Numantine War in the context of "Tiberius Gracchus"

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Aemilianus (185 BC – 129 BC), known as Scipio Aemilianus or Scipio Africanus the Younger, was a Roman general and statesman noted for his military exploits in the Third Punic War against Carthage and during the Numantine War in Spain. He oversaw the final defeat and destruction of the city of Carthage. He was a prominent patron of writers and philosophers, the most famous of whom was the Greek historian Polybius. In politics, he opposed the populist reform program of his murdered brother-in-law, Tiberius Gracchus.

The Celtiberian oppidum of Numantia was attacked more than once by Roman forces, but the siege of Numantia refers to the culminating and pacifying action of the long-running Numantine War between the forces of the Roman Republic and those of the native population of Hispania Citerior. The Numantine War was the third of the Celtiberian Wars and it broke out in 143 BC. A decade later, in 133 BC, the Roman general and hero of the Third Punic War, Scipio Aemilianus Africanus, subjugated Numantia, the chief Celtiberian city.

Lucius Licinius Lucullus was a Roman politician who became consul in 151 BC.

Lucullus was sent to Hispania Citerior (Nearer Spain, on the east coast of Hispania) when the senate rejected a proposal for a peace treaty with the Celtiberians by Marcus Claudius Marcellus to end the Numantine War (154–152 BC). However, Marcellus went ahead with his plan and quickly concluded a treaty before Lucullus got there. Lucullus was disappointed and, "being greedy of fame and needing money because he was in straitened circumstances", he attacked the Vaccaei, a Celtiberian tribe which lived further north and who were not at war with Rome, and did so without the authorisation of the senate. He claimed that they had mistreated the Carpetani as an excuse.