upon
proceeded to the southern province, where in the same year the
praetor, Servius Sulpicius Galba, had allowed himself to be defeated
by the Lusitanians. They spent the winter not far from each other--
Lucullus in the territory of the Turdetani, Galba at Conistorgis--
And in the following year (604) jointly attacked the Lusitanians.
Lucullus gained some advantages over them near the straits of Gades.
Galba performed a greater achievement, for he concluded a treaty with
three Lusitanian tribes on the right bank of the Tagus and promised
to transfer them to better settlements; whereupon the barbarians,
who to the number of 7000 came to him for the sake of the expected
lands, were separated into three divisions, disarmed, and partly
carried off into slavery, partly massacred. War has hardly ever
been waged with so much perfidy, cruelty, and avarice as by these
two generals; who yet by means of their criminally acquired treasures
escaped the one from condemnation, and the other even from impeachment.
The veteran Cato in his eighty-fifth year, a few months before his
death, attempted to bring Galba to account before the burgesses;
but the weeping children of the general, and the gold which he had
brought home with him, proved to the Roman people his innocence.

Variathus

It was not so much the inglorious successes which Lucullus and Galba
had attained in Spain, as the outbreak of the fourth Macedonian
and of the third Carthaginian war in 605, which induced the Romans
again to leave Spanish affairs in the first instance to the ordinary
governors. Accordingly the Lusitanians, exasperated rather than
humbled by the perfidy of Galba, immediately overran afresh the rich
territory of the Turdetani. The Roman governor Gaius Vetilius
(607-8?)(4) marched against them, and not only defeated them, but
drove the whole host towards a hill where it seemed lost irretrievably.
The capitulation was virtually concluded, when Viriathus--a man of
humble origin, who formerly, when a youth, had bravely defended
his flock from wild beasts and robbers and was now in more serious
conflictsa dreaded guerilla chief, and who was one of the few that had
accidentally escaped from the perfidious onslaught of Galba--warned his
countrymen against relying on the Roman word of honour, and promised
them deliverance if they would follow him. His language and his
example produced a deep effect: the army entrusted him with the
supreme command. Viriat