ccasion the decoration of a grass wreath was
bestowed by the senate and burgesses on the only survivor of the Roman
generals who had traversed that troubled time with honour, the veteran
of nearly ninety years, Quintus Fabius. To receive this wreath--which
by the custom of the Romans the army that a general had saved
presented to its deliverer--at the hands of the whole community was
the highest distinction which had ever been bestowed upon a Roman
citizen, and the last honorary decoration accorded to the old general,
who died in the course of that same year (551). Hannibal, doubtless
not under the protection of the armistice, but solely through his
rapidity of movement and good fortune, arrived at Leptis without
hindrance, and the last of the "lion's brood" of Hamilcar trode once
more, after an absence of thirty-six years, his native soil. He had
left it, when still almost a boy, to enter on that noble and yet so
thoroughly fruitless career of heroism, in which he had set out
towards the west to return homewards from the east, having described
a wide circle of victory around the Carthaginian sea. Now, when what
he had wished to prevent, and what he would have prevented had he been
allowed, was done, he was summoned to help and if possible, to save;
and he obeyed without complaint or reproach.

Recommencement of Hostilities

On his arrival the patriot party came forward openly; the disgraceful
sentence against Hasdrubal was cancelled; new connections were formed
with the Numidian sheiks through the dexterity of Hannibal; and not
only did the assembly of the people refuse to ratify the peace
practically concluded, but the armistice was broken by the plundering
of a Roman transport fleet driven ashore on the African coast, and by
the seizure even of a Roman vessel of war carrying Roman envoys. In
just indignation Scipio started from his camp at Tunes (552) and
traversed the rich valley of the Bagradas (Mejerdah), no longer
allowing the townships to capitulate, but causing the inhabitants of
the villages and towns to be seized en masse and sold. He had already
penetrated far into the interior, and was at Naraggara (to the west of
Sicca, now El Kef, on the frontier between Tunis and Algiers), when
Hannibal, who had marched out from Hadrumetum, fell in with him. The
Carthaginian general attempted to obtain better conditions from the
Roman in a personal conference; but Scipio, who had already gone to
the extreme verg