by Polybius
SCIPIO IN SPAIN
34. In Iberia Publius Scipio took up his winter quarters at Tarraco, as I have already stated; and secured the fidelity and affection of the Iberians, to begin with, by the restoration of the hostages to their respective families. He found a voluntary supporter of his measures in the person of Edeco, the prince of the Edetani; who no sooner heard that New Carthage had been taken, and that Scipio had got his wife and children into his hands, than, concluding that the Iberians would change sides, he resolved to take the lead in the movement: conceiving that, by acting thus, he would best be able to get back his wife and children, and at the same time have the credit of joining the Romans by deliberate choice, and not under compulsion. And so it turned out. For as soon as the armies were dismissed to their winter quarters, he came to Tarraco, accompanied by his kinsfolk and friends; and there being admitted to an interview with Scipio, he said that “he thanked the gods heartily that he was the first of the native princes to come to him; for whereas the others were still sending ambassadors to the Carthaginians and looking to them for support, — even while stretching out their hands to the Romans, — he was come there to offer not only himself, but his friends and kinsfolk also, to the protection of Rome. If therefore he should have the honour to be regarded by him as a friend and ally, he would be able to render him important service both in the present and the future. For as soon as the Iberians saw that he had been admitted to Scipio’s friendship, and had obtained what he asked, they would all come in with a similar object, hoping to have their relatives restored, and to enjoy the alliance of Rome. Their affection being secured for the future by receiving such a mark of honour and benevolence, he would have in them sincere and ready coadjutors in all his future undertakings. He therefore asked to have his wife and children restored to him, and to be allowed to return home an acknowledged friend of Rome; in order that he might have a reasonable pretext for showing, to the best of his power, his own and his friends’ affection for Scipio himself and for the Roman cause.”
35. When Edeco had finished his speech, Scipio, who had been ready to gratify him from the first, and took the same view as to the policy of the proceeding, delivered him his wife and children, and granted the friendship which he asked. More than this, his subtle intellect made an extraordinary impression on the Iberian in the course of the interview; and having held out splendid hopes to all his companions for the future, he allowed him to return to his own country. This affair having rapidly got wind, all the tribes living north of the Ebro, such as had not done so before, joined the Romans with one consent.
Thus so far everything was going well with Scipio. After the departure of these people, he broke up his naval force, seeing that there was nothing to resist him at sea; and selecting the best of the crews, he distributed them among the maniples, and thus augmented his land forces.
But Andobales and Mandonius, the most powerful princes of the day in Iberia, and believed to be the most sincerely devoted to the Carthaginians, had long been secretly discontented and on the look-out for an opportunity: ever since Hasdrubal, under a pretence of having a doubt of their loyalty, had demanded a large sum of money, and their wives and daughters as hostages, as I have already narrated. And thinking that a convenient opportunity had now come, they got together their own forces, and, quitting the Carthaginian camp under cover of night, occupied a position sufficiently strong to secure their safety. Upon this, most of the other Iberians also abandoned Hasdrubal: having long been annoyed at the overbearing conduct of the Carthaginians, and now seizing the first opportunity to manifest their feelings.
36. This has often happened to people before. For though, as I have many times remarked, success in a campaign and victory over one’s enemies are great things, it requires much greater skill and caution to use such successes well. Accordingly, you will find that those who have gained victories are many times more numerous than those who have made good use of them. The Carthaginians at this crisis are an instance in point. After conquering the Roman armies, and slaying both the generals, Publius and Gnaeus Scipio, imagining that Iberia was their own without dispute, they began treating the natives tyrannically; and accordingly found enemies in their subjects instead of allies and friends. And they were quite rightly served, for imagining that the conduct necessary for keeping power was something different from that necessary for obtaining it; and for failing to understand that they keep empire best, who best maintain the same principles in virtue of which they gained it. And yet it is obvious enough, and has been again and again demonstrated, that men gain power by beneficent actions, and by holding out hopes of advantage to those with whom they are dealing; but that, as soon as they have got what they wanted, and begin to act wickedly and rule despotically, it is but natural that, as their rulers have changed, the feelings of the subjects should change too. So it was with the Carthaginians.
