In the year 620 from the founding of the City, since the treaty concluded at Numantia weighed upon the shame of the Roman brow with an infamy almost greater than that of the one made long ago at the Caudine Forks, Scipio Africanus was made consul by the consent of all the tribes and sent with an army to storm Numantia.
1 Anno ab urbe condita DCXX cum maior paene infamia de foedere apud Numantiam pacto quam apud Caudinas quondam furculas pudorem Romanae frontis oneraret, Scipio Africanus consensu omnium tribuum consul creatus atque ad expugnandam Numantiam cum exercitu missus est.
Numantia, a city of Hither Spain, situated not far from the Vaccaei and the Cantabri, at the head of Gallaecia, was the last outpost of the Celtiberians.1
2 Numantia autem citerioris Hispaniae, haud procul a Vaccaeis et Cantabris in capite Gallaeciae sita, ultima Celtiberorum fuit.
1Numantia stood on the upper Douro near modern Soria, in the land of the Celtiberians, well east of Gallaecia; Orosius’s geography is loose here.
For fourteen years, with only four thousand of its own men, it not only withstood forty thousand Romans but even defeated them and saddled them with shameful treaties.
3 haec per annos quattuordecim cum solis quattuor milibus suorum quadraginta milia Romanorum non solum sustinuit sed etiam uicit pudendisque foederibus adfecit.
So Scipio Africanus, on entering Spain, did not at once throw himself upon the enemy in order to surround them, as it were, off their guard — knowing that this kind of men is never so relaxed into leisure in body and mind as not to surpass the preparations of others by the very quality of their condition — but for some time he exercised his soldiers in the camp as if in schools.
4 igitur Scipio Africanus Hispaniam ingressus non se ilico ingessit hostibus, ut quasi incautos circumueniret, sciens numquam hoc genus hominum adeo in otium corpore atque animo resolui, ut non ipsa qualitate habitudinis suae apparatus aliorum praecelleret, sed aliquamdiu militem suum in castris uelut in scholis exercuit.
And though he had passed part of the summer and the whole winter without so much as attempting a battle, even so he gained almost too little by this diligence.
5 et cum partem aestatis totamque hiemem ne adtemptata quidem pugna transegisset, sic quoque parum propemodum hac profecit industria.
For when an opportunity of fighting arose, the Roman army, overwhelmed by the onset of the Numantines, turned its back; but, through the reproaches and threats of the consul, who threw himself in their way and held them back with his own hand, it at last returned in indignation against the enemy and compelled the one from whom it had been fleeing to flee. A thing hard to credit in the telling, then: the Romans both routed the Numantines and saw them in flight.
6 namque ubi copia pugnandi facta est, exercitus Romanus oppressus impetu Numantinorum terga conuertit; sed increpatione et minis obiectantis sese consulis manuque retinentis tandem indignatus in hostem rediit et quem fugiebat fugere conpulit. difficilis tunc in relatu fides: Numantinos et fugauere et fugientes uidere Romani.
Hence, although Scipio rejoiced and gloried in it because it had happened beyond hope, he nevertheless declared that nothing further must be ventured against them in battle.
7 unde quamuis Scipio, quia praeter spem acciderat, laetatus et gloriatus esset, tamen ultra bello aduersum eos audendum non esse professus est.
And so Scipio judged that he must press home these unexpected successes: he shut in the city itself by siege and surrounded it with a ditch as well, ten feet in breadth and twenty in depth.
8 itaque Scipio insistendum inopinatis prouentibus censuit, urbem ipsam obsidione conclusit, fossa etiam circumdedit, cuius latitudo pedibus decem, altitudo uiginti fuit.
Then he fortified the rampart itself, faced with stakes, with numerous towers, so that if any sally were attempted against it by the enemy breaking out, he would no longer fight as besieger against besieged, but, the roles reversed, as besieged against besieger.
9 ipsum deinde uallum sudibus praestructum crebris turribus conmuniuit, ut, si qua ab erumpente hoste in eum temptaretur inruptio, iam non quasi obsessor cum obsesso sed uersa uice obsessus cum obsessore pugnaret.
