[204-203 B.C.]

able force, and persuaded Syphax, his son-in-law, to lend his aid in relieving Utica. Scipio was encamped on a headland to the eastward of this town, on a spot which long retained the name of "the Cornelian camp," where the ruins of his entrenchments are still to be traced; and the Carthaginians hoped that they might blockade him here both by land and sea. Scipio remained quiet the whole winter, except that he amused Syphax by entering into negotiations for peace. But these negotiations were carried on to mask a design, which, as spring came on, he was enabled to put in practice. He observed that Hasdrubal occupied one

camp, and Syphax another. The huts occupied by the Numidians were formed of stakes wattled and thatched with reeds; and the quarters of the Carthaginians, though somewhat more substantial, consisted solely of timber. Scipio contrived to obtain an accurate knowledge of the plan and disposition of these camps; and when the time for the execution of his design was arrived, he suddenly broke off the negotiations, and told Syphax that all thoughts of peace must be deferred till a later time.

On the first dark night that followed, he sent Lælius and Masinissa against the camp of Syphax, while he moved himself towards that of Hasdrubal. Masinissa obtained an easy entrance into the lines of his countrymen, and straightway set fire to their inflammable habitations. The unfortunate men rose from their beds or from their wine-cups, and endeavoured to extinguish the flames. But the work had been too well done; and as they attempted to escape, they found that every avenue of the camp was beset by enemies. Fire was behind them, death by the sword before; and though Syphax escaped, his army was destroyed. The same fate befell Hasdrubal. On the first alarm, he conjectured the truth, and made off, leaving his men a prey to Scipio. When morning broke, the Romans pur

A ROMAN CITIZEN

sued the fugitives; and it is not too much to say that the whole force on which Carthage depended for safety was cut off in this horrible way. The recital makes the blood run cold. Yet neither the act itself, nor the duplicity by which it was carried into execution, were ever thought to cast any slur on the fair fame of Scipio.

The Carthaginian senate were ready to give up matters as lost. But at this juncture ten thousand Celtiberians landed in Africa and offered their services to Syphax; and this prince was persuaded by the entreaties of his wife Sophonisba, daughter of Hasdrubal Gisco, to renew the struggle. Hasdrubal also exerted himself to collect a new army; and in the course of thirty days the two allied generals appeared on the great plains, which lie

[203 B.C.]

about seventy or eighty miles to the southwest of Utica and Carthage. Scipio, leaving his fleet and a division of his army to continue the blockade of Utica, advanced to give them battle without delay. The Celtiberians made a stout resistance; but, being deserted by the rest of the army, they were entirely cut to pieces. Hasdrubal fled to Carthage, Syphax to his own kingdom; so that the whole country was left to the mercy of the Romans. Scipio advanced towards Carthage, receiving the submission of the different towns by which he passed. Encamping at Tunis, within sight of the capital, he awaited the submission of the government.

Meanwhile Lælius and Masinissa, with the Italian and Numidian cavalry, pursued Syphax to Cirta. The unlucky king made a faint show of resistance; but he was defeated, and his capital surrendered at discretion. Masinissa now received his reward, and was proclaimed king of all Numidia. When he entered Cirta, he was met by Sophonisba, formerly his betrothed, and now the wife of his rival. Her charms melted his heart; and fearing lest Scipio might claim her as his captive, to lead her in triumph by the side of Syphax, he took the bold step of marrying her at once. Scipio sent for the young chief and rebuked him sternly for venturing to take possession of a Roman captive. Masinissa felt that he was unable to protect his unhappy bride; but, resolved that at least she should have the option of escaping from the degradation of a Roman triumph, he sent her a cup of poison, telling her that herein lay her only possible deliverance. She took the potion, saying that she accepted the nuptial gift, and drained it to the dregs. When the tragical fate of Sophonisba reached the ears of Scipio, he feared that he had dealt too harshly with his Numidian ally. He sent for him, and, gently reproving him for his haste, he publicly presented him with the most honourable testimonies to his bravery and fidelity which a Roman general could bestow. In the delights of satisfied ambition and the acquisition of a powerful sovereignty, Masinissa soon forgot the sorrows of Sophonisba.

While Scipio remained at Tunis, the Carthaginian fleet made an attack on the Roman ships in the harbour of Utica, and gained some advantage. Intelligence also reached the government that Mago, on landing in Italy, had been welcomed by the Ligurians and a portion of the Gauls, and had lately taken position on the Po with a considerable force. Here, however, he was encountered by a Roman army and defeated after a severe struggle. Mago, himself wounded, took refuge among the Ligurians, who still remained faithful to his cause.

