Kitap 25
37
With the destruction of the armies it seemed as though Spain must be lost. But one man restored the fallen fortunes of the State. There was in the army a Lucius Marcius, the son of Septimius, a Roman knight, an active and energetic youth whose character and abilities were somewhat superior to the position in which he had been born. His many natural gifts had been developed by Scipio's training, under whom he had learnt all the arts of war. Out of the fugitive soldiers whom he had rallied, and some whom he had drawn from the garrisons in Spain, he had formed quite a respectable army, and with it had joined Ti. Fonteius, Scipio's lieutenant. After they had entrenched themselves in a camp on this side of the Ebrot his soldiers decided to hold a regular election for the purpose of choosing a general to command the united armies, and they relieved each other on sentinel and outpost duty so that every man might give his vote. So far did the Roman knight surpass all others in the authority and respect which he possessed with the soldiers that the whole army unanimously conferred the supreme command on L. Marcius. After this he spent the whole of the time-and short enough it was-in strengthening the defences of the camp and storing supplies in it, and the soldiers carried out all his commands with alacrity and in anything but a despondent mood. But when the news arrived that Hasdrubal-Gisgo's son-had crossed the Ebro and was coming to stamp out the remains of the war and the soldiers saw the signal for battle put out by their new general they gave way completely. The recollection of the men who had so lately commanded them, the proud confidence which they had always felt in their generals and their armies when they went into battle quite unnerved them; they all burst into tears and smote their heads; some raised their hands to heaven and reproached the gods; others lay on the ground and invoked the names of their old commanders. Nothing could check these wild outbursts of grief, though the centurions tried to rouse their men, and Marcius himself went about calming them and at the same time reproaching them for their unmanly conduct. "Why," he asked them, "have you given way to womanish and idle tears instead of bracing yourselves up to defend yourselves and the republic and not allowing your commanders' death to go unavenged?"
