Viriathus (also spelled Viriatus; known as Viriato in Portuguese and Spanish; died 139 BC) was the most important leader of the Lusitanian people, who fought against the Romans in the region now called Portugal, which was known as Lusitania in ancient times.
Viriathus formed alliances with other Celtic groups, even in areas far from where he usually fought, and encouraged them to fight against Rome. He led his army, helped by many Lusitanian and Vetton tribes, as well as by other Celtic and Iberian groups, to several victories over the Romans between 147 BC and 139 BC. However, he was later betrayed by his allies and killed while sleeping. Theodor Mommsen once said of him: "It seemed as if, in that very ordinary time, one of the great heroes from Greek myths had returned."
Etymology
The name Viriathus may have several possible origins. It is made up of two parts: Viri and Athus. The part "Viri" might come from a Celtic term used by the Celtic people, which was "uiros ueramos." This term means "the highest man." In Latin, a similar phrase would be "summus vir," which also means "the highest man." According to the historian Schulten, the name Viriathus was likely a Celtic name.
Viriathus' life
Viriathus was known for being brave in dangerous situations, careful in planning, and responsible in ensuring his people had what they needed. Most importantly, he was deeply respected by those he led, more than any leader before him.
Little is known about Viriathus. A Greek historian named Diodorus Siculus mentioned that he was from the Lusitanian tribes living near the ocean.
Viriathus was part of a group of warriors who were leaders among their people. The Romans called him the dux of the Lusitanian army, the adsertor (protector) of Lusitania, or the imperator, likely of a group of Lusitanian and Celtiberian tribes working together.
Livy described him as a young man who started as a shepherd, then became a hunter, and later a soldier, following the path of many young warriors who focused on cattle raiding, hunting, and battle.
According to Appian, Viriathus was one of the few survivors when the Roman governor Galba killed many young Lusitanian warriors in 150 BC. Two years later, in 148 BC, Viriathus became the leader of a Lusitanian army.
Some believed Viriathus had a mysterious background, but Diodorus Siculus said he claimed to be a prince and called himself "lord and owner of all." The Romans did not know much about his family, as they were unfamiliar with the native aristocratic warrior society. Authors described him as physically strong, a skilled strategist, and a person of great intelligence. Some compared him to a Celtic king.
Viriathus was known for being honest and fair. He kept his promises in treaties and alliances. Livy called him "vir duxque magnus," meaning a great man and leader, reflecting ancient ideals of virtue.
A modern view suggests Viriathus came from an aristocratic Lusitanian clan that owned cattle. Cassius Dio wrote that he fought not for power or wealth but for military glory, similar to Roman ideals of serving and gaining honor. Unlike common soldiers, he did not fight for material gain.
The Lusitanians honored Viriathus with titles like "Benefactor" (Greek: euergetes) and "Savior" (Greek: soter), which were honorifics used by kings like the Ptolemies.
Some authors believe he was from the Herminius Mons (Serra da Estrela) region in central Portugal or the Beira Alta area.
Most of Viriathus's life and his resistance against the Romans are considered part of legend. He is regarded as the earliest Portuguese national hero because he led the confederate tribes of Iberia in resisting Rome. Appian, a historian from Alexandria, wrote that Viriathus killed many Romans and showed great skill in battle.
Some argue that Silius Italicus, in his poem Punica, mentioned a man named Viriathus who lived around the time of Hannibal. He was described as a leader of the Gallaeci and Lusitanians.
The historical Viriathus was called "regnator Hiberae magnanimus terrae," meaning "magnanimous ruler of the Iberian land."
Conquest of Lusitania by Rome
In the 3rd century BC, Rome began its conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. The Roman conquest of Iberia started during the Second Punic War, when the Roman Senate sent an army to Iberia to stop Carthaginian forces from helping Hannibal in Italy. This marked the beginning of 250 years of fighting in Iberia, which ended in 19 BC with Rome’s victory in the Cantabrian Wars. The Lusitanian War is one of the best-documented events of this conquest.
Rome’s control over Iberia faced strong resistance. In 197 BC, Rome divided the southeastern coast of Iberia into two provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. Two elected officials, called praetors, were assigned to lead the Roman legions in these regions. Many tribes in Iberia, including the Lusitanians, were granted a special status called peregrina stipendiaria. However, they remained independent countries through treaties called foedus.
Lusitania’s land was described by ancient writers as very fertile. Polybius, in his work Histories, wrote that Lusitania had a favorable climate, which made both people and animals thrive, and the land produced food regularly.
The Romans imposed heavy taxes on native tribes. These included a fixed land tax called the vectigal, a tax called the tributum, and a required amount of cereals. Taxes were not the only way Rome gained resources; mining, peace treaties, war spoils, and the sale of captured people as slaves also provided income. Native towns were forced to give their treasures to Rome, leaving them with only their yearly earnings to pay taxes. In 174 BC, when Publius Furius Philus was accused of not paying enough cereals, Cato defended the interests of the native tribes. Due to the harsh treatment of Iberian people, Rome created special laws, such as the Lex Calpurnia in 149 BC, to address the problems.
The Lusitanians rebelled against Rome in 194 BC. Iberia was divided between tribes that supported Rome and those that opposed it, just as it had been during the earlier conflict between Carthaginian and Roman supporters.
This period was marked by many broken treaties, either because Roman leaders or the Senate failed to honor them, or because native people broke them.
