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.
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Siege of Numantia in the context of Gaius Marius
Gaius Marius (Latin: [ˈɡaːiʊs ˈmariʊs]; c. 157 BC – 13 January 86 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. Victor of the Cimbric and Jugurthine wars, he held the office of consul an unprecedented seven times. Rising from a family of smallholders in a village called Ceraetae in the district of Arpinum, Marius acquired his initial military experience serving with Scipio Aemilianus at the Siege of Numantia in 134 BC. He won election as tribune of the plebs in 119 BC and passed a law limiting aristocratic interference in elections. Barely elected praetor in 115 BC, he next became the governor of Further Spain where he campaigned against bandits.
Marius attained his first consulship in 107 BC and became the commander of Roman forces in Numidia, where he brought an end to the Jugurthine War. By 105 BC Rome faced an invasion by the Cimbri and Teutones, and the comitia centuriata elected Marius consul for a second time to face this new threat. Marius was consul every year from 104 to 100 BC, and he defeated the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae and the Cimbri at Vercellae. However, Marius suffered political setbacks during his sixth consulship in 100 BC and afterwards entered a period of semi-retirement from public life.