Numantia, situated on a hill not far from the river Douro, embraced three miles in the circuit of its wall — although some assert that it was both small in extent and without a wall:
10 Numantia autem in tumulo sita haud procul a flumine Durio tria milia passuum ambitu muri amplexabatur; quamuis aliqui adserant eam et paruo situ et sine muro fuisse:
whence it is credible that they enclosed this space for the sake of feeding and guarding their flocks, or even for the convenience of tilling the land when they were hard pressed by war, while they themselves held a small citadel fortified by nature; otherwise so wide a city area would have seemed not so much to protect so small a number of men as to betray them.
11 unde credibile est, quia hoc spatii cura alendorum custodiendorumque pecorum uel etiam exercendi ruris commodo cum bello premerentur incluserint, ipsi arcem paruam natura munitam obtinentes; alioquin tantam paucitatem hominum tam amplum urbis spatium non munire magis quam prodere uidebatur.
So the Numantines, long shut in and slaughtered by famine, offered to surrender themselves if tolerable terms were imposed, often also begging for the chance of a fair battle, so that they might be allowed to die as men.
12 igitur conclusi diu Numantini et fame trucidati deditionem sui obtulerunt, si tolerabilia iuberentur, saepe etiam orantes iustae pugnae facultatem, ut tamquam uiris mori liceret.
At the last they all suddenly burst out from two gates, having first drunk deeply — not of wine, in which that region is not fruitful, but of a juice of wheat skilfully prepared, which juice they call caelia, from its heating.
13 ultime omnes duabus subito portis eruperunt, larga prius potione usi non uini, cuius ferax is locus non est, sed suco tritici per artem confecto, quem sucum a calefaciendo caeliam uocant.
For the vital force in the sprout of the moistened grain is roused by fire and then dried, and afterwards, reduced to flour, it is mixed with a mild liquid, and through this fermentation a tang of harshness and the heat of drunkenness are added to it. Warmed again by this drink after their long famine, then, they offered themselves to battle.
14 suscitatur enim igne illa uis germinis madefactae frugis ac deinde siccatur et post in farinam redacta molli suco admiscetur, quo fermento sapor austeritatis et calor ebrietatis adicitur. hac igitur potione post longam famem recalescentes bello sese obtulerunt.
The struggle was long fierce and even dangerous to the Romans, and the Romans would again have proved by fleeing that they were fighting against Numantines, had they not been fighting under Scipio. The Numantines, after their bravest had been killed, gave way in battle, yet returned to the city in ordered ranks and not like fugitives; they refused to accept the bodies of the slain when these were offered for burial.
15 atrox diu certamen et usque ad periculum Romanorum fuit, iterumque Romani pugnare se aduersum Numantinos fugiendo probauissent, nisi sub Scipione pugnassent. Numantini interfectis suorum fortissimis bello cedunt, conpositis tamen ordinibus nec sicut fugientes in urbem reuertuntur, corpora interfectorum ad sepulturam oblata accipere noluerunt.
All of them, resolved upon death in the last hope of despair, themselves set fire to the shut city from within, and all alike were consumed by sword, poison, and fire.
16 nouissima spe desperationis in mortem omnes destinati clausam urbem ipsi introrsum succenderunt cunctique pariter ferro ueneno atque igne consumpti sunt.
The Romans gained absolutely nothing from these conquered men except their own security; for with Numantia overthrown they reckoned that they had not so much conquered the Numantines as escaped them.
17 Romani nihil ex his penitus habuere uictis praeter securitatem suam; neque enim euersa Numantia uicisse se magis Numantinos quam euasisse duxerunt.
The victor’s chain held not a single Numantine; Rome saw nothing to justify the triumph she had granted; gold or silver that might have survived the fire there was none among a poor people; their arms and clothing the fire consumed.
18 unum Numantinum uictoris catena non tenuit; unde triumphum dederit, Roma non uidit; aurum uel argentum, quod igni superesse potuisset, apud pauperes non fuit; arma et uestem ignis absumpsit.