Our archenemy of today was not a great military leader, or an admired and praised hero, he was a young warrior, one more element within the fierce resistance that a single city opposed to the best oiled military machine of the ancient world:Numancia . Serve this article as a tribute not only to the young Retógenes , but to the two thousand five hundred Numancia who, all together like the later Fuenteovejuna , did not give their arm to twist before the Roman invader.
Twenty-eighth installment of “Archienemies of Rome “. Collaboration of Gabriel Castelló
Let's get into context. Numancia . Just mentioning that stubborn little city in the Rome forum caused a rash. The sons of great men, instead of enlisting to gain fame and prestige in their cursus honorum , tried to avoid their military commitments in order not to end up enrolled in the next army that would leave for the indomitable Hispanic border. For almost twenty years, the Celtiberian and Arevaca tribes remained in clear hostility against Rome, defying it and causing the consuls in charge of the matter defeats and humiliations such as that of G. Hostilio Mancinus who, as punishment for having agreed with the enemy, ended up naked before the walls of Numancia.
Victory over Rome
That accumulation of disasters lasted until the Senate got fed up with that stagnant situation and decided to entrust the most prestigious military man of the moment, the brand new conqueror of Carthage, to tackle the Hispanic problem definitively. In 134 BC, Publius Cornelius Scipio Emilianus , adoptive grandson of Scipio the African who has recreated us so well lately Santiago Posteguillo , took charge of the matter. Once confirmed in his position, and modified the calendar to be able to undertake the project within the year that it lasted, he equipped 4,000 volunteers with his own money, forming his " cohort of friends ” with the closest of them. The Senate denied him funds for such a risky project, but Scipio, with contempt as Plutarch left us, told them that " his and his friends' were enough ”. When he arrived at Numantia he did not immediately go into combat with the obstinate Numantines. He had a lot of work to do with his own men, whose discipline was conspicuous by his absence after years and years of lack of leadership. Beginning by expelling from the camp the concubines, harlots, fortune tellers, pedlars and other parasites of the army who lived with the legionnaires, he applied marches and maneuvers severely, restoring the legions to their army status. One of the tribunes stationed in Hispania showed such dedication to recovering the morale of the troops that Scipio decorated him. His name was Gaius Mario . While in those troubles, his Numidian ally, King Jugurta , arrived. , with 15,000 men and 20 elephants. Still, he knew it wasn't enough.
Site of Numnacia
I have always maintained that the lethal weapon of the Roman army was not the pilum, but the shovel, and that its best generals were true artists in the design of fortifications and sieges, as Scipio demonstrated in Numancia and would reply a century later to Caesar in Alesia . Scipio, already counting on nearly 60,000 men against the 2,500 insurgents, decided not to try his luck in an assault with uncertain results and to tightly surround Numancia and reduce it by hunger and thirst. To do this, he used a high fence, moats, a dam on the Duero and seven fortified camps around the hill on which the city stood, many of them discovered by the German Hispanist Adolf Schulten during his archaeological campaigns carried out between 1905 and 1914.
It is during the long siege of Numancia that the young Arevaco appears in history. As Appian left us, hunger was already pressing and, perhaps by order of the Council, a small group of five warriors led by the certain Rhetogenes he circumvented the Roman siege using some ingenious ladders and searched among the neighboring cities for support to be able to keep his swords high. Appian speaks of them fleeing on horseback, but I doubt that five horsemen would have jumped the Roman stockade, let alone that they had not been eaten after many months of encirclement based on a juicy diet of acorn bread and boiled leather.
The Tips of Termes (Montejo de Tiermes) and Uxama (Burgo de Osma) gave him pumpkins and only the warrior youth of Lutia (perhaps Luzaga) welcomed them as heroes and promised them help. One of the most common errors inherited from the education of other times, and that survives in some television absurdities set in ours, is to think of a united Iberia against the Roman invader. This idealized image of the indigenous confederate before the foreign power is completely false. No city supported the neighbor per se, since each ethnic group or city of old Iberia looked after its own interests, with or against Rome. This macabre example serves as proof of this:the very Council of Elders of Lutia Fearful of the reprisals of the inflexible Scipio as soon as the insurrection of the young people was known, he decided to anticipate the facts and warn the Romans of the intentions of their impetuous warriors. Scipio's reaction was implacable. The Roman troops entered Lutia by surprise, before the levy mobilized, capturing the young Numantines and their new Lutiako allies. The punishment was as explicit as it was ignominious:400 young warriors lost their right hand that day , disabling them to raise their sword against Rome... and be able to die in honorable combat. It is not known if Retogenes he was one of those 400 mutilated, but it is very likely that he was. Nothing else was heard of him.
Numantine warriors - ceramic detail
Numantia fell in 133 BC. After the unsuccessful and last embassy of the counselor Avaros , in which Scipio did not accept any favored treatment in case of agreeing to surrender, its indomitable inhabitants preferred the effect of yew, fire or iron before ending up eating each other or kneeling in chains in front of that arrogant Roman legate . Only a few paraded in the triumph of Scipio Emiliano through the streets of Rome, since then also called Numantino, and the rest were sold as slaves. After the fall of Numancia, all of Celtiberia remained in peace until, seventy years later, a one-eyed and idealistic knight set Hispania on fire in his rebellion against the tyranny of Sulla:we are talking about my dear Quintus Sertorius .
Dedicated to Adrian … nobody asks us when we come or when we leave.