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Updated: May 29, 2025
When it was thought that sufficient time had elapsed for those who were sent round to have reached their destination, Syphax himself, relying upon his numbers and on the ambuscade prepared on the enemy's rear, led his troops up the mountain which lay before him, by a gentle acclivity which led towards the enemy.
From Syphax he received terms of peace with the Carthaginians, with proposals that the Romans should evacuate Africa, and the Carthaginians Italy, rather than any ground of hope that he would desert their cause if the war proceeded.
After this, the levy commenced in the city and country, and ambassadors were despatched to Syphax, who was himself employing every effort to restore the war; for his wife had prevailed upon him, not, as heretofore, by caresses, powerful as they are in influencing the mind of a lover, but by prayers and appeals to his compassion, imploring him, with streaming eyes, not to betray her father and her country, nor suffer Carthage to be consumed by the same flames which had reduced the camps to ashes.
Also, when Syphax at that time was still endeavoring to reconcile them on the terms that Scipio should sail from Libya and Hannibal from Italy, he received his proposition not because he trusted him, but to the end that he might ruin him. 53. ¶ The Romans came bringing to Scipio along with much other property Syphax himself.
He said, he well knew that the loss sustained had been occasioned by fire, and not by battle, and that he was inferior to his adversary in war who was overcome by force of arms. Such was the answer given to the ambassadors; and, after a few days, Hasdrubal and Syphax again united their forces. This army consisted of about thirty-five thousand fighting men.
It was then that Syphax, while riding up to the troops of the enemy to try if, either by shame or by exposing his own person to danger, he could stop their flight, being thrown from his horse, which was severely wounded, was overpowered, and being made prisoner, was dragged alive into the presence of Laelius; a spectacle calculated to afford peculiar satisfaction to Masinissa.
Does he serve him in a double capacity, as general and master of his wardrobe? But why Juba's guards? For the devil of any guards has Juba appeared with yet. Well, though this is a mighty politic invention, yet, methinks, they might have done without it: for, since the advice that Syphax gave to Sempronius was "'To hurry her away by manly force,
"Two miles at the least, and a tough road. They gain upon us do you not hear them we are slow very slow. These horses on, Syphax, dull devil on on!" And at every incoherent and unconnected syllable, the landlord struck his spurs into his animal, and incited the youth to do the same.
Syphax was a king of the Numidians, who had suddenly become hostile to the Carthaginians; to him they sent three centurions as ambassadors, to form a treaty of friendship and alliance with him; and to promise, that, if he persevered in pressing the war against the Carthaginians, he would render an acceptable service to the senate and people of Rome, and they would endeavour to requite the favour with large additions, and at a seasonable time.
Masinissa thus recovered his paternal dominions; but, as he saw that there still remained a struggle considerably more arduous with Syphax, he thought it advisable to come to a reconciliation with his cousin-german.
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