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It was perhaps internal intrigues Hasdrubal the emigrant brought the general of the same name, who commanded in the city, into suspicion on account of his relationship with Massinissa, and caused him to be put to death in the senate-house rather than the activity of the Romans, that prevented things from assuming a turn still more favourable for Carthage. Scipio Aemilianus
Before the eyes of Scipio Aemilanus, who at that time a military tribune in the Spanish army, had been sent to Massinissa to bring over African elephants for his commander, and who on this occasion looked down on the conflict from a mountain "like Zeus from Ida," the Carthaginians and Numidians fought a great battle, in which the former, though reinforced by 6000 Numidian horsemen brought to them by discontented captains of Massinissa, and superior in number to the enemy, were worsted.
The difficult task of reducing so well fortified a city was rendered still more difficult by the fact, that the resources of the capital itself and of its territory which still included 800 townships and was mostly under the power of the emigrant party on the one hand, and the numerous tribes of the free or half-free Libyans hostile to Massinissa on the other, enabled the Carthaginians simultaneously with their defence of the city to keep a numerous army in the field an army which, from the desperate temper of the emigrants and the serviceableness of the light Numidian cavalry, the besiegers could not afford to disregard.
The nocturnal conferences likewise between Macedonian deputies and the Carthaginian senate, which Massinissa denounced at Rome, could occasion no alarm to serious and sagacious men, even if they were not, as is very possible, an utter fiction.
His arrival in all likelihood gave another turn to the matter; the king Gala in what is now the province of Constantine who had long been the rival of Syphax, declared for Carthage, and his brave son Massinissa defeated Syphax, and compelled him to make peace.
Little more is related of this Libyan war than the story of the cruel vengeance which Carthage, according to her wont, inflicted on the rebels after the victory of Massinissa. The Scipios Defeated and Killed Spain South of the Ebro Lost to the Romans Nero Sent to Spain This turn of affairs in Africa had an important effect on the war in Spain.
The voice of an old man should always be tranquil and contained." He tells a story of Massinissa, who was then supposed to be ninety. He was stiff in his joints, and therefore when he went a journey had himself put upon a horse, and never left it, or started on foot and never mounted. "We must resist old age, my Lælius. We must compensate our shortness by our diligence, my Scipio.
Massinissa, however, was prudent enough not to take arms now, but to submit himself unconditionally to the decision of the Romans respecting the disputed territory on the Bagradas; and thus the Romans could assert with some plausibility that the Carthaginian preparations must have been directed against them, and could insist on the immediate dismissal of the army and destruction of the naval stores.
The provoking violations of right on the part of Massinissa and the Romans brought to the helm in Carthage Hasdrubal and Carthalo, the leaders of the patriotic party, which was not indeed, like the Achaean, disposed to revolt against the Roman supremacy, but was at least resolved to defend, if necessary, by arms against Massinissa the rights belonging by treaty to the Carthaginians.
The Destruction of Carthage Resolved on at Rome The question of right between Carthage and Massinissa thus remained unsettled; but the mission gave rise to a more important decision.
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