Plutarch wrote Parallel Lives, paired Greek and Roman biographies of character, virtue, and vice. This volume is Sertorius, matched with Eumenes: gifted commanders who lived on the run and were murdered by men they had saved. The story moves from Italy to Spain.

Quintus Sertorius, one-eyed, lost the civil war in Italy and won a second one in Spain. He made a republic in exile: Spanish and Roman troops mixed, a Senate of refugees (Rome’s council, now abroad), and a white fawn at his side that the Lusitani, a people of western Iberia, took for a god’s messenger. Pompey was sent against him and did not win quickly. He beat Metellus, taught highlanders discipline, and was stabbed at a feast by Perpenna. The fawn was gone; the war collapsed. Spain kept his name longer than Rome kept his cause.