HKB
[Sidenote: B.C. 218-202.]
Who could refrain from speaking in terms of admiration of this great man’s strategic skill, courage, and ability, when one looks to the length of time during which he displayed those qualities; and realises to one’s self the pitched battles, the skirmishes and sieges, the revolutions and counter-revolutions of states, the vicissitudes of fortune, and in fact the course of his design and its execution in its entirety? For sixteen continuous years Hannibal maintained the war with Rome in Italy, without once releasing his army from service in the field, but keeping those vast numbers under control, like a good pilot, without any sign of disaffection towards himself or towards each other, though he had troops in his service who, so far from being of the same tribe, were not even of the same race. He had Libyans, Iberians, Ligurians, Celts, Phoenicians, Italians, Greeks, who had naturally nothing in common with each other, neither laws, nor customs, nor language. Yet the skill of the commander was such, that these differences, so manifold and so wide, did not disturb the obedience to one word of command and to a single will. And yet circumstances were not by any means unvarying: for though the breeze of fortune often set strongly in his favour, it as often also blew in exactly the opposite direction. There is therefore good ground for admiring Hannibal’s display of ability in campaign; and there can be no fear in saying that, if he had reserved his attack upon the Romans until he had first subdued other parts of the world, there is not one of his projects which would have eluded his grasp. As it was, he began with those whom he should have attacked last, and accordingly began and ended his career with them....
SCIPIO IN SPAIN, AFTER THE BATTLE OF THE METAURUS
[Sidenote: Hasdrubal son of Gesco encamps near Ilipa (or Silpia) in Baetica, B.C. 206. Livy 28, 13-6.]
[Sidenote: Scipio advances into Baetica,]
[Sidenote: and encamps close to the Carthaginian forces.]
+20.+ Hasdrubal having collected his forces from the various towns in which they had wintered, advanced to within a short distance of Ilipa and there encamped; forming his entrenchment at the foot of the mountains, with a plain in front of him well suited for a contest and battle. His infantry amounted to seventy thousand, his cavalry to four thousand, and his elephants to thirty-two. On his part, Scipio sent M. Junius Silanus to visit Colichas and take over from him the forces that had been prepared by him. These amounted to three thousand infantry and five hundred horse. The other allies he received personally in the course of his march up the country to his destination. When he approached Castalo and Baecula, and had there been joined by Marcus Junius and the troops from Colichas, he found himself in a position of great perplexity. For without their allies the Roman forces were not strong enough to risk a battle; yet to do so, in dependence upon the allies for his hopes of ultimate success, appeared to him to be dangerous and too venturesome. In spite however of his perplexity, he was obliged to yield to the force of circumstances so far as to employ the Iberians; but he resolved to do so only to make a show of numbers to the enemy, while he really fought the action with his own legions. With this purpose in his mind he got his whole army on the march, forty-five thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry; and when he had come within the view of the Carthaginians, he pitched his camp on some low hills exactly opposite the enemy.
[Sidenote: Futile attack by Mago.]