Rome does not pay traitors, and it seems that it does not pay losers either. According to the chronicler Plutarch, Cayo Hostilio Mancino He was a “man not to blame” and versed in politics. However, the memory of the former consul of Hispania Citerior was cursed after a mistake led him to be crushed by the same Numantines whom he surrounded back in the 2nd century BC. C. Defeated and humiliated by just 4,000 enemies, the soldier was forced to sign a treaty that the biographer Appian of Alexandria defined “as the most shameful of all” to save the lives of his 40,000 legionaries. A pact that, to make matters worse, the Eternal City rejected as it was considered an ignominy.
The resentment of the Senate was such that, after subjecting Mancino to a severe trial on the other side of the Mediterranean, they deposed him, stripped him naked, tied his hands and handed him over to the Hispanics so that they could do with his life as they pleased. These, luckily for him, let him free. “Furio, taking Mancinus back to Iberia, handed him over, defenseless, to the Numantines, but they did not accept him,” Appian added in his works. Unfortunately for him, Hispanic magnanimity did not help him much. Although not much is known about his last years of life, the chronicles confirm that the consul was expelled from the great chamber and began a long litigation to recover his civil rights.
bad omens
If there was a person who marked a before and after when it comes to the grievance of Rome, it was Gaius Hostilius Mancinus. General little versed in the art of war, he was appointed consul of Hispania Citerior in the year 137 BC. C. Their mission: crush the uprising of Numancia. Although it must be said that, from the first moment, the omens were not favorable for him. This is how Titus Livy remembered it: “When the consul Gaius Hostilius Mancinus wanted to make a sacrifice, the chickens flew from the henhouse, and when he boarded his ship to sail to Hispania a voice was heard saying: ‘Stay, Mancinus!’ “This was a bad omen.” Unfortunately for him, he did not follow the advice of that enigmatic subject and went to sea ready to end the war that was bleeding Rome.
Mancino, like his predecessors, did not start his stay in Hispania on the right foot. Eager to finish off Numancia, he established his camp on the outskirts of the city and dedicated himself to attacking its walls again and again without success. That was a real disaster. The big three – Appian, Livy and Plutarch – agree that his poor military skills earned him endless defeats and the loss of a large number of men. The one who made the most extensive reference to this disaster was the historian of Alexandria: «Mancinus fought frequently with the Numantines and was defeated many times; Finally, having suffered numerous casualties, he retired to his camp.
With Mancinus in the camp along with his legions – Plutarch estimates his soldiers at twenty thousand, while Appian at forty thousand – the Numantines prepared to deliver the coup de grace to the consul. All this, while the Roman trembled with fear in its weak walls. «When the rumor spread that the Cantabrians and Vacceans were coming to the aid of the Numantines, he spent the entire night, full of fear, in the darkness without lighting a fire and fled to an open field that had once served as a camp for Nobílior. », reveals Appiano. The plan was a disaster, as the Hispanics charged against the rear of the contingent and killed hundreds of men.
On this point the sources differ. Plutarch affirms that Mancinus’s troops did not arrive at the camp of Nobílior, but were surrounded by the Numantine troops: “They surrounded the entire army, driving it towards harsh places, from which there was no way out.” For his part, Appian wrote that they reached him, but that they did not find any fortifications and that they did not have time to build them. Titus Livy distances himself from all of them and states in his text that “he was defeated and expelled from his camp.” Be that as it may, the most accepted version is that he felt that he could not face the barely 4,000 Numantines who were stalking him. In the end, he asked to parley with his enemies even though he had forces five to ten times greater than those of the Celtiberians. Reality or exaggeration?
Pacts and more pacts
The versions about what happened next are as many as the number of classical historians who wrote about this event. Plutarch wrote in his works that Mancino, desperate, asked the Numantines for a peace agreement. However, they set a condition for this: to parley with their quaestor, a sort of person in charge of the legion’s accounts, Tiberius Gracchus.
