Lusitanians Discussion

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The Lusitanians (or Latin: Lusitani) were an Indo-European people living in the west of the Iberian Peninsula, where Portugal is located nowadays, prior the conquest by the Roman Republic and the subsequent incorporation of the territory into the Roman province of Lusitania. Since 193 BC, the Lusitanians had been fighting the Romans alone in Hispania. In 150 BC, they were defeated by Praetor Servius Galba: springing a treacherous trap, he killed 9,000 Lusitanians and later sold 20,000 more as slaves in Gaul (modern France). This massacre would not be forgotten by Viriathus, who three years later (147 BC) would become the leader of the Lusitanians, and severely damaged the Roman rule in Lusitania and beyond. In 139 BC, Viriathus was betrayed and killed in his sleep by his companions (who had been sent as emissaries to the Romans), Audax, Ditalcus and Minurus, bribed by Marcus Popillius Laenas. However, when the three returned to receive their reward from the Romans, the Consul Servilius Caepio ordered their execution, declaring, "Rome does not pay traitors".