Arevaci Territory: Iberian Peninsula (North Central Spain and northern Portugal)
Capital: Numantia

The Arevacii were a Celtiberian tribe, living on the Iberian Peninsula (North Central Spain and Northern Portugal). The group originated when Celts migrated from Gaul in the 6th century BC and integrated with the local Iberian people.

Other powerful strongholds of the Arevaci include Okilis and Lugo.

Not much is known about the Arevaci, except for their rebellion against the Romans, in which their stronghold Numantia plays a central role. Its inhabitants withstood repeated Roman attacks from the time of Cato the Elder's campaign (195 B.C.) until during the Numantine War (143-133 BC) the romans sent their best general, Scipio Aemilianus (aka Africanus Minor) who finally took the city in 133 B.C., after an eight-month blockade, thus completing the conquest of Spain.

During the course of this war, the Romans lost thousands of men and at the end of it, when the city fell they entered to find that approximately 90% of the nobility that remained alive from starvation during the long siege, had commited suicide rather than to submit to the Roman yoke. The Romans sold the remaining population into slavery and burned Numantia to the ground. The ruins that can be seen on the site nowadays are, for the most part, those of a later Ibero-Roman settlement.

Scipio was given (or rather bestowed upon himself) the honorific Numantinus for this victory, but the cost to Rome had been enormous and the conquest was far from complete: Cantabria would take another century to reduce, and the Basque Country was never properly subdued. But the destruction of Numantia marked the end of the Celtiberian Wars.

Sort by:
MemberLevel | First Name | Last Login