21.44
"Wherever I turn my eyes I see nothing
but courage and strength, a veteran infantry, a cavalry, regular and irregular
alike, drawn from the noblest tribes, you, our most faithful and brave allies,
you, Carthaginians, who are going to fight for your country, inspired by a
most righteous indignation. We are taking the aggressive, we are descending
in hostile array into Italy, prepared to fight more bravely and more fearlessly
than our foe because he who attacks is animated by stronger hopes and
greater courage than he who meets the attack. Besides, we are smarting
from a sense of injustice and humiliation. First they demanded me, your
general, as their victim, then they insisted that all of you who had taken part
in the siege of Saguntum should be surrendered; had you been given up they
would have inflicted upon you the most exquisite tortures. That
outrageously cruel and tyrannical nation claims everything for itself, makes
everything dependent on its will and pleasure; they think it right to dictate
with whom we are to make war or peace. They confine and enclose us
within mountains and rivers as boundaries, but they do not observe the limits
which they themselves have fixed. 'Do not cross the Ebro, see that you have
nothing to do with the Saguntines.' 'But Saguntum is not on the Ebro.' 'You
must not move a step anywhere.' 'Is it a small matter, your taking from me
my oldest provinces, Sicily and Sardinia? Will you cross over into Spain as
well, and if I withdraw from there, will you cross over into Africa? Do I say,
will cross over? You have crossed over.' They have sent the two consuls for
this year, one to Africa, the other to Spain. There is nothing left to us
anywhere except what we claim by force of arms. Those may be allowed to
be cowards and dastards who have something to fall back upon, whom their
own land, their own territory will receive as they flee through its safe and
peaceful roads; you must of necessity be brave men, every alternative
between victory and death has been broken off by the resolve of despair, and
you are compelled either to conquer, or if Fortune wavers, to meet death in
battle rather than in flight. If you have all made up your minds to this, I say
again you are victors, no keener weapon has been put into men's hands by
the immortal gods than a contempt for death."
