(202 B.C.)
Hannibal had by this time arrived at Adrumetum,[73] 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 round Carthage was filled with armed troops.
Zama is distant from Carthage a five days' journey. Some spies, whom
he had 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, he conducted them 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, tho 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.
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, amidst 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. In this, also, fortune would seem to have exhibited a
disposition to sport with events, for it was when your father was
Consul that I first took up arms; he was the first Roman general with
whom I engaged in a pitched battle; and it is to his son that I now
come unarmed to solicit peace. It were, indeed, most to have been
desired that the gods should have put such dispositions into the minds
of our fathers, that you should have been content with the empire of
Italy, and we with that of Africa; nor, indeed, even to you, are
Sicily and Sardinia of sufficient value to compensate you for the loss
of so many fleets, so many armies, so many and such distinguished
generals.
"But what is past may be more easily censured than retrieved. In our
attempts to acquire the possessions of others, we have been compelled
to fight for our own; and not only have you had a war in Italy, and we
also in Africa, but you have beheld the standards and arms of your
enemies almost in your gates and on your walls, and we now, from the
walls of Carthage, distinctly hear the din of a Roman camp. What,
therefore, we should most earnestly deprecate, and you should most
devoutly wish for, is now the case: 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. All we want is a
disposition not averse from peaceful counsels. So far as relates to
myself, time (for I am returning to that country an old man which I
left a boy),[74] and prosperity, and adversity, have so schooled me
that I am more inclined to follow reason than fortune. But I fear your
youth and uninterrupted good fortune, both of which are apt to inspire
a degree of confidence ill comporting with pacific counsels. Rarely
does that man consider the uncertainty of events whom fortune hath
never deceived. What I was at Trasimenus and at Cannae that you are
this day. Invested with command when you had scarcely yet attained the
military age, tho all your enterprises were of the boldest
description, in no instance has fortune deserted you. Avenging the
death of your father and uncle, you have derived from the calamity of
your house the high honor of distinguished valor and filial duty. You
have recovered Spain, which had been lost, after driving thence four
Carthaginian armies. When elected Consul, tho all others wanted
courage to defend Italy, you crossed over into Africa, where, having
cut to pieces two armies, having at once captured and burned 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....
"Formerly, in this same country, Marcus Atilius would have formed one
among the few instances of good fortune and valor, if, when
victorious, he had granted a peace to our fathers when they requested
it; but by not setting any bounds to his success, and not checking
good fortune, which was elating him, he fell with a degree of ignominy
proportioned to his elevation. 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 can not 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.
Tho 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 tomorrow 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....
While the general was 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, tho 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 the beasts, 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 tho
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 firms 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 center 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....
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 six and thirtieth year after he had left it
when a boy, and confest in the senate house that he was defeated, not
only in the battle, but in the war, and that there was no hope o+-
safety in anything but obtaining peace.