could the minds of men be brought to any fixed conclusion, whether it
was a fit subject for rejoicing that Hannibal had now at length, after
the sixteenth year, departed from Italy and left the Romans in the
unmolested possession of it or whether they had not greater cause to
fear from his having transported his army in safety into Africa. They
said that the scene of action certainly was changed, but not the danger.
That Quintus Fabius, lately deceased, who had foretold how arduous the
contest would be, was used to predict, not without good reason, that
Hannibal would prove a more formidable enemy in his own country than he
had been in a foreign one; and that Scipio would have to encounter, not
Syphax, a king of undisciplined barbarians whose armies Statorius, a man
little better than a soldier's drudge, was used to lead, nor his
father-in-law Hasdrubal, that most fugacious general, nor tumultuary
armies hastily collected out of a crowd of half-armed rustics, but
Hannibal, born in a manner in the pavilion of his father, that bravest
of generals, nurtured and educated in the midst of arms, who served as a
soldier formerly, when a boy, and became a general when he had scarcely
attained the age of manhood; who, having grown old in victory, had
filled Spain, Gaul, and Italy, from the Alps to the strait, with
monuments of his vast achievements; who commanded troops who had served
as long as he had himself; troops hardened by the endurance of every
species of suffering, such as it is scarcely credible that men could
have supported; stained a thousand times with Roman blood, and bearing
with them the spoils not only of soldiers, but of generals. That many
would meet the eyes of Scipio in battle who had with their own hands
slain Roman praetors, generals, and consuls; many decorated with crowns
in reward for having scaled walls and crossed ramparts; many who had
traversed the captured camps and cities of the Romans. That the
magistrates of the Roman people had not then so many fasces as Hannibal
could have carried before him, having taken them from generals whom he
had slain. While their minds were harassed by these apprehensions, their
anxiety and fears were further increased from the circumstance that,
whereas they had been accustomed to carry on war for several years in
different parts of Italy, and within their view, with languid hopes and
without the prospect of bringing it to a speedy termination, Scipio and
Hannibal had stimulated the minds of all, as generals prepared for a
final contest. Even those persons whose confidence in Scipio and hopes
of victory were great, were affected with anxiety, increasing in
proportion as they saw their completion approaching. The state of
feeling among the Carthaginians was much the same; for when they turned
their eyes on Hannibal, and the greatness of his achievements, they
repented having solicited peace; but when again they reflected that they
had been twice defeated in a pitched battle, that Syphax had been made
prisoner, that they had been driven out of Spain and Italy, and that all
this had been effected by the valor and conduct of Scipio alone, they
regarded him with horror, as a general marked out by destiny, and born
for their destruction.
Hannibal had by this time arrived at Adrumetum, from which place, after
employing a few days there in refreshing his soldiers, who had suffered
from the motion by sea, he proceeded by forced marches to Zama, roused
by the alarming statements of messengers who brought word that all the
country around Carthage was filled with armed troops. Zama is distant
from Carthage a five days' journey. Some spies whom he sent out from
this place, being intercepted by the Roman guard and brought before
Scipio, he directed that they should be handed over to the military
tribunes, and after having been desired fearlessly to survey everything,
to be conducted through the camp wherever they chose; then, asking them
whether they had examined everything to their satisfaction, he assigned
them an escort and sent them back to Hannibal.
Hannibal received none of the circumstances which were reported to him
with feelings of joy, for they brought word that, as it happened,
Masinissa had joined the enemy that very day with six thousand infantry
and four thousand horse; but he was principally dispirited by the
confidence of his enemy, which, doubtless, was not conceived without
some ground. Accordingly, though he himself was the originator of the
war, and by his coming had upset the truce which had been entered into,
and cut off all hopes of a treaty, yet concluding that more favorable
terms might be obtained if he solicited peace while his strength was
unimpaired than when vanquished, he sent a message to Scipio requesting
permission to confer with him.
Scipio took up his position not far from the city of Naragara, in a
situation convenient not only for other purposes, but also because there
was a watering-place within a dart's throw. Hannibal took possession of
an eminence four miles thence, safe and convenient in every respect,
except that he had a long way to go for water. Here in the intermediate
space a place was chosen open to view from all sides, that there might
be no opportunity for treachery.
Their armed attendants having retired to an equal distance, they met,
each attended by one interpreter, being the greatest generals not only
of their own times, but of any to be found in the records of the times
preceding them, and equal to any of the kings or generals of any nation
whatever. When they came within sight of each other they remained silent
for a short time, thunderstruck, as it were, with mutual admiration. At
length Hannibal thus began: "Since fate hath so ordained it that I, who
was the first to wage war upon the Romans, and who have so often had
victory almost within my reach, should voluntarily come to sue for
peace, I rejoice that it is you, above all others, from whom it is my
lot to solicit it. To you, also, amid the many distinguished events of
your life, it will not be esteemed one of the least glorious that
Hannibal, to whom the gods had so often granted victory over the Roman
generals, should have yielded to you; and that you should have put an
end to this war, which has been rendered remarkable by your calamities
before it was by ours.
