war was now committed to a trustworthy officer, the consul Quintus
Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, the second son of the victor of Pydna
(609). But the Romans no longer ventured to send the experienced
veterans, who bad just returned from Macedonia and Asia, forth anew
tothe detested Spanish war; the two legions, which Maximus brought
with him, were new levies and scarcely more to be trusted than the
old utterly demoralized Spanish army. After the first conflicts had
again issued favourably for the Lusitanians, the prudent general
kept together his troops for the remainder of the year in the camp
at Urso (Osuna, south-east from Seville) without accepting the
enemy's offer of battle, and only took the field afresh in the
following year (610), after his troops had by petty warfare become
qualified for fighting; he was then enabled to maintain the
superiority, and after successful feats of arms went into winter
quarters at Corduba. But when the cowardly and incapable praetor
Quinctius took the command in room of Maximus, the Romans again
suffered defeat after defeat, and their general in the middle of
summer shut himself up in Corduba, while the bands of Viriathus
overran the southern province (611).

His successor, Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus, the adopted brother
of Maximus Aemilianus, sent to the peninsula with two fresh legions
and ten elephants, endeavoured to penetrate into the Lusitanian
country, but after a series of indecisive conflicts and an assault
on the Roman camp, which was with difficulty repulsed, found himself
compelled to retreat to the Roman territory. Viriathus followed him
into the province, but as his troops after the wont of Spanish
insurrectionary armies suddenly melted away, he was obliged to return
to Lusitania (612). Next year (613) Servilianus resumed the offensive,
traversed the districts on the Baetis and Anas, and then advancing