ngth
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.

As they were proceeding thence to Tunis, they received intelligence that
Vermina, the son of Syphax, with a greater number of horse than foot,
was coming to the assistance of the Carthaginians. A part of his
infantry with all the cavalry having attacked them on their march on the
first day of the Saturnalia, routed the Numidians with little
opposition, and as every way by which they could escape in flight was
blocked up, for the cavalry surrounded them on all sides, fifteen
th