Scipio, at twenty-four years of age, having received by lot the proconsular command in Spain, and bending his mind above all on avenging his father and his uncle, crossed the Pyrenees and at the first onset captured Cartagena, where the Carthaginians kept very great stores of pay, strong garrisons and great quantities of gold and silver; there too he captured Mago, the brother of Hannibal, and sent him with the others to Rome.1
1 Scipio annos natus uiginti et quattuor imperium in Hispaniam proconsulare sortitus, ultionem praecipue patris et patrui animo intendens, Pyrenaeum transgressus primo impetu Carthaginem Nouam cepit, ubi stipendia maxima, praesidia ualida, copiae auri argentique magnae Poenorum habebantur; ibi etiam Magonem fratrem Hannibalis captum cum ceteris Romam misit.
1The Mago captured at Cartagena (New Carthage) in 209 BC was the commander of its garrison, not Hannibal’s brother Mago, who fought on in Spain and Italy.
The consul Laevinus, returning from Macedonia, stormed Agrigentum, a city of Sicily, and there captured Hanno, the general of the Africans; he received forty cities in surrender and stormed twenty-six.
2 Laeuinus consul ex Macedonia rediens Agrigentum urbem Siciliae expugnauit ibique Hannonem Afrorum ducem cepit, quadraginta ciuitates in deditionem accepit, uiginti et sex expugnauit.
Hannibal in Italy killed the proconsul Gnaeus Fulvius, together with eleven tribunes and seventeen thousand soldiers.
3 Hannibal in Italia Cn. Fuluium proconsulem, XI praeterea tribunos et XVII milia militum interfecit.
The consul Marcellus fought with Hannibal for three days on end. On the first day they parted on equal terms; on the next the consul was defeated; on the third, victorious, he killed eight thousand of the enemy and compelled Hannibal himself to flee with the rest into his camp.
4 Marcellus consul, cum Hannibale triduum continuum dimicauit. primo die pari pugna discessum est, sequenti uictus consul, tertio uictor VIII milia hostium interfecit, ipsum Hannibalem cum reliquis fugere in castra conpulit.
The consul Fabius Maximus again stormed and took Tarentum, which had revolted from the Romans, and there destroyed great forces of Hannibal along with their general Carthalo himself; he sold thirty thousand captives and paid the proceeds into the treasury.
5 Fabius Maximus consul Tarentum, quae a Romanis desciuerat, iterum expugnauit et cepit ibique ingentes copias Hannibalis cum ipso duce eius Carthalone deleuit, XXX milia hominum captiuorum uendidit, pretia in fiscum rettulit.
In the following year, in Italy, the consul Claudius Marcellus was killed by Hannibal together with his army.2
6 Sequenti anno in Italia Claudius Marcellus consul ab Hannibale cum exercitu occisus est.
2Marcellus died only once, in 208 BC, in the ambush near Venusia in which his colleague Crispinus was mortally wounded; Orosius reports the same event twice (4.18.8).
Scipio in Spain defeated Hasdrubal, the general of the Carthaginians, and stripped him of his camp; besides this, he brought eighty cities into his power, either by surrender or by war; the Africans he sold into slavery, the Spaniards he released without ransom.
7 Scipio in Hispania Poenorum ducem Hasdrubalem uicit et castris exuit; praeterea LXXX ciuitates aut deditione aut bello in potestatem redegit; Afris sub corona uenditis, sine pretio dimisit Hispanos.
Hannibal entrapped both consuls, Marcellus and Crispinus, in an ambush and killed them.
8 Hannibal utrumque consulem Marcellum et Crispinum insidiis circumuentos interfecit.
In the consulship of Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius Salinator, Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was coming from Spain through Gaul to Italy, and, having been ordered by the Carthaginians to join his brother with his forces, was bringing great auxiliary forces of Spaniards and Gauls with him; but his hastened coming was betrayed to the consuls, as he had already come down from the Alps, and he was forestalled by the Roman army, without Hannibal’s knowledge, and killed with his whole army.
9 Claudio Nerone et M. Liuio Salinatore consulibus cum Hasdrubal Hannibalis frater ab Hispaniis per Gallias ad Italiam ueniret iussusque a Carthaginiensibus, ut fratri cum copiis iungeretur, magna secum auxilia Hispanorum Gallorumque deduceret, cum maturato aduentu descendisse iam ex Alpibus consulibus proditus fuisset, ab exercitu Romano ignorante Hannibale praeuentus cum omni exercitu suo interfectus est.
For a long time indeed the outcome of the battle was uncertain, the elephants above all harassing the Roman line. These were, by the Roman soldiers whom they call velites from their flitting about —
10 diu quidem incertus belli euentus fuit elephantis maxime Romanam infestantibus aciem: qui a militibus Romanis, quos a uolitando uelites uocant -
a kind of soldiery which had been devised a little before: young men chosen for their agility sat with their arms behind the backs of the horsemen, and presently, when they came up to the enemy, they leapt down from the horses and at once, now on foot themselves, drove back the enemy, while on the other side the horsemen who had carried them fought —
11 quod genus militiae paulo ante repertum fuerat, ut lecti agilitate iuuenes cum armis suis post terga equitum sederent et mox, cum ad hostem uentum esset, equis desilirent et continuo pedites ipsi, ex alia parte equitibus per quos aduecti fuerant dimicantibus, hostem proturbarent -
by these velites, then, the elephants were driven back; and when they could no longer be controlled by their own men, they were killed by a carpenter’s chisel driven in between the ears. This way of killing the beast, when there was need, the same general Hasdrubal had been the first to devise.
