In the year 181 B.C., Rome undertook the conquest of Celtiberia in a series of wars that lasted for almost half a century, with perhaps the most famous episode being the siege of Numantia. This occurred in a later phase of the conflict, as a result of what the Romans considered a violation of the peace agreement reached twenty years earlier: the expansion of the walls of Segeda, the city of the Belos. Faced with the impossibility of avoiding the confrontation, they allied with the Arevaci and inflicted such a resounding defeat on the consul Quintus Fulvius Nobilior that the Senate declared that day ominous and changed the start date of the political term.

The Celtiberians had been in the Iberian Peninsula since the 13th century B.C. (the Bronze Age) and extended over an undefined area—large and uneven, in the words of Strabo—of the Hispania Citerior, centered in the present-day provinces of Soria and Guadalajara, encompassing parts of others such as Valladolid, Palencia, Burgos, and Segovia, as well as the northeastern tip of Cuenca, the northwestern region of Valencia, and the western half of Zaragoza and Teruel in Aragon, in addition to the southernmost part of La Rioja.

Their culture combined Celtic and Iberian elements, and the Romans themselves considered them a mixture of both. Among them were the Arevaci—the strongest, according to Strabo—Lusones, Titii, Pelendones, and Belos. The latter, believed to be descendants of the Illyrians, lived in the aforementioned Soria and Zaragoza, utilizing their fertile lands for an economy based on agriculture (cereals, barley, olives) and livestock (goats, pigs, sheep), besides practicing textile craftsmanship producing sagum (a kind of cloak or mantle), a garment that the legionaries adopted soon afterward (similar to the paludamentum but less elitist).

The relative tranquility of the Celtiberians was disrupted after the Romans defeated the Carthaginians and took control of Hispania. A rebellion soon arose; it was in 197 B.C., led by various Iberian peoples who often hired Celtiberians as mercenaries. Consul Marcus Porcius Cato harshly suppressed it, plundering all the riches he could afterward and clearing the path for proconsuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Calpurnius Piso to conquer Lusitania. Then, in 181 B.C., Celtiberia came under attack.

In this endeavor, first Quintus Fulvius Flaccus and then Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (the father of the famous tribunes, who was married to Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus), sometimes through arms, other times through treaties, and sometimes by inciting one people against another by exploiting their ancestral enmities.

But a few years earlier, in 193 B.C., Quintus Fulvius Nobilior had already defeated a large coalition of the Lusones with the Vaccaei and Vettones, capturing their leader, the Carpetani Hilerno, and causing the survivors to seek refuge in Contrebia Belasca, a Bela city that also suffered repressive consequences.

The war with the Celtiberians lasted two years, after which Sempronius Gracchus managed to pacify the territory. He then signed a series of agreements with the Belos and Titii, whereby they undertook to pay an annual tribute and supply the army with auxiliarii in exchange for maintaining a certain degree of autonomy. At least, that was the theory, because in practice, as acknowledged by Polybius, these peoples were subjected to harsh exploitation, pushing them into poverty and forcing them to resort to occasional banditry against southern towns, which were under Roman protection.

The situation became increasingly difficult to bear, and one of the clauses of the treaty, which prohibited the fortification of new cities, eventually became the casus belli sought by the Romans to forcibly end those incursions.

The Belos began to build an extension of the Segeda wall since it was not something new but an improvement work, but the Senate denied them permission and also demanded, as compensation, a renewal of Gracchus’ tax, from which they had been exempted after his departure from Hispania.

[The city] attracted the inhabitants of other smaller settlements to itself and thus extended its walls in a circle of forty stadiums. This phrase from Appian explains that the Belos’ project was due to the need to address the growth experienced by Segeda and that, like other towns such as Contrebia Carbica, was undergoing a process of synoecism (a term of Greek origin used to refer to the physical and political union of a polis), not only with other Bela populations but also Titii ones. The Romans understood that this gave rise to a new city and, therefore, had no right to fortify itself.

Segeda was an oppidum located in the present-day region of Calatayud, between Mara and Belmonte de Gracián (province of Zaragoza). It was its most important settlement, to the point that it even minted its own currency since 170 B.C.; in fact, the aforementioned tribute was paid in silver denarii, although they also issued asses and bronze pieces. The numismatic decorative motifs ranged from the inscription Sekaida—how the natives called Segeda—to a wolf’s head, a rider with a bird, a wild boar, Pegasus, or a beardless male bust.

The Senate was not satisfied with the demands raised and, seeing that the Celtiberians were willing to follow the Lusitani to war, in 153 B.C., sent an army to enforce them. It was led by the aforementioned Quintus Fulvius Nobilior, chosen consul alongside Titus Annius Luscus, so it was probably a consular force, superior to what the corresponding praetor could lead. It comprised two legions and as many Italian wings plus a significant contingent of Iberian auxiliaries; in total, about thirty thousand men whose imminent arrival sowed panic as no one expected such a reaction.

Like the Titii, the Belos left their city—the construction of the defenses was still unfinished—to seek refuge in Numantia, a more fortified oppidum of the Arevaci, who joined their incipient insurrection and chose a warrior named Caro from Segeda as their common leader. Nobilior took advantage of the abandonment to destroy the town and then headed towards Numantia, seizing Ocilis (Medinaceli) along the way. The campaign seemed so easy that, in an excess of confidence, he did not imagine it would backfire, and an ambush caught him off guard.

