Julius Caesar He was as explicit in his texts as he was fierce when crossing the Rubicon with his most loyal legion to blow up the Republic into two thousand pieces. In ‘the gallic war‘, the Roman dictator left blank a practice that astonished him of the Hispanic warriors. “Those who are afflicted with serious illnesses or are in continuous struggle and in danger immolate men as victims or vow to immolate themselves.” The reason is that they were convinced that “there is no way to appease the immortal gods except by offering the life of one man for that of another.”
This gloomy practice was one of many that rocked the Roman legions over the centuries. From the republic to the empire. And it is that, the Gallic and Semitic heritage of Hispania made some of its tribes resort to human sacrifices and beheadings; practices abolished by the Eternal City in 97 BC Due to being lived, the peninsula even experienced episodes of cannibalism. Although, yes, in extreme moments such as the siege of Numancia by Scipio Emiliano. “They had no choice. The defenders had run out of supplies and refused to capitulate,” the writer and researcher told ABC. Juan Torres Zalbaauthor of ‘Numeracy La ira de los Escipiones‘ (‘The Sphere of Books’). A work that narrates, in an agile and magnetic way, the siege that kept the Roman Senate in check.
heads and horses
There are many classical sources that refer to ritual and military beheading in the surroundings of the Iberian Peninsula. from the historian Diodorus of Sicily even the geographer Strabon. Both of them, born in the 1st century BC, refer to the Celtic custom of cutting off the heads of enemies fallen in battle and then hanging them from the horse’s manes as a trophy. Although, in pursuit of historical reality, both were based on the chronicles of Posidonio, who had visited Gaul in 90 BC and had compiled the different practices of the local tribes. Diodorus was the most descriptive:
“When an enemy falls, they cut off his head and tie it around the horse’s neck. Or else, they hand over their bloody remains to their servants, they dedicate themselves to looting, singing the peán and singing the hymn of victory, and they hang the best of the loot in their houses, as in some hunts they do with wild beasts. They also anoint the heads of their most notorious enemies with cedar oil and carefully keep them in a box to later show them to the guests, proud that none of their ancestors has agreed to give it up for a large amount of money. It is also said that some of them boast that they did not accept their weight in gold for their heads.
However, the oldest reference to this cruel practice is provided by the Latin historian Titus Livio. When referring to the battle of Sentinum, which took place in 295 BC, he points out that “the Gallic horsemen carry their heads hanging from the horse’s chest and nailed to their lances, while they sing their customary songs”. The same author insists that the Boios tribe – located in the center of Europe – used to “bring the severed heads and the remains of fallen enemies” to the temples as an offering. “After they have carefully cleaned the head, they adorn the skull with gold, and this serves as a sacred vessel with which to make libations on their solemnities,” he explains.
Sacrifices in Hispania
All these practices were reflected in the Iberian Peninsula. Cicero, who needs little introduction, wrote that “human sacrifices had the same character in Spain as in Gaul, where they were very frequent.” And, according to the Professor of Ancient History José María Blázquez Martínez in the dossier ‘Severed Heads’, he was right. In his work, the expert compiles the different classical sources that refer, in one way or another, to these rituals. Thus, he narrates that Publius Crassus, proconsul of the Ulterior province from 96 to 94 BC, wanted to punish the chiefs of the Bletonenses –in the outskirts of Salamanca– for murdering human beings to offer them to the gods. They only escaped punishment because they were unaware that what they were doing was prohibited.
Nor was Strabo far behind. In the third book of his ‘Geography’, the one referring to the Iberian Peninsula, he wrote that the Lusitanos –the town to which the incombustible Viriato belonged– made sacrifices and examined the entrails without separating them from the body to guess, through them , the future. The entrails of the prisoners were covered with ‘sagoi’, special woolen cloaks for the ‘hieroskópos’ or diviner to make a prediction after the body became inert. Finally, they amputated “the right hands of the captives” to proudly consecrate them to the gods. A practice that the Celtic peoples also used.
