is ever present,
and the Scipios ever disturb me with anxious cares by day and dreams
by night, frequently rousing me from my sleep, and imploring me not to
suffer themselves nor their soldiers, your companions in war, who had
been victorious in this country for eight years, nor the commonwealth
to remain unrevenged; enjoining me also to follow their discipline and
their plans; and desiring that as there was no one more obedient to
their commands while they were alive than I, so after their death I
would consider that conduct as best, which I might have the strongest
reason for believing they would have adopted in each case. I could
wish also that you, my soldiers, should not show your respect for them
by lamentations and tears, as if they were dead; (for they still live
and flourish in the fame of their achievements;) but that whenever the
memory of those men shall occur to you, you would go into battle as
though you saw them encouraging you and giving you the signal. Nor
certainly could anything else than their image presenting itself
yesterday to your eyes and minds, have enabled you to fight that
memorable battle, in which you proved to the enemy that the Roman name
had not become extinct with the Scipios; and that the energy and
valour of that people, which had not been overwhelmed by the disaster
at Cannae, would, doubtlessly, emerge from the severest storms of
fortune. Now since you have dared so much of your own accord, I have a
mind to try how much you will dare when authorized by your general:
for yesterday, when I gave the signal for retreat while you were
pursuing the routed enemy with precipitation, I did not wish to break
your spirit, but to reserve it for greater glory and more advantageous
opportunities; that you might afterwards, when prepared and armed,
seize an occasion of attacking your enemy while off their guard,
unarmed, and even buried in sleep. Nor do I entertain the hope of
gaining an opportunity of this kind rashly, but from the actual state
of things. Doubtless, if any one should ask even himself, by what
means, though few in number and disheartened by defeat, you defended
your camp against troops superior in number and victorious, you would
give no other answer than that, as this was the very thing you were
afraid of, you had kept every place secured by works and yourselves
ready and equipped. And so it generally happens: men are least secure
against that which fortune causes not to be feared