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BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
in the western part of the Iberian peninsula. 2 As all such movements, however
justified their cause, manifested themselves as warlike invasions, in the
course of the Lusitanian migrations the Roman province of Hispania Ulterior
suffered looting and plundering. At the same time the Roman Senate
had determined to return to a more offensive foreign policy. 3 The reasons for
this change were very basic, and had nothing directly to do with the situation
in Spain. The patres were seized by the feeling that they should do
something to strengthen morality in their own ranks and to combat a weakening
of military discipline. At that time, it could still not be ruled out that
the latent conflict with Carthage might soon flare up again as open war.
The Iberian peninsula was the likely battle ground; and here the attacks by
Lusitanian tribes provided sufficient and, happily, legitimate grounds for
military activity in the shape of reprisals.
In 151 bc Servius Sulpicius Galba, at that time praetor of the province
of Hispania Ulterior, received envoys from the Lusitanians who announced
their wish to extend their peace agreement with Rome. Galba assured the
envoys of his appreciation of the position in which their people found themselves
forced by poverty to turn to banditry. According to Appian, he declared
hypocritically: ‘The infertility of the earth and your own poverty
compel you to do such a thing. I, however, will give my poor friends good
land and settle them in a fertile region, in three groups.’ 4 The Lusitanians,
acting in good faith, gathered in three groups, laid down their weapons
voluntarily as ordered, and were then butchered at Galba’s command. 5 The
massacre contributed significantly to an escalation of the war, which ended
only in 133 bc with the fall of Numantia.
Among the few survivors of the massacre was Viriatus, destined not many
years later to lead Lusitanian resistance against Rome. Without doubt, his
deepest motive was to exact revenge for Galba’s perfidious breach of trust.
Viriatus appears in Hobsbawm’s terms as the ‘noble bandit’ righting a wrong. 6
That this is not an anachronism, imposed implausibly upon ancient conditions
is confirmed by a late Roman historian, who characterised Viriatus as
‘the champion of Spain against Rome’. 7 This deferential judgement brings
to mind a well-known phrase of Tacitus, which shows appreciation for
Arminius’ personal qualities as ‘without doubt, the liberator of Germany’. 8
In adsertor and liberator, two unreservedly positive terms denoting a person
who delivers others from a condition of arbitrarily curtailed freedom, we can
clearly detect the notion of ‘righting a wrong’. What distinguished Viriatus
from Arminius was success which the latter won but the former eventually
lost.
For almost nine years, from 147 to 139 bc, Viriatus, as leader of the
resistance movement of Lusitanian and Celtiberian tribes achieved legendary
fame by his successful generalship. To Spanish and German nationalists of
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries he ranked with Vercingetorix,
Arminius, Tacfarinas and Decebalus as a symbolic figure of liberation.
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