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Thou wast worthy of the empire, and Scipio Africanus honours thy virtue. Titus. My virtue can have no greater reward from the approbation of man. But, O Scipio, think what anguish my heart must have felt when I took that resolution, and when I communicated it to my dear, my unhappy Berenice. You saw the struggle of Masinissa, when you forced him to give up his beloved Sophonisba.
Masinissa, hearing of the death of his uncle, and afterwards that his cousin-german was slain, passed over out of Spain into Mauritania. Bocchar was king of the Moors at that time. Applying to him as a suppliant, he succeeded, by means of the most humble entreaties, in obtaining from him four thousand Moors to escort him on his march, since he could not procure his co-operation in the war.
The Carthaginians, reduced to great extremity by Scipio's repeated victories, call Hannibal home from Italy; he holds a conference with Scipio on the subject of peace, and is again defeated by him in battle. The Carthaginians sue for peace, which is granted them. Masinissa reinstated in his kingdom. Scipio returns to Rome; his splendid triumph; is surnamed Africanus.
He increased the honour by observing, that among the Romans there was nothing more magnificent than a triumph; and that those who triumphed were not arrayed with more splendid ornaments than those with which the Roman people considered Masinissa alone, of all foreigners, worthy.
This was actually brought to pass by Scipio the Younger, but it was chiefly owing to the counsels of Cato that the war was begun. His reason for insisting on its destruction was this. He was sent on a mission to Africa to investigate the grounds of a quarrel which existed between the Carthaginians and Masinissa, the king of the Numidians.
The Moors and Numidians were terrified with subjection to the government of Masinissa, which he would exercise with despotic severity. Different grounds of hope and fear were represented to different persons.
The practical outcome was his decisive overthrow at the battle of Magnesia, and the cession to Rome of Asia Minor. Pergamus, under the house of Actalus, was established as a protected kingdom, as Numidia under Masinissa had been.
The boy had been neglected during the lifetime of his grandfather, Masinissa; perhaps the hope that Mastanabal might yet beget a representative worthy of the succession caused little importance to be attached to the concubine's son, in spite of the fact that it was the policy of the Numidian monarchs to keep as many heirs in reserve as it was possible for them to procure.
I suppose that you hear, Scipio, what your grandfather's host, Masinissa, is doing at this day, at the age of ninety.
The imputation being thus thrown on the state, less pains were taken in searching into the suspicions harboured of a few individuals: however, it was determined, that ambassadors should be sent to Rome, to represent the affair to the consuls and the senate, and, at the same time, to complain of the injuries received from Masinissa.
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