NUMANTIA  , an

ancient hill fortress in northern Spain, in the province of Soria (Old Castile), overhanging the village of Garray, near the town of Soria, on the upper Douro . Here, on a small isolated high plateau in the middle of the valley, was the stronghold which played the principal part in a famous struggle between the conquering Romans and the native Spaniards during the years 154-133 B.C . Numantia was especially concerned in the latter part of this war from 144 onwards . It was several times unsuccessfully besieged . Once the Roman general Hostilius Mancinus with his whole army was compelled to surrender (137) . Finally, Scipio Aemilianus, Rome's first and only general in that age, with some 6o,000 men drew round the town 6 m. of continuous entrenchments with seven camps at intervals . After 15 months (134-133) he reduced by hunger the 6000-8000 Numantine soldiers, much as Caesar afterwards reduced Alesia in Gaul . The result was regarded as a glorious victory, and in Roman literature the fall of Numantia was placed beside the fall of Carthage (149 B.C.) . In truth, the maintenance in effective condition of so large a Roman force in so remote and difficult a region was in itself a real achievement and such as at that time no one but Scipio could have performed . He redeemed by organized strategy the vacillations and follies of statesmen who had sat at home and sent out inadequate expeditions or incompetent commanders . The site was, under the Roman Empire, occupied by a Roman town called Numantia, and the Itinerary tells of a Roman road which ran past it . It is to-day a " Monumento Nacional " of Spain, and has yielded (1905-1910), who has traced the Celtiberian town, the lines of Scipio and several other Roman camps dating from the Numantine Wars .

(F . J .