the late commander-in-chief stood in his shirt and with his hands tied
behind his back for a whole day before the gates of Numantia, a
pitiful spectacle to friend and foe. Yet the bitter lesson seemed
utterly lost on the successor of Mancinus, his colleague in the
consulship, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. While the discussions as to
the treaty with Mancinus were pending in Rome, he attacked the free
people of the Vaccaei under frivolous pretexts just as Lucullus had
done sixteen years before, and began in concert with the general of
the Further province to besiege Pallantia (618). A decree of the
senate enjoined him to desist from the war; nevertheless, under the
pretext that the circumstances had meanwhile changed, he continued
the siege. In doing so he showed himself as bad a soldier as he was
a bad citizen. After lying so long before the large and strong city
that his supplies in that rugged and hostile country failed, he was
obliged to leave behind all the sick and wounded and to undertake a
retreat, in which the pursuing Pallantines destroyed half of his
soldiers, and, if they had not broken off the pursuit too early,
would probably have utterly annihilated the Roman army, which was
already in full course of dissolution. For this conduct a fine was
imposed on the high-born general at his return. His successors
Lucius Furius Philus (618) and Gaius Calpurnius Piso (619) had
again to wage war against the Numantines; and, inasmuch as they
did nothing at all, they fortunately came home without defeat.

Scipio Aemilianus

Even the Roman government began at length to perceive that matters
could no longer continue on this footing; they resolved to entrust
the subjugation of the small Spanish country-town, as an extraordinary
measure, to the first general of Rome, Scipio Aemilianus. The pecuniary