28.16
When
the outposts brought intelligence of the enemy's departure Scipio sent on his
cavalry and followed with his entire army. Such was the rapidity of the
pursuit that had they followed in Hasdrubal's direct track they must have
caught him up. But, acting on the advice of their guides, they took a shorter
route to the river Baetis, so that they might be able to attack him if he
attempted its passage. Finding the river closed to him, Hasdrubal turned his
course towards the ocean, and his hurried march, which in its haste and
confusion looked like a flight gave him a considerable start on the Roman
legions. Their cavalry and light infantry harassed and retarded him by
attacking him in flank and rear, and whilst he was continually forced to halt
to repel first the cavalry and then infantry skirmishers, the legions came up.
Now it was no longer a battle but sheer butchery, until the general himself
set the example of flight and escaped to the nearest hills with some 6000
men, many of them without arms. The rest were killed or made prisoners.
The Carthaginians hastily improvised an intrenched camp on the highest
point of the hills, and as the Romans found it useless to attempt the
precipitous ascent, they had no difficulty in making themselves safe. But a
bare and sterile height was hardly a place in which to stand even a few days'
siege, and there were numerous desertions. At last Hasdrubal sent for ships -he was not far from the sea -and fled in the night, leaving his army to its
fate. As soon as Scipio heard of his flight he left Silanus to keep up the
investment of the Carthaginian camp with 10,000 infantry and 1000 cavalry,
whilst he himself with the rest of his force returned to Tarraco. During his
seventy days' march to this place, he took steps to ascertain the attitude of
the various chiefs and tribes towards Rome, so that they might be
recompensed as they deserved. After his departure Masinissa came to a
secret understanding with Silanus, and crossed over with a small following
to Africa, to induce his people to support him in his new policy. The reasons
which determined him on this sudden change were not evident at the time,
but the loyalty which he subsequently displayed throughout his long life to its
close proved beyond question that his motives at the beginning were
carefully weighed. After Mago had sailed to Gades in the ships which
Hasdrubal had sent back for him, the rest of the army abandoned by their
generals broke up, some deserting to the Romans, others dispersing amongst
the neighbouring tribes. No body of troops remained worth consideration
either for numbers or fighting strength. Such, in the main, was the way in
which under the conduct and auspices of Publius Scipio the Carthaginians
were expelled from Spain, fourteen years from the commencement of the
war, and five years after Scipio assumed supreme command. Not long after
Mago's departure Silanus joined Scipio at Tarraco, and reported that the war
was at an end.
