Viriathus

Viriathus led the Lusitanian resistance to Rome for eight years and was murdered by his own envoys. He came from the Lusitanian people of what is now central Portugal, and the sources describe him as a shepherd and hunter before he became a soldier, which the Romans noted as evidence of his low birth and which made his success more galling. In 150 BC the praetor Servius Sulpicius Galba offered the Lusitanians land and peace, persuaded them to disarm, and then massacred some nine thousand and enslaved twenty thousand. Viriathus was among the few who escaped, and the treachery is the origin of the war. He was chosen leader in 147 BC and proved an exceptional guerrilla commander. He avoided pitched battle, used feigned retreats to draw Roman columns into broken country, struck supply lines, and moved faster than the legions could respond. He destroyed or badly mauled a succession of Roman armies — those of Vetilius, Plautius, Unimanus, Nigrinus and others — and in 141 BC trapped the consul Fabius Maximus Servilianus entirely, with his whole force at his mercy. He granted terms rather than annihilating them. The Senate ratified a treaty recognising him as a friend of the Roman people and the Lusitanians as independent, and then repudiated it within a year. The war resumed. Quintus Servilius Caepio, unable to beat him, bribed three Lusitanian envoys sent to negotiate — Audax, Ditalcus and Minurus — who stabbed Viriathus in his tent while he slept in 139 BC. They returned for their reward, and Caepio is reported to have told them that Rome does not pay traitors.

• Lived: 180 BCE – 139 BCE
• Nationality: Lusitanian
• Roles: guerrilla_commander, tribal_leader