It is true that the Spaniards showed themselves, not only when behind the walls of their cities or under the leadership of Hannibal, but even when left to themselves and in the open field of battle, no contemptible opponents; with their short two-edged sword which the Romans subsequently adopted from them, and their formidable assaulting columns, they not unfrequently made even the Roman legions waver.

Had they been able to submit to military discipline and to political combination, they might perhaps have shaken off the foreign yoke imposed on them.

But their valour was rather that of the guerilla than of the soldier, and they were utterly void of political judgment.

Thus in Spain there was no serious war, but as little was there any real peace; the Spaniards, as Caesar afterwards very justly pointed out to them, never showed themselves quiet in peace or strenuous in war.

Easy as it was for a Roman general to scatter a host of insurgents, it was difficult for the Roman statesman to devise any suitable means of really pacifying and civilizing Spain.