ent, he would have been equal to the most
distinguished generals, from his skill in every art of war. You then
laid siege to Carthage, quite at your leisure, not one of the three
Punic armies coming to the defence of their allies. The rest of your
achievements, nor do I wish to disparage them, are by no means to be
compared with what you will have to do in a war in Africa, where there
is not a single harbour open to receive our fleet, no part of the
country at peace with us, no state in alliance, no king in friendship
with us, no room in any part either to take up a position or to
advance. Whichever way you turn your eyes, all is hostility and
danger. Do you trust in the Numidians and Syphax? Let it suffice to
have trusted in them once. Temerity is not always successful, and the
fraudulent usually pave the way to confidence in small matters, that
when an advantageous opportunity occurs, they may deceive with great
gain. Your father and uncle were not cut off by the arms of their
enemies till they were duped by the treachery of their Celtiberian
allies; nor were you yourself exposed to so much danger from Mago
and Hasdrubal, the generals of your enemies, as from Indibilis and
Mandonius, whom you had received into friendship. Can you place any
confidence in Numidians after having experienced a defection in your
own soldiers? Syphax and Masinissa would rather that they themselves
should have the rule in Africa than the Carthaginians, but that the
Carthaginians should rather than any other state. At present emulation
and the various causes of dispute existing between them incite them
against each other, because the fear of any foreign enemy is remote.
But show them the Roman arms and a body of troops, natives of another
country, and they will run together as if to extinguish a common
conflagration. These same Carthaginians defended Spain in a different
manner from that in which they will defend the walls of their capital,
the temples of their gods, their altars, and their hearths; when their
terrified wives will attend them on the way to the battle, and
their little children will run to them. What, moreover, if the
Carthaginians, feeling sufficiently secure in the harmony subsisting
in Africa, in the attachment of the sovereigns in alliance with them,
and their own fortifications, should, when they see Italy deprived
of the support of yourself and your army, themselves assuming an
offensive attitude, either send a fresh army