Lucullus was disappointed and, "being greedy of fame and needing money because he was in straitened circumstances",[1] he attacked the Vaccaei, a Celtiberian tribe which lived further north and who were not at war with Rome, and did so without the authorisation of the senate.
[2] Lucullus then went the city of Intercatia (Villanueva del Campo, in the modern province of Zamora) whose inhabitants, having heard about Cauca, refused to ask for terms.
He struggled to seize the city, and his lieutenant, Scipio Africanus the Younger, promised the Intercatians that if they made a treaty it would not be broken.
Appian emphasised the greed of Lucullus and said that he fought these campaigns for the sake of gold and silver, which he thought were abundant all over Hispania.
The war with the Lusitanians was under the jurisdiction of Servius Sulpicius Galba, the praetor of Hispania Ulterior (Further Spain, roughly modern Andalusia) and Lucullus was wintering in his province.
He adorned it with statues which Lucius Mummius Achaicus, who defeated the Achaean League in Greece, had lent him.