Quintus Sertorius (c. 126 – 73 BC) was a Roman general and statesman who led a large-scale rebellion against the Roman Senate on the Iberian peninsula. He had been a prominent member of the populist faction of Cinna and Marius. During the later years of the civil war of 83–81 BC, he was sent to recover the Iberian Peninsula. When his faction lost the war, Sertorius was proscribed (outlawed) by the dictator Sulla. Supported by a majority of the native Iberian tribes, Sertorius skillfully used irregular warfare to repeatedly defeat various commanders sent by Rome to subdue him. He was never decisively beaten on the battlefield and remained a thorn in the Senate's side until his murder in 73 BC.
The famous Greek biographer Plutarch dedicated one of his Parallel Lives to Sertorius; in it he pairs Sertorius with Eumenes. Like Eumenes, Sertorius was betrayed by his own men.
Early life and career
Sertorius was born in Nursia (a town whose people had received Roman citizenship in 268 BC) in Sabine territory around 126 BC. The Sertorius family were minor aristocrats, almost certainly Equites Romani (usually called "knights" in English), the class directly below the senatorial class. His father died before he became of age and his mother, Rhae, focused all her energies on raising her only son. She made sure he received the best education possible for a young man of his status. In return, according to Plutarch, he became excessively fond of his mother. Like many other young domi nobiles Sertorius moved to Rome in his mid-to-late teens trying to make it big as an orator and jurist.
He made enough of an "impression" on the young Cicero to merit a special mention in a later treatise on oratory:
Of all the totally illiterate and crude orators, well, actually ranters, I ever knew – and I might as well add 'completely coarse and rustic' – the roughest and readiest were Q. Sertorius ...
After his undistinguished career in Rome as a jurist and an orator, he entered the military. His first recorded campaign was under Quintus Servilius Caepio and ended at the Battle of Arausio in 105 BC, where he showed unusual courage. Serving under Gaius Marius, Sertorius succeeded in spying on the wandering Germanic tribes that had defeated Caepio. After this success, he almost certainly fought at the great Battle of Aquae Sextiae (now Aix-en-Provence, France) in 102 BC in which the Teutones and the Ambrones were decisively defeated. He probably also fought at the Battle of Vercellae in 101 BC, where the Cimbri were decisively defeated, ending the German invasion. A few years after the Cimbric wars, Sertorius's patron Gaius Marius fell out of grace for his support of the demagogue Lucius Appuleius Saturninus and he and Sertorius had to get out of Rome for a while. Sertorius travelled to Hispania Ulterior and served its governor, Titus Didius, as a military tribune. He distinguished himself by putting down an insurrection in and around Castulo and was awarded the Grass Crown.
Social War and Civil War
In 91 BC, he was elected quaestor and served in Cisalpine Gaul, where he was in charge of recruiting and training legionaries for the Social War. During the war he sustained a wound that cost him the use of one of his eyes. Sertorius used his wounds as personal propaganda. Being scarred in the face had its advantages. 'Other men, he used to say, could not always carry about them the evidence of their heroic achievements. Their tokens, wreaths and spears of honour must at some times be set aside. His proof of valour remained with him at all times.' Upon his return to Rome he ran for tribune of the Plebs, but Lucius Cornelius Sulla thwarted his efforts (for reasons unknown, but probably because he was in Marius's clientele, and Sulla and Marius were at odds), causing Sertorius to oppose Sulla. Sertorius, however, did manage to become a senator on the strength of his earlier quaestorship.
