Viriato

Viriathus (known as Viriato in Portuguese and Spanish) (? - 139 BC) was the most important leader of the Lusitanian people that resisted Roman expansion into the regions of Western Iberia (as the Romans would call it), where the Roman province of Lusitania would be established (in the areas comprising Portugal, south of the Douro river, and Extremadura in Spain). Viriathus led the Lusitanians to several victories over the Romans between 147 BC and 139 BC before he was betrayed to the Romans and killed. Of him, Theodor Mommsen said "It seemed as if, in that thoroughly prosaic age, one of the Homeric heroes had reappeared."
Death
Knowing that the Lusitanian resistance was largely due to Viriathus' leadership, Quintus Servilius Caepio bribed Audax, Ditalcus and Minurus,who had been sent by Viriathus as an embassy to establish peace (Appian[41]). These ambassadors returned to their camp and killed Viriathus while he was sleeping. Eutropius claims that when Viriathus' assassins asked Q. Servilius Caepio for their payment he answered that "it was never pleasing to the Romans, that a general should be killed by his own soldiers."[42], or in another version more common in today Portugal, "Rome does not pay traitors who kill their chief". Quintus Servilius Caepio was refused his Triumph by the Senate.
After the death of Viriathus, the Lusitanians kept fighting under the leadership of Tantalus (Greek: Τάνταλος).
Laenas would finally give the Lusitanians the land they originally had asked for before the massacre. Nevertheless total pacification of Lusitania was only achieved under Augustus. Under Roman rule, Lusitania and its people gradually acquired Roman culture and language.
Viriathus stands as the most successful leader in Iberia that ever opposed the Roman conquest. During the course of his campaigns he was only defeated in battle against the Romans once, and from a military standpoint can be said to have been one of the most successful generals to ever have opposed Rome's expansion anywhere in the world. Ultimately even the Romans recognized that it was more prudent to use treachery rather than open confrontation to defeat the Lusitanian uprising. Some fifty years later, the renegade Roman general, Quintus Sertorius, at the head of another insurrection in Iberia, would meet a similar fate.

[edit] Legacy
Viriathus became a long time symbol of Portuguese Nationality and Independence, being evocated and celebrated by artists and politicians throughout the centuries. Diogo Freitas do Amaral has recently written a play based on his life and death.