Quintus Sertorius
Quintus Sertorius | |
---|---|
Born | c. 126 BC |
Awards | Grass Crown |
Quintus Sertorius (c. 126 – 73 BC) was a Roman general and statesman who led
In his Parallel Lives, the Greek biographer Plutarch paired Sertorius with Eumenes. Like Eumenes, Sertorius was betrayed by his own men.[3][4]
Early life and career
Sertorius was born in
His speaking style made a sufficiently negative impression on the young Cicero to merit a special mention in a later treatise on oratory:
- Of all the totally illiterate and crude orators, well, actually ranters, I ever knew – and I might as well add 'completely coarse and rustic' – the roughest and readiest were Q. Sertorius ...[8]
After his undistinguished career in
Social War and Civil War
In 91 BC, he was elected quaestor and served in Cisalpine Gaul, where he was in charge of recruiting and training legionaries for the Social War. A wound sustained during the war cost him the use of one of his eyes.[13]
- Sertorius used his wounds as personal propaganda. Being scarred in the face had its advantages. 'Other men, he used to say, could not always carry about them the evidence of their heroic achievements. Their tokens, wreaths and spears of honour must at some times be set aside. His proof of valour remained with him at all times.'[14]
Upon his return to Rome he ran for
In 88 BC, after being sidelined by his political opponents, Sulla marched his legions on Rome and took the capital. He took revenge on his enemies and forced Marius into exile, then left Italy to fight the
- Oh, really? Here I was thinking that Marius had decided for himself to come to Italy, and so I was trying to decide what good it would do. But it turns out there's nothing to discuss. Since after all, you invited him, then you have to receive and employ him. There's no question about it.[17]
In October of 87 BC, Cinna marched on Rome. Sertorius commanded one of Cinna's divisions and fought a battle with troops commanded by
The years 87–84 BC are often described as spent 'waiting for Sulla'.[21] Marius died in January 86 BC. Cinna was murdered in 84 BC, lynched by his own troops. It is probable that Sertorius became praetor in the year Cinna died.[22]
On Sulla's return from the East in 83 BC a
- Cinna was murdered and against the wishes of Sertorius, and against the law, the younger Marius took the consulship while [ineffectual] men as Carbo, Norbanus and Scipio had no success in stopping Sulla's advance on Rome, so the Marian cause was being ruined and lost; cowardice and weakness by the generals played its part, and treachery did the rest, and there was no reason why Sertorius should stay to watch things going from bad to worse through the inferior judgement of men with superior power.[26]
Propraetor of Hispania and Fugitive
After having fallen out with the new populares leadership Sertorius was sent to
Unable to convince the Spanish tribes to fight for him, Sertorius was seriously outnumbered and he decided to abandon his provinces. With 3,000 of his most loyal followers he fled to Mauritania, but was driven off by the locals who wanted no part of his rebellion.[31] He then fell in with a band of Cilician pirates who were pillaging the Spanish coast. Together they attacked and took Pityussa, the most southerly of the Balearic Islands, which they started using as a base. When this was reported to Annius Luscus, he sent a fleet of warships and almost a full legion which drove Sertorius and his pirate allies from the Balearics.[32] The pirates defected and went to Africa to help install the tyrant Ascalis[33] on the throne of Tingis. Sertorius followed them to Africa, rallied the locals in the vicinity of Tingis, who were unhappy with Ascalis for they saw him as a puppet of Sulla, and defeated Ascalis's men and the pirates in battle.[34]
After gaining control over Tingis, Sertorius defeated Paccianus, one of Sulla's generals, who had been sent to put Ascalis on the throne.[35]
Local legend had it that Antaeus, the son of Poseidon and Gaia, and the husband of Tinge who gave name to Tingis, was buried in Mauritania. Sertorius had the tomb excavated for he wanted to see the body of Antaeus which was reported to be sixty cubits[36] in size. According to Plutarch, Sertorius was dumbfounded by what he saw and after performing a sacrifice, he filled the tomb up again, and thereafter was among those promoting its traditions and honours.[37]
The North African success won him the fame and admiration of the
Sertorian War
On a moonless night in the year 80 BC, Sertorius sailed his forces from Tingis across the Gibraltar strait back to Hispania.[39] A small fleet under Aurelius Cotta from the coastal town of Mellaria tried to stop him, but he pushed them aside and landed his army at the small fishing town of Baelo near the Pillars of Hercules.[40] After being reinforced by the Lusitanians he marched on Lucius Fufidius, the local Roman governor, intent on defeating him to strengthen his support and prestige. At the Battle of the Baetis River, fought at the Baetis estuary, he defeated Fufidius and started to consolidate his power in Hispania.[41]
Brave, noble, and gifted with eloquence, Sertorius was just the man to impress the native warriors, whom he organized into an army. They spoke of him as the "new Hannibal" whom he resembled physically (having one eye) and in military skill; he was an extraordinary general who repeatedly defeated forces many times his own force's size. Many Roman and Italian refugees and deserters joined him, and with these and his Spanish and African volunteers and mercenaries he completely defeated several of Sulla's generals (Fufidius, Domitius Calvinus and to some less-direct extent Thorius and Manlius). In 77 BC he drove Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius the proconsul of Hispania Ulterior, who had been given a proconsular command specifically to defeat him, out of his own province.
