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Updated: June 8, 2025
While the Carthaginians, therefore, were occupied with the Celtiberian war, they promptly crossed the Iberus, and not seeing any enemy, pursue their course to Saguntum; for it was reported that the hostages from every part of Spain, having been consigned to custody, were kept in the citadel of that place under a small guard.
Having thus gone round through the tribes of Spain and Gaul, the ambassadors return to Rome not long after the consuls had set out for their provinces. They found the whole city on tiptoe in expectation of war, the report being sufficiently confirmed, that the Carthaginians had already passed the Iberus.
But so transcendent was the Roman knight in authority and honour among the troops, that when, after fortifying a camp on this side of the Iberus, it had been resolved that a general of the two armies should be elected in an assembly of the soldiers, relieving each other in the guard of the rampart, and in keeping the outposts until every one had given his vote, they unanimously conferred the supreme command upon Lucius Marcius.
Now, when two praetors of the Romans, when a consul, and three armies are employed in Spain, and, for near ten years past, no Carthaginian has been in either of its provinces, yet we have lost that empire on the hither side of the Iberus.
He was at liberty to extend his conquests there in all directions west of the River Iberus, a river which the reader will find upon the map, flowing southeast into the Mediterranean Sea. Its name, Iberus, has been gradually changed, in modern times, to Ebro. By the treaty with the Romans the Carthaginians were not to cross the Iberus.
Thus, so far as related to Sicily, the war was this year terminated. In Spain, in the beginning of spring, Publius Scipio, having launched his ships, and summoned the auxiliary troops of his allies to Tarraco by an edict, ordered his fleet and transports to proceed thence to the mouth of the Iberus.
This army Nero embarked at Puteoli, and conveyed over into Spain. Having arrived at Tarraco with his ships, landed his troops, hauled his ships ashore, and armed his mariners to augment his numbers, he proceeded to the river Iberus, and received the army from Titus Fonteius and Lucius Marcius. He then marched towards the enemy.
The River Iberus was the boundary which separated the dominions of the two nations from each other in Spain, the territory east of that boundary being under the Roman power, and that on the west under that of the Carthaginians; except that Saguntum, which was on the western side, was an ally of the Romans, and the Carthaginians were bound by the treaty to leave it independent and free.
The same year the war was prosecuted in Spain with various success; for before the Romans crossed the Iberus, Mago and Hasdrubal had routed an immense army of Spaniards; and the farther Spain would have revolted from the Romans, had not Publius Cornelius, hastily crossing the Iberus with his army, given a seasonable stimulus to the wavering resolutions of his allies by his arrival among them.
But since, now, by the favour of the gods, our purpose and endeavour is not that we may remain in Spain ourselves, but that the Carthaginians may not; and not to stand on the bank of the Iberus, and hinder the enemy from crossing that river, but cross it first ourselves, and carry the war to the other side, I fear lest to some among you the enterprise should appear too important and daring, considering your late misfortunes, which are fresh in your recollection, and my years.
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