In the year 140 before the Christian era, the war of Viriathus having been concluded, the proconsul Q. Pompeius Rufus commenced blockading Numantia (now Algeria). The plan of his operations being to charge the air with mephitic vapours, he determined on turning the course of the river Douro, and inundating the country round about by means of its waters, which would have the effect not only of spoiling the atmosphere by its moist exhalations, but of inducing famine also, by the destruction of all vegetation. These attempts were, however, fruitless, inasmuch as the Numantians, being a robust and warlike people, resisted the consequences of the proconsul’s attempts against them. Having foreseen his intentions, they had supplied themselves with abundant provisions, which they had intercepted from the Roman legions; while, on the other hand, the Roman soldiers themselves fell victims to their own measures, pestilence having broken out among them--a malignant dysentery, equal in severity and fatality to that which formerly had laid waste the army of Lucullus. After this period to about that of 134 B.C., Scipio Æmilianus, called the Numantine, organized his army, and having established admirable rules of hygiene and semeiotics, whereby he preserved his former strength and health, began to devastate the plains of Numantia, of Vacca, and Palestine. The want of water which was experienced in the latter place (Palestine) forced them to make wells to obtain drinkable water, but unfortunately the water thus obtained proved to be of a character productive of a malignant epizootic, which destroyed their horses and other beasts of burthen: the pestilence among their cattle increasing, obliged them to change their quarters to the plains of Numantia in order to winter there. Anno 130 B.C. The famous Numantines, so much dreaded by the Romans on account of their valorous resistance, were not less feared by the Greeks, than the horrible pestilence which prevailed in Numantia. The Greek, Appianus Alexandrinus, speaks of them with admiration and dread. The Numantine people, who had hitherto resisted the corrupted condition of the air, ultimately suffered such exhaustion for want of food, their stores having been consumed, that after having subsisted on dressed skins of animals for several days, they fell into the frightful necessity of becoming anthropophagi, so that from feeding on the bodies of those who fell defending their country, pestilence arose, which hastened the downfall of their city.