f them, but especially Gnaeus, good
generals and excellent administrators--accomplished their task with
the most brilliant success. Not only was the barrier of the Pyrenees
steadfastly maintained, and the attempt to re-establish the
interrupted communication by land between the commander-in-chief of
the enemy and his head-quarters sternly repulsed; not only had a
Spanish New Rome been created, after the model of the Spanish New
Carthage, by means of the comprehensive fortifications and harbour
works of Tarraco, but the Roman armies had already in 539 fought with
success in Andalusia.(2) Their expedition thither was repeated in
the following year (540) with still greater success. The Romans
carried their arms almost to the Pillars of Hercules, extended their
protectorate in South Spain, and lastly by regaining and restoring
Saguntum secured for themselves an important station on the line from
the Ebro to Cartagena, repaying at the same time as far as possible
an old debt which the nation owed. While the Scipios thus almost
dislodged the Carthaginians from Spain, they knew how to raise up a
dangerous enemy to them in western Africa itself in the person of the
powerful west African prince Syphax, ruling in the modern provinces of
Oran and Algiers, who entered into connections with the Romans (about
541). Had it been possible to supply him with a Roman army, great
results might have been expected; but at that time not a man could be
spared from Italy, and the Spanish army was too weak to be divided.
Nevertheless the troops belonging to Syphax himself, trained and led
by Roman officers, excited so serious a ferment among the Libyan
subjects of Carthage that the lieutenant-commander of Spain and
Africa, Hasdrubal Barcas, went in person to Africa with the flower
of his Spanish troops. His arrival in all likelihood gave another
turn to the matter; the king Gala--in what is now the province of
Constantine--who had long been the rival of Syphax, declared for
Carthage, and his brave son Massinissa defeated Syphax, and compelled
him to make peace. Little more is related of this Libyan war than the
story of the cruel vengeance which Carthage, according to her wont,
inflicted on the rebels after the victory of Massinissa.

The Scipios Defeated and Killed
Spain South of the Ebro Lost to the Romans
Nero Sent to Spain

This turn of affairs in Africa had an important effect on the war in
Spain. Hasdrubal was able once more to