There were about 20,000 Celtiberian warriors and 5,000 riders who suddenly fell upon the bewildered legionaries, causing a massacre—6,000 casualties—with some scholars equating the tactics employed to those used by Hannibal in the Battle of Lake Trasimene. The disaster suffered by Nobilior was considered so serious that no Roman general would fight—voluntarily, at least—on the same date again, on August 23, considering that day ominous. So declared the Senate, which also made another curious modification to the calendar.

Until then, the political term began on the Ides of March (March 15; let us remember the assassination of Julius Caesar as he was about to inaugurate the season), but, following the events in Hispania and to be able to appoint the new consul in charge of addressing the situation in time, the election of consuls was moved to the Kalends of January (day 1), coinciding with the start of the year, remaining so thereafter. Such was the impression that the news of the defeat caused in Rome; and that despite the fact that, despite everything, that clash could have ended in victory.

Indeed, after the initial impact of Caro’s attack, Nobilior reorganized his troops and sent the cavalry in pursuit of the Celtiberians, managing to catch up with them before they secured themselves behind the walls of Numantia; Caro died in the fray. The arrival of reinforcements in the form of riders and ten war elephants sent by the Numidian king Masinissa allowed the Romans to besiege the city. Probably most of those Hispanics had never seen pachyderms, but a problem arose: as often happened, the proboscideans that received injuries ran wild and began to sow chaos in their own ranks.

The Arevaci did not miss the opportunity and made a swift sortie in which they captured the elephants and killed several thousand more enemies, then continued this victorious momentum by reconquering Ocilis with all the provisions and supplies stored there. Nobilior was able to retreat, albeit leaving a trail of isolated units that fell one after another; this, combined with the numerous wounded he carried and the shortage of supplies resulting from the loss of Ocilis, increased the number of casualties too much, and he was ultimately replaced in the consulship by Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who assumed the position for the third time, in 152 B.C.

Marcellus already knew Hispania because he had been a praetor seventeen years earlier, leaving a good impression (among his achievements was the foundation of Corduba, now Córdoba). Now he applied a combination of force and political negotiation to calm the spirits, reaching an agreement with the Celtiberians for a truce based on conditions similar to those signed by Sempronius Gracchus some time ago. Unfortunately, the Senate did not consider this policy of outreach appropriate and refused to ratify the agreement with the Arevaci when a delegation of theirs visited Rome, dismissing Marcellus and appointing Lucius Licinius Lucullus in his place.

Lucullus was expressly tasked with resuming hostilities, but it was unnecessary: upon hearing the news, Marcellus preempted him and managed to get the enemy, led by the Arevacian Litennon, to surrender unconditionally, handing over hostages and tribute. With the old treaties restored, he handed over to his successor a pacified Celtiberia; at least until 143 B.C., when Hispania erupted again in turmoil due to the Lusitanian revolt of Viriathus and the Celtiberian rebellion that would culminate in the siege of Numantia a decade later. Marcellus returned to Rome, where the obstinate Senate denied him the right to a triumph, although he did not mind much because he had already received two previously.

If the memory of the second Celtiberian war persisted in Rome with that reform of the political calendar we mentioned, in Hispania it has also survived to the present day thanks to the memory of the Vulcanalia, that is, the festival held in honor of Vulcan, the god of fire, which on August 23 continued the agricultural cycle initiated with the Consualia two days earlier and followed on the 25th by the Opiconsiva and on the 27th by the Volturnalia. It is easy to understand that they took place in midsummer (previously, in July, the Lucaria, Neptunalia, and Furrinalia had taken place) because it was when there was the greatest risk of fire for the crops. For that reason, bonfires were lit into which sacrificial animals were thrown, such as live fish from the Tiber.

The fact is that the coincidence of the Vulcanalia with the battle between Romans and Celtiberians that we have explained has survived in the form of a historical reenactment in the municipality of Mara in Zaragoza, which takes place every year on the Saturday closest to that date of August 23. During the day, declared a Festival of Tourist Interest, the battle is reenacted, a program of Celtiberic music and meals is offered, and guided tours of the archaeological site of Segeda are organized. Neither Caro nor Nobilior could have ever imagined it.


This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on March 14, 2024. Puedes leer la versión en español en La desastrosa derrota que llevó a los romanos a no combatir nunca más ese día y a cambiar la fecha de inicio del curso político

Sources

Tito Livio, Historia de Roma desde su fundación | Polibio, Historias | Diodoro de Sicilia, Biblioteca histórica | Apiano, Historia romana. Las guerras ibéricas | Gregorio Carrasco Serrano (coord.), La romanización en el territorio de Castilla-La Mancha | Gregorio Carrasco Serrano (coord.), Los pueblos prerromanos en Castilla-La Mancha | Alberto J. Lorrio, Los Celtíberos | Gregorio Carrasco Serrano, La ciudad romana en Castilla-La Mancha | José Manuel Roldán Hervás, Historia Antigua de España I. Iberia prerromana, Hispania republicana y altoimperial | Sergei Ivanovich Kovaliov, Historia de Roma | Wikipedia


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