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Viriathus (also spelled Viriatus; known as Viriato in Portuguese and Spanish language; died 139 Anno Domini) was the most important leader of the Lusitanians that resisted Roman Republic expansion into the regions of today known as Portugal, named Lusitania.
Viriathus developed alliances with other Celtic groups, even far away from his usual theatres of war, inducing them to rebel against Rome. He led his army, supported by most of the Lusitanian and Vetton tribes as well as by other Celtic and Iberian allies, to several victories over the Romans between 147 BC and 139 BC before being betrayed by them and murdered while sleeping. Theodor Mommsen said of him: "It seemed as if, in that thoroughly prosaic age, one of the Homeric heroes had reappeared."Theodor Mommsen, The History Of Rome, Book IV p.22.
The Celtic elite used the title uiros ueramos, meaning the 'highest man' and the Latin equivalent would be summus vir. The romanization of central Spain
According to the historian Adolf Schulten, Viriathus had a Celtic name. The greatness and decline of the Celts. Hubert, Henry
He belonged to the class of warriors, the occupation of the minority ruling elites. He was known to the Romans as the dux of the Lusitanian army, as the adsertor (protector) of Lusitania, Eutropii Breviarium Liber Quartus or as an imperator, probably of the confederated Lusitanian and Celtiberians tribes.
Livy described him as a shepherd who became a hunter, then a soldier, thus following the path of most young warriors, the iuventus, who devoted themselves to cattle raiding, hunting and war. War and Society in the Celtiberian World
According to Appian, Appian, The Spanish Wars, ed. Horace White Viriathus was one of the few who escaped when Galba, the Roman governor, massacred the flos iuventutis, the flower of the young Lusitanian warriors, Valeri Maximi, Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium in 150 BC.
Two years after the massacre, in 148 BC, Viriathus became the leader of a Lusitanian army.
Viriathus was thought by some to have a very obscure origin,Cassius Dio, Roman History, Fragments of Books XXII through XXIX. although Diodorus Siculus also says that Viriathus "approved himself to be a prince" and that he said he was "lord and owner of all". Historical library of Diodorus the Sicilian. p. 543 to p. 620 His family was unknown to the Romans who were familiar with the native aristocratic warrior society. His personality and his physical and intellectual abilities as well as his skills as a warrior were described by several authors. He was a man of great physical strength, probably in the very prime of life, an excellent strategist, Britannica Online Encyclopedia. and possessor of a brilliant mind. Some authors claim that the ancient authors described Viriathus with the precise features of a Celtic king.
He was described as a man who followed the principles of honesty and fair dealing and was acknowledged for being exact and faithful to his word on the treaties and alliances he made. Livy gives him the title of vir duxque magnus TITI LIVI AB URBE CONDITA LIBER LIV PERIOCHA with the implied qualities that were nothing more than the ideals of the ancient virtues. The Rhetoric of Gender Terms: 'man', 'woman', and the Portrayal of Character in Latin Prose.
A more modern current claims Viriathus belonged to an aristocratic Lusitanian clan who were owners of cattle. Ciência Hoje For Cassius Dio, he did not pursue power or wealth, but carried on the war for the sake of military glory. His aims could then be compared to pure Roman aristocratic ideals of that time: to serve and gain military glory and honor. Eric Orlin, Temples, Religion, and Politics in the Roman Republic. Viriathus did not fight for war spoils or material gain, like common soldiers. The Dynamic Society: Exploring the Sources of Global Change.
The Lusitanians honored Viriathus as their Benefactor, (Greek: euergetes), and Savior (Greek: soter), typically Hellenistic honorifics used by kings like the Ptolemies.
Some authors assert that he was probably from the Herminius Mons (Serra da Estrela), in the heart of Lusitania, (in central Portugal) or the Beira Alta region.
Most of his life and his war against the Romans are part of legend and Viriathus is considered the earliest Portuguese Folk hero, given the fact that he was the leader of the confederate tribes of Iberia who resisted Rome. The historian Appianus of Alexandria in his book about Iberia (in the section Historia Romana, Roman History), commented that Viriathus "killed numerous Romans and showed great skill".
The historical Viriathus would be the one who received the title of regnator Hiberae magnanimus terrae, the "magnanimous ruler of the Iberian land". Lusitania: Historia y etnología
Rome's dominion of Iberia met with much opposition. In 197 BC, Rome divided the southeastern coast of Iberia into two provinces, Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior, and two elected were assigned to command the Roman legion. As with many other tribes of Iberia, the inhabitants of the Lusitanian castros, or citanias, would have been granted peregrina stipendiaria Scripta Nova. Revista Electrónica de Geografía y Ciencias Sociales. John Murray, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London, 1875. but remaining an autonomous (Greek: αὐτονόμων) country through treaties ( foedus).
