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The masses that had been brought into the field against Sertorius were reckoned, including the Spanish general levy, at 120,000 infantry, 2000 archers and slingers, and 6000 cavalry. Against this enormous superiority of force Sertorius had not only held his ground in a series of successful conflicts and victories, but had also reduced the greater part of Spain under his power.
XIII. Besides this, Metellus was now growing old, and after so many great battles was somewhat inclined to an easy and luxurious mode of life; and he was opposed to Sertorius, a man full of the vigour of mature age, whose body was wonderfully furnished with strength, activity, and power of endurance.
But Pompeius himself, after everybody else, and some time later when he was sent into Iberia as proconsul against Sertorius, began to call himself in his letters and edicts Magnus Pompeius; for the name was no longer invidious when people had been made familiar with it.
It was time that Sertorius should appear in person, and throw the superiority of his numbers and of his genius into the scale against the greater excellence of the soldiers of his opponent.
All the press gave back before so stark a champion, till in his path stood neither great nor small. The King of Libya Sertorius to name was a lord exceeding rich. Arthur struck the head from his shoulders. "In an ill hour you drew from the east to bear arms in this quarrel, and to furnish drink for Excalibur". But the dead man answered never a word.
"Now was Sertorius very heauie, that no man could tell him what was become of his white hind: for thereby all his subtilltie and finenesse to keepe the barbarous people in obedience was taken away, and then specially when they stood in need of most comfort.
But in Spain, the senators about Sertorius, and others of the nobility, finding themselves strong enough for their enemies, no sooner laid aside fear, but their minds were possessed by envy and irrational jealousies of Sertorius's power.
It was an Iberian usage for those whose station was about the commander to die with him when he fell in battle, which the barbarians in those parts express by a term equivalent to the Greek "devotion." Now only a few shield-bearers and companions followed the rest of the commanders; but many thousands followed Sertorius, and were devoted to die with him.
The Africans tell that Antaeus was buried in this city, and Sertorius had the grave opened, doubting the story because of the prodigious size, and finding there his body, in effect, it is said, full sixty cubits long, he was infinitely astonished, offered sacrifice, and heaped up the tomb again, gave his confirmation to the story, and added new honors to the memory of Antaeus.
And it is interesting to learn that there is to-day at that city a university which bears the title "University of Sertorius." But it is not the valor nor the sagacity of Sertorius which made him the favorite of poets; but the story of the White Hind, which he made to serve him so ingeniously in establishing his authority with the Lusitanians.
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