HKB
to plunder. His new ships he hauled on shore at Panormus, that they might be kept on land during the winter, as they had been hastily built of unseasoned timber.
When every thing was got in readiness for the war he came to Syracuse, which had hardly yet returned to a state of tranquillity, after the violent commotions of the war. The Greeks, demanding restitution of their property, which had been granted to them by the senate, from certain persons of the Italian nation, who retained possession of it in the same forcible manner in which they had seized it in the war, Scipio, who deemed it of the first importance to preserve the public faith, restored their property to the Syracusans, partly by proclamation, and partly even by judgments pronounced against those who pertinaciously retained their unjust acquisitions. This measure was acceptable not only to the persons immediately concerned, but to all the states of Sicily, and so much the more energetically did they give aid in the war. During the same summer a very formidable war sprang up in Spain, at the instance of Indibilis the Hergetian, from no other cause than the contempt he conceived for the other generals, in consequence of his admiration of Scipio. He considered "that he was the only commander the Romans had left, the rest having been slain by Hannibal. That they had, therefore, no other general whom they could send into Spain after the Scipios were cut off there, and that afterwards, when the war in Italy pressed upon them with increased severity, he was recalled to oppose Hannibal. That, in addition to the fact that the Romans had the names only of generals in Spain, their old army had also been withdrawn thence. That all the troops they had there were irresolute, as consisting of an undisciplined multitude of recruits. That there would never again occur such an opportunity for the liberation of Spain. That up to that time they had been the slaves either of Carthaginians or Romans, and that not to one or the other in turns, but sometimes to both together. That the Carthaginians had been driven out by the Romans, and that the Romans might be driven out by the Spaniards, if they would unite: so that Spain, for ever freed from a foreign yoke, might return to her native customs and rites." By these and other observations he stirred up not only his countrymen, but the Ausetanians also, a neighbouring nation, as well as other states bordering on his own and their country. Accordingly, within a few days, thirty thousand foot and about four thousand horse assembled in the Sedetanian territory, according to the orders which had been given.