The events of the first century BC shook the Roman Republic to its foundations and led
to the formation of the Empire. Many of these events, such as Caesar’s crossing of the
Rubicon are well known, but there are ones that are overlooked. For almost a decade,
a bitter guerilla war was fought in the province of Hispania, where a rebellious Roman governor
battled for survival against the full might of Rome. Welcome to our video on Sertorius
and the Sertorian War.
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Born in Sabinium in 123 to a family of minor nobles, Quintus Sertorius was raised by his
widowed mother Rhea, whom Plutarch describes him as being ‘excessively fond’ of. After
a typical Roman education in rhetoric, martial skills, horseriding, and the Greek epics,
Sertorius, far too ambitious to remain a provincial aristocrat, traveled to Rome and entered public
life. His unique style of rhetoric elicited a comment
from the great orator Cicero, who called Sertorius the ‘roughest and readiest’ of all the
‘illiterate’ ranters he’d ever heard. Probably, not seeing himself as an orator
prompted the inexperienced Sertorius to embark on the most respected Roman career path: in
the legions, which were at that moment facing the Cimbri threat. Serving under Quintus Servilius
Caepio, Sertorius was one of the few survivors of the disastrous Battle of Arausio.
Sertorius pledged his service to Marius - a decision which charted the course of his life.
He volunteered to serve as a spy, dressing as a Cimbri warrior, learning their tongue
and joining their attack on Hispania, a place with which he was to become intimately familiar.
Sertorius slipped back to Marius when the CImbri returned to Italy in 102BC, and was
rewarded for his valiant efforts. He probably fought with the legions at Aquae Sextae and
Vercellae, seeing the end of the Cimbri threat. He continued his service with the legions
in Hispania, and then was a quaestor - the financial supervisor - in Cisalpine Gaul.
In 91 BC the Social War between the Romans and their Italic allies broke out. At first,
Sertorius used his position to supply men and materiel from his province, but then marched
south to fight in person. The early-thirties rising star lost an eye in the vicious fighting,
and when the war was won in 88 BC, emerged as a hero in Rome.
However, the rivalry between Marius and Sulla stymied the Marian-allied Sertorius’ bid
for election to the tribunate. In the Sullan Civil Wars that followed, we witness Sertorius’
loyalty, straightforwardness and mercilessness. He repeatedly questioned his commander’s
methods, such as the employment of a slave army in retaking Rome. One night, when this
force was encamped in a theatre, Sertorius had his regular legionaries surround the camp
and slay them using javelins. The new Marian leadership and Sertorius despised each other,
so in 83 BC, Sertorius set out for Hispania to establish a Marian power-base there.
The province’s fragmented geography was its strength. Hispania was dominated by a
huge central plateau surrounded by mountains. Serving as strategic gateways to this otherwise
almost impenetrable Iberian interior are five river valleys on the Atlantic coast and three
on the Mediterranean, and this facilitated a divided political situation.
When Sertorius’ arrived, around forty tribes jostled for position and warred with one another,
hemming the Roman-dominated regions to the Mediterranean seaboard. These tribes comprised
three main groups: Iberians inhabiting the eastern coastal region, Aquitani living in
the distant northwest, and a large assortment of mixed Celtiberian invaders occupying the
central plateau. The Roman territory was divided between Hispania Citerior - Nearer Spain - and
Hispania Ulterior - Further Spain. Sertorius was appointed the propraetor of these provinces
by Marius. He needed to deal with untamed mountain tribes
who still held sway in the Pyrenees, and aiming to save time, Sertorius bribed them, telling
his outraged companions that ‘If a man has a lot to do, nothing is more precious than
time.’ After getting through the treacherous mountains, he set to solidifying his power
base with help from the warlike locals.
Sertorius addressed the rampant excesses of previous Roman administrations of Hispania,
lowered taxes, and befriended or gradually endeared himself to the locals. Meanwhile,
the civil war raged on in Italy. Refugees trickled into Sertorius’ court, informing
him that Sulla had won and then marched into Rome, brutally purging his enemies. Sertorius,
of course, was on the proscription lists, and after Gnaeus Pompey subdued a Marian remnant
in Africa, he stood alone in Hispania against the Sullan regime. He prepared for the coming
storm. In 81BC Sulla sent an army towards Iberia
by land. Knowing that winter blocked any other route of approach, Sertorius sent a legion
under Julius Salinator to fortify the Pyrenees mountain passes. It was a shrewd defensive
move, and it made direct assault impossible, but Salinator was eventually betrayed by a
subordinate and killed, allowing Sulla’s army to penetrate deep into Hispania. Facing
overwhelming odds and almost certain defeat, Sertorius and his 3,000 remaining troops fled
to Mauritania early in the spring of 80 BC.
