ce in their fortunes, brought about by causes different in
each case, had congregated them at Agathyrna. These men Laevinus
thought it hardly safe to leave in the island, when an unwonted
tranquillity was growing up, as the materials of fresh disturbances;
and besides, they were likely to be useful to the Rhegians, who were
in want of a band of men habituated to robbery, for the purpose of
committing depredations upon the Bruttian territory. Thus, so far as
related to Sicily, the war was this year terminated.

41. In Spain, in the beginning of spring, Publius Scipio, having
launched his ships, and summoned the auxiliary troops of his allies to
Tarraco by an edict, ordered his fleet and transports to proceed
thence to the mouth of the Iberus. He also ordered his legions to quit
their winter quarters, and meet at the same place; and then set out
from Tarraco, with five thousand of the allies, to join the army. On
his arrival at the camp he considered it right to harangue his
soldiers, particularly the old ones who had survived such dreadful
disasters; and therefore, calling an assembly, he thus addressed them:
"Never was there a new commander before myself who could, with justice
and good reason, give thanks to his soldiers before he had availed
himself of their services. Fortune laid me under obligations to you
before I set eyes on my province or your camp; first, on account of
the respect you have shown to my father and uncle, both in their
lifetime and since their death; and secondly, because by your valour
you have recovered and preserved entire, for the Roman people, and me
their successor, the possession of the province which had been lost in
consequence of so dreadful a calamity. But since, now, by the favour
of the gods, our purpose and endeavour is not that we may remain in
Spain ourselves, but that the Carthaginians may not; and not to stand
on the bank of the Iberus, and hinder the enemy from crossing that
river, but cross it first ourselves, and carry the war to the other
side, I fear lest to some among you the enterprise should appear too
important and daring, considering your late misfortunes, which are
fresh in your recollection, and my years. There is no person from
whose mind the memory of the defeats sustained in Spain could be
obliterated with more difficulty than from mine; inasmuch as there my
father and uncle were both slain within the space of thirty days, so
that one death after another was accumul