Quintus Sertorius (123 BC-72 BC) was a Roman politician and general during the 1st century BC. After he was proscribed by Sulla's faction for supporting Gaius Marius during the civil war, he led the Iberian Peninsula in revolt against the Roman Republic and briefly gained control over the entire peninsula. Sertorius was never decisively defeated during the eight-year-long war from 80 to 72 BC, and the war ended with his assassination by his own men.
Biography[]
Quintus Sertorius was born in Nursia, Sabinium, Roman Republic in 123 BC to a family of minor aristocrats (equites). He was raised by his widowed mother, and he was educated in rhetoric, martial skills, horse riding, and Greek ethics. Rather than content himself with the life of a regional aristocrat, he became an orator and public figure in Rome, and Cicero called him the roughest and readiest of all of the "illiterate ranters" he had ever heard. Sertorius then joined the Roman Army and fought in the Cimbrian War, surviving the Battle of Arausio in 105 BC before pledging his service to Gaius Marius and spying on the Cimbri (dressing as a warrior, learning their tongue, and joining their attack on Hispania). In 102 BC, when the Cimbri returned to Italy, Sertorius reported to Marius, and he fought alongside him at Aquae Sextae in 102 BC and Vercellae in 101 BC, ending the Cimbri threat. He then continued his service with the legions in Hispania (as a military tribune), crushing an insurrection at Castulo.
Sulla's Civil War[]
In 91 BC, Sertorius was elected Quaestor and served in Cisalpine Gaul, recruiting and training legionaries for the Social War. During the war against Rome's rebellious Italic allies, he lost one of his eyes in battle, and he used his wounds as personal propaganda to display his bravery. Upon his return to Rome, he attempted to run for Tribune of the Plebs, but Marius' rival Sulla blocked him from winning. However, Sertorius entered the Roman Senate on account of his earlier quaestorship. In 88 BC, Sulla marched his legions on Rome and exiled Marius, only to head east to fight in the First Mithridatic War. The pro-Sulla Optimates under Gnaeus Octavius and the pro-Marius Populares under Lucius Cornelius Cinna then fought for control over Rome, and Sertorius sided with Cinna. When Cinna was driven from Rome, he and Sertorius started recruiting ex-legionaries, and, in October of 87 BC, they retook Rome. Marius died in 86 BC and Cinna was lynched by his own troops in 84 BC, and Sertorius became Praetor in 84 BC.
On Sulla's return from the east in 83 BC, a second civil war broke out, and, at the Battle of Mount Tifata, Consul Gaius Norbanus' army was crushed by Sulla's invading force. Sertorius fell out with the new populist leadership under Gaius Marius the Younger, Norbanus, and Scipio Asiaticus, and he was then sent to Hispania to serve as Praetor. He persuaded the local chieftains to accept him as governor and cut taxes to endear himself with the general population, but his general Julius Salinator was assassinated while holding the Pyrenees, allowing for Sulla's army to invade Spain. Sertorius and 3,000 of his men were forced to flee to Mauritania before allying with Cilician pirates and taking over the Balearic Islands (recaptured shortly after) and Tingis. Sertorius' successes in North Africa won him fame and the admiration of the people of Hispania, especially the Lusitani, who made Sertorius their war leader.
Sertorian War[]
In 80 BC, Sertorius and his army returned to Hispania at the small fishing town of Baelo, and, at the Battle of the Baetis River, he defeated Governor Lucius Fufidius and gained control over Hispania Ulterior. He organized the native Iberian warriors into an army and was compared to Hannibal, another one-eyed general and strategic mastermind. In 76 BC, Sertorius was reinforced by Marcus Perperna Vento's army, and the Roman Senate sent Pompey to help Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius crush the Sertorian uprising. In 75 BC, Pompey defeated Perperna's army at the Battle of Valentia and then defeated Lucius Hirtuleius at the Battle of Italica. However, Sertorius defeated Pompey at Sucro and Saguntum, and he then reverted to guerrilla warfare to avoid further defeats. He established a Senate of 300 Roman exiles and Spanish aristocrats, kept a Hispanian bodyguard, and briefly established a school to Romanize the children of Spanish chiefs (killing or enslaving most of the children when a Spanish uprising broke out). Sertorius was strict and severe with his soldiers but was considerate to the people in general, and he held sway in Hispania for years. In 73 BC, however, the Roman Senate announced a reward of 100 silver talents and 20,000 acres of land to the man who would kill Sertorius. Sertorius grew paranoid and replaced his Roman bodyguard with a native one; the Roman aristocrats and senators who had supported him had already become discontented due to his military defeats, while Perperna had coveted Sertorius' power, but Sertorius' own Roman soldiers now had reason to distrust him. Perperna lured Sertorius to a feast celebrating a fabricated victory, where he was stabbed dead on his couch. Shortly after, Pompey and Metellus crushed the rebellion.