ccasioned. He arrived in his camp the
sixth day. Asdrubal's head being thrown into the camp of the
Carthaginians, informed Hannibal of his brother's unhappy fate. Hannibal
perceived, by this cruel stroke, the fortune of Carthage: "All is over,"
says he,(799) "I shall no longer send triumphant messages to Carthage. In
losing Asdrubal, I have lost at once all my hope, all my good fortune." He
afterwards retired to the extremities of the country of the Brutians,
where he assembled all his forces, who found it a very difficult matter to
subsist there, as no provisions were sent them from Carthage.

(M129) _Scipio conquers all Spain. Is appointed Consul, and sails into
Africa. Hannibal is recalled._(_800_)--The fate of arms was not more
propitious to the Carthaginians in Spain. The prudent vivacity of young
Scipio had restored the Roman affairs in that country to their former
flourishing state, as the courageous slowness of Fabius had before done in
Italy. The three Carthaginian generals in Spain, Asdrubal son of Gisco,
Hanno, and Mago, having been defeated with their numerous armies by the
Romans in several engagements, Scipio at last possessed himself of Spain,
and subjected it entirely to the Roman power. It was at this time that
Masinissa, a very powerful African prince, went over to the Romans, and
Syphax, on the contrary, to the Carthaginians.

(M130) Scipio, at his return to Rome, was declared consul, being then
thirty years of age. He had P. Licinius Crassus for his colleague. Sicily
was allotted to Scipio, with permission for him to cross into Africa, if
he found it convenient. He set out with all imaginable expedition for his
province; whilst his colleague was to command in the country whither
Hannibal was retired.

The taking of New Carthage, where Scipio had displayed all the prudence,
the courage, and capacity which could have been expected from the greatest
generals, and the conquest of all Spain, were more than sufficient to
immortalize his name: but he had considered these only as so many steps by
which he was to climb to a nobler enterprise: this was the conquest of
Africa. Accordingly, he crossed over thither, and made it the seat of the
war.

The devastation of the country, the siege of Utica, one of the strongest
cities of Africa; the entire defeat of the two armies under Syphax and
Asdrubal, whose camp was burnt by Scipio; and afterwards the taking Syphax
himself prisoner, who was the most powerful re