Kitap 25
36
When the Carthaginian armies came up, their column had no difficulty in mounting the hill, but they stopped short at the sight of the novel defence as though it were something uncanny. Their officers shouted out on all sides: "Why are you stopping? Why do you not tear down and demolish that juggler's trick, which is hardly strong enough to stop women and children? The enemy, hiding behind his baggage, is caught and held!" But in spite of the taunts and sarcasms of the officers, it was anything but easy either to clamber over or to push away the heavy obstacles in front of them, or to cut through the tightly packed saddles, buried as they were beneath the baggage. After a considerable time they succeeded in forcing away the heavy obstacles and opened a way for the troops, and when they had done this in several places the camp was rushed on all sides and captured; the little band of defenders were slaughtered by the masses of the enemy, helpless in the hands of their victors. Still a good many found refuge in the neighbouring woods and escaped to P. Scipio's camp where Ti. Fonteius was in command. Some traditions assert that Cn. Scipio was killed in the first onset of the enemy on the hill; according to others he escaped to a tower near the camp, and as they were unable to break down the door with all their efforts, they lighted fires against it, and after it was burnt away they slew all inside including the commander. Cn. Scipio was killed after he had been eight years in Spain, and twenty-nine days after his brother's death. The grief felt at their death was as great throughout Spain as it was in Rome. The City had to mourn not only for them, but for the loss of its armies, the defection of the province, and the blow inflicted on the republic; in Spain it was the generals themselves whose loss was so bitterly felt, more so in the case of Cnaeus, because he had held his command there for a longer time; he too was the first to win popularity amongst the people, the first to show what Roman justice and Roman self-control and moderation really meant.