Lusitania's rich land was praised by ancient authors. Polybius in his Histories, "speaking of the natural wealth of Lusitania ..., tells us that owing to the favorable climate both men and animals are very prolific, and the land is constantly productive." Polybius, Histories.
The Romans charged the native tribes with heavy taxes: a fixed vectigal or land-tax, the tributum and a certain quantity of cereals.([24] Taxes were not the only source of income; mine exploitation and peace treaties were a source of denarius as well as war spoils and war prisoners who were sold as slaves. The indigenous towns had to deliver their own treasures to the Romans, which left them only with their yearly earnings to pay the taxes. In 174 BC, when Publius Furius Philus was accused of paying very little for the cereals that Iberia was compelled to deliver to Rome, Cato defended the interests of the native tribes. The exploitation and extortion reached such an extreme degree in the provinces that Rome had to create a special tribunal and laws, like the Lex Calpurnia created in 149 BC.
This period was marked by a number of broken treaties either by the Roman generals, or their senate, that would not ratify the treaties, or by the native people.
In 152 BC the Lusitanians made a peace agreement with Marcus Atilius, after he conquered Oxthracae, Lusitania's biggest city. In Roman law, peregrini dediticii was the designation given to peoples who had surrendered themselves after taking up arms against the Romans. The terms offered were such that, as soon as Atilius returned to Rome, they rebelled and broke the treaty. Then they attacked the tribes that were Roman subjects and that had sided with the Romans in helping to attack and plunder the Lusitanian towns. Possibly the Lusitanians recovered some of the booty the Romans had divided with those tribes.
In 151 BC the Celtiberians who had become Roman allies, fearing the revenge of the rebels who considered them traitors, asked the Romans to punish the rebellious tribes who had broken out into war and that the Roman legion should remain in Iberia to protect them. Polybius, Histories. The Celtiberian Wars, Book 35.
Servius Sulpicius Galba joined forces with Lucius Licinius Lucullus and together started to depopulate Lusitania. While Lucullus invaded the country from the east, Galba attacked it from the south. Unable to sustain a war on two fronts, the Lusitanian troops suffered several losses in engagements with the Romans. Fearing a long siege and the destruction the Roman siege engines would cause in their towns, the Lusitanians sent an embassy to Galba to negotiate a peace treaty, although for the Romans it would be perceived as the Deditio in dicionem, the surrender. The Lusitanians hoped they could at least renew the former treaty made with Atilius. Galba received the Lusitanian embassy politely, and a peace treaty was agreed on the terms proposed by him. He commanded them to leave their homes and remain in open country. The Lusitanians probably lost their city and possessions and their land would have become Ager Publicus. The conquest of a territory, unless it had been given special conditions, could imply the acquisition, by the Romans, of the conquered territory and all that it contained. His+ania Epigraphica. Tratado de rendición (deditio) de un pueblo lusitano a L. Caelius, Imp.
The treaty turned out to be a trap, like the one Lucullus had prepared for the Caucaei. When the unarmed Lusitanians, among them Viriathus, were gathered together by Galba to hand over their weapons and to be split into three groups (two of the points of the treaty that had been negotiated) and allocated to new lands, the trap was sprung. With the promise that they would be given new lands they waited unaware while Galba's army surrounded them with a ditch, to prevent them from escaping. Afterwards, Roman soldiers were sent in and began to massacre all the males of military age. The survivors are said to have been sold into slavery in Gaul.
The relocation of an entire tribe, accompanied by slaughter or their reduction to the status of slaves was a punishment often inflicted on native populations who took part in revolts. El Poblamiento Turdetano en el Bajo Guadalquivir, Publicación y difusión electrónica Universidade de Sevilla
Galba distributed a little of the plunder to the army and a little to his friends, the native tribes that sided with him, and kept the rest. This incited a massive rebellion, with the entire Lusitanian tribe mustering as they waged war for three years against Rome, but met with many failures.
Three years after the massacre, the rebellion was on the verge of defeat when Viriathus appeared and offered himself as leader. Through his understanding of Roman military methods he saved the rebel Lusitanians by a simple though clever escape plan. Viriathus became the leader of the Lusitanians and caused much grief to the Romans in revenge for the massacre of his people.
