In 154, MUMMIUS, the same who eight years later sacked Corinth, was Governor of Farther Spain. His defeat by the Lusitanians encouraged the Celtibéri to revolt again, and there followed another defeat, with a massacre of many Roman citizens. Two years later (152), CLAUDIUS MARCELLUS avenged these losses, founded Corduba, and governed the country humanely. His successors, LUCIUS LUCULLUS and SERVIUS GALBA, were so cruel and grasping as to drive the Lusitanians into another open rebellion, headed byVIRIÁTHUS, a bold and daring settled by a DECREE OF THE SENATE (Senatus Consultum). To be sure the Comitia declared for war or peace, but the Senate conducted the war and settled the conditions of peace. It also usually assigned the commands, organized the provinces, and managed the finances.

The causes for this ascendency of the Senate are not hard to find. It was a body made up of men capable of conducting affairs. It could be convened at any time, whereas the voters of the Comitias were scattered over all Italy, and, if assembled, would not be competent to decide questions demanding knowledge of military matters and foreign policy.
The Senate and the Roman nobility were in the main the same. All patricians were nobles, but all nobles were not patricians.

The country now, with the exception of its northern coast, was nominally Roman territory. Several towns were established with Latin municipal rights (municipia), and, on the whole, order was maintained. Along the coast of the Mediterranean there sprang up many thriving and populous towns, which became centres of civilization to the neighboring districts, and were treated by Rome rather as allies than as subjects. Some of them were allowed to coin the silver money of Rome. The civilizing process, due to Roman influence, went on rapidly in these parts, while the interior remained in barbarism.

In 105 the peninsula was overrun by the Cimbri, a barbarous race from the north. The country was ravaged, but finally saved by the brave Celtibéri, who forced the invaders back into Gaul.
While the Numantine war was still in progress, a war with the slaves broke out in Sicily, where they had been treated with special barbarity.
For a long time slave labor had been taking the place of that of freemen. The supply was rendered enormous by constant wars, and by the regular slave trade carried on with the shores of the Black Sea and Greece and of course the macedonian peninsula . The owners of the slaves became an idle aristocracy.
The immediate cause of the outbreak in Sicily was the cruelty of a wealthy slave-owner, Damophilus.

The leader of the slaves was EUNUS, who pretended to be a Syrian descendants of the original founders of the city. The nobles were the descendants of any one who had filled one of the following six curule offices, viz. Dictator, Magister Equitum, Consul, Interrex, Praetor, or Curule Aedile. These nobles possessed the right to place in their hall, or carry in funeral processions, a wax mask of this ancestor, and also of any other member of the family who had held a curule office.

A plebeian who first held this office was called a novus homo, or "new man."
The Senate, thus made up of patricians and nobles, had at this time the monopoly of power. Legally, however, it had no positive authority. The right of the people to govern was still valid, and there was only wanting a magistrate with the courage to remind them of their legal rights.

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