[61]
Not long afterward those who had escaped the villany of Lucullus and Galba, having collected together to the number of 10,000, overran Turditania. Gaius Vetilius marched against them, bringing a new army from Rome and taking also the soldiers already in Spain, so that he had about 10,000 men. He fell upon their foragers, killed many of them, and forced the rest into a place where, if they stayed, they were in danger of famine, and if they came out would fall into the hands of the Romans. Being in these straits they sent messengers to Vetilius with olive-branches asking land for a dwelling-place, and agreeing from that time on to obey the Romans in all things. He promised to give them the land, and an agreement was nearly made to that effect when Viriathus, who had escaped the perfidy of Galba and was then among them, reminded them of the bad faith of the Romans, told them how the latter had often set upon them in violation of oaths, and how this whole army was composed of men who had escaped from the perjuries of Galba and Lucullus. If they would obey him,
he said, he would show them a safe retreat from this place.
B.C. 148 |
