CHAPTER XIII
New Dissensions in Rome--The War with Sertorius--Pompey sent against
him--Sertorius defeats Pompey--Wars Elsewhere--Sertorius puts Pompey to
flight at Pallantia--Sertorius assassinated by Perpenna--Perpenna takes
the Command--Is defeated and slain by Pompey
[
107]
Directly after their return from the funeral the consuls fell into a wordy
quarrel and the citizens began to take sides with them. Lepidus, in order to
curry favor with the Italians, said that he would restore the land which
Sulla had taken from them. The Senate was afraid of both factions and made
them take an oath that they would not carry their differences to the point
of war. To Lepidus the province of transalpine Gaul was assigned by lot and
he did not come back to the comitia because he would be released in the
following year from his oath about making war on the Sullans; for it was
considered that the oath was binding only during the term of office. As his
designs did not escape observation he was recalled by the Senate, and as he
knew why he was recalled he came with his whole army, intending to bring
them into the city with him. As he was prevented from doing this, he ordered
his men under arms and Catulus did the same on the other side. A battle was
fought not far from the Campus Martius. Lepidus was defeated and, soon
giving up the struggle, sailed shortly afterward to Sardinia, where he died
of a wasting disease. His army was frittered away little by little and
dissolved, the greater part of it was conducted by Perpenna to Sertorius in
Spain.
[108]
There remained of the Sullan troubles the war with Sertorius, which had been
going on for eight years, 1 and was not an easy war
to the Romans since it was waged not merely against Spaniards, but against
other Romans and Sertorius. He had been chosen governor of Spain while he
was coöperating with Carbo against Sulla; and after taking the city
of Suessa during the armistice he fled and assumed his prætorship.
He had an army from Italy itself and he raised another from the
Celtiberians, and drove out of Spain the former prætors, who, in
order to favor Sulla, refused to surrender the government to him. He had
also fought nobly against Metellus, who had been sent against him by Sulla.
Having acquired a reputation for bravery he enrolled a council of 300
members from the friends who were with him, and called it the Roman Senate
in derision
of
the real one. After Sulla died, and Lepidus later, he
obtained
another army of Italians which Perpenna, the lieutenant of Lepidus, brought
to him and it was supposed that he intended to march against Italy itself,
and would have done so had not the Senate become alarmed and sent another
army and general into Spain in addition to the former ones. This general was
Pompey, who was still a young man, but renowned for his exploits in the time
of Sulla, in Africa and in Italy itself.
[109]
Pompey courageously crossed the Alps, not in the face of such difficulties as
Hannibal experienced, but he opened another passage around the sources of
the Rhone and the Eridanus. These issue from the Alpine mountains not far
from each other. One of them runs through transalpine Gaul and empties into
the Tyrrhenian sea; the other from the interior of the Alps to the Adriatic.
The name of the latter has been changed from the Eridanus to the Po.
Directly Pompey
arrived in Spain Sertorius cut in pieces
a whole legion of
his army, that had been sent out foraging, with its animals and servants. He
also plundered and destroyed the Roman town of Lauro before the very eyes of
Pompey. In this siege a woman tore out with her fingers the eyes of a
soldier who had insulted her and was trying to commit an outrage upon her.
When Sertorius heard of this he put to death the whole cohort that was
supposed to be addicted to such brutality, although it was composed of
Romans. Then the armies were separated by the advent of winter.
[110]
When spring came they resumed hostilities, Metellus and Pompey coming from
the Pyrenees mountains, where they had wintered, and Sertorius and Perpenna
from Lusitania. They met near the town of Sucro. While the fight was going
on flashes of lightning came unexpectedly from a clear sky, but these
trained soldiers were not in the least dismayed. They continued the fight,
with heavy slaughter on both sides, until Metellus defeated Perpenna and
plundered his camp. On the other hand, Sertorius defeated Pompey, who
received a dangerous wound from a spear in the thigh, and this put an end to
that battle. Sertorius had a white fawn that was tame and allowed to move
about freely. When this fawn was not visible Sertorius considered it a bad
omen. He became low-spirited and abstained from fighting; nor did he mind
the enemy's scoffing at the fawn. When she made her appearance running
through the woods Sertorius would run to meet her and, as though he were
inspired by her, he would begin to harass the enemy. Not long afterward
Sertorius fought a great battle near Seguntia, lasting from noon till night.
Sertorius fought on horseback and vanquished Pompey, killing nearly 6000 of
his men and losing about half that number himself. Metellus at the same time
destroyed
about 5000 of Perpenna's army. The day after this
battle Sertorius, with a large reënforcement of barbarians,
attacked the camp of Metellus unexpectedly towards evening with the
intention of besieging it with a trench, but Pompey hastened up and caused
Sertorius to desist from his bold enterprise. In this way they passed the
summer, and again they separated to winter quarters.
[111]
The following year, which was in the 176th Olympiad,
two
countries were acquired by the Romans by bequest. Bithynia was left to them
by Nicomedes, and Cyrene by Ptolemy Apion, of the house of the
Lagidæ. There were wars and wars; the Sertorian was raging in
Spain, the Mithridatic in the East, that of the pirates on the entire sea,
and another one around Crete against the Cretans themselves, besides the
gladiatorial war in Italy, which started suddenly and became very serious.