37. Surrounded by such difficulties Hasdrubal was agitated by many conflicting emotions and anxieties. He was vexed by the desertion of Andobales; vexed by the opposition and feud between himself and the other commanders; and greatly alarmed as to the arrival of Scipio, expecting that he would immediately bring his forces to attack him. Perceiving therefore that he was being abandoned by the Iberians, and that they were joining the Romans with one accord, he decided upon the following plan of action. He resolved that he must collect the best force he could, and give the enemy battle: if fortune declared in his favour he could then consider his next step in safety, but if the battle turned out unfavourably for him, he would retreat with those that survived into Gaul; and collecting from that country as many of the natives as he could, would go to Italy, and take his share in the same fortune as his brother Hannibal.
While Hasdrubal was arriving at this resolution, Publius Scipio was rejoined by Gaius Laelius; and, being informed by him of the orders of the Senate, he collected his forces from their winter quarters and began his advance: the Iberians joining him on the march with great promptness and hearty enthusiasm. Andobales had long been in communication with Scipio: and, on the latter approaching the district in which he was entrenched, he left his camp with his friends and came to Scipio. In this interview he entered upon a defence of himself in regard to his former friendship with the Carthaginians, and spoke of the services he had done them, and the fidelity which he had shown to them. He then went on to narrate the injustice and tyranny which he had experienced at their hands; and demanded that Scipio himself should be the judge of his pleas. If he were shown to be making ungrounded complaints against the Carthaginians, he might justly conclude him incapable of keeping faith with the Romans either: but if, on a review of these numerous acts of injustice he were proved to have had no other course than to desert the Carthaginians, Scipio might confidently expect that, if he now elected to join the Romans, he would be firm in his loyalty to them.
38. Andobales added many more arguments before finishing his speech; and when he had done, Scipio answered by saying that “he quite believed what he had said; and that he had the strongest reason for knowing about the insolent conduct of the Carthaginians, both from their treatment of the other Iberians, and conspicuously from their licentious behaviour to their wives and daughters, whom he had found occupying the position, not of hostages, but of captives and slaves; and to whom he had preserved such inviolable honour as could scarcely have been equalled by their very fathers themselves.” And upon Andobales and his companions acknowledging that they were quite aware of this, and falling at his feet and calling him king, all present expressed approval. Whereupon Scipio with emotion bade them “fear nothing, for they would experience nothing but kindness at the hands of the Romans.” He at once handed over his daughters to Andobales; and next day made the treaty with him, the chief provision of which was that he should follow the Roman commanders and obey their commands. This being settled, he returned to his camp; brought over his army to Scipio; and, having joined camps with the Romans, advanced with them against Hasdrubal.
; Now the Carthaginian general was encamped at Baecula, in the district of Castulo, not far from the silver mines. But when he learnt the approach of the Romans, he shifted his quarters; and his rear being secured by a river, and having a stretch of table-land in front of his entrenchment of sufficient extent for his troops to manœuvre, and bounded by a steep descent sufficiently deep for security, he stayed quietly in position: always taking care to post pickets on the brow of the descent. As soon as he came within distance, Scipio was eager to give him battle, but was baffled by the strength of the enemy’s position. After waiting two days, however, he became anxious, lest by the arrival of Mago and Hasdrubal, son of Gesco, he should find himself surrounded by hostile forces: he therefore determined to venture on an attack and make trial of the enemy.
