From this onward, light begins to gather over Toledan history, dimly, of course, and by the very necessity of its vicissitudes, intermittent and dubious. After the fall of Carthage, we find, 191 years B.C., Marcus Fulvius Nobilior directing the Roman forces against the capital of Carpetania, and as besieger occupying the opposite bank of the Tagus. The reigning king of the Celtiberians was Hilermo. Fulvius defeated him in the plain, and then laid siege to the town and took it with ease. But though now subject to Rome, the Romans never appear to have dominated this stolid and sturdy Celtic race. Under whatever sway, Toledo ever wears its unwearying face of sullen independence. Rome itself could stamp no permanent impression on such a wilful and indomitable subject. Her armies might sweep it off the field of rebellion, but could neither chain it nor secure its sympathy. It remained obstinately neutral in all the successive Roman strifes; took no notice whatever of Viriate's imperious call from the foot of its walls to join him on the bank of the Tagus below, and wage war with him against the Praetor, Caius Plancius. What was Viriate to the aloof and self-centred Toledans more than a man of another country fighting a personal battle with which they had no concern? Toledo willingly opened its gates to Sylla's victim, Sertorius, and allowed him to shelter and nourish his hate and burning sense of injury behind its walls, but it flatly declined to help him in his plan of vengeance. He might stay there and win, as he did, the people's esteem and a kind of grudging affection, but war was his own affair, and if he stayed it should be as one of themselves, content with an inactive recognition of wrongs. To these wild and independent Celtiberians it mattered nothing whether Rome ran herself to ruin in her fierce quarrels and dissensions. So Sertorius stayed on in protected exile, almost as a ruler adopted by those who sheltered him, who yielded him admiration and sympathy, while sturdily declining to grant him troops or subsidies, and would not hear of marching under his leadership against the great Republic. This same haughty indifference Toledo maintained throughout the civil wars between Cæsar and Pompey, and showed the same coldness in the fortunes of Augustus. Her voice was not heard in the chorus of enthusiasm when the Temple of Janus was closed, and the Augustan peace affected her as little as had the previous disorders and rivalries and battles. Silent and sullen vassals Rome ever found these Toledans, holding themselves persistently aloof from all her interests. The single Roman ruler they appear to have favoured with some measure of homage was Marcus Julius Philippicus, who, to win his way with them probably granted them unrecorded favours or some special privilege. This rare mood of gratitude to Rome was expressed on a marble slab which Maestro Alvar Gomez, the chronicler of Cisneros, the great Cardinal, found in the porch of a door where it served as an ordinary seat: