Lusitani in 218 B.C.

Lusitani — Spring 218 BC · The Warlike Peoples of the Far West.

The Lusitani — the fiercest and most warlike of the western nations, the mobile peoples of the far Atlantic uplands between the Tagus and the Durius. They are no kingdom and have no king: a scatter of clans and warrior-bands gathered about their hillforts, ruled by chiefs and bound by the ties of feud and fellowship rather than by any crown. Theirs is a hard, thin country of granite sierras and oak-scrub where the soil yields little, and so they live in great part by the spear — herders of the mountains who come down in fast bands to plunder the richer lands of the south and east, then melt back into the hills. They fight as light, swift infantry: the small round [i]caetra[/i] shield buckled to the arm, a sheaf of javelins, and the curved [i]falcata[/i] at the hip; masters of the ambush and the mountain-war, striking and scattering where heavier troops cannot follow. In 218 BC the Lusitani answer to no foreign power — free in their highlands of the Herminius while Carthage and Rome contend far to the south.

Beyond the reach of the great kingdoms, in the ocean-corner of Iberia between the Tagus and the Durius, live the Lusitani — reckoned by all who know the west the most warlike of its peoples. Their country is poor: granite ridges, oak and scrub, thin pasture and meagre tilth. So they have made war their harvest. From their hillforts they pour down in light, fast bands upon the wealthier lowlands, carry off cattle and plunder, and withdraw into the sierras before any host can bring them to battle. They keep no standing army and no single chief over all; each clan and each fort follows its own war-leader, and the bands gather and break as raid and feud demand. They are herders and hunters who fight, dressed in dark cloaks, sleeping on the ground, hardened to the mountain — a people the lowland farmers dread and the lowland armies cannot catch. In 218 BC they are wholly their own masters; the long wars that will pit them against Rome lie a lifetime ahead.