and the province of Santander), who obstinately held out in these mountains and overran the neighbouring cantons, a warfare attended by difficulties and heavy losses was prolonged--with interruptions, which the Romans called victories--for eight years, till at length Agrippa succeeded in breaking down the open resistance by destroying the mountain towns and transplanting their inhabitants to the valleys. [Sidenote: Military organisation in the North-west.] If, as the emperor Augustus says, from his time the coast of the ocean from Cadiz to the mouth of the Elbe obeyed the Romans, the obedience in this corner of it was far from voluntary and little to be trusted. Matters were still apparently far from having reached a proper pacification in north-western Spain. There is still mention in Nero's time of war-expeditions against the Asturians. A still clearer tale is told by the occupation of the country, as Augustus arranged it. Callaecia was separated from Lusitania and united with the Tarraconensian province, to concentrate in one hand the chief command in northern Spain. Not merely was this province then the only one which, without bordering on an enemy's country, obtained a legionary military command, but no fewer than three legions[27] were directed thither by Augustus--two to Asturia, one to Cantabria; and, in spite of the military pressure in Germany and in Illyricum, this occupying force was not diminished. The headquarters were established between the old metropolis of Asturia, Lancia, and the new Asturica Augusta (Astorga) in Leon that still at present bears its name. With this strong occupation of the north-west is probably connected the construction of roads undertaken there to a considerable extent in the earlier imperial period, although we are not able to demonstrate the connection in detail, seeing that the allocation of these troops in the Augustan age is unknown to us. Thus there was established by Augustus and Tiberius for the capital of Collaecia, Bracara (Braga), a connection with Asturica, that is, with the great headquarters, and not less with the neighbouring towns to the north, north-east, and south. Tiberius made similar constructions in the territory of the Vascones and in Cantabria.[28] Gradually the occupying force could be diminished, and under Claudius one legion, under Nero a second, could be employed elsewhere. But these were regarded only as drafted off, and still at the beginning of the reign of Vespasian the Spanish garrison had resumed its earlier strength; it was reduced, in the strict sense, only by the Flavian emperors, by Vespasian to two, by Domitian to one legion. From thence down to the time of Diocletian a single legion, the Seventh Gemina, and a certain number of auxiliary contingents garrisoned Leon.