emperor. Protected by their mountainous country, the Gallaican tribes did not fell under Carthaginian rule at the later 3rd century BC, though a combined Gallaeci-Lusitani mercenary contingent led by a chieftain named Viriathus (not to be confused with the later Lusitani general bearing the same name that battled the Romans in Spain in the mid-2nd century BC) is mentioned in Hannibal's army during his march to Italy during the Second Punic War, participating in the battles of Lake Trasimene and Cannae. On his epic poem Punica, Silius Italicus gives a short description of these mercenaries and their military tactics: The Gallaeci came to direct contact with Rome relatively late, in the wake of the Roman punitive campaigns against their southern neighbours, the Lusitani and the Turduli Veteres. Regarded as hardy fighters, Gallaeci warriors fought for the Lusitani during Viriathus' campaigns in the south, and in 138-136 BC they faced the very first Roman incursion into their territory by consul Decimus Junius Brutus, whose campaign reached as far as the river Nimis (possibly the Minho or Miño). After seizing the town of Talabriga (Marnel, Lamas do Vouga – Águeda) from the Turduli Veteres, he crushed an allegedly 60,000-strong Gallaeci relief army sent to support the Lusitani at a desperate and difficult battle near the Durius river, in which 50,000 Gallaicans were slain, 6,000 were taken prisoner and only a few managed to escape, before withdrawing south. It remains unclear if the Gallaeci participated actively in the Sertorian Wars, although a fragment of Sallust records the sertorian legate Marcus Perperna Veiento capturing the town of Cale in around 74 BC. Later in 61-60 BC the propraetor of Hispania Ulterior Julius Caesar forced upon them the recognition of Roman suzerainty after defeating the northern Gallaeci in a combined sea-and-land battle at Brigantium (also designated Carunium; Betanzos – La Coruña), but it remained mostly nominal until the outbreak of the first Astur-Cantabrian War in 29 BC. Paulus Orosius briefly mentions that the Augustan legates Gaius Antistius Vetus and Gaius Firmius fought a difficult campaign to subdue the Gallaeci tribes of the more remote forested and mountainous parts of Gallaecia bordering the Atlantic Ocean, defeating them only after a series of severe battles, though no exact details are given. After conquering Gallaecia, Augustus promptly used its territory – now part of his envisaged Transduriana Province, whose organization was entrusted to consul Lucius Sestius Quirinalis Albinianus