Note 156 — LIFE OF SERTORIUS.

Seguntum, or Saguntia, as it is written in Appian (i. 110). It is not certain what place is meant. Some critics would read "in the plains of the Saguntini," by which might be meant the neighbourhood of Saguntum, a town on the east coast between the mouths of the Ebro and the Xucar, which was taken by Hannibal in the second Punic War (Liv. 21, c. 15). The maps place a Segontia on the Tagonius, another on the Salo (Xalon), a branch of the Ebro, and a Saguntia in the country of the Vaccæi on the northern branch of the Douro. Pompeius in his letter to the Senate speaks of the capture of the camp of Sertorius near Sucro, his defeat on the Durius, and the capture of Valentia. If the Durius be the Douro, this Segontia may be one of the towns called Segontia in the north-west of Spain. But the Durius may be the Turia, the river of Valentia, and Segontia may be Saguntum. The fact of Pompeius wintering among the Vaccæi is perhaps in favour of a north-west Segontia; but still I think that Saguntum was the battle-field. This battle is mentioned by Appian (Civil Wars, i. 110), who says that Pompeius lost six thousand men, but that Metellus defeated Perperua, who lost about five thousand men.