The Lusitanian revolt was brought to a close by the taking of Numantia (134 B.C.), after a siege of fifteen months, during which its inhabitants performed prodigies of valour, and nearly all of its eight thousand defenders fell by famine and the sword. The Roman army, said to have been sixty thousand strong, was led by no less a personage than the younger Scipio, Africanus Minor, who served Numantia as he had unhappy Carthage twelve years before, and utterly destroyed it. His work was carried on by others, notably by Junius Brutus, until all signs of revolution were extinguished, and the peninsula was again at peace. But for the invasion of the Cimbri, about 105 B.C., and the turbulent factions of Rome, Spain would probably have remained quiet and prosperous; but there came to this country as an exile one Quintus Sertorius, who had been a soldier under Marius when he was opposing Sulla, and espoused his cause. Upon the downfall of Marius he fled to Spain and gained a refuge with the Lusitanians, among which barbarous but brave people he acquired immense influence. He trained them in the arts of war, and when the Roman soldiers came against them, defeated five of their generals in succession, including the veteran Metellus. He aimed at establishing an independent republic in Spain, and perhaps might have succeeded had not some of his followers, probably bribed by Roman gold, treacherously stabbed him at a banquet. About the time that Sertorius was fighting the barbarous Cimbri in defence of his native country, there was born a child who became known in after years as Pompey. It came about that, when he had grown to manhood, he was sent to Spain to defeat and capture the older soldier, then leader of the revolted Lusitanians. He was several times defeated by the wily Sertorius, but after his assassination he found the matter of pacifying Spain comparatively easy. He gained repeated victories, and eventually returned to Rome in triumph, his star in the ascendant. At the beginning of this century, so charged with momentous events, the great Cæsar was born, five or six years the junior of Pompey, whose rival he became in later years for the applause and favours of the Roman populace. In the year 68 B.C. he also went to Spain, having obtained a quæstorship; and again, in 63, he was given the province of Farther Spain, where he amassed great wealth, and gained a military experience which was of such service to him while conducting those immortal campaigns in Britain and Gaul. Though the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey had the exclusive possession of Rome as its object, yet most of their battles were fought on the soil of Spain. In the year 49 Cæsar defeated Pompey’s legates in Spain; the following year he overthrew Pompey himself at Pharsalia, in Thessaly; but the final battle was fought about the year 45, between Cæsar and the sons of his dead rival.