Battle of Valentia (75 BC)

Last updated
Battle of Valentia
Part of the Sertorian War
Date75 BC
Location
Valentia in Spain
39°28′00″N0°22′30″W / 39.46667°N 0.37500°W / 39.46667; -0.37500
Result Roman victory
Belligerents
Roman Republic Sertorian Rebels
Commanders and leaders
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (better known as Pompey)
Strength
6 understrength legions and an unknown number of auxiliaries and allied troops unknown but probably similar to Pompey's army
Casualties and losses
unknown but a lot lighter than their opponents 10,000 [1]
Spain location map with provinces.svg
Red pog.svg
class=notpageimage|
Location within Spain

The Battle of Valentia was fought in 75 BC between a rebel army under the command of Marcus Perpenna Vento and a general called Gaius Herennius, both legates of the Roman rebel Quintus Sertorius, and a Roman Republican army under the command of the Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (better known as Pompey the Great). The battle was fought at Valentia in Spain and ended in a stunning victory for the Pompeian army. [1] [2]

Contents

Background

In 88 BC, Lucius Cornelius Sulla marched his legions on Rome, starting a period of civil wars. Quintus Sertorius, a client of Gaius Marius, joined his patron's faction and took up the sword against the Sullan faction (mainly optimates). After the death of Lucius Cornelius Cinna and Gaius Marius, Sertorius lost faith with his factions leadership. In 82 BC, during the war against Sulla, he left Italy for his assigned province in Hispania. [3] His faction lost the war in Italy right after his departure and in 81 BC Sulla sent Gaius Annius Luscus with several legions to take the Iberian provinces from Sertorius. [4] After a brief resistance Sertorius and his men are expelled from Hispania. They end up in Mauretania in north-western Africa where they conquer the city of Tingis. Here the Lusitanians, a fierce Iberian tribe who were about to be invaded by a Sullan governor, approached him. They asked him to become their war leader in the fight against the Sullans.

In 80 BC, Sertorius landed at the little fishing town of Baelo near the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) and returned to Hispania. Soon after his landing he fought and defeated the Sullan general Lucius Fufidius (the aforementioned Sullan governor) at the Baetis river. After this, he defeated several Sullan armies and drove his opponents from Hispania. Threatened by Sertorius' success the Senate in Rome upgraded Hispania Ulterior to a proconsular province and sent the proconsul Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius with a large army to fight him. [5] Sertorius used guerrilla tactics so effectively he wore down Metellus to the point of exhaustion while his legate Lucius Hirtuleius defeated the governor of Hispania Citerior Marcus Domitius Calvinus.

In 76 BC, the government in Rome decided to send Pompey and an even larger army to help Metellus. [6] In the same year Sertorius is joined by Marcus Perpenna, who brought him the remnants of the army of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus the rebel consul of 78 BC. [7] Thus reinforced Sertorius decided to try and take the Iberian east coast (because the cities there support his enemies). His first target was the city of Lauron where he outgeneraled Pompey and massacred a large part of his army (see: the Battle of Lauron). [8]

Prelude

In 75 BC Sertorius decided to take on Metellus and leave the battered Pompey to his legates Perpenna and Gaius Herennius (probably a Samnite noble). Pompey and Metellus repeated their strategy of the previous year. While Metellus returned through the centre of Hispania to the further province, Pompey once more marched his legions south toward the plain of Valentia. This time he met with no serious resistance until he reached Valentia itself. Here he found Herennius and Perpenna holding the line of the river Turia. [9]

The battle

Perperna and Herennius decided to give battle apparently under the impression they could defeat Pompey in a pitched battle. [10] They fought in the narrow space which separated the river from the city walls. The battlefield gave no distinct tactical advantage to either side, so what developed was a conventional clash of strength, morale and endurance. Pompey's army of battle-hardened veterans totally outclassed and massacred their opponents. [11] Herennius himself was among the 10,000 casualties. Valentia was taken and sacked. [1]

Aftermath

When word reached Sertorius of Herennius and Perpenna's defeat he decided to retrieve the situation in the north himself. He left Hirtuleius in charge of the western campaign against Metellus while he marched north to face Pompey. While Sertorius was en route Hirtuleius made things worse in the south by getting himself drawn into a pitched battle with Metellus near the Roman colony of Italica. [12] At the Battle of Italica Metellus crushed Hirtuleius' army and immediately marched north in pursuit of Sertorius, he wanted to catch Sertorius between himself and Pompey's army. Pompey and Sertorius, both not wanting to wait for Metellus, met at the river Sucro, where Pompey almost lost his army and his life. [13] Sertorius failed to destroy Pompey at the Battle of Sucro, and with Metellus on the way he had no other choice than to march inland and revert to guerrilla warfare. The war would drag on for another three years and only end when a few of his own men plotted against Sertorius and assassinated him.

Notes and References

  1. 1 2 3 Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 18; John Leach, Pompey the Great, p. 48; Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp 117-118.
  2. ↑ Much of what we know of this battle comes from a single sentence from Plutarch's Life of Pompey: Near Valentia he [Pompey] crushed the generals Herennius and Perpenna, men of military experience among the refugees with Sertorius, and slew more than ten thousand of their men. Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 18.
  3. ↑ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 6.
  4. ↑ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 7.
  5. ↑ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, p. 68.
  6. ↑ Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 17.
  7. ↑ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 15.
  8. ↑ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 18; Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 18; Frontinus, Stratagems, 2.5.31; John Leach, Pompey the Great, pp.226-227; Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, pp.96-101.
  9. ↑ John Leach, Pompey the Great, p.48.
  10. ↑ They might have had a low opinion of Pompey, who had been outclassed by Sertorius at Lauron, and underestimated him as a result.
  11. ↑ The Sertorian legates seemed to have forgotten Pompey's army was made up of veterans from the Civil War. These were experienced soldiers who knew how to fight and were not likely to break.
  12. ↑ Philip Matyszak, Sertorius and the Struggle for Spain, p. 118.
  13. ↑ Appian, Civil Wars, 1.110; Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, 19; Plutarch, Life of Pompey, 18.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pompey</span> Roman general and statesman (106–48 BC)

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a general and statesman of the Roman Republic. He played a significant role in the transformation of Rome from republic to empire. Early in his career, he was a partisan and protégé of the Roman general and dictator Sulla; later, he became the political ally, and finally the enemy, of Julius Caesar.

