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Having taken this rich and powerful city by audacity and good fortune in one day (the fourth after his arrival), he was greatly elated and it seemed more than ever that he was divinely inspired. He began to think so himself and to give it out to others, not only then, but all the rest of his life. At all events, he frequently went into the Capitol alone and closed the doors as though he were receiving counsel from the god. Even now in public processions they bring the image of Scipio alone out of the Capitol, all the others being taken from the Forum. In the captured city he obtained great stores of goods, useful in peace and war, many arms, darts, engines, dockyards containing thirty-three war-ships, corn, and provisions of various kinds, ivory, gold, and silver, some in the form of plate, some coined and some uncoined, also Spanish hostages and prisoners, and everything that had previously been captured from the Romans themselves. On the following day he sacrificed to the gods, celebrated the victory, praised the soldiers for their bravery, and after his words to his army made a speech to the townspeople in which he admonished them not to forget the name of the Scipios. He dismissed all the Spanish prisoners to their homes in order to conciliate the towns. He gave rewards to his soldiers for bravery, the largest to the one who first scaled the wall, half as much to the next, one-third as much to the next, and to the others according to their merit. The rest of the gold, silver, and ivory he sent to Rome in the captured ships. The city held a three days' thanksgiving, because after so many trials their ancestral good fortune had shown itself once more. All Spain, and the Carthaginians who were there, were astounded at the magnitude and suddenness of this exploit.
Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
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