The Moorish tribes didn’t allow the renegades to move in, and Sertorius, advised by Cilician
pirates, attacked the Balearic Islands, where he was defeated in a naval battle by one of
Sulla’s Spanish governors. After a painstaking limp west to recover at the mouth of the Baetis
river, Sertorius finally set himself up in Mauretania properly, dislodging a hostile
local king, easily absorbing a Sullan army sent to deal with him, and ruling autonomously
for a few months. The local population believed that the giant
corpse of Antaeus - son of Poseidon and Gaia - was buried at a certain place in this small
kingdom. One day he went to see for himself, had the tomb excavated, and after supposedly
witnessing the demigod’s corpse, performed sacrifices and promoted the local traditions
regarding the tomb. It shows just how good Sertorius was and would be when it came to
integrating himself with his foreign subject peoples.
His African kingdom was defensible and prosperous, but events across the straits would pull Sertorius
in. Sulla’s new governor Fufidius was oppressing the locals and invading their territory. The
Lusitanians weren’t going to take it, and invited Sertorius to lead their forces. After
landing near Gibraltar in 80 BC and meeting up with his new allies, he marched against
Fufidius. Sertorius was cunning and managed to lure Fufidius into a swampy estuary before
slaughtering his army. The Sullans lost 2,000 men and the entirety of Hispania.
Sertorius then dispatched generals to mop up the remaining Sullans in the north, and
began planning. It was a big job; he had to remain a firmly Roman governor rather than
an Iberian chieftain if clemency was ever going to be possible, but he also required
the extensive assistance of local tribes in order to defend himself before it could be
counted on. During this time we begin to get a glimpse of Sertorius’ complex character
through the surviving sources. He seems to have been an industrious, charismatic leader,
never fearful or excessively indulgent, notably eschewing drunkenness. According to Plutarch,
‘he convinced many that he was a mild soul, best suited to a quiet life, whose enemies
had driven him to take up arms in his own defence, and practically forced him against
his will, to become a soldier’. His tendency to give generous gifts, practice gentle governance,
and his reciprocity made Sertorius incredibly popular among the local tribes, while his
tendency to share their burdens engendered intense loyalty with the troops.
During the early part of his dominion over Hispania, a seemingly mundane event shows
us how expertly Sertorius made use of anything to ingratiate himself with the Iberian tribes.
A lowly hunter known as Spanus managed to capture an unusual white fawn out in the wilderness.
Knowing that Sertorius had a habit of graciously accepting and then repaying such gifts, he
took it to him. Soon the creature became quite tame, not minding the chaos of army camp life
or the bustling city crowds. Seeing an opportunity, Sertorius proclaimed that the fawn had been
sent down to him by the goddess Diana, and routinely revealed hidden information to him.
When he received covert intelligence that an enemy was marching against him, for example,
he would inform the tribes that it was instead Diana who had given him the information. Sertorius’
people began to believe they were being guided by godly power, rather than the will of mortal
foreigners, and that made them all the more willing to go along with what their governor
was doing.
Rebellious Hispania would need all the help it could get, as Sulla’s replacement governor
was on his way with an army. This was Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius - consul for 80BC
- who hated the Marians. Sertorius began drilling his troops over winter. The tribes, especially
the Lusitanians, were keen to face the legions, but their commander realised that trying to
make his troops into inferior copies of the Romans would just lead to defeat. So, he adapted,
making use of their natural strengths. When Sertorius’ words didn’t convince
his allies, he resorted to an object lesson to convince them. He had two horses brought
before the tribal council, one a large, powerful steed and the other a smaller and weaker pony.
Then, he asked an elderly man to pluck out the hairs of the strong mount’s tail one
hair at a time, and a young, strong man to rip out the tail by force. The weaker old
man accomplished his task of retrieving the hairs, while the younger man only succeeded
in exhausting himself. Sertorius then explained that the Roman army was much like the tail
of a horse. Confront the legions all at once and victory would be impossible, but pick
them apart piecemeal and they can be overcome. This argument convinced the tribes and they
quickly began to train, learning Roman-style formations, signals, and tactics, transforming
individuals into a true army.
When Metellus finally entered Hispania in 79 BC, the Sertorian commanders were ready
for him. Metellus’ army began to suffer devastating harassment, making foraging and
scouting lethal. Proving himself a genius in guerilla warfare, and a peerless leader
of men, at one point the middle-aged Sertorius challenged his opponent to single combat.
Metellus declined, and forever after Sertorius would derisively call him ‘the old woman’.
This irregular warfare finally ground the Roman campaign to a halt when, a year after
it began, news came from Rome that Sulla had passed away. With his iron-fisted unity gone,
Metellus chose to take a passive approach. Sertorius wasn’t as idle, and used the free
hand to subdue more Iberian tribes in the interior who hadn’t submitted yet. The gains
increased the amount of Spanish silver that flowed into his treasury, and allowed him
to prepare for the resumption of war. Resume it did in 76 BC, in the form of future
triumvir Gnaeus Pompey, who chased a rebellious Roman commander called Perpenna into Hispania.