This article concerns the period 79 BC – 70 BC.

Year 75 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Octavius and Cotta. The denomination 75 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Lucius Afranius was an ancient Roman plebeian and a client of Pompey the Great. He served Pompey as a legate during his Iberian campaigns, his eastern campaigns and remained in his service right through to the Civil War. He died in Africa right after the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC.

Quintus Sertorius was a Roman general and statesman who led a large-scale rebellion against the Roman Senate on the Iberian peninsula. He had been a prominent member of the populist faction of Cinna and Marius, fighting under Marius during the Cimbric Wars and aligning himself with Cinna during the Roman civil wars started by Sulla's first march on Rome. During the later years of the civil war of 83–81 BC, he was sent to recover the Iberian Peninsula. As the last outpost of the defeated Marian regime, Sertorius defied the Sullan government in Rome from Hispania for most of a decade. He was never decisively beaten on the battlefield and remained a thorn in the Senate's side until his murder in 73 BC.

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius was a general and statesman of the Roman Republic. His father Metellus Numidicus was banished from Rome through the machinations of Gaius Marius. He, because of his constant and unbending attempts to have his father officially recalled from exile, was given the agnomen (nickname) Pius.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of Portuguese history (Lusitania and Gallaecia)</span>

This is a historical timeline of Portugal.

The Battle of the Baetis River was fought between an army of the Roman Republic and a rebel army at the Baetis river in Spain. The battle took place in 80 BC at the start of the Sertorian War. The Romans were led by Lucius Fufidius, while the rebels were led by the Roman rebel Quintus Sertorius. The rebel army was victorious, gaining Sertorius control over Hispania Ulterior.

Marcus PerpernaVeiento was a Roman aristocrat, statesman and general. He fought in Sulla's civil war, Lepidus' failed rebellion of 77 BC and from 76 to 72 BC in the Sertorian War. He conspired against and assassinated Quintus Sertorius, and was defeated and executed by Pompey the Great.

The Sertorian War was a civil war fought from 80 to 72 BC between a faction of Roman rebels (Sertorians) and the government in Rome (Sullans). The war was fought on the Iberian Peninsula and was one of the Roman civil wars of the first century BC. The Sertorians, a coalition of Celts, Aquitanians, Iberians and Roman and Italic rebels, fought against the representatives of the regime established by Sulla. The war takes its name from Quintus Sertorius, the leader of the opposition. It was notable for Sertorius' successful use of guerrilla warfare. After many years of battles and ambushes, Sertorius eventually lost control over his coalition, while the Roman Senate continued to finance efforts to subdue him. The war ended after Sertorius was assassinated by Marcus Perperna, who was then promptly defeated by Pompey.

Sulla's civil war was fought between the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla and his opponents, the Cinna-Marius faction, in the years 83–82 BC. The war ended with a decisive battle just outside Rome itself. After the war the victorious Sulla made himself dictator of the Roman Republic.

Marcus Domitius Calvinus was an ancient Roman politician and military commander who was killed during the early stages of the Sertorian War.

Lucius Hirtuleius was a legate of Quintus Sertorius during the Sertorian War, in which he fought from 80 BC until his death in 75 BC. After the death of Julius Salinator, he was considered Sertorius's most trusted lieutenant, his second-in-command, and was often given independent commands. During the war he defeated the Roman governors Marcus Domitius Calvinus and Lucius Manlius.

This section of the timeline of Hispania concerns Spanish and Portuguese history events from the Carthaginian conquests to before the barbarian invasions.

The Battle of Lauron was fought in 76 BC by a rebel force under the command of the renegade Roman general Quintus Sertorius and an army of Roman Republic under the command of the Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. The battle was part of the Sertorian War and ended in victory for Sertorius and his rebels. The battle was recorded in detail by Frontinus in his Stratagems and by Plutarch in his Lives of Sertorius and Pompey.

The Battle of Sucro was fought in 75 BC between a rebel army under the command of the Roman rebel Quintus Sertorius and a Roman army under the command of the Roman general Pompey. The battle was fought on the banks of the river Sucro near a town bearing the same name. It ended indecisively: with Sertorius winning a tactical victory but having to withdraw because Pompey's colleague Metellus and his army were approaching.

The Battle of Saguntum was fought in 75 BC between forces of the Roman Republic under the command of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius and an army of Sertorian rebels under the command of Quintus Sertorius. The location of the battle is disputed, but it was most likely near modern Langa de Duero, as Sallust informs us the battle was fought on the banks of the river Douro. The battle lasted from noon till night and ended in a draw.

The Battle of Italica was fought in 75 BC between a rebel army under the command of Lucius Hirtuleius a legate of the Roman rebel Quintus Sertorius and a Roman Republican army under the command of the Roman general and proconsul of Hispania Ulterior Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius. The battle was fought near Italica and ended in a stunning victory for the Metellan army.

Gaius Memmius was a Roman plebeian and a soldier of the late Roman republic.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.