"Peace is proposed at a time when you have the advantage. We who
negotiate it are the persons whom it most concerns to obtain it, and we
are persons whose arrangements, be they what they will, our states will
ratify. You have recovered Spain, which had been lost, after driving
thence four Carthaginian armies. When elected consul, though all others
wanted courage to defend Italy, you crossed over into Africa, where
having cut to pieces two armies, having at once captured and burnt two
camps in the same hour, having made prisoner Syphax, a most powerful
king, and seized so many towns of his dominions and so many of ours, you
have dragged me from Italy, the possession of which I had firmly held
for now sixteen years. While your affairs are in a favorable and ours in
a dubious state, you would derive honor and splendor from granting
peace; while to us, who solicit it, it would be considered as necessary
rather than honorable.
"It is indeed the right of him who grants, and not of him who solicits
it, to dictate the terms of peace, but perhaps we may not be unworthy to
impose upon ourselves the fine. We do not refuse that all those
possessions on account of which the war was begun should be yours;
Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, with all the islands lying in any part of the
sea, between Africa and Italy. Let us Carthaginians, confined within the
shores of Africa, behold you, since such is the pleasure of the gods,
extending your empire over foreign nations both by sea and land. I
cannot deny that you have reason to suspect the Carthaginian faith, in
consequence of their insincerity lately in soliciting a peace and while
awaiting the decision. The sincerity with which a peace will be observed
depends much, Scipio, on the person by whom it is sought. Your senate,
as I hear, refused to grant a peace in some measure because the deputies
were deficient in respectability. It is I, Hannibal, who now solicit
peace; who would neither ask for it unless I believed it expedient, nor
will I fail to observe it for the same reason of expedience on account
of which I have solicited it. And in the same manner as I, because the
war was commenced by me, brought it to pass that no one regretted it
till the gods began to regard me with displeasure; so will I also exert
myself that no one may regret the peace procured by my means."
In answer to these things the Roman general spoke nearly to the
following effect: "I was aware that it was in consequence of the
expectation of your arrival that the Carthaginians violated the existing
faith of the truce and broke off all hope of a peace. Nor, indeed, do
you conceal the fact, inasmuch as you artfully withdraw from the former
conditions of peace every concession except what relates to those things
which have for a long time been in our own power. But as it is your
object that your countrymen should be sensible how great a burden they
are relieved from by your means, so it is incumbent upon me to endeavor
that they may not receive, as the reward of their perfidy, the
concessions which they formerly stipulated, by expunging them now from
the conditions of the peace. Though you do not deserve to be allowed the
same conditions as before, you now request even to be benefited by your
treachery.
"Neither did our fathers first make war respecting Sicily, nor did we
respecting Spain. In the former case the danger which threatened our
allies the Mamertines, and in the present the destruction of Saguntum,
girded us with just and pious arms. That you were the aggressors, both
you yourselves confess and the gods are witnesses, who determined the
issue of the former war, and who are now determining and will determine
the issue of the present according to right and justice. As to myself, I
am not forgetful of the instability of human affairs, but consider the
influence of fortune, and am well aware that all our measures are liable
to a thousand casualties. But as I should acknowledge that my conduct
would savor of insolence and oppression if I rejected you on your coming
in person to solicit peace before I crossed over into Africa, you
voluntarily retiring from Italy, and after you had embarked your troops,
so now, when I have dragged you into Africa almost by manual force,
notwithstanding your resistance and evasions, I am not bound to treat
you with any respect. Wherefore, if in addition to those stipulations on
which it was considered that a peace would at that time have been agreed
upon, and what they are you are informed, a compensation is proposed for
having seized our ships together with their stores during a truce, and
for the violence offered to our ambassadors, I shall then have matter to
lay before my council. But if these things also appear oppressive,
prepare for war, since you could not brook the conditions of peace."
Thus, without effecting an accommodation, when they had returned from
the conference to their armies, they informed them that words had been
bandied to no purpose, that the question must be decided by arms, and
that they must accept that fortune which the gods assigned them.