Ambassadors were now despatched by the Carthaginians to Rome to treat for peace, while orders were sent to Hannibal and Mago to return with such forces as they could bring. Mago obeyed the orders immediately, but died of his wound upon the passage. Hannibal also with bitter feelings prepared to obey. For sixteen years had the indomitable man maintained himself on foreign ground; and even now the remains of his veteran army clung to him with desperate fidelity. He felt that, so far as he was concerned, he had been more than successful; if he had failed, it had been the fault of that ungrateful country, which had left him long years unsupported, and now was recalling him to defend her from the enemy. What Scipio was now to Carthage, that might Hannibal have been to Rome. saw that no advantage could be gained by remaining longer in Italy: he therefore bade farewell to the foreign shores, so long his own, and set sail for that native land which had not seen him for nearly forty years.

Still he

Great was the joy at Rome when the news came that their dire enemy had been at length compelled to leave the shores of Italy. A public thanks

[203-202 B.C.]

giving was decreed; sacrifices offered to all the great gods of Rome, and the Roman games, which had been vowed by Marcellus in his last consulship, were now at length performed. It was at this moment of triumph that the Carthaginian ambassadors arrived. The senate received them (inauspicious omen!) in the Temple of Bellona. Lævinus moved that they should be at once dismissed, and that orders should be sent to Scipio to push on the war with vigour. After some debate, his proposition was adopted. The close of the year 203 B.C. therefore rendered it certain that the war must be decided by a trial of strength between the two great generals, who, each triumphant in his own career, had never yet encountered each other in arms. About the same time old Fabius died in extreme old age. He has the merit of first successfully opposing Hannibal; but his somewhat narrow mind, and the jealous obstinacy which often accompanies increasing years, prevented him from seeing that there is a time for all things; that his own policy was excellent for retrieving the fortunes of the republic, but that the weakness of Hannibal left the field open for the bolder measures of Scipio.

Hannibal landed at Leptis, to the south of Carthage, with his veterans; and thence marching northwards, took up his position on the plain of Zama, within five days' march of Carthage. Scipio, early in the year (202 B.C.), advanced from Tunis to meet him; and finding that the Carthaginian general had sent spies to ascertain his strength, he ordered them to be led through his camp, and bade them make a full report of what they had seen. Hannibal felt that he had to deal with a superior force, led by a general only second in ability to himself. His own veterans were few in number; the remainder of his army were raw levies or allies little to be trusted; the Numidian horse, his main arm in Italy, were now arrayed against him under the enterprising Masinissa. He therefore proposed a personal conference, in the faint hope that he might effect a treaty with Scipio. But it was too late. The generals parted from their conference with feelings of mutual esteem, and prepared to decide the fate of the civilised world by battle.b

THE BATTLE OF ZAMA DESCRIBED BY POLYBIUS

On the following day, as soon as the dawn appeared, they drew out their forces on both sides and prepared to engage; the Carthaginians, for their own safety and the possession of Africa; the Romans, for the sovereignty of the whole, and for universal empire. Is there any one that can forbear to pause at this part of the story or remain unmoved by the relation? Never were there seen more warlike nations; never more able generals, or more completely exercised in all the art and discipline of war; never was a greater prize proposed by fortune than that which was now laid before the combatants. For it was not Africa alone, nor Italy, that waited to award the conquerors, but the entire dominion of the whole known world. And this, indeed, was not long afterwards the event.

Scipio drew up his army in battle in the following manner: He placed in the first line the Hastati, leaving intervals between the cohorts. In the second, the Principes; but posted their cohorts, not, as the Roman custom was, opposite to the intervals, but behind the cohorts of the former line and at a considerable distance from them, on account of the great number of elephants that were in the Carthaginian army. Last of all, in the third line, he drew up the Triarii. Upon the left wing he stationed Caius Lælius, with the cavalry of Italy; and Masinissa and the Numidians upon the

[202 B.C.] right. The intervals of the first line he filled with companies of the lightarmed troops, who were ordered to begin the action, and if they should find themselves too violently pressed by the elephants, that the swiftest of them should retire through the strait intervals to the rear of all the army, and the rest, if they should be intercepted on their way, direct their course to the right or left along the open distances that were between the lines. When his disposition was thus completed, he went round to all the troops and harangued them in a few words, but such as the occasion seemed to require.

"Remember," said he, "your former victories, and show now a courage worthy of yourselves and of your country. Let it ever be present to your view that by gaining the victory in this battle, you not only will become the masters of all Africa, but secure to Rome the undisputed sovereignty of the rest of the world. If, on the other hand, you should be conquered, they who fall bravely in the action will obtain an honour far more glorious than any rights of sepulchre, the honour of dying for their country; while those that shall escape must be condemned to pass the remainder of their lives in the extremity of disgrace and misery. For Africa will afford no place of safety, and if you fall into the hands of the Carthaginians, what your condition must be your own reason will easily instruct you to foresee. But may none of you ever know it by experience. When fortune, then," continued he, "has offered to us upon either side so noble a prize, universal empire or glorious death, how lost must we be both to honour and to sense, if we should reject these, the greatest of goods, and choose, through a desire of life, the most insupportable of evils. When you advance, therefore, against the enemy, carry that resolution with you into action, which is sure always to surmount the strongest resistance. Be determined either to conquer or to die. Retain not so much as a thought of life. With such sentiments, the victory cannot fail to be your own.

