Kitap 26
41
At the commencement of spring P. Scipio issued orders for the allied contingents to muster at Tarraco. He then launched his ships and led the fleet and transports to the mouth of the Ebro, where he had also ordered the legions to concentrate from their winter quarters. He then left Tarraco, with an allied contingent of 5000 men for the army. On his arrival he felt that he ought to address some words of encouragement to his men, especially to the veterans who had gone through such terrible disasters. He accordingly ordered a parade and addressed the troops in the following words: "No commander before my time, who was new to his troops, has been in a position to express well-deserved thanks to his men before he made use of their services. Fortune laid me under obligations to you before I saw my province or my camp, first because of the devoted affection you showed towards my father and my uncle during their lifetime and after their death, and then again, because of the courage with which you kept your hold on the province when it was apparently lost after their terrible defeat, and so retained it unimpaired for Rome and for me their successor. It must be our aim and object now with the help of heaven not so much to maintain our own footing in Spain as to prevent the Carthaginians from maintaining theirs. We must not remain stationary here, defending the bank of the Ebro against the enemy's passage of the river; we must cross over ourselves and shift the seat of war. To some of you at least, I fear that this plan may seem too large and bold when you remember the defeats we have lately sustained, and when you think of my youth. No man is less likely to forget those fatal battles in Spain than I am, for my father and my uncle were killed within thirty days of each other, so that my family was visited by one death upon another.
