randson of the Marcellus
who was celebrated in the Second Punic War, carried on the war with
vigor, and concluded a peace with the enemy on very fair terms (B.C.
152). The Consul of the following year, L. Lucinius Lucullus, finding
the Celtiberians at peace, turned his arms against the Vaccaei, Cantabri,
and other nations as yet unknown to the Romans. At the same time the
Praetor Ser. Sulpicius Galba invaded Lusitania, but, though he met with
some advantage at first, he was subsequently defeated with great loss,
and escaped with only a few horsemen. In the following year (B.C. 150)
he again invaded the country from the south, while Lucullus attacked it
from the north. The Lusitanians therefore sent embassadors to Galba to
make their submission. He received them with kindness, lamented the
poverty of their country, and promised to assign them more fertile
lands, if they would meet him in three bodies, with their wives and
children, in three places which he fixed upon. The simple people
believed him. But he meditated one of the most atrocious acts of
treachery and cruelty recorded in history. He fell upon each body
separately, and butchered them, men, women, and children, without
distinction. Among the very few who escaped was Viriathus, the future
avenger of his nation. Galba was brought to trial on his return to Rome
on account of this outrage; and Cato, then in the 85th year of his age,
inveighed against his treachery and baseness. But Galba was eloquent and
wealthy, and the liberal employment of his money, together with the
compassion excited by his weeping children and ward, obtained his
acquittal.

Viriathus appears to have been one of those able guerrilla chiefs whom
Spain has produced at every period of her history. He is said to have
been first a shepherd and afterward a robber, but he soon acquired
unbounded influence over the minds of his countrymen. After the massacre
of Galba, those Lusitanians who had not left their homes rose as a man
against the rule of such treacherous tyrants. Viriathus at first avoided
all battles in the plains, and waged an incessant predatory warfare in
the mountains; and he met with such continued good fortune, that numbers
flocked to his standard. The aspect of affairs seemed at length so
threatening that in B.C. 145 the Romans determined to send the Consul Q.
Fabius Maximus into the country. In the following year Fabius defeated
Viriathus with great loss; but this success was more