In 76 BC, after Sertorius had been reinforced by the rebel army of
The turning point came in 75 BC when Pompey and Metellus started scoring victories against Sertorius's subordinates. Pompey defeated Sertorius's legates
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
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 how he was able to use his famous white fawn, a present from one of the natives that was supposed to communicate to him the advice of the goddess
- Spanus, one of the commoners who lived in the country came across a doe trying to escape from hunters. The doe fled faster than he could pursue, but the animal had newly given birth. He [Spanus] was struck by the unusual colour of the fawn, for it was pure white. He pursued and caught it.
As it happened, Sertorius was in the area, and it was known that he amply rewarded those who brought him game and produce. So Spanus gave the fawn to Sertorius, who at that time felt only the usual pleasure of one who receives such gift. After a while the animal became so tame and well-trained that it came when he called it, and followed him on his walks without minding the crowds and bustle of life in camp. [That the fawn did this tells us something more about the character of Sertorius.] Eventually it occurred to him that the barbarians easily fall into superstition, so he started to give the fawn religious significance. He announced that the doe had been sent by [the goddess] Diana, and solemnly claimed that through the doe she revealed hidden information to him. He helped the idea along by various tricks. If he heard of an enemy raid into his territory, or an attempt to subvert a city from its allegiance to him, he would claim that the fawn had told him of this in a dream, and tell his men to prepare. Or when his commanders sent him messages of victory, he would hide the messenger and bring out the white fawn wearing celebratory garlands. He would sacrifice to the gods, and tell his men to celebrate because they would soon hear something good had happened. By such stratagems he persuaded his people they were not by the fallible wisdom of some foreigner, but by divine power. So the people were made tractable and all the more ready to help him with his plans, and consequently the extraordinary growth of Sertorius's power led to reinforcing this belief.[50]
For six years he held sway over Hispania. In 76 BC, he was joined — at the insistence of the forces he brought with him — by
Sertorius was in league with the
Death
In 74 and 73 BC, Pompey and Metellus had been slowly grinding down Sertorius's rebellion. Unable to defeat him in battle they had opted for attritional warfare, what had worked against Hannibal a century and a half before would now be brought to bear on Sertorius. Metellus, seeing that the key to victory was removing Sertorius, had made his pitch toward the Romans still with Sertorius. 'Should any Roman kill Sertorius he would be given a hundred talents of silver and twenty-thousand acres of land. If he was an exile he would be free to return to Rome'.[53] This turned Sertorius paranoid, he started distrusting his Roman retinue. He also no longer trusted his Roman bodyguard, exchanging it for a Spanish one.[54]
The war was not going well, so the Roman aristocrats and senators who made up the higher classes of his domain became discontented with Sertorius. They had grown jealous of Sertorius's power, and Perperna, aspiring to take Sertorius's place, encouraged that jealousy for his own ends. The conspirators took to damaging Sertorius by oppressing the local Iberian tribes in his name. This stirred discontent and revolt in the tribes, which resulted in a cycle of oppression and revolt, with Sertorius none the wiser as to who was creating such mischief.
Perperna and his fellow conspirator invited Sertorius to a feast to celebrate a supposed victory. While under most circumstances, any festivities to which Sertorius was invited were conducted with great propriety, this particular feast was vulgar, designed to offend the skillful general and get him off his couch and among the crowd where a knife could be shoved through his ribs without difficulty. Disgusted, Sertorius changed his posture on the couch, intent on ignoring them all. This presented something of a problem as Sertorius, although in late middle age, had a well deserved reputation as a skilled fighter. They changed their tactic, Perperna gave the signal to his fellow conspirators, and they rushed and stabbed the unsuspecting Sertorius until he was dead.[55]
Aftermath
Upon learning of the death of Sertorius, some of his Iberian allies sent ambassadors to Pompey or Metellus and made peace. Most simply went home. To make matters worse for Perperna, Sertorius's will named Perperna his chief beneficiary. Already disgraced as the man who had slain his commander, the man who had given him sanctuary, Perperna was now also revealed to have killed his main benefactor and friend. And now that he was dead, the virtues of Sertorius were remembered, and his recent atrocities forgotten.[56]
- People are generally less angry with those who have died, and when they no longer see him alive before them they tend to dwell tenderly on his virtues. So it was with Sertorius. Anger against him suddenly turned to affection and the soldiers clamorously rose up in protest against Perperna.[57]
Sertorius's independent "Roman" Republic in Spain crumbled with the renewed onslaught of Pompey and Metellus, who crushed Perperna's army and eliminated the remaining opposition.
