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On Sulla's return from the East in 83, and following the subsequent collapse of the Populares power, Sertorius retreated to Hispania as proconsul, representing the Populares. The Roman officials in Hispania did not recognize his authority, but Sertorius assumed control as he had an army. Sertorius sought to hold Hispania by sending an army, under Julius Salinator, to fortify the pass through the Pyrenees; however, Sulla's forces, under the command of Gaius Annius, broke through after Salinator was killed by treachery.

Having been obliged to withdraw to North Africa, he carried on a campaign in Mauretania, in which he defeated one of Sulla's generals and captured Tingis (Tangier). This success won him the fame and admiration of the people of Hispania, particularly that of the Lusitanians in the west (in modern Portugal), whom Roman generals and proconsuls of Sulla's party had plundered and oppressed. The Lusitanians then offered Sertorius to be their general, and when arriving to their lands, bringing additional forces from Africa, he held supreme authority and started invading neighbouring territory.

Brave, noble, and gifted with eloquence, Sertorius was just the man to impress them favourably, and the native warriors, whom he organized, spoke of him as the "new Hannibal." His skill as a general was extraordinary, as he repeatedly defeated forces many times his own size. Many Roman refugees and deserters joined him, and with these and his Hispanian volunteers he completely defeated several of Sulla's generals (Fufidius, Lucius Domitius and Thoranius) and drove Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, who had been specifically sent against him from Rome, out of Lusitania, or Hispania Ulterior as the Romans called it at the time.

Sertorius owed some of his success to his prodigious ability as a statesman. His goal was to build a stable government in Hispania with the consent and co-operation of the people, whom he wished to civilize along the lines of the Roman model. He established a senate of 300 members, drawn from Roman emigrants (probably including some from the highest nobles of Hispania) and kept a Hispanian bodyguard. For the children of the chief native families he provided a school at Osca (Huesca), where they received a Roman education and even adopted the dress and education of Roman youths, following the Roman practice of taking hostages. Late in his campaign, a revolt of the native people arose and Sertorius killed several of the children that he had sent to school at Osca, and sold many others into slavery

So in what situaton could we have Hispania emerge as an Republic independent of Rome?
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