, with twenty
thousand foot and two thousand five hundred horse.

32. Scipio having without difficulty regained the affection of his
soldiers, both by his punctuality in discharging the arrears of pay to
all, as well the guilty as the innocent, and particularly by the looks
and language of reconciliation towards all, before he quitted Carthage
summoned an assembly; and after inveighing at large against the
perfidy of the petty princes who were in rebellion, declared "that the
feelings with which he set out to take revenge for their villany were
widely different from those with which he lately corrected the error
committed by his countrymen. That on the latter occasion, he had with
groans and tears, as though he were cutting his own vitals, expiated
either the imprudence or the guilt of eight thousand men with the
heads of thirty; but now he was going to the destruction of the
Ilergetians with joyful and animated feelings: for they were neither
natives of the same soil, nor united with him by any bond of society.
The only connexion which did subsist between them, that of honour and
friendship, they had themselves severed by their wicked conduct." When
he looked at the troops which composed his army, besides that he saw
that they were all either of his own country, or allies and of the
Latin confederacy; he was also strongly affected by the circumstance,
that there was scarcely a soldier in it who was not brought out of
Italy into that country either by his uncle, Cneius Scipio, who was
the first of the Roman name who had come into that province, or by his
father when consul, or by himself. That they were all accustomed to
the name and auspices of the Scipios; that it was his wish to take
them home to their country to receive a well-earned triumph; and
that he hoped that they would support him when he put up for the
consulship, as if the honour sought were to be shared in common by
them all. With regard to the expedition which they were just going to
undertake, that the man who considered it as a war must be forgetful
of his own achievements. That, by Hercules, Mago, who had fled for
safety with a few ships beyond the limits of the world into an island
surrounded by the ocean, was a source of greater concern to him than
the Ilergetians; for in it there was both a Carthaginian general and a
Carthaginian army, whatever might be its numbers; while here were only
robbers and leaders of robbers, who, though they possessed suff