When they had arrived at their camps, they both issued orders that their
soldiers should get their arms in readiness and prepare their minds for
the final contest; in which, if fortune should favor them, they would
continue victorious, not for a single day, but forever. "Before
to-morrow night," they said, "they would know whether Rome or Carthage
should give laws to the world, and that neither Africa nor Italy, but
the whole world, would be the prize of victory. That the dangers which
threatened those who had the misfortune to be defeated were proportioned
to the rewards of the victors." For the Romans had not any place of
refuge in an unknown and foreign land, and immediate destruction seemed
to await Carthage if the troops which formed her last reliance were
defeated. To this important contest, the day following, two generals, by
far the most renowned of any, and belonging to two of the most powerful
nations in the world, advanced either to crown or overthrow on that day
the many honors they had previously acquired.
Scipio drew up his troops, posting the hastati in front, the principes
behind them, and closing his rear line with the triarii. He did not draw
up his cohorts in close order, but each before their respective
standards; placing the companies at some distance from each other, so as
to leave a space through which the elephants of the enemy passing might
not at all break their ranks. Laelius, whom he had employed before as
lieutenant-general, but this year as quaestor, by special appointment,
according to a decree of the senate, he posted with the Italian cavalry
in the left wing, Masinissa and the Numidians in the right. The open
spaces between the companies of those in the van he filled with velites,
which then formed the Roman light-armed troops, with an injunction that
on the charge of the elephants they should either retire behind the
files, which extended in a right line, or, running to the right and left
and placing themselves by the side of those in the van, afford a passage
by which the elephants might rush in between weapons on both sides.
Hannibal, in order to terrify the enemy, drew up his elephants in front,
and he had eighty of them, being more than he had ever had in any
battle; behind these his Ligurian and Gallic auxiliaries, with
Balearians and Moors intermixed. In the second line he placed the
Carthaginians, Africans, and a legion of Macedonians; then, leaving a
moderate interval, he formed a reserve of Italian troops, consisting
principally of Bruttians, more of whom had followed him on his departure
from Italy by compulsion and necessity than by choice. His cavalry also
he placed in the wings, the Carthaginian occupying the right, the
Numidian the left. Various were the means of exhortation employed in an
army consisting of a mixture of so many different kinds of men; men
differing in language, customs, laws, arms, dress, and appearance, and
in the motives for serving. To the auxiliaries, the prospect both of
their present pay and many times more from the spoils was held out. The
Gauls were stimulated by their peculiar and inherent animosity against
the Romans. To the Ligurians the hope was held out of enjoying the
fertile plains of Italy, and quitting their rugged mountains, if
victorious. The Moors and Numidians were terrified with subjection to
the government of Masinissa, which he would exercise with despotic
severity.
Different grounds of hope and fear were represented to different
persons. The view of the Carthaginians was directed to the walls of
their city, their household gods, the sepulchres of their ancestors,
their children and parents, and their trembling wives; they were told
that either the destruction of their city and slavery or the empire of
the world awaited them; that there was nothing intermediate which they
could hope for or fear.
While the general was thus busily employed among the Carthaginians, and
the captains of the respective nations among their countrymen, most of
them employing interpreters among troops intermixed with those of
different nations, the trumpets and cornets of the Romans sounded; and
such a clamor arose that the elephants, especially those in the left
wing, turned round upon their own party, the Moors and Numidians.
Masinissa had no difficulty in increasing the alarm of the terrified
enemy, and deprived them of the aid of their cavalry in that wing. A
few, however, of the beasts which were driven against the enemy, and
were not turned back through fear, made great havoc among the ranks of
the velites, though not without receiving many wounds themselves; for
when the velites, retiring to the companies, had made way for the
elephants, that they might not be trampled down, they discharged their
darts at them; exposed as they were to wounds on both sides, those in
the van also keeping up a continual discharge of javelins, until driven
out of the Roman line by the weapons which fell upon them from all
quarters, these elephants also put to flight even the cavalry of the
Carthaginians posted in their right wing. Laelius, when he saw the enemy
in disorder, struck additional terror into them in their confusion.
The Carthaginian line was deprived of the cavalry on both sides, when
the infantry, who were now not a match for the Romans in confidence or
strength, engaged. In addition to this there was one circumstance,
trifling in itself, but at the same time producing important
consequences in the action. On the part of the Romans the shout was
uniform, and on that account louder and more terrific, while the voices
of the enemy, consisting as they did of many nations of different
languages, were dissonant. The Romans used the stationary kind of fight,
pressing upon the enemy with their own weight and that of their arms;
but on the other side there was more of skirmishing and rapid movement
than force. Accordingly, on the first charge, the Romans immediately
drove back the line of their opponents; then pushing them with their
elbows and the bosses of their shields, and pressing forward into the
places from which they had pushed them, they advanced a considerable
space, as though there had been no one to resist them, those who formed
the rear urging forward those in front when they perceived the line of
the enemy giving way, which circumstance itself gave great additional
force in repelling them.
