This massacre would not be forgotten by Viriathus, who three years later (147 BC) would become the leader of the Lusitanians, and severely damaged the Roman rule in Lusitania and beyond. In 150 BC, they were defeated by Praetor Servius Galba: springing a treacherous trap, he killed 9,000 Lusitanians and later sold 20,000 more as slaves in Gaul (modern France). Since 193 BC, the Lusitanians had been fighting the Romans in Hispania. According to Livy, Lusitanian and Celtiberian cavalry performed raids in the north of Italy whenever the terrain was too rough for Hannibal's famed Numidian cavalry. Silius Italicus describes them as forming a combined contingent with the Gallaeci and being led both by a commander named Viriathus (not to be confused with the similarly named chieftain). Lusitanian mercenaries fought for Carthage between the years 218 and 201 BC, during the Second Punic War against Rome. After this, Lusitania's northern border was along the Douro River, while its eastern border passed through Salmantica and Caesarobriga to the Anas ( Guadiana) river. The original Roman province of Lusitania briefly included the territories of Asturia and Gallaecia, but these were soon ceded to the jurisdiction of the Provincia Tarraconensis in the north, while the south remained the Provincia Lusitania et Vettones.
On the other hand, Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela distinguished the Lusitanians from neighboring Celtic groups like the Artabrians in their geographical writings. Strabo differentiated the Lusitanians from the Iberian tribes and called them Celts who had been known as Oestriminis in ancient times.
The Lusitanians were also called Belitanians, according to the diviner Artemidorus. The Greco-Roman historian Diodorus Siculus attributed them a name of another Celtic tribe: "Those who are called Lusitanians are the bravest of all Cimbri", often thought of as Germanic.
Iberian Peninsula at about 200 BC Archived at the Wayback Machine.įrontinus mentions Lusitanian leader Viriathus as the leader of the Celtiberians, in their war against the Romans.
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