gn, they exhibited to the army a most interesting
spectacle, and a proof how great mischief is occasioned among men by a
thirst for power. The elder, in consequence of his experience in
arms and his address, easily mastered the unscientific efforts of
the younger. To this show of gladiators were added funeral games,
proportioned to the means possessed, and with such magnificence as the
provinces and the camp afforded.

22. Meanwhile the operations of the war were carried on with unabated
activity by the lieutenant-generals. Marcius, crossing the river
Baetis, which the natives call Certis, received the submission of two
powerful cities without a contest. There was a city called Astapa,
which had always sided with the Carthaginians; nor was it that which
drew upon it the resentment of the Romans so much as the fact, that
its inhabitants harboured an extraordinary animosity against them,
which was not called for by the necessities of the war. Their city
was not so secured by nature or art as to make their dispositions so
fierce, but the natural disposition of the inhabitants, which took
delight in plunder, had induced them to make excursions into the
neighbouring lands belonging to the allies of the Romans, and to
intercept such Roman soldiers, suttlers, and merchants as they found
ranging about. They had also surrounded, by means of an ambuscade, and
put to the sword on disadvantageous ground, a large company which was
crossing their borders, for it had proved hardly safe to go in small
parties. When the troops were marched up to assault this city, the
inhabitants, conscious of their guilt, and seeing that it would be
dangerous to surrender to an enemy so highly incensed, and that they
could not hope to keep themselves in safety by means of their walls or
their arms, resolved to execute upon themselves and those belonging
to them a horrid and inhuman deed. They fixed upon a place in their
forum, in which they collected the most valuable of their property,
and having directed their wives and children to seat themselves
upon this heap, they raised a pile of wood around it and threw on it
bundles of twigs. They then ordered fifty armed youths to stand there
and guard their fortunes, and the persons dearer to them than their
fortunes, as long as the issue of the battle continued doubtful. If
they should perceive that the battle went against them, and that
it came to the point that the city must be captured, they might be
as