On the side of the enemy, the second line, consisting of the Africans
and Carthaginians, were so far from supporting the first line when
giving ground, that on the contrary they even retired, lest their enemy,
by slaying those who made a firm resistance, should penetrate to
themselves also. Accordingly the auxiliaries suddenly turned their
backs, and facing about upon their own party, fled, some of them into
the second line, while others slew those who did not receive them into
their ranks, since before they did not support them, and now refused to
receive them. And now there were, in a manner, two contests going on
together, the Carthaginians being compelled to fight at once with the
enemy and with their own party. Not even then, however, did they receive
into their line the terrified and exasperated troops, but, closing their
ranks, drove them out of the scene of action to the wings and the
surrounding plain, lest they should mingle these soldiers, terrified
with defeat and wounds, with that part of their line which was firm and
fresh.
But such a heap of men and arms had filled the space in which the
auxiliaries a little while ago had stood that it was almost more
difficult to pass through it than through a close line of troops. The
spearmen, therefore, who formed the front line, pursuing the enemy as
each could find a way through the heap of arms and men and streams of
blood, threw into complete disorder the battalions and companies. The
standards also of the principes had begun to waver when they saw the
line before them driven from their ground. Scipio, perceiving this,
promptly ordered the signal to be given for the spearmen to retreat, and
having taken his wounded into the rear, brought the principes and
triarii to the wings in order that the line of spearmen in the centre
might be more strong and secure. Thus a fresh and renewed battle
commenced, inasmuch as they had penetrated to their real antagonists,
men equal to them in the nature of their arms, in their experience in
war, in the fame of their achievements, and the greatness of their hopes
and fears. But the Romans were superior both in numbers and courage, for
they had now routed both the cavalry and the elephants, and, having
already defeated the front line, were fighting against the second.
Lælius and Masinissa, who had pursued the routed cavalry through a
considerable space, returning very opportunely, charged the rear of the
enemy's line. This attack of the cavalry at length routed them. Many of
them, being surrounded, were slain in the field; and many, dispersed in
flight through the open plain around, were slain on all hands, as the
cavalry were in possession of every part. Of the Carthaginians and their
allies, above twenty thousand were slain on that day; about an equal
number were captured, with a hundred and thirty-three military standards
and eleven elephants. Of the victors as many as two thousand fell.
Hannibal, slipping off during the confusion, with a few horsemen, came
to Adrumetum, not quitting the field till he had tried every expedient
both in the battle and before the engagement; having, according to the
admission of Scipio and everyone skilled in military science, acquired
the fame of having marshalled his troops on that day with singular
judgment. He placed his elephants in the front, in order that their
desultory attack and insupportable violence might prevent the Romans
from following their standards and preserving their ranks, on which they
placed their principal dependence. Then he posted his auxiliaries before
the line of Carthaginians, in order that men who were made up of the
refuse of all nations, and who were not bound by honor but by gain,
might not have any retreat open to them in case they fled; at the same
time that the first ardor and impetuosity might be exhausted upon them,
and, if they could render no other service, that the weapons of the
enemy might be blunted in wounding them. Next he placed the Carthaginian
and African soldiers, on whom he placed all his hopes, in order that,
being equal to the enemy in every other respect, they might have the
advantage of them inasmuch as, being fresh and unimpaired in strength
themselves, they would fight with those who were fatigued and wounded.
The Italians he removed into the rear, separating them also by an
intervening space, as he knew not with certainty whether they were
friends or enemies. Hannibal, after performing this as it were his last
work of valor, fled to Adrumetum, whence, having been summoned to
Carthage, he returned thither in the sixth and thirtieth year after he
had left it when a boy, and confessed in the senate house that he was
defeated, not only in the battle, but in the war, and that there was no
hope of safety in anything but in obtaining peace.
Immediately after the battle, Scipio, having taken and plundered the
enemy's camp, returned to the sea and his ships with an immense booty,
news having reached him that Publius Lentulus had arrived at Utica with
fifty men-of-war, and a hundred transports laden with every kind of
stores. Concluding that he ought to bring before Carthage everything
which could increase the consternation already existing there, after
sending Laelius to Rome to report his victory, he ordered Cneius
Octavius to conduct the legions thither by land, and setting out himself
from Utica with the fresh fleet of Lentulus added to his former one,
made for the harbor of Carthage. When he had arrived within a short
distance he was met by a Carthaginian ship decked with fillets and
branches of olive. There were ten deputies, the leading men in the
State, sent at the instance of Hannibal to solicit peace, to whom, when
they had come up to the stern of the general's ship, holding out the
badges of suppliants, entreating and imploring the protection and
compassion of Scipio, the only answer given was that they must come to
Tunis, to which place he would move his camp. After taking a view of the
site of Carthage, not so much for the sake of acquainting himself with
it for any present object as to dispirit the enemy, he returned to
Utica, having recalled Octavius to the same place.