ed. Pompeius
with the cavalry was defeated by Sertorius, and his brother-in-law
and quaestor, the brave Lucius Memmius, was slain; on the other hand
Metellus vanquished Perpenna, and victoriously repelled the attack
of the enemy's main army directed against him, receiving himself
a wound in the conflict. Once more the Sertorian army dispersed.
Valentia, which Gaius Herennius held for Sertorius, was taken
and razed to the ground. The Romans, probably for a moment,
cherished a hope that they were done with their tough antagonist.
The Sertorian army had disappeared; the Roman troops, penetrating
far into the interior, besieged the general himself in the fortress
Clunia on the upper Douro. But while they vainly invested
this rocky stronghold, the contingents of the insurgent communities
assembled elsewhere; Sertorius stole out of the fortress and even
before the expiry of the year stood once more as general
at the head of an army.

Again the Roman generals had to take up their winter quarters
with the cheerless prospect of an inevitable renewal of their Sisyphean
war-toils. It was not even possible to choose quarters in the region
of Valentia, so important on account of the communication with Italy
and the east, but fearfully devastated by friend and foe;
Pompeius led his troops first into the territory of the Vascones(22)
(Biscay) and then spent the winter in the territory of the Vaccaei
(about Valladolid), and Metellus even in Gaul.

Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War

For five years the Sertorian war thus continued, and still
there seemed no prospect of its termination. The state suffered
from it beyond description. The flower of the Italian youth perished
amid the exhausting fatigues of these campaigns. The public treasury
was not only deprived of the Spanish revenues, but had annually
to send to Spain for the pay and maintenance of the Spanish armies
very considerable sums, which the government hardly knew how
to raise. Spain was devastated and impoverished, and the Roman
civilization, which unfolded so fair a promise there, received
a severe shock; as was naturally to be expected in the case
ofan insurrectionary war waged with so much bitterness,
and but too often occasioning the destruction of whole communities.
Even the towns which adhered to the dominant party in Rome had countless
hardships to endure; those situated on the coast had to be provided
with necessaries by the Roman fle