Although distracted by so many conflicts the Romans sent another army of two
legions into Spain. With these and the other forces in their hands Metellus
and Pompey again descended from the Pyrenees mountains to the Ebro and
Sertorius and Perpenna advanced from Lusitania to meet them. At this
juncture many of the soldiers of Sertorius deserted to Metellus.
[112]
Sertorius was so exasperated by this that he visited savage and barbarous
punishment upon many of his men and fell into disrepute in consequence. The
soldiers blamed him particularly because wherever he went he surrounded
himself with a body-guard of Celtiberian spearmen instead of Romans,
removing the latter in favor of the former. Nor could they bear to be
reproached with treachery by him while they were serving under an enemy of
the Roman people. That they should be charged with bad faith by Sertorius
while they were acting in bad faith to their country on his account, was the
very thing that vexed them most. Nor did they consider it just that those
who remained with the standards should be condemned because others deserted.
Moreover, the Celtiberians took this occasion to insult them as men under
suspicion. Still they were not altogether alienated from Sertorius since
they derived advantages from his service, for there was no other man of that
period more skilled in the art of war or more successful in it. For this
reason, and on account of the rapidity of his movements, the Celtiberians
gave him the name of Hannibal, whom they considered the boldest and most
crafty general ever known in their country. In this way the army stood
affected toward Sertorius. The forces of Metellus overran many of his towns
and brought the men belonging to them under subjection. While Pompey was
laying siege to Pallantia and underrunning the walls with wooden supports,
Sertorius suddenly appeared on the scene and raised the siege. Pompey
hastily set fire to the timbers and retreated to Metellus. Sertorius rebuilt
the part of the wall which had fallen and then attacked his enemies who were
encamped around the castle of Calagurris and killed 3000 of them. And so
this year went by in Spain. 2
[113]
In the following year the Roman generals plucked
up rather
more courage and advanced in an audacious manner against the towns that
adhered to Sertorius, drew many away from him, assaulted others, and were
much elated by their success. No great battle was fought, but again
3 . . . until the following year, when they advanced
again even more audaciously. Sertorius was now
evidently misled by a god, for he
relaxed his labors, fell
into habits of luxury, and gave
himself up to women, and to carousing and drinking, for which reason he was
defeated continually. He became hot-tempered, from various suspicions, and
extremely cruel in punishment, and distrustful of everybody,
4 so much so that Perpenna, who had belonged to the faction of
Lepidus and had come hither as a volunteer with a considerable army, began
to fear for his own safety and formed a conspiracy with ten other men
against him. The conspiracy was betrayed, some of the guilty ones were
punished and others fled, but Perpenna escaped detection in some
unaccountable manner and applied himself all the more to carry out the
design. As Sertorius was never without his guard of spearmen, Perpenna
invited him to a banquet, plied him and his guards with wine, and
assassinated him after the feast.
[114]
The soldiers straightway rose in tumult and anger against Perpenna, their
hatred of Sertorius being suddenly turned to affection for him, as people
generally mollify their anger toward the dead, and when the one who has
injured them is no longer before their eyes recall his virtues with tender
memory. Reflecting on their present situation they despised Perpenna as
though he had been a private individual, for they considered that the
bravery of Sertorius had been their only salvation. They were angry with
Perpenna, and the barbarians were no less so; most of all were the
Lusitanians, of whose services Sertorius had especially availed himself.
When the will of Sertorius was opened a bequest to Perpenna was found in it,
and thereupon still greater anger and hatred of him entered into the minds
of all, since he had committed such an abominable crime, not merely against
his ruler and commanding general, but against his friend and benefactor. And
they would not have abstained from violence had not Perpenna bestirred
himself, making gifts to some and promises to others. Some he terrified with
threats and some he killed in order to strike terror into the rest. He came
forward and made a speech to the multitude, and released from confinement
some whom Sertorius had imprisoned, and dismissed some of the Spanish
hostages. Reduced to submission in this way they obeyed him as
prætor (for he held the next rank to Sertorius) yet they were not
without bitterness toward him even then. As he grew bolder he became very
cruel in punishments, and put to death three of the nobility who had fled
together from Rome to him, and also his own nephew.
[115]
As Metellus had gone to other parts of Spain,-- for he considered it no
longer a difficult task for Pompey alone to vanquish Perpenna, -- these two
skirmished and made tests of each other for several days, but did not bring
their whole strength into the field. On the tenth day, however, a great
battle was fought between them. They resolved to decide the contest by one
engagement--Pompey because he despised the generalship of Perpenna; Perpenna
because he did not believe that his army would long remain faithful to him,
and he could now engage with nearly his whole strength. Pompey, as might
have been expected, soon got the better of this inferior general and
disaffected army. Perpenna was defeated all along the line and concealed
himself in a thicket, more fearful of his own troops than of the enemy's. He
was seized by some horsemen and dragged toward Pompey's headquarters, loaded
with the execrations of his own men, as the murderer of Sertorius, and
crying out that he could give Pompey a great deal of information about the
factions in Rome. This he said either because it was true, or in order to be
brought safe to Pompey's presence, but the latter sent orders to kill him
before bringing him into his presence, fearing lest the news that Perpenna
wanted to communicate should be the source of new troubles at Rome. Pompey
seems to have behaved very prudently in this matter, and his action added to
his high reputation. So ended the war in Spain with the life of Sertorius. I
think that if he had lived longer the war would not have ended so soon or so
successfully.5