Nothing is known about Viriathus until his first feat of war in 149 BC. He was with an army of ten thousand men that invaded southern .
Rome sent the praetor Caius Vetilius to fight the rebellion. He attacked a group of Lusitanian warriors who were out foraging, and after several of them were killed, the survivors took refuge in a place that was surrounded by the Roman army. They were about to make a new agreement with the Romans when Viriathus, mistrusting the Romans, proposed an escape plan. The Lusitanians, inflamed by his speech, made him their new commander. His first act was to rescue the trapped and resisting Lusitanians whom he then commanded, first by lining up for battle with the Romans, then scattering the army as they charged. As each wave broke apart and fled in different directions to meet up at a later location, Viriathus with 1,000 chosen men held the army of 10,000 Romans in check by being in a position to attack. Once the rest of the army had fled, he and the thousand men escaped as well. Having effectively saved all of the Lusitanians soldiers, he immediately fortified the loyalty of the people around himself.
Viriathus organized an attack against Caius Vetilius in Tribola. Since the Romans were better armed, he organized guerrilla tactics and sprang imaginative ambushes. Charging with iron spears, tridents and roars, the Lusitanians defeated Vetilius, killing 4,000 out of 10,000 soldiers, including Vetilius himself. In response, Celtiberians were hired to attack the Lusitanians, but were destroyed. After that incident, the Lusitanians clashed with the armies of Gaius Plautius, Claudius Unimanus and Gaius Negidius, all of whom were defeated. During this period Viriathus inspired and convinced the Numantia and some Gauls to rebel against Roman rule.
To complete the subjugation of Lusitania, Rome sent Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, with 15,000 and 2,000 cavalry to strengthen Gaius Laelius Sapiens who was a personal friend of Scipio Aemilianus Africanus. The book of versions. On friendship. Despite accomplishing the retreat of the Lusitanians in an initial victory, Aemilianus returned to Rome without having taken down Viriathus, and the Romans lost most of his reinforcements in Ossuma and Beja in Alentejo. This gave the Lusitanians access to what is today's Spanish territory, modern Granada and Murcia. The results of Viriathus's efforts as well as those of the Numantine War caused many problems in Rome, the most notable being a drop in legionary recruitment rates.
Learning of these events, Rome sent one of its best generals, Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus, to Iberia. Near Sierra Morena, the Romans fell into a Lusitanian ambush. Viriathus did not harm the Romans and let the soldiers and Servilianus go in exchange for a peace treaty that recognised Lusitanian rule over the land they dominated. This agreement was ratified by the Roman Senate and Viriathus was declared "amicus populi Romani", (), an ally of the Roman people.
However, the peace brought by the treaty displeased Quintus Servilius Caepio, who got himself appointed successor to his brother, Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus, in the command of the army and administration of affairs in Iberia. In his reports to the Roman Senate he claimed that the treaty was in the highest degree dishonourable to Rome. Livy seemed to have a different opinion as he writes it was a stain on Servilianus' military career but comments that the treaty was, aequis, fair. The senate authorised Q. Servilius Caepio, on his request, to harass Viriathus as long as it was done secretly. The treaty was in effect for one year. During that time Q. Servilius Caepio harassed Viriathus and kept pressuring with his reports until he was authorised publicly to declare war.
Laenas would finally give the Lusitanians the land they originally had asked for before the massacre. Nevertheless, total pacification of Lusitania was only achieved under Augustus. Under Roman, Lusitania and its people gradually acquired Roman culture and Latin.
Viriathus stands as the most successful leader who ever opposed the Roman conquest in Iberia. During the course of his campaigns he was only defeated in battle against the Romans once, and from a military standpoint can be said to have been one of the most successful generals to have ever opposed Rome's expansion. Ultimately, even the Romans recognized that it was more prudent to use treachery rather than open confrontation to defeat the Lusitanian uprising. Some fifty years later, the renegade Roman general Quintus Sertorius, at the head of another Sertorian War, would meet a similar fate.
The flag of the Spanish province of Zamora, called la seña bermeja, has eight red stripes, which traditionally have been associated to the eight victories of Viriathus over the Romans. The historical authenticity of this origin is disputed.
There is a street in Madrid named after him, in Chamberí neighborhood (near the metro station 'Iglesia'). The same is true of Lisbon, Zamora and many other towns in Spain and Portugal.
The Exoplanet HD 45652 b was named Viriato in 2019 after Viriathus.
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