In 152 BC, the Lusitanians made a peace agreement with Marcus Atilius after he conquered Oxthracae, Lusitania’s largest city. In Roman law, peregrini dediticii referred to people who surrendered after fighting against Rome. However, after Atilius returned to Rome, the Lusitanians broke the treaty and attacked tribes that had supported Rome. They may have recovered some of the goods the Romans had taken from those tribes.
In 151 BC, the Celtiberians, who had become Roman allies, asked Rome to punish rebellious tribes and keep Roman troops in Iberia to protect them from revenge.
The praetor of Hispania Ulterior, Servius Sulpicius Galba, led Roman troops in Iberia around 150 BC. At the same time, Lucius Licinius Lucullus was appointed governor of Hispania Citerior and commander of an army. In 151 BC, Lucullus made a peace treaty with the Caucaei, a group of the Vaccaei tribe. After the treaty, he ordered his soldiers to kill all the adult males of the tribe, with only a few of 30,000 surviving.
Galba and Lucullus worked together to conquer Lusitania. While Lucullus attacked from the east, Galba attacked from the south. The Lusitanians, unable to fight on two fronts, suffered many losses. Fearing long sieges and the destruction of their towns by Roman siege machines, the Lusitanians sent an embassy to Galba to negotiate a peace treaty. The Romans saw this as a surrender called Deditio in dicionem. The Lusitanians hoped to renew a previous treaty with Atilius, but Galba agreed to terms that forced them to leave their homes and live in open country. Their land would become Ager Publicus, or public land owned by Rome.
The treaty was a trap, similar to the one Lucullus had set for the Caucaei. When the unarmed Lusitanians, including Viriathus, gathered to hand over their weapons and split into groups as the treaty required, Galba’s army surrounded them with a ditch to prevent escape. Roman soldiers then killed all the adult males of military age. Survivors were sold into slavery in Gaul.
The forced relocation of tribes, along with killing or enslaving them, was a punishment used by Rome against rebellious groups.
Galba shared some of the plunder with his soldiers and allies, keeping the rest for himself. This action caused a large rebellion, with the entire Lusitanian tribe fighting Rome for three years, though they faced many defeats.
Three years after the massacre, the rebellion was nearly defeated when Viriathus emerged as a leader. Using his knowledge of Roman tactics, he saved the Lusitanians with a clever escape plan. Viriathus became the leader of the Lusitanians and led a successful rebellion against Rome in revenge for the massacre of his people.
The "War of Fire"
And, in fine, he carried on the war not for the sake of personal gain or power nor through anger, but for the sake of warlike deeds in themselves; hence he was accounted at once a lover of war and a master of war. ~ Cassius Dio
The war with Viriathus was called "War of Fire" by the Greek historian Polybius of Megalopolis. Two types of war were carried on by Viriathus, bellum ('war'), when he used a regular army, and latrocinium, when the fighting involved small groups of combatants and the use of guerrilla tactics. For many authors, Viriathus is the model of the guerrilla fighter.
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 Turdetania.
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 Lusitanian 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 Numantine and some Gauls to rebel against Roman rule.
To complete the subjugation of Lusitania, Rome sent Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, with 15,000 soldiers and 2,000 cavalry, to strengthen Gaius Laelius Sapiens, who was a personal friend of Scipio Aemilianus Africanus. 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" (Greek: Rhômaiôn philos), 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.
Death
Because the Lusitanian resistance was mainly because of Viriathus's leadership, Caepio gave money to Audax, Ditalcus, and Minurus, who had been sent by Viriathus as envoys to make peace (Appian). These envoys returned to their camp and killed Viriathus while he was sleeping. Eutropius says that when Viriathus's killers asked Quintus Servilius Caepio for their payment, he replied, "It was never pleasing to the Romans for a general to be killed by his own soldiers." In a version more common in modern Portugal and Spain, he said, "Rome does not pay traitors." The Senate did not allow Quintus Servilius Caepio to have a Triumph.
After Viriathus's death, the Lusitanians continued fighting under the leadership of Tautalus (Greek: Τάυταλος).
Laenas finally gave the Lusitanians the land they had originally requested before the massacre. However, complete peace in Lusitania was only achieved under Augustus. Under Roman rule, the people of Lusitania slowly adopted Roman culture and language.
Viriathus is considered the most successful leader who ever opposed the Roman conquest in Iberia. During his campaigns, he was defeated in battle by the Romans only once. From a military perspective, he can be described as one of the most successful generals who ever fought against Rome's expansion. In the end, even the Romans believed it was better to use betrayal instead of direct fighting to end the Lusitanian uprising. About fifty years later, the Roman general Quintus Sertorius, who had turned against Rome, led another rebellion in Iberia and faced a similar fate.
Legacy
Viriathus became an important symbol of Portuguese identity and freedom. Artists have shown him in their work, and people in Portugal and Spain have honored him for many years. In his long poem Os Lusíadas, Luís Vaz de Camões praises Viriathus' brave actions.
The flag of the Spanish province of Zamora, known as la seña bermeja, has eight red stripes. These stripes are traditionally linked to Viriathus' eight victories over the Romans. However, some people question whether this story is historically accurate.
There is a street in Madrid named after Viriathus, located in the Chamberí neighborhood near the metro station "Iglesia." This is also true in Lisbon, Zamora, and many other towns in Spain and Portugal.
In 2019, the planet HD 45652 b was named Viriato, which is the Portuguese version of Viriathus' name.
The comic Asterix in Lusitania includes several references to Viriathus, who is known as Viriato in Portuguese. The story describes him as a shepherd who became a military leader and fought against Roman forces during the Lusitanian Wars.