The latter had been forced to join up with Sertorius by his anxious soldiers. The confident
and careless Pompey threw his veteran legions onto the Iberian peninsula, but he too was
quickly outmatched by the lightly-armored and mobile Sertorian troops. Within just a
year, two entire legions of Pompey’s army had been shredded by Sertorius and his brilliant
generalship. However, we don’t just get an impression
of Sertorius’ military genius, but also his sense of honour and justice. When they
captured Lauron in 76BC, a notoriously savage cohort of Perpenna’s newly arrived Roman
legions began committing rapes in a conquered city. Sertorius, unwilling to tolerate this
horrific conduct by his own troops, had the entire unit executed. They served as an example.
No further such incidents are known to have occurred.
A climactic battle occurred in 75BC at the Sucro river, when Sertorius saw an opportunity
to eliminate Pompey before Metellus could intervene. He sent Perpenna back to delay
Metellus and then engaged with Pompey. About evenly matched in numbers, each general lined
up on their own right wing and charged at the opposing flank. Pompey fought a duel against
a giant Iberian infantryman, and his wing began to push the Sertorians back. Sertorius
learned about this threat and reacted swiftly, riding over to his left, rallying those whose
morale was faltering and pushing forward those who remained stalwart.
The Pompeian right collapsed and routed, a turn of events which seems to have taken Pompey
himself by surprise. He escaped only at the very last moment by dismounting from his ornately-clad
steed. After tidying up the other wing, the battle ended and night fell. Pompey was in
a terrible position, and almost certainly would have been destroyed the next morning.
However, Metellus arrived at dawn, having bested Perpenna, and saved Pompey from utter
disaster in the nick of time. Sertorius knew that he had lost a great chance to end one
of his rivals and stated scornfully “If the old woman had not made an appearance,
I’d have thrashed the boy and packed him off to Rome. The great Sertorian leader was
embarrassing both Metellus and Pompey, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once. So, gradually,
the war began to turn, and Rome’s seemingly infinite resources began to have their effect.
In addition to warfare, Romanization of the ‘wild and unconquered barbarians’ was
also on Sertorius’ agenda. His methods of integrating and transitioning the population
would, as Dr Philip Matyszak points out, become standard procedure in the later Republican
and Imperial eras. Sertorius was a true pioneer, who impacted centuries of world history. He
introduced Roman equipment to the Iberian tribal leadership by liberally distributing
gifts of legionary-style helmets, gladii, tunics, and cloaks for service and loyalty.
As they embraced these replacements with enthusiasm, so did their people.
To promote a sense of Iberian unity, Sertorius moved his capital as Osca. Iberian warrior-leaders
made up his retinue and thus were Romanized, and Sertorius did the same for their children
by setting up an academy in Osca, much like the one Philip II of Macedon established in
Pella for the offspring of his nobility. A fine Greek and Roman education was given here,
and Sertorius promised that it would lead to administrative positions and power for
the educated scions in time. These children were also de facto hostages to ensure that
the chieftains continued being loyal to Sertorius.. In the meantime, he also looked after the
Romans who had come to him as refugees, forming a senate, and appointing quaestors and praetors
from amongst them. It was quickly becoming a Rome outside of Rome, and it is clear that
despite his alienation from his mother country, Sertorius was a fervent advocate of Roman
values.
Despite his military genius and overtures to Mithridates in the east, Roman reinforcements
kept coming, his enemies got better, and his allies proved not equal to the task at hand.
Perpenna blundered into several defeats and lost almost all of his own legionaries. As
Sertorian fortunes gradually worsened and his territory was rolled back, Metellus offered
a generous reward of 100 talents and amnesty to any traitor who killed his enemy. The Romans
with Sertorius began to scheme and plot, Perpenna foremost among them.
Hearing about this through his phenomenal intelligence network, Sertorius, according
to Livy ‘changed into a savage and dissolute man’, succumbing to vice and brutality and
‘abandoning himself to wine, women and song’. Many of the children at his academy were even
enslaved or executed as punishment for their tribe’s crimes - increasing numbers of them
were slowly making deals with Metellus. Naturally, this led more people to conspire as well.
Perpenna, attending one of many austere banquets hosted by his nominal master, assassinated
Sertorius with a hidden sword along with a group of conspirators in 72 BC.
The Sertorian War largely ended with the death of Sertorius himself, and the victorious Pompey
captured and executed Perpenna. The tribes went back to being a nuisance for Rome, but
Sertorius played a large role in bringing Hispania into the Roman fold, and the provinces
would remain crucial for the Roman economy for the next five centuries.
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