Many commentators described Sertorius's life as a tragedy.[58] Plutarch wrote that "He [Sertorius] was more continent than Philip, more faithful to his friends than Antigonus, and more merciful to his enemies than Hannibal; and that for prudence and judgment he gave place to none of them, but in fortune was inferior to them all."[59] Spann concluded, "Sertorius' talents were wasted, his life lost, in an inglorious struggle he did not want, could not win, and could not escape".[60]
In fiction
- The 1662 French play Sertorius by John Bancroftboth portray the events of the rebellion
- In Fortune's Favourites, Quintus Sertorius features as one of the secondary characters.
- In Steven Saylor's short story "The White Fawn", Sertorius features as one of the secondary characters.
- Sertorius is the main character in Vincent Davis II's historical fiction series The Sertorius Scrolls.[61]
See also
Notes and references
- ^ Konrad, p. 217.
- ^ Despite being a propraetor, he was probably given proconsular powers by the Cinna-Marian regime, because he had to take the province(s) from the proconsul Gaius Valerius Flaccus.
- ISBN 1-84884-787-4
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
- ^ Konrad, pp. 38–39.
- ^ Spann, p. 1.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the struggle for Spain, pp. 2–3.
- ^ Cicero, Brutus, 180.
- ^ Lynda Telford, Sulla A Dictator Reconsidered, p. 57; Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 6–7; Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 3.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the struggle for Spain, p. 11.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the struggle for Spain, p. 15.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Marius, 27; Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the struggle for Spain, p. 17.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the struggle for Spain, p. 22; Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 8.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 8.
- ^ Lynda Telford, Sulla: A Dictator Reconsidered, p. 164.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, p. 26
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 5.
- ^ John Leach, Pompey the Great, p. 20; Lynda Telford, Sulla A Dictator Reconsidered, p. 111; Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, p. 27.
- ^ Lynda Telford, Sulla: A Dictator Reconsidered, p. 114.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 28–29; Lynda Telford, Sulla: A Dictator Reconsidered, p. 115.
- ^ E. Badian, Waiting for Sulla, Journal of Roman Studies, vol 52 (1962), pp. 47–61.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 29–31.
- ^ Lynda Telford, Sulla: A Dictator Reconsidered, p. 162; John Leach, Pompey the Great. p. 25; Philip Matyszak, Cataclysm 90 BC, p. 133.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 32–33; Lynda Telford, Sulla: A Dictator Reconsidered, pp. 162–165; John Leach, Pompey the Great. p. 25; Philip Matyszak, Cataclysm 90 BC, pp. 133–134.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, p. 32.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 6.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 32–33; Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 6.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, p. 52; Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 6.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, p. 53; Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 6.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, p. 57; Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 7.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 57–58.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, p. 59.
- ^ A local client of Sulla
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 60–61.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the struggle for Spain, pp. 60–61; Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 9.
- ^ Sixty cubits is about ninety feet.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 9.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, p. 63.
- ^ He chose a moonless night in order to remain undetected, but was detected nevertheless.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 63–64.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 64–65.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 17.
- ^ Frontinus, Stratagems, 2.5.31; Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 18.3; Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 18; John Leach, Pompey the Great, pp. 226–227; Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 96–101.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 18; John Leach, Pompey the Great, p. 48; Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 117–118.
- ^ Livy, Epitome, 91.4; Frontinus, Stratagems, 2.1.2 and 2.3.5; John Leach, Pompey the Great, p. 47; Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 118–119.
- ^ Appian, Civil Wars, 1.110; Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 19; Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 18.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 21.
- ^ a b Sertorius, by Plutarch
- ISBN 978-3-7913-3580-3, pp. 263–64.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 11
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, p. 152.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 25.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 22.
- ^ John Leach, Pompey the Great, p. 51.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the struggle for Spain, pp. 153–154.
- ^ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp. 156–157.
- ^ Appian, Civil Wars, 1.114.
- ^ Murphy, p. 1.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 1.
- ^ Spann, p. 152.
- ^ "The Sertorius Scrolls". Vincent Davis II. Retrieved April 3, 2024.
Bibliography
Ancient sources
- Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Life of Sertorius (in his Parallel Lives Plutarch pairs Sertorius with Eumenes − Plutarch saw many parallels between the lives of these two men)
- Plutarch, Parallel Lives, Life of Pompey, 18.
- Appian, Bell. civ. (Civil Wars).
- Appian, Hispanica.
- the fragments of Sallust.
- Dio Cassiusxxxvi.
- Frontinus, Stratagems
Modern sources
- Katz, B.R. (1981). "Sertorius, Caesar, and Sallust" (PDF). Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 29: 285–313.
- Konrad, C.F. (1994). Plutarch's Sertorius: A Historical Commentary. ISBN 0-8078-2139-X.
- John Leach, Pompey the Great, chapter 2. (1978)
- ISBN 978-1-84884-787-3.
- Murphy, William J. (1973). Quintus Sertorius: the reluctant rebel (master's degree). Michigan State University. .
- Spann, Philip O. (1987). Quintus Sertorius and the Legacy of Sulla. ISBN 0-938626-64-7.