39. His whole army having been got ready for battle, he confined the main body within his camp, but sent out the velites and some picked men of the infantry with orders to assault the brow of the hill and attack the enemy’s pickets. His orders were carried out with great spirit. At first the Carthaginian commander watched what was happening without stirring: but when he saw that, owing to the fury of the Roman attack, his men were being hard pressed, he led out his army and drew them up along the brow of the hill, trusting to the strength of the position. Meanwhile Scipio despatched all his light-armed troops with orders to support the advanced guard: and the rest of his army being ready for action, he took half of them under his own command, and going round the brow of the hill to the enemy’s left, began assaulting the Carthaginians; while he entrusted the other half to Laelius, with orders to make a similar attack on the right of the enemy. While this was going on, Hasdrubal was still engaged in getting his troops out of camp: for hitherto he had been waiting, because he trusted in the strength of the position, and felt confident that the enemy would never venture to attempt it. The attack, therefore, took him by surprise, before he was able to get his men on to the ground. As the Romans were now assaulting the two wings of the position which the enemy had not yet occupied, they not only mounted the brow of the hill in safety, but actually advanced to the attack while their opponents were still in all the confusion and bustle of falling in. Accordingly they killed some of them on their exposed flank; while others, who were actually in the act of falling in, they forced to turn and flee. Seeing his army giving way and retreating, Hasdrubal reverted to his preconceived plan; and determining not to stake his all upon this one desperate hazard, he secured his money and his elephants, collected as many of his flying soldiers as he could, and commenced a retreat towards the Tagus, with a view of reaching the passes of the Pyrenees and the Gauls in that neighbourhood.
Scipio did not think it advisable to pursue Hasdrubal at once, for fear of being attacked by the other Carthaginian generals; but he gave up the enemy’s camp to his men to pillage.
40. Next morning he collected the prisoners, amounting to ten thousand foot and more than two thousand horse, and busied himself in making arrangements about them. All the Iberians of that district, who were in alliance at that time with the Carthaginians, came in and submitted to the Roman obedience, and in addressing Scipio called him “king.” The first to do this and to bow the knee before him had been Edeco, and the next Andobales. On these occasions Scipio had passed the word over without remark; but after the battle, when all alike addressed him by that title, his attention was drawn to it; and he therefore summoned the Iberians to a meeting, and told them that “he quite wished to be called a man of royal liberality by them all, and to be so in the truest sense, but that he had no wish to be a ‘king,’ nor to be called one by any one; they should address him as general.”
Even at this early period of his career, an observer might have remarked the loftiness of Scipio’s character. He was still quite young. His good fortune had been so persistent, that all who came under his rule were led naturally to think and speak of him as a king. Yet he did not lose his self-control; but deprecated this popular impulse and this show of dignity. But this same loftiness of character was still more admirable in the closing scenes of his life, when, in addition to his achievements in Iberia, he crushed the Carthaginians; reduced the largest and fairest districts of Libya, from the Altars of Philaenus to the Pillars of Hercules, under the power of his country; conquered Asia and the kings of Syria; made the best and largest part of the world subject to Rome; and in doing so had numerous opportunities of acquiring regal sway, in whatever parts of the world suited his purpose or wish. For such achievements were enough to have kindled pride, not merely in any human breast, but even, if I may say so without irreverence, in that of a god. But Scipio’s greatness of soul was so superior to the common standard of mankind, that he again and again rejected what Fortune had put within his grasp, that prize beyond which men’s boldest prayers do not go — the power of a king: and he steadily preferred his country and his duty to that royalty, which men gaze at with such admiration and envy.
Scipio next proceeded to select from the captives the native Iberians, and all these he dismissed to their homes without ransom; and bidding Andobales select three hundred of the horses, he distributed the remainder among those who had none. For the rest, he at once occupied the entrenchment of the Carthaginians, owing to its excellent situation; and there he remained himself, waiting to see the movements of the other Carthaginian generals; while he detached a body of men to the passes of the Pyrenees to keep a look-out for Hasdrubal. After this, as it was getting late in season, he retired with his army to Tarraco being bent on wintering there....
