, and the African
prisoners to be shown to them bound just as they were. Two of these
also he unbound, and bid them go to Hannibal and tell him what had
occurred. Hannibal, smitten by such severe distress, at once public
and domestic, is said to have declared that he recognised the destiny
of Carthage; and decamping thence with the intention of drawing
together into Bruttium, the remotest corner of Italy, all his
auxiliaries which he could not protect when widely scattered, removed
into Bruttium the whole state of the Metapontines, summoned away from
their former habitations, and also such of the Lucanians as were under
his authority.

BOOK XXVIII.

_Successful operations against the Carthaginians in Spain,
under Silanus, Scipio's lieutenant, and L. Scipio, his
brother; of Sulpicius and Attalus, against Philip, king of
Macedonia. Scipio finally vanquishes the Carthaginians in
Spain, and reduces that whole country; passes over into
Africa, forms an alliance with Syphax, king of Numidia;
represses and punishes a mutiny of a part of his army;
concludes a treaty of friendship with Masinissa; returns to
Rome, and is elected consul; solicits Africa for his province,
which is opposed by Quintus Fabius Maximus; is appointed
governor of Sicily, with permission to pass over into Africa_.

1. At the time when Spain appeared to be relieved in proportion to the
degree in which the weight of the war was removed into Italy, by the
passage of Hasdrubal, another war sprang up there equal in magnitude
to the former. At this juncture, the Romans and Carthaginians thus
occupied Spain: Hasdrubal, son of Gisgo, had retired quite to the
ocean and Gades; the coast of our sea, and almost the whole of that
part of Spain which lies eastward, was subject to Scipio and the
Romans. The new general, Hanno, who had passed over from Africa, to
supply the place of the Barcine Hasdrubal, with a new army, and formed
a junction with Mago, having in a short time armed a large number
of men in Celtiberia, which lies in the midway between the two seas,
Scipio sent Marcus Silanus against him, with no more than ten thousand
infantry and five hundred horse. Silanus, by marching with all the
haste he could, (though the ruggedness of the roads, and narrow
defiles obstructed with thick woods, which are very frequent in Spain,
impeded him,) yet being guided by deserters from Celtiberia, natives
of that place,