talents imposed upon Numantia and Termantia by Consul Quintus Aulus Pompeius in 139 BC, for which the Numantines and Termantines paid (albeit reluctantly) in the form of 3,000 ox-hides, 800 horses, and 9,000 saga (woollen cloaks). Religion They practised the rite of excarnation by exposing the corpses of warriors slain in battle to the vultures, as described by Silius Italicus and Claudius Aelianus, and attested by funerary stelae and painted pottery from Numantia. History Regarded by the Greeks and Romans as the most militaristic people of the eastern Meseta, the Arevaci were said by Herodotus to have embarked early on an expansionist policy by taking part in the Celtici migrations of the 5th century BC alongside off-shots of Lusones and Vaccaei peoples to settle in the Iberian southwest. In the late 4th-early 3rd centuries BC however, the Arevaci shifted the direction of their expansion to the east, towards the upper Duero and south into the central Iberian system mountains. Here they displaced the earlier inhabitants the Pellendones, conquering the towns of Savia and Numantia and submitted the Uraci, thus gaining control over the strategic towns of Aregrada (Ágreda? – Soria; Celtiberian mints: Areicoraticos/Arecorataz), Cortona (Medinaceli? – Soria), Segontia (Sigüenza – Guadalajara) and Arcobriga (Monreal de Ariza – Zaragoza). In around the mid-3rd century BC, the Arevaci founded with their neighbours the Lusones, Belli, and Titii, a tribal federation designated the Celtiberian confederacy, with Numantia as its capital. During the Second Punic War the confederacy kept itself neutral, though Celtiberian mercenaries are mentioned fighting for both sides on a number of occasions. The first Roman incursion into the Celtiberian heartland occurred around 195 BC under Consul Cato the Elder, who attacked unsuccessfully the towns of Seguntia Celtiberorum and Numantia, where he allegedly delivered a speech to the numantines. The Arevaci and the Belli revolted against Roman rule in the Celtiberian War. With the fall of Numantia in 134-133 BC, the Romans forcibly disbanded the Celtiberian confederacy and allowed the Pellendones and Uraci to regain their independence from the Arevaci, who were now technically submitted and absorbed into Hispania Citerior province. Nevertheless, the remaining Arevacian cities managed to keep much of their military capabilities intact, and led by Clunia and Termantia they helped defending Celtiberia from invasion attempts by both the Lusitani in 114 BC and the Cimbri, who poured from the Pyrenees around 104-103 BC. Emboldened by these successes – and