In 1905 the German archaeologist Adolf Schulten began a series of excavations which located the Roman camps around the city.
•
Several Spanish Navy ships have been named Numancia and a Sorian battalion was named batallón de numantinos.
•
Miguel de Cervantes (author of Don Quixote) wrote a play about the siege, El cerco de Numancia, which stands today as his best-known dramatic work.
•
This industrial estate has been planned for El Cabezo, which is adjacent to Numantia and the Roman encampment (and would also affect part of the Romanesque site of Los Arcos de San Juan de Duero).
Schulten led the 1905-12 excavations of the celtiberian city of Numantia and the Roman camps nearby and in 1924 searched without success for the location of Tartessos.
Such was their reputation that when a battered Roman army under Consul Gaius Hostilius Mancinus was besieging Numantia in 137 BC, the rumour of the approach of a large combined Cantabri-Vaccaei relief force was enough to cause the rout of 20,000 panic-stricken Roman legionaries, forcing Mancinus to surrender under humiliating peace terms.
He was sent to Spain during his consulship to succeed his colleague Gaius Hostilius Mancinus, who had been defeated by the Numantines.