AFFAIRS IN GREECE
41. The Aetolians had recently become greatly encouraged by the arrival of the Romans and King Attalus: and accordingly began menacing every one, and threatening all with an attack by land, while Attalus and Publius Sulpicius did the same by sea. Wherefore Achaean legates arrived at the court of King Philip entreating his help: for it was not the Aetolians alone of whom they were standing in dread, but Machanidas also, as he was encamped with his army on the frontier of Argos. The Boeotians also, in fear of the enemy’s fleet, were demanding a leader and help from the king. Most urgent of all, however, were the Euboeans in their entreaties to him to take some precaution against the enemy. A similar appeal was being made by the Acarnanians; and there was an embassy even from the Epirotes. News had arrived that both Scerdilaidas and Pleuratus were leading out their armies: and, over and above this, that the Thracian tribes on the frontier of Macedonia, especially the Maedi, were planning to invade Macedonia, if the king were induced to stir from his realm however short a distance. Moreover the Aetolians were already securing the pass of Thermopylae with trenches and stockades and a formidable garrison, satisfied that they would thus shut out Philip, and entirely prevent him from coming to the assistance of his allies south of the pass. It appears to me that a crisis of this sort is well worth the observation and attention of my readers; for it affords a trial and test of the vigour of the leader affected. As in the hunting-field the wild animals never show their full courage and strength until surrounded and brought to bay, — so it is with leaders. And no more conspicuous instance could be found than this of Philip. He dismissed the various embassies, promising each that he would do his best: and then devoted his attention to the war which surrounded him on all sides, watching to see in what direction, and against which enemy, he had best direct his first attack.
42. Just then intelligence reached him that Attalus had crossed the sea and, dropping anchor at Peparethos, had occupied the island. He therefore despatched a body of men to the islanders to garrison their city; and at the same time despatched Polyphontes with an adequate force into Phocis and Boeotia; and Menippus, with a thousand peltasts and five hundred Agrianes to Chalcis and the rest of Euboea; while he himself advanced to Scotusa, and sent word at the same time to the Macedonians to meet him at that town. But when he learnt that Attalus had sailed into the port of Nicaea, and that the leaders of the Aetolians were collecting at Heraclea, with the purpose of holding a conference tog
ether on the immediate steps to be taken, he started with his army from Scotusa, eager to hurry thither and break up their meeting. He arrived too late to interrupt the conference: but he destroyed or carried off the corn belonging to the people along the Aenianian gulf, and then returned. After this he left his army in Scotusa once more; and, with the light-armed troops and the royal guard, went to Demetrias, and there remained, waiting to see what the enemy would attempt. To secure that he should be kept perfectly acquainted with all their movements, he sent messengers to the Peparethii, and to his troops in Phocis and Euboea, and ordered them to telegraph to him everything which happened, by means of fire signals directed to Mount Tisaeum, which is a mountain of Thessaly conveniently situated for commanding a view of those places.
43. The method of signalling by fire, which is of the highest utility in the operations of war, has never before been clearly expounded; and I think I shall be doing a service if I do not pass it over, but give an account of it adequate to its importance. Now that opportuneness is of the utmost moment in all undertakings, and pre-eminently so in those of war, no one doubts; and of all the things which contribute to enable us to hit the proper time nothing is more efficacious than fire signals. For they convey intelligence sometimes of what has just happened, sometimes of what is actually going on; and by paying proper attention to them one can get this information at three or four days’ journey off, and even more: so that it continually happens that the help required may be unexpectedly given, thanks to a message conveyed by fire signals. Now, formerly, as the art of signalling by fire was confined to a single method, it proved in very many cases unserviceable to those employing it. For as it was necessary to employ certain definite signals which had been agreed upon, and as possible occurrences are unlimited, the greater number of them were beyond the competence of the fire signals to convey. To take the present instance: it was possible by means of the signals agreed upon to send the information that a fleet had arrived at Oreus or Peparethos or Chalcis; but it was impossible to express that “certain citizens had gone over to the enemy,” or “were betraying the town,” or that “a massacre had taken place,” or any of those things which often occur, but which cannot be all anticipated. Yet it is precisely the unexpected occurrences which demand instant consideration and succour. All such things then were naturally beyond the competence of fire signalling, inasmuch as it was impossible to adopt an arbitrary sign for things which it was impossible to anticipate.