul Junius Brutus, and thus Spain, with the exception of its northern coasts, the home of its most barbarous tribes, was nomin- Spain ally Roman territory. There must have been by this under time a considerable mixture of Roman blood with the ^i 3 " native population ; there were several towns Carteia, Valentia, Tarraco especially among them with a Latin municipal constitution and with a number of Latin- speaking people. The growth of Roman civilization had fairly begun, and it was promoted by a commission sent out by the senate after Scipio's victories. Piracy in the Mediterranean was checked in the interest of native Spanish commerce, and the Roman administration gene- rally favoured the development of the country's prosperity. The extensive mountain districts were still the shelter of banditti, but, on the whole, order was well maintained, and Spain from this time flourished under Roman rule. It abounded in flocks and herds, and had a number of thriving populous towns, particularly on its Mediterranean shores. It seems, too, that it was never oppressed and impoverished by some of those forms of tribute, such as the exaction of a tenth of the produce, under which many of Rome's provincials smarted. Fixed money payments, and military service in the Roman armies, were the chief burdens which the conquered Spaniards had to bear. Rome on the whole, by comparison, dealt tenderly with them. Several of their towns had the privilege of coining the silver money of Rome; and the flourishing cities along the Mediterranean coast, which were so many centres of civilization to the adjacent districts, were treated rather as allies than as subjects. In these parts the Romanizing process went on rapidly and under favourable conditions, while the west and the north and a great portion of the interior remained barbarous, and Roman merely in name. In 105 it seemed possible that the Romans might be utterly swept out of the country ; in that year a great wave of invasion passed over the inland regions from the Cirnbri, who had destroyed two Roman consular armies on the Rhone. Spain to a great extent was cruelly ravaged, and Rome was too seriously menaced by the barbarians nearer home to be able to protect her. The country was saved by the brave Celtiberi, whose determined resistance forced the Cimbri back upon GauL Again in 97 and 96 we hear of a rising of these same Celtiberians against Rome, and of campaigns in the interior, in which for the first time we meet the name of the famous Sertorius, a name almost as conspicuous in Sertoriu ancient Spanish history as that of Hamilcar or Hannibal. For the remarkable episode of the eight years' wars of Sertorius in Spain" against the generals of Sulla and against the great Pompey, and his almost successful attempt to render the country independent of the home Government at Rome, we must refer the reader to the article SERTORIUS. It was to his skill in winning the hearts of the Spaniards, more even than to his very considerable military ability, that he owed his successes. Rome was financially most grievously embarrassed by this tedious and difficult war, and Spain, with its Roman civilization and its Latinized towns on the Mediterra- nean, suffered severely. By the year 71 the country had been reconquered by Pompey for Rome, and the two Pompey. provinces of Hither and Further Spain were reorganized under a somewhat more stringent rule, the tribute in some districts of the latter province being raised, and some of the towns in both losing their municipal inde- pendence. In 61 the great Caesar was governor of Cxsar. Further Spain, and carried the arms of Rome into the