short time Sertorius appeared with a new army confronting the Romans in the level country to the south of Saguntum (Murviedro), which firmly adhered to Rome, while the Sertorian privateers impeded the Roman supplies by sea, and scarcity was already making itself felt in the Roman camp.  Another battle took place in the plains of the river Turia (Guadalaviar), and the struggle was long undecided.  Pompeius with the cavalry was defeated by Sertorius, and his brother-in-law and quaestor, the brave Lucius Memmius, was slain; on the other hand Metellus vanquished Perpenna, and victoriously repelled the attack of the enemy’s main army directed against him, receiving himself a wound in the conflict.  Once more the Sertorian army dispersed.  Valentia, which Gaius Herennius held for Sertorius, was taken and razed to the ground.  The Romans, probably for a moment, cherished a hope that they were done with their tough antagonist.  The Sertorian army had disappeared; the Roman troops, penetrating far into the interior, besieged the general himself in the fortress Clunia on the upper Douro.  But while they vainly invested this rocky stronghold, the contingents of the insurgent communities assembled elsewhere; Sertorius stole out of the fortress and even before the expiry of the year stood once more as general at the head of an army.

Again the Roman generals had to take up their winter quarters with the cheerless prospect of an inevitable renewal of their Sisyphean war-toils.  It was not even possible to choose quarters in the region of Valentia, so important on account of the communication with Italy and the east, but fearfully devastated by friend and foe; Pompeius led his troops first into the territory of the Vascones(22) (Biscay) and then spent the winter in the territory of the Vaccaei (about Valladolid), and Metellus even in Gaul.

Indefinite and Perilous Character of the Sertorian War

For five years the Sertorian war thus continued, and still there seemed no prospect of its termination.  The state suffered from it beyond description.  The flower of the Italian youth perished amid the exhausting fatigues of these campaigns.  The public treasury was not only deprived of the Spanish revenues, but had annually to send to Spain for the pay and maintenance of the Spanish armies very considerable sums, which the government hardly knew how to raise.  Spain was devastated and impoverished, and the Roman civilization, which unfolded so fair a promise there, received a severe shock; as was naturally to be expected in the case ofan insurrectionary war waged with so much bitterness, and but too often occasioning the destruction of whole communities.  Even the towns which adhered to the dominant party in Rome had countless hardships to endure; those situated on the coast had to be provided with necessaries by the Roman fleet, and the situation of the faithful communities in the interior was almost desperate.  Gaul suffered