Sertorius, -72 B.C.

Quintus Sertorius (c. 126 BC – 73 or 72 BC) was a Roman general and statesman who led a large-scale rebellion against the Roman Senate on the Iberian Peninsula. Sertorius became the independent ruler of Hispania for most of a decade until his assassination. Sertorius first became prominent during the Cimbrian War fighting under Gaius Marius, and then served Rome in the Social War. Unsuccessful in his attempt for the plebeian tribunate c. 88 BC due to the hostility of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, after Sulla's consulship in 88 BC he joined with Cinna and Marius during the short civil war in 87 BC. He led in the assault on Rome and played a role in restraining the reprisals that followed. During the Cinnan domination of the republic he was elected praetor, some time before 83 BC and probably after 85 BC. He criticised Gnaeus Papirius Carbo and other Marians' leadership of the anti-Sullan forces during the civil war with Sulla and was, late in the war, given command of Hispania. In late 82 BC he was proscribed by Sulla and forced from his province. However, he soon returned in early 80 BC, taking in and leading many Marian and Cinnan exiles in a prolonged fight in which he presented himself as a Roman proconsul against the Sullan regime at Rome. He gathered support from other Roman exiles and the native Iberian tribes – in part by using his tamed white fawn to paint himself as a divinely inspired leader before them – and employed irregular warfare to defeat commanders repeatedly sent from Rome to subdue him. Sertorius allied with Mithridates VI of Pontus and Cilician pirates in his struggle against the Roman government. Substantial efforts by the Sullan regime to forcibly suppress his anti-Sullan resistance, led by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius and Pompey, were unsuccessful. After defeating Pompey in 76 BC at the Battle of Lauron however, he suffered significant reverses in the following years. By 73 BC his allies had lost confidence in his leadership; his lieutenant Marcus Perperna Veiento assassinated him in late 73 or 72 BC. His cause fell in defeat to Pompey shortly thereafter. The Greek biographer and essayist Plutarch chose Sertorius as the focus of one of his biographies in Parallel Lives, where he was paired with Eumenes of Cardia, one of the post-Alexandrine Diadochi.