25.36
As,
however, what with fighting and halting, they had for some time been
making very little progress and night was close at hand, Scipio called his men
off from battle, massed them in close order, and led them to some rising
ground, not, indeed, a very safe position, especially for unnerved troops, but
still somewhat more elevated than the ground round it. The baggage and the
cavalry were placed in the centre and the infantry drawn up round them, and
at first they had no difficulty in repelling the attacks of the Numidians. But
when the three commanders appeared in full force with three regular armies
it was obvious that they would be unable to defend the position by arms
alone in the absence of entrenchments. The general began to look round him
and consider whether it were in any way possible to surround himself with an
earthwork. But the hill was so bare and the ground so rocky that there was
no brushwood to cut for a stockade nor earth for constructing a rampart or
carrying a fosse or for any other work. No part was naturally so steep or
precipitous as to render the approach or ascent difficult for the enemy; the
whole surface of the hill rose in a gentle slope. In order, however, to present
to the enemy something which might look like a rampart they tied together
their saddles and the packs which the animals carried and piled them up all
round them as if they were building up a rampart to the usual height, and
where there were not enough saddles they made it up by throwing all the kits
and packages of every kind into the gaps, as a barricade.
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.