«Mancino of all good terms, made it public that he would discuss peace agreements with them; but they replied that they would trust only Tiberius alone; proposing that this be the one that was sent to them. They were motivated to do so by the young man himself, because of the fame he had in the army, and also by remembering his father Tiberius, who waged war against the Spaniards, and having defeated many people, established peace with the Numantines. ; and confirmed by the people, he always kept it with rectitude and justice. Tiberius being sent, entered into talks with them, and now by accepting some conditions, now by yielding to others, he concluded a treaty by which he notoriously saved twenty thousand Roman citizens, not counting the slaves or the other mob that does not enter into formation. .
Appian and Livy held a different theory. The first explained that it was Mancinus himself who “consented to sign a pact on a basis of equity and equality for Romans and Numantines” and that he committed himself to this “by means of an oath.” The second barely states in his work that, “when Mancino despaired of saving his army, he concluded an ignominious peace treaty.” In any case, what seems reliable is that an agreement was reached whereby, in exchange for the lives of its men, Rome agreed to make peace with the city and hand over its weapons as loot. Humiliating conditions. Afterwards, the Hispanics destroyed the camp and, according to Plutarch, took possession of some tablets “containing the accounts of the quaestorship” of Tiberius.
Despite the conditions of the treaty, the example that the Numantines did not hold a grudge against the Romans was that they allowed Tiberius to recover these tablets. «So calling the magistrates of the Numantines, he asked them to give him the tables so as not to give his opponents the opportunity to slander him, because they had nothing to defend themselves regarding his administration. The Numantines rejoiced at the happy chance of being able to serve him, and they begged him to enter the town; And when he stopped for a while to deliberate, they approached him and took him by the arm, repeating the requests and begging him not to see them as enemies, but to trust and use them as friends. It was finally decided to do so, eager to recover the tables,” added Plutarch. It didn’t go bad. The Hispanics invited him to eat, received him with affection, returned his precious treasure and suggested that he take whatever he wanted from the loot.
Humiliated
As if that humiliation was not enough for Mancino, everything got worse when he returned home requesting that the Senate ratify that treaty. Far from accepting their conditions, the politicians refused to sign peace with Numancia, considering the pact offensive and ignominious. Next, they put their actions on trial in front of the walls of the Hispanic city. Rome was divided into two sides. Some, those closest to the general, defended him, arguing that he had saved thousands of lives. However, the vast majority charged against him.
«Those who disapproved of the treaty said that in that case the Romans should imitate their ancestors: because they also threw the Consuls who were content with receiving freedom from the Samnites naked into the hands of the enemies; and all those who intervened and had a part in the treaties, such as the quaestors and commanders, were also handed over, causing the perjury and breaking of the pacts to fall on them,” Plutarch added. Meanwhile, the Numantines tried to enforce the pact by sending several ambassadors to the city, but it was of little use.
The trial was more than tense. During it, Mancinus accused Pompey, one of his predecessors, of the defeat for not having trained his men enough. “He accused him of having placed an inactive and poorly equipped army in his hands and that, for this very reason, he had also been defeated many times and had made similar treaties with the Numantines,” Titus Livy reveals in his texts. In the end, the same punishment was chosen for him as for the generals who had surrendered to the Samnites: he was deposed, stripped naked, and handed over, with his hands tied, to the Celtiberians so that they could do with him whatever they wanted. And, although the Hispanics did not accept such a ‘gift’, the war continued.
Little is known about this character afterwards. Perhaps, because of the victories of his successor; perhaps, because it is much easier to ignore disasters than to find an explanation for them. In any case, something similar happened with the pact (for some historians, equitable and just) that had been reached with the Numantines. The treaty was broken and Rome continued its war against the Celtiberian city at the hands of one of its best generals. «The people, already tired of the war against the Numantines, which was prolonged and found it much more difficult than they expected, elected Cornelius Scipio, the conqueror of Carthage, to carry out the consulship again, in the idea that it was the only one capable of defeating the Numantines,” Appian left blank. The city fell in 133 BC. C., less than ten years after Mancino was left naked and humiliated in front of the walls.
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