Quintus Sertorius: Citations Verification

Quintus Sertorius
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (August 2010)
[show]
v • d • e
Roman conquest of Hispania

[show]
v • d • e
Roman Republican
Civil Wars
Quintus Sertorius (c. 123 BC-72 BC) was a Roman statesman and general, born in
Nursia, in Sabine territory, around 124 BC. His family, the gens Sertoria, was probably
of Sabine origin, and was previously undistinguished.[1]
Contents
[hide]
 1 Early Political Career
 2 Proconsul in Hispania
 3 Sertorian War
 4 See also
 5 References
[edit] Early Political Career

After acquiring some reputation in Rome as a jurist and an orator, he began a military
career. His first recorded campaign was under Quintus Servilius Caepio at the Battle of
Arausio, where he showed unusual courage. Serving under Gaius Marius in 102 BC,
Sertorius succeeded in spying on the wandering German tribes that had defeated Caepio.
After this success, he fought at the great Battle of Aquae Sextiae (now Aix-en-Provence,
France) in which the Teutones were decisively defeated. In 97 BC, he served in Hispania
(the Iberian Peninsula, comprising modern Spain and Portugal) as a military tribune
under Titus Didius, winning the Grass Crown.
In 91 he was quaestor in Cisalpine Gaul, where he was in charge of recruiting and

training legions for the Social War. During this time he sustained a wound that cost him
the use of one of his eyes. Upon his return to Rome he ran for tribune, but Lucius
Cornelius Sulla thwarted his efforts (for reasons unknown), causing Sertorius to oppose
him.
After Sulla forced Marius into exile, and Sulla left Rome to fight Mithridates, violence
erupted between the Optimates, led by the consul Gnaeus Octavius, and the Populares,
led by the consul Lucius Cornelius Cinna. Sertorius now declared for Cinna and the
Populares. Though he had a very bad opinion of Marius, he consented to Marius' return
upon understanding that Marius came at Cinna's request and not of his own accord. After
Octavius surrendered Rome to the forces of Marius, Cinna, and Sertorius in 87, Sertorius
abstained from the proscriptions his fellow commanders engaged in. Sertorius went so far
as to rebuke Marius, and move Cinna to moderation, while annihilating Marius' slave
army that had partaken in his atrocities.
[edit] Proconsul in Hispania

On Sulla's return from the East in 83, and following the subsequent collapse of the
Populares power, Sertorius retreated to Hispania as proconsul, representing the
Populares. The Roman officials in Hispania did not recognize his authority, but Sertorius
assumed control as he had an army. Sertorius sought to hold Hispania by sending an
army, under Julius Salinator, to fortify the pass through the Pyrenees; however, Sulla's
forces, under the command of Gaius Annius, broke through after Salinator was killed by
treachery.
Having been obliged to withdraw to North Africa, he carried on a campaign in

Mauretania, in which he defeated one of Sulla's generals and captured Tingis (Tangier).
[edit] Sertorian War
Sertorius and the Example of the Horses, after Hans Holbein the Younger. The drawing
illustrates the example Sertorius gave to his followers that in the same way a horse's tail
can be picked out hair by hair but not pulled out all at once, so smaller forces could
defeat the Roman armies.[2]
The North Africa success won him the fame and admiration of the people of Hispania,
particularly that of the Lusitanians in the west (in modern Portugal), whom Roman
generals and proconsuls of Sulla's party had plundered and oppressed. The Lusitanians
then offered Sertorius to be their general, and when arriving to their lands, bringing
additional forces from Africa, he held supreme authority and started invading
neighbouring territory.
Brave, noble, and gifted with eloquence, Sertorius was just the man to impress them
favourably, and the native warriors, whom he organized, spoke of him as the "new
Hannibal." His skill as a general was extraordinary, as he repeatedly defeated forces
many times his own size. Many Roman refugees and deserters joined him, and with these
and his Hispanian volunteers he completely defeated several of Sulla's generals (Fufidius,
Lucius Domitius and Thoranius) and drove Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, who had
been specifically sent against him from Rome, out of Lusitania, or Hispania Ulterior as
the Romans called it at the time.
Sertorius owed some of his success to his prodigious ability as a statesman. His goal was
to build a stable government in Hispania with the consent and co-operation of the people,
whom he wished to civilize along the lines of the Roman model. He established a senate
of 300 members, drawn from Roman emigrants (probably including some from the
highest nobles of Hispania) and kept a Hispanian bodyguard. For the children of the chief
native families he provided a school at Osca (Huesca), where they received a Roman
education and even adopted the dress and education of Roman youths, following the
Roman practice of taking hostages. Late in his campaign, a revolt of the native people
arose and Sertorius killed several of the children that he had sent to school at Osca, and
sold many others into slavery.[3]
Although he was strict and severe with his soldiers, he was particularly considerate to the
people in general, and made their burdens as light as possible. It seems clear that he had a
peculiar gift for evoking the enthusiasm of the native tribes, and we can understand well
how he was able to use the famous white fawn, a present from one of the natives that was
supposed to communicate to him the advice of the goddess Diana, to his advantage.
For six years he held sway over Hispania. In 77 he was joined by Marcus Perpenna Vento
from Rome, with a following of Roman nobles and a sizeable Roman army. Also that
year, Pompey was sent to help Metellus conquer Hispania and finish Sertorius off.
Contemptuously calling Pompey Sulla's pupil, Sertorius proved himself more than a
match for his adversaries: he razed Lauron, a city allied to Rome, after a battle in which
Pompey's forces were ambushed and defeated; he nearly captured Pompey at the battle of
Sucro when Pompey decided to fight Sertorius without waiting for Metellus Pius; and
Sertorius utterly defeated the united forces of Metellus and Pompey on one occasion near
Saguntum. Pompey wrote to Rome for reinforcements, without which, he said, he and
Metellus Pius would be driven out of Hispania.
Sertorius was in league with the Cilician pirates, who had bases all across the
Mediterranean, was negotiating with the formidable Mithridates VI of Pontus, and was in
communication with the insurgent slaves in Italy. But due to jealousies among the Roman
officers who served under him and the Hispanians of higher rank who began to weaken
his influence with the Lusitani tribes, and though he won victories to the last, he was
assassinated at a banquet at Perpenna Vento's instigation in 72 BC. Appian notes Sulla's
consistent elimination of enemy commanders by means of treachery. At the time of his
death, he was on the verge of successfully establishing an independent Roman republic in
Hispania, which crumbled with the renewed onslaught of Pompey and Metellus, who
crushed Perpenna's army and eliminated the remaining opposition.
See Plutarch's lives of Sertorius and Pompey; Appian, Bell. civ. and Hispanica; the
fragments of Sallust; Dio Cassius xxxvi.

Quintus Sertorius: Citations Verification

Uploaded by

Document Informationclick to expand document information

Copyright:

Available Formats

Quintus Sertorius: Citations Verification

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Quintus Sertorius: Citations Verification

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Quintus Sertorius

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roman conquest of Hispania

[edit] Early Political Career

In 91 he was quaestor in Cisalpine Gaul, where he was in charge of recruiting and

[edit] Proconsul in Hispania

Having been obliged to withdraw to North Africa, he carried on a campaign in

[edit] Sertorian War

You might also like