12 ab his ergo uelitibus elephanti retroacti cum regi iam a suis non possent, fabrili scalpro inter aures adacto necabantur. id genus occidendae cum opus esset beluae idem dux Hasdrubal primus inuenerat.
In this battle the river Metaurus, where Hasdrubal was defeated, was for the Carthaginians a kind of Lake Trasimene, and Cesena, a city of Picenum, like that village of Cannae;3
13 fuit hoc proelio Poenis Metaurum flumen, ubi Hasdrubal est uictus, quasi Trasumennus lacus et Cesena Piceni ciuitas ut uicus ille Cannensis;
3The battle of the Metaurus (207 BC) was fought near Sena Gallica on the Adriatic coast; Cesena lies further north, in Aemilia, and is not a city of Picenum.
for 58,000 of Hasdrubal’s army were killed there and 5,400 captured; and 4,000 Roman citizens were found among them and recovered, which was a consolation to the victorious consuls. For of their own army eight thousand fell.
14 nam L et VIII milia de exercitu Hasdrubalis ibi occisa sunt, capta sunt V̅ CCCC; I̅I̅I̅I̅ autem ciuium Romanorum inter eos reperta atque reuocata sunt: quod uictoribus consulibus solacio fuit. nam et ab exercitu eorum V̅I̅I̅I̅ ceciderunt.
The head of his brother Hasdrubal was thrown down before Hannibal’s camp. On seeing it, and at the same time learning of the disaster of the Carthaginians, in the thirteenth year after he had come into Italy he withdrew into the land of the Bruttii.
15 Hannibali caput fratris sui Hasdrubalis ante castra proiectum est. quo uiso et simul clade Poenorum cognita, anno tertio decimo quam in Italiam uenerat refugit in Bruttios.
After this, for a whole year, a respite from the tumult of wars seemed to come between Hannibal and the Romans, because there was the disquiet of disease in the camps, and both armies were afflicted by a most grievous pestilence.
16 post haec anno continuo inter Hannibalem et Romanos quies a tumultu bellorum intercessisse uisa est, quia inquietudo morborum in castris erat et grauissima pestilentia utrique exercitus agebantur.
Meanwhile Scipio, having reduced the whole of Spain, from the Pyrenees to the Ocean, to a province, came to Rome; elected consul with Licinius Crassus, he crossed into Africa, killed Hanno, the son of Hamilcar, a general of the Carthaginians, and destroyed his army, partly by slaughter and partly by captivity: for he killed eleven thousand Carthaginians in that battle.
17 interea Scipio uniuersa Hispania a Pyrenaeo usque ad Oceanum in prouinciam redacta Romam uenit, consul cum Licinio Crasso creatus in Africam transiit, Hannonem Hamilcaris filium, ducem Poenorum, interfecit, exercitum eius partim caede partim captiuitate disperdidit: nam undecim milia Poenorum eo proelio occidit.
The consul Sempronius engaged Hannibal and, defeated, fled back to Rome. Scipio in Africa attacked the winter quarters of the Carthaginians and another camp of the Numidians, both of which were not far from Utica, and in the dead of night had them set on fire.
18 Sempronius consul cum Hannibale congressus et uictus Romam refugit. Scipio in Africa adgressus hiberna Poenorum atque alia Numidarum, quae utraque haud procul ab Utica erant, nocte concubia fecit incendi.
The Carthaginians, in alarm, thinking that the fire had broken out by chance, ran together unarmed to put it out; and so they were easily overwhelmed by armed men. In the two camps forty thousand men were consumed by fire and sword and five thousand captured, and the generals themselves, pitiably burnt, barely escaped.
19 Poeni trepidi cum casu accidisse ignem putarent, inermes ad extinguendum concurrerunt: quare facile ab armatis oppressi sunt. in utrisque castris quadraginta milia hominum igni ferroque consumpta sunt, capta quinque milia, duces ipsi miserabiliter ambusti aegre effugerunt.
Hasdrubal, the commander, came to Carthage as a fugitive; and so Syphax and Hasdrubal soon restored a very large army and engaged Scipio again, and, being defeated, they fled.
20 Hasdrubal imperator Carthaginem profugus uenit; itaque Syphax et Hasdrubal mox plurimum reparauere exercitum atque iterum cum Scipione congressi sunt, uictique fugerunt.
Laelius and Masinissa captured Syphax as he fled; the rest of the multitude fled to Cirta, which Masinissa besieged and received in surrender. He brought Syphax, bound in chains, to Scipio, and Scipio handed him over to Laelius to be led away along with enormous spoils and very many captives.
21 Syphacem fugientem Laelius et Masinissa ceperunt, cetera multitudo Cirtam confugit, quam Masinissa oppugnatam in deditionem recepit, Syphacem ad Scipionem catenis uinctum deduxit; quem Scipio cum ingentibus spoliis plurimisque captiuis perducendum Laelio tradidit.