In the year 600 from the founding of the City, in the consulship of Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Aulus Postumius Albinus, when a huge fear of the Celtiberians had seized all the Romans and there was not one of them all who dared to go to Spain either as tribune or as legate, Publius Scipio, who will later be Africanus, offered of his own accord to serve in Spain, although he had already been assigned by lot to Macedonia.1
1 Anno ab urbe condita DC L. Licinio Lucullo A. Postumio Albino consulibus cum omnes Romanos ingens Celtiberorum metus inuasisset et ex omnibus non esset, qui ire in Hispaniam uel tribunus uel legatus auderet, P. Scipio, qui postea Africanus erit, ultro sese militaturum in Hispaniam obtulit, cum tamen in Macedoniam sorte iam deputatus esset.
1Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, adopted grandson of the elder Africanus; he took the name Africanus after destroying Carthage in 146 BC.
And so, setting out for Spain, he wrought great slaughter among the nations, often performing the duty of a soldier rather than of a general; for he even met in single combat a barbarian who challenged him, and killed him.
2 itaque profectus in Hispaniam magnas strages gentium dedit, saepius etiam militis quam ducis usus officio; nam et barbarum prouocantem singulariter congressus occidit.
Sergius Galba, the praetor, however, was defeated by the Lusitanians in a great battle and, having lost his entire army, himself barely slipped away and escaped with a few men.2
3 Sergius autem Galba praetor a Lusitanis magno proelio uictus est uniuersoque exercitu amisso ipse cum paucis uix elapsus euasit.
2Servius Sulpicius Galba, praetor in Further Spain in 151–150 BC; Orosius writes Sergius.
At the same time the censors resolved that a stone theatre should be built in the City. Scipio Nasica opposed its being done at that time with a most weighty speech, saying that this would be most hostile to a warlike people, a contrivance for nourishing idleness and wantonness; and he so moved the senate that it not only ordered everything procured for the theatre to be sold, but even forbade benches to be set out at the games.
4 eodem tempore censores theatrum lapideum in urbe construi censuerunt. quod ne tunc fieret, Scipio Nasica grauissima oratione obstitit dicens, inimicissimum hoc fore bellatori populo ad nutriendam desidiam lasciuiamque commentum, adeoque mouit senatum, ut non solum uendi omnia theatro conparata iusserit, sed etiam subsellia ludis poni prohibuerit.
Let our people therefore understand — those to whom whatever comes their way apart from the gratification of lust is an offence — that for the fact that they themselves feel and confess that they are weaker than their enemies, it is the theatres that must be blamed, not the times;
5 Quamobrem intellegant nostri - quibus quidquid extra oblectamentum libidinis occurrit offensio est - propter hoc, quod se infirmiores esse hostibus suis ipsi sentiunt et fatentur, theatra incusanda non tempora,
and that the true God, who forbids these things to this day, must not be blasphemed, but rather their gods, or demons, who demanded them, must be abhorred — giving, indeed, deep enough proof of their own greatness by requiring such a sacrifice, since they were fed no more by the shedding of the blood of cattle than by the ruin of the virtue of men.
6 nec blasphemandum Deum uerum, qui usque ad nunc ea prohibet, sed abominandos deos uel daemones suos, qui ista petierunt, profundo quidem satis magnitatis suae argumento tale sacrificium flagitantes, quoniam non magis fuso cruore pecudum quam profligata uirtute hominum pascerentur.
For certainly at that time there was no lack of enemies, nor of famine, nor of diseases, nor of portents — indeed there were very many of them then; but there were no theatres, in which — a thing incredible to say — the virtues are slaughtered as victims on the altar of luxury.
7 nam utique tunc nec hostes nec fames nec morbi nec prodigia deerant, immo tunc plurima erant; sed theatra non erant, in quibus - quod incredibile dictu est - ad aram luxuriae uirtutum uictimae trucidantur.
It once seemed good to the Carthaginians to sacrifice human beings, but that wrongly assumed conviction was soon abandoned; by the Romans, however, it has been demanded that they devote their very selves to perdition.
8 Carthaginiensibus aliquando uisum est homines immolare, sed male praesumpta persuasio breui praetermissa est; a Romanis uero exactum est, ut semet ipsos perditioni impenderent.
It has been done, it is being done, it is loved, and men clamour for it to be done: those who might perhaps take offence at the slaughter of a beast of their flock rejoice at the killing of the virtue of their own heart. Rather let those who think this a reproach to be cast at the Christians blush before Nasica, and let them complain not to us about the enemies they have always had, but to him about the theatre which he had forbidden them to have.
9 factum est, fit, amatur et clamatur ut fiat: qui pro mactanda gregis sui pecude fortasse offenderentur, pro interficienda cordis sui uirtute laetantur. quin potius Nasicae erubescant, qui Christianis exprobrandum putant, et non nobis de hostibus, quos semper habuerunt, sed illi de theatro, quod haberi prohibuerat, conquerantur.
So then in Spain the praetor Sergius Galba, having received in surrender the Lusitanians who lived on this side of the river Tagus and had come over of their own will, killed them by a crime; for, pretending that he would deal with their interests, he surrounded them with soldiers and cut them all down, unarmed and unsuspecting. Because of this perfidy of the Romans, the affair afterwards became the cause of the greatest upheaval throughout the whole of Spain.
10 Igitur in Hispania Sergius Galba praetor Lusitanos citra Tagum flumen habitantes cum uoluntarios in deditionem recepisset, per scelus interfecit; simulans enim de commodis eorum se acturum fore, circumpositis militibus cunctos inermes incautosque prostrauit. quae res postea uniuersae Hispaniae propter Romanorum perfidiam causa maximi tumultus fuit.