Why the right hand? The author of ‘Numeracy La ira de los Escipiones‘ is clear: «It was the military and political hand. Without it, the victim could not wield the sword or fight, he was nobody. He also lost the ability to high-five to seal a pact. In practice, it was death in life. Examples abound, even among the Romans. «The clearest occurred when Retogenes escaped from the siege of Scipio Emiliano in Numancia and arrived in Lutia to ask for help. Some 400 young people accepted. The general of the Republic rushed to the city, demanded that the volunteers surrender and cut off the right hand of all of them. It was an exemplary punishment.”
The last moments of the siege of Numancia
But the Lusitanos were always the kings of sacrifices and the most shady practices. The clearest example is that they used to divine the future by hitting human lives, as Diodorus explains: «After choosing a man as an offering, they hit him with the sword above the diaphragm and, while he falls, by his own fall and by the convulsions of their members, as well as by the flow of blood, they know the future.
The examples of human sacrifices in Hispania number in the dozens. At Viriato’s funeral, assassinated by his own generals, several followed one another. To such an extent they became habitual, that Caesar and Tiberius punished parents who sacrificed their children with the death penalty. «Tertuliano testifies to us the existence of human sacrifices in Cádiz during the second century of the Christian Era. We necessarily have to accept that it is about the survival of a remote tradition introduced under the Semitic colonization and deeply rooted when it continued to be done under such severe penalties”, reveals the historian Víctor M. Guerrero Ayuso in ‘Around the Roman sacrifices in the Antiquity’.
Cannibalism
Cannibalism was also a practice known to the Hispanics during the Roman invasion of the Peninsula. The most striking episode happened in Numancia. For half a century, the resistance to the soldiers of the Republic was fierce and their victories against consuls of the stature of Mancino scandalous and hurtful. They were 52 years in which Numancia became a stronghold against the enemy and became a bulwark that undermined the morale of some soldiers who felt impotent before the determination of those they had invaded. However, in 134 BC everything changed thanks to Publius Cornelius Scipio Emiliano.
Instead of attacking frontally, Scipio preferred to build a siege to starve the city to death. “It was a very small city, with very few war resources, and even so, they held Rome in check for decades. It was a sting to the pride of the Republic. Scipio was the best they had and he came with between 50,000 and 60,000 soldiers. But he trusted his legionaries so little that he made an encirclement, a rather strange tactic at the time. He fled the fight, he did not risk it and, in a month, he already had the palisade set up, two camps and seven forts, “Torres Zalba explained to ABC. It is crystal clear that he respected his enemies.
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After ten months of siege, hunger overwhelmed the defenders. «Appianus of Alexandria, the main chronicler of the Numantine wars and of the last moments of the city, wrote in his book about the wars in Iberia that, in the end, they were dying of hunger”, reveals the author. In the texts it is specified that they began to eat the dead and that even, when they were absent, they gave a good account of the weak. Their weakness prevented them from fighting «It was a moment of absolute despair. Then they sucked the leather and bones of the fallen », he sentences. To what extent can it be described as a legend? In the words of the expert, “most likely it happened.”
The chronicler Valerio Maximus He was more explicit: «The Numantines, surrounded by Scipio with a palisade and an embankment, once they had exhausted everything that could satisfy their hunger, began, as a last resort, to eat human flesh. For this reason, when the city was taken, it was discovered that many still carried pieces and members of the dismembered bodies on their laps.
But that of Numancia was not the only episode of cannibalism in Hispania. Almost half a century later the scene was repeated in Calahorra. «It was between 72-73 BC, when the Sertorian wars ended, a civil war between Romans that also dragged the Hispanics. The Pompeian army besieged the city of Calahorra, the citizens did not want to surrender and the ‘Calagurritana fames‘. They preferred to eat each other before capitulating, “adds the expert in statements to this newspaper.