upon the awful scene as upon a spectacle
arranged for his special gratification. He speaks of it as if he were
highly gratified with the opportunity he enjoyed, saying that only two
such cases had ever occurred before, where a general could look down,
in such a way, upon a great battle-field, and witness the whole
progress of the fight, himself a cool and disinterested spectator. He
was greatly excited by the scene and he speaks particularly of the
appearance of the veteran Masinissa, then eighty-four years old, who
rode all day from rank to rank, on a wild and impetuous charger,
without a saddle, to give his orders to his men, and to encourage and
animate them by his voice and his example.

Hasdrubal retreated with his forces to his camp as soon as the battle
was over, and intrenched himself there, while Masinissa advanced with
his army, surrounded the encampment, and hemmed the imprisoned
fugitives in. Finding himself in extreme and imminent danger,
Hasdrubal sent to Masinissa to open negotiations for peace, and he
proposed that Scipio should act as a sort of umpire or mediator
between the two parties, to arrange the terms. Scipio was not likely
to be a very impartial umpire; but still, his interposition would
afford him, as Hasdrubal thought, some protection against any
excessive and extreme exorbitancy on the part of his conqueror. The
plan, however, did not succeed. Even Scipio's terms were found by
Hasdrubal to be inadmissible. He required that the Carthaginians
should accord to Masinissa a certain extension of territory. Hasdrubal
was willing to assent to this. They were to pay him, also, a large sum
of money. He agreed, also to this. They were, moreover, to allow
Hasdrubal's banished opponents to return to Carthage. This, by putting
the party opposed to Hasdrubal once more into power in Carthage, would
have been followed by his own fall and ruin; he could not consent to
it. He remained, therefore, shut up in his camp, and Scipio, giving up
the hope of effecting an accommodation, took the elephants which had
been provided for him, and returned across the Mediterranean to Spain.

Soon after this, Hasdrubal's army, worn out with hunger and misery in
their camp, compelled him to surrender on Masinissa's own terms. The
men were allowed to go free, but most of them perished on the way to
Carthage. Hasdrubal himself succeeded in reaching some place of
safety, but the influence of his party was destroyed by the disastr