Such was the harangue of Scipio. Hannibal, on his part, having placed the elephants, more than eighty in number, at the head of all the army, formed his first line of the mercenaries, who were a mixed multitude of Gauls, Ligurians, Balearics, and Maurusians, and amounted together to about twelve thousand men. Behind these were the Carthaginians and the subject Africans. The third line was composed of the troops which he had brought with him from Italy, and was placed at the distance of more than a stadium from the second line. The cavalry was posted upon the wings; that of the Numidian auxiliaries upon the left, and the Carthaginian cavalry upon the right. He ordered the officers who commanded the different bodies of the mercenaries to exhort severally their own soldiers, and to encourage them to be assured of victory, since they were now joined by Hannibal and his veteran forces. The leaders of the Carthaginians were instructed, on the other hand, to lay before their view the fatal consequences of a defeat, and to enumerate all evils to which their wives and children would be exposed. And while these orders were obeyed, he himself, going round to his own troops, addressed them with the greatest earnestness, and in words like these:

"Remember, soldiers, that we have now borne arms together during the course of seventeen years. Remember in how many battles we have been engaged against the Romans. Conquerors in them all, we have not left to the Romans even the smallest hope that they ever should be able to defeat But beside the other innumerable actions in which we always obtained the victory, remember also, above all the rest, the battle of Trebia, which we sustained against the father of that very general who now commands the

us.

[202 B.C.]

Roman army; the battle of Thrasymene, against Flaminius, and that of Cannæ, against Æmilius. The action in which we are now ready to engage is not to be compared with those great battles, with respect either to the number or the courage of the troops. For, turn now your eyes upon the forces of the enemy. Not only they are fewer; they scarcely make even a diminutive part of the numbers against which we were then engaged. Nor is the difference less with respect to courage. The former were troops whose strength was entire, and who had never been disheartened by any defeat. But these before us are either the children of the former or the wretched remains of those very men whom we subdued in Italy, and who have so often fled before us. Lose not then upon this occasion the glory of your general and your own. Preserve the name which you have acquired, and confirm the opinion which has hitherto prevailed, that you are never to be conquered."

When the generals had thus on both sides harangued their troops, and the Numidian cavalry for some time had been engaged in skirmishing against each other, all things being now ready, Hannibal ordered the elephants to be led against the enemy. But the noise of the horns and trumpets, sounding together on every side, so affrighted some of these beasts that they turned back with violence against their own Numidians, and threw them into such disorder that Masinissa dispersed without much difficulty that whole body of cavalry which was on the left of the Carthaginian army. The rest of the elephants, encountering with the light-armed forces of the Romans in the space that was between the armies, suffered much in the conflict, and made great havoc also among the enemy; till at last, having lost all courage, some of them took their way through the intervals of the Roman army, which afforded an open and safe passage for them, as Scipio wisely had foreseen; and the rest, directing their course to the right, were chased by darts from the cavalry, till they were driven quite out of the field. But as they occasioned likewise some disorder upon their own right wing in their flight, Lælius also seized that moment to fall upon the Carthaginian cavalry; and having forced them to turn their backs, he followed closely after them, while Masinissa, on his side, was pursuing the Numidian cavalry with no less ardour.

And now the heavy-armed forces on both sides advanced to action with a slow and steady pace, those troops alone excepted which had returned with Hannibal from Italy, and which remained still in the station in which they at first were placed. As soon as they were near, the Romans, shouting all together, according to their custom, and rattling their swords against their bucklers, threw themselves upon the enemy. On the other side, the Carthaginian mercenaries advanced to the charge with confused and undistinguishable cries. For as they had been drawn together, as we have said, from different countries, there was not among them, as the poet expresses it (Iliad, IV, 437):

"One voice, one language found;

But sounds discordant as their various tribes."

In this first onset, as the combatants were so closely joined that they were unable to make use of their spears, or even of their swords, and maintained the action hand to hand and man to man, the mercenaries, by their boldness and dexterity, obtained at first the advantage, and wounded many of the Romans; but the latter, assisted by the excellence of their disposition and the nature of their arms, pressed forward and still gained ground, being supported by the rest of their own army, who followed and encouraged them from behind.

H. W.-VOL. V. U