Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 28, 2025
He, therefore, judging that he ought to make opposition, before every thing was alienated from him, having pitched his camp in sight of the enemy, led out his forces in battle-array; nor did it appear to the Roman, that the engagement ought to be deferred, as he knew that he must fight with Hanno and Hasdrubal, and wished rather to contend against each of them separately, than against both together.
He subsequently declared, that he had often conversed familiarly with many eloquent personages, but that he had never known a man more powerful or persuasive than the Prince of Parma. He could honestly say of him as Hasdrubal had said of Scipio that Farnese was even more admirable when seen face to face, than he had seemed when one only heard of his glorious achievements.
They now not only opposed no resistance to the passage of Hasdrubal, but many of them, out of love of enterprise and plunder, or allured by the high pay that he offered, took service with him; and thus he advanced upon Italy with an army that gathered strength at every league.
The people of Utica, thus beset on all sides with so formidable a force, placed all their hopes in the Carthaginians, and the Carthaginians in the chance there was that Hasdrubal could induce Syphax to take arms. But all their movements were made too slowly for the anxiety felt by those who were in want of assistance.
Into this lower plain Hasdrubal, the next day, when he saw the troops of the enemy drawn up before their camp, sent his Numidian cavalry and light-armed Baleares.
Since in the treaty of Lutatius, was expressly added, "that it should only be held good if the people sanctioned it;" but in the treaty of Hasdrubal, neither was there any such exception; and that treaty during its life had been so established by the silence of so many years, that not even after the death of its author was any change made in it.
The Roman deserters alone, 900 in number, and the general Hasdrubal with his wife and his two children had thrown themselves into the temple of the God of Healing; for them for soldiers who had deserted their posts, and for the murderer of the Roman prisoners there were no terms.
Hasdrubal stationed the Spaniards on the right wing, with his ten elephants in front of it, and the Gauls on the left, which he kept back.
But Hasdrubal, recollecting both the alliance which had been entered into by the king and Scipio, and how inconstant and changeable were the minds of the barbarians, was afraid that, if Scipio were to invade Africa, that marriage would prove but a slight bond of union, he therefore took advantage of the Numidian while under the influence of the first transports of love, and calling to his aid the caresses of the bride, prevailed upon him to send ambassadors into Sicily to Scipio, and by them to warn him "not to cross over into Africa in reliance upon his former promises.
When the elections were finished, the dictator, having abdicated his office and dismissed his army, set out for his province of Etruria, according to a decree of the senate, to make inquiry what states of the Tuscans and Umbrians had formed schemes of revolt from the Romans to Hasdrubal at the time of his approach, and what states had assisted him with auxiliaries, provisions, or succours of any kind.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking