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Updated: June 8, 2025
Our fathers, at a time when the Carthaginians had in Spain both commanders and armies, and had themselves neither commander nor soldiers there, nevertheless insisted on its being an article of treaty, that the river Iberus should be the boundary of their empire.
A military tribune with some light-armed auxiliaries being sent against these by Scipio, with a small effort put them all to the rout, as being but a disorderly band: some having been captured and slain, a great portion of them were deprived of their arms. This disturbance, however, brought back Hasdrubal, who was retiring to the ocean, to protect his allies on this side the Iberus.
If your treaties do not bind you unless they are made by your authority and your commands, neither can the treaty of Hasdrubal, which he made without our knowledge, be binding on us. Cease, therefore, to make mention of Saguntum and the Iberus, and let your mind at length bring forth that with which it has long been in labour."
In the mean time Hannibal was moving on, as the spring advanced, toward the banks of the Iberus, that frontier stream, the crossing of which made him an invader of what was, in some sense, Roman territory. He boldly passed the stream, and moved forward along the coast of the Mediterranean, gradually approaching the Pyrenees, which form the boundary between France and Spain.
Full of anxiety and care on these accounts, they assembled their forces at the Iberus, and crossed the river; and after deliberating for some time whether they should encamp opposite to the enemy, or be satisfied with impeding his intended march by attacking the allies of the Carthaginians, they made preparations for besieging a city called Ibera, from its contiguity to the river, which was at that time the wealthiest in that quarter.
Thus in this reign of twenty-three years Æmilius Rectus was succeeded by Vetrasius Pollio; and on his death Tiberius gave the government to his freedman Iberus. During the last five years Egypt was under the able but stern government of Flaccus Avillius, whose name is carved on the temple of Tentyra with that of the emperor.
They declared, that he had not only crossed the Alps, but the Iberus also, without the sanction of the senate; and that he had made war not only on the Romans, but previously on the Saguntines also, on his own individual responsibility.
Scipio himself partook in this opinion, and cherished it; and the extraordinary success of all his enterprises must have strengthened his belief. Toward the end of the summer, in B.C. 210, or, as Livy says, at the beginning of spring, Scipio set out for Spain with an army of 11,000 men, landed at the mouth of the Iberus, and undertook the command of the whole Roman forces in Spain.
Setting out from Tarraco, on the second day, he reached a convenient station, ten miles from the mouth of the Iberus. Two ships of the Massilians, sent forward from that place reconnoitering, brought word back that the Carthaginian fleet was stationed in the mouth of the river, and that the camp was pitched upon the bank.
While the Romans thus prepare and deliberate, Saguntum was already besieged with the utmost vigour. That city, situated about a mile from the sea, was by far the most opulent beyond the Iberus.
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