My thoughts on the historical novel Numantia by José Luis Corral

**Numantia**, by **José Luis Corral**, is a 2004 historical novel, 570 pages and hardcover, that can be found for **3.99 euros**. It covers the twenty years of Roman sieges against the Celtiberian city, between **153 and 133 BC**, and works as a history read for any audience.

There are books you buy with a raised eyebrow. A **570-page** hardcover volume from a prestigious publisher, signed by **José Luis Corral**, for **3.99 euros**. Written in **2004**, so it's already a few years old. Too cheap not to be suspicious. But sometimes the suspicion proves wrong and the book turns out to be exactly what it promised.

## Who wrote the novel and why it matters

**José Luis Corral** is not a novelist who does research to write. He is a historian, Professor of Medieval History at the **University of Zaragoza**, and is considered one of the fathers of the modern historical novel in the Spanish language. That difference shows in every chapter: when he describes a campaign, he knows what he's talking about.

The result is a novel that reads like fiction but holds up as popular history. The characters are both admirable and believable, with no conspiracy plots or far-fetched twists. No fireworks.

## Twenty years of wars around a single city

The main setting is **Numantia**, but the book doesn't confine itself to it. It spans the twenty years of successive Roman sieges, from **153 to 133 BC**, and along the way portrays the **Third Punic War** and the destruction of **Carthage**, the uprisings in **Greece** and **Macedonia**, the figure of **Viriatus**, and the campaigns against the Vaccaei, Vettones and Gallaeci in the Iberian northwest and centre.

The Numantine resistance was uncomfortable enough for Rome to force it to change its calendar. That gives a sense of what was at stake there. The book tells it without cheap epic and without turning the Celtiberians into superheroes.

## The flaws of a very cheap edition

At that price, something had to be off. Some paragraphs arrive with faded ink, a sign that the toner was running low at the print shop, though it's still perfectly readable. There are also a few typos, including a mix-up between city names: **Numantia** and **Termantia**. These are editing flaws, not text flaws, and trinc the plot you can figure them out on your own.

None of that spoils the reading. It's one of those books you'd make required reading in history class, not because it's mandatory, but because it's gripping. For anyone who works in the genre, finding this for **3.99 euros** is an anomaly unlikely to be repeated.