Meeting of Hannibal and Scipio
From this place he sent to the Carthaginian general,
informing him that he was ready to meet him, and discuss
matters with him. On hearing this, Hannibal moved his quarters to within thirty stades of Scipio, and pitched his camp on
a hill, which seemed a favourable position for his present purpose, except that water had to be fetched from a considerable
distance, which caused his soldiers great fatigue.
Next day both commanders advanced from their camps
Meeting of Scipio and Hannibal. |
attended by a few horsemen. Presently they
left these escorts and met in the intervening
space by themselves, each accompanied by an
interpreter. Hannibal was the first to speak, after the usual
salutation.
He said that "He wished that the
Romans had never coveted any possession
outside Italy, nor the Carthaginians outside
Libya; for these were both noble empires, and were, so to
speak, marked out by nature. But since," he continued, "our
rival claims to Sicily first made us enemies, and then those
for Iberia; and since, finally, unwarned by the lessons of misfortune, we have gone so far that the one nation has endangered
the very soil of its native land, and the other is
now actually doing so, all that there remains for us to do is
to try our best to deprecate the wrath of the gods, and to put
an end, as far as in us lies, to these feelings of obstinate hostility. I personally am ready to do this, because I have learnt
by actual experience that Fortune is the most fickle thing in
the world, and inclines with decisive favour now to one side
and now to the other on the slightest pretext, treating mankind like young children.
