tter confusion in that quarter, might very well
meet with success. But Cato could only advise, not command; Scipio
the commander-in-chief decided that the war should be carried on
in the region of the coast. This was a blunder, not merely inasmuch as
they thereby dropped a plan of war promising a sure result, but also
inasmuch as the region to which they transferred the war was in dangerous
agitation, and a good part of the army which they opposed to Caesar
was likewise in a troublesome temper. The fearfully strict levy,
the carrying off of the supplies, the devastating of the smaller
townships, the feeling in general that they were being sacrificed
for a cause which from the outset was foreign to them
and was already lost, had exasperated the native population against
the Roman republicans fighting out their last struggle of despair
on African soil; and the terrorist proceedings of the latter against
all communities that were but suspected of indifference,(50)
had raised this exasperation to the most fearful hatred.
The African towns declared, wherever they could venture to do so,
for Caesar; among the Gaetulians and the Libyans, who served in numbers
among the light troops and even in the legions, desertion was spreading.
But Scipio with all the obstinacy characteristic of folly persevered
in his plan, marched with all his force from Utica to appear
before the towns of Ruspina and Little Leptis occupied by Caesar,
furnished Hadrumetum to the north and Thapsus to the south
(on the promontory Ras Dimas) with strong garrisons, and in concert
with Juba, who likewise appeared before Ruspina with all his troops
not required by the defence of the frontier, offered battle repeatedly
to the enemy. But Caesar was resolved to wait for his veteran legions.
As these one after another arrived and appeared on the scene
of strife, Scipio and Juba lost the desire to risk a pitched battle,
and Caesar had no means of compelling them to fight owing
to their extraordinary superiority in light cavalry. Nearly two months
passed away in marches and skirmishes in the neighbourhood
of Ruspina and Thapsus, which chiefly had relation to the finding out
of the concealed store-pits (silos) common in the country,
and to the extension of posts. Caesar, compelled by the enemy's
horsemen to keep as much as possible to the heights or even to cover
his flanks by entrenched lines, yet accustomed his soldiers
gradually during this laborious and appa