my, in which, after an
obstinate conflict man against man, the Roman military skill at length
decided the day with its last reserve. The whole of Hither Spain
thereupon sent in its submission: so little, however, was this
submission meant in earnest, that on a rumour of the consul having
returned to Rome the insurrection immediately recommenced. But the
rumour was false; and after Cato had rapidly reduced the communities
which had revolted for the second time and sold them -en masse- into
slavery, he decreed a general disarming of the Spaniards in the Hither
province, and issued orders to all the towns of the natives from the
Pyrenees to the Guadalquivir to pull down their walls on one and the
same day. No one knew how far the command extended, and there was no
time to come to any understanding; most of the communities complied;
and of the few that were refractory not many ventured, when the Roman
army soon appeared before their walls, to await its assault.

These energetic measures were certainly not without permanent effect.
Nevertheless the Romans had almost every year to reduce to subjection
some mountain valley or mountain stronghold in the "peaceful
province," and the constant incursions of the Lusitanians into the
Further province led occasionally to severe defeats of the Romans.
In 563, for instance, a Roman army was obliged after heavy loss to
abandon its camp, and to return by forced inarches into the more
tranquil districts. It was not till after a victory gained by the
praetor Lucius Aemilius Paullus in 565,(4) and a second still more
considerable gained by the brave praetor Gaius Calpurnius beyond the
Tagus over the Lusitanians in 569, that quiet for some time prevailed.
In Hither Spain the hitherto almost nominal rule of the Romans over
the Celtiberian tribes was placed on a firmer basis by Quintus Fulvius
Flaccus, who after a great victory over them in 573 compelled at least
the adjacent cantons to submission; and especially by his successor
Tiberius Gracchus (575, 576), who achieved results of a permanent
character not only by his arms, by which he reduced three hundred
Spanish townships, but still more by his adroitness in adapting
himself to the views and habits of the simple and haughty nation.
He induced Celtiberians of note to take service in the Roman army,
and so created a class of dependents; he assigned land to the roving
tribes, and collected them in towns--the Spanish town Graccurris
pres