20.
It is said that when Hannibal heard the message of the ambassadors he gnashed with his teeth, groaned, and scarcely refrained from shedding tears.
[2]
After they had delivered the commands with which they were charged, he said: “Those who have for a long time been endeavouring to drag me home, by forbidding the sending of
[3??]
supplies and money to me, now recall me, not indirectly, but openly. Hannibal, therefore, hath been conquered, not by the Roman people, who have been so often slain and routed, but by the Carthaginian senate, through envy and detraction;
[4]
nor will Publius Scipio exult and glory in this unseemly return so much as Hanno, who has crushed our family, since he could not effect it by any other means, by the ruins of Carthage.”
[5]
Already had his mind entertained a presentiment of this event, and he had accordingly prepared ships beforehand. Having, therefore, sent a crowd of useless soldiers under pretence of garrisons into the towns in the Bruttian territory, a few of which continued their adherence to him, more through fear than attachment, he transported the strength of his army into Africa.
[6]
Many natives of Italy who, refusing to follow him into Africa, had retired to the shrine of Juno Lacinia, which had never been [p. 1309]violated up to that day, were barbarously massacred in the very temple.
[7]
It is related, that rarely any person leaving his country to go into exile exhibited deeper sorrow than Hannibal did on departing from the land of his enemies; that he frequently looked back upon the shores of Italy, and, arraigning both gods and men, cursed himself and his own head that that he did not lead his troops, while reeking with blood from the victory at Cannae, to Rome.
[8]
Scipio, who since his appointment to the office of consul had not looked at the Carthaginian enemy in Italy, had dared, he said, to go and
[9??]
attack Carthage, while he, after slaying a hundred thousand fighting men at Trasimenus and Cannae, had suffered his strength to wear away around Casilinum, Cumae, and Nola, Amid these reproaches and complaints he was borne away from his long occupation of Italy.
Livy. History of Rome by Titus Livius, books twenty-seven to thirty-six. literally translated, with notes and illustrations, by. Cyrus Edmonds. York Street, Covent Garden, London. Henry G. Bohn. John Child and son, printers, Bungay. 1850. 3.
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