28.43
This
speech of Fabius, so appropriate to the circumstances under which it was
delivered, and backed up by the weight of his character and his
long-established reputation for prudence, produced a great effect upon most
of those present, especially upon the seniors. Seeing that the majority
approved of the sage counsels of age in preference to the impetuous temper
of youth, Scipio is reported to have made the following reply: "Senators, at
the beginning of his speech, Q. Fabius admitted that what he had to say
might lay him under a suspicion of jealousy. Personally, I should not dare to
accuse so great a man of that weakness, but either through the inadequacy of
his defence or the impossibility of making a successful one, he has utterly
failed to clear himself of the charge. For in his anxiety to dispel the
suspicion, he spoke about his distinctions and his reputation in such
exaggerated terms as to give the impression that I was in danger of finding a
rival in the lowest of the Romans, not in him who, because he stands above
all others -a position which I frankly confess I am striving to attain, denies
the possibility of any rivalry between us. He has represented himself as an
old man full of honours, and me as a youth not even as old as his son, as if
the passion for glory did not extend beyond the span of human life and find
its chief satisfaction in the memory of future generations. I am quite certain
that it is the lot of all great men to compare themselves not with their
contemporaries alone, but also with the illustrious of all ages. I admit,
Quintus Fabius, that I am desirous not only of equalling your renown but -forgive my saying so -of surpassing it, if I can. Let not your feeling towards
me, or mine towards my juniors, be such that we would prevent any of our
fellow-citizens from reaching our level. That would not only injure the
victims of our envy, it would be a loss to the State, and almost to the human
race.
"The speaker dwelt upon the danger to which I should be exposed
if I landed in Africa, showing apparently solicitude not only for the
commonwealth and its army but even for me. What has led to this sudden
anxiety on my account? When my father and my uncle were killed and their
armies all but annihilated; when Spain was lost; when four Carthaginian
armies and their generals were holding the whole country down by the terror
of their arms; when you were looking for a man to take the supreme
command in that war and no one appeared, no one came forward to offer
himself but me; when the Roman people conferred the supreme command on
me before I had reached my twenty-fifth year -why did no one then say
anything about my age, the strength of the enemy, the difficulties of the
campaign or the recent disaster which had overtaken my father and my
uncle? Has some calamity occurred recently in Africa greater than the one
which happened then in Spain? Are there larger armies and better and more
numerous commanders in Africa now than there were then in Spain? Was I
then at a riper age for undertaking a great war than I am today? Is Spain a
more convenient field for operations against the Carthaginians than Africa?
Now that I have scattered four Carthaginian armies in flight, reduced so
many cities by force or fear, and subjugated every part down to the shores of
the ocean, petty kings and savage tribes alike; now that I have reconquered
the whole of Spain so completely that no vestige of war anywhere remains, it
is an easy task to make light of my services, as easy, in fact, as it will be,
when I have returned victorious from Africa, to make light of those very
difficulties which are now painted in such dark colours in order to keep me
here.
"Fabius says that no part of Africa is accessible, that there are no
harbours open to us. He tells us that M. Atilius Regulus was made prisoner
in Africa, as though he had met with misfortune as soon as he landed. He
forgets that that very commander, unfortunate as he was afterwards, did find
some harbours in Africa open to him, and for the first twelve months won
some brilliant victories, and as far as the Carthaginian generals were
concerned, remained undefeated to the last. You will not, therefore, deter
me by quoting that instance. Even if that disaster had occurred in this war
instead of in the last one, quite recently and not forty years ago -even then
why should I be prevented from invading Africa because Regulus was made
prisoner any more than I was prevented from going to Spain after the two
Scipios were killed? I should be sorry to believe that Xanthippus, the
Lacedaemonian, was born to be a greater blessing to Carthage than I am to
be to my country, and my confidence is strengthened by seeing what
tremendous issues depend upon one man's courage. We have had to listen
even to stories about the Athenians, how they neglected the war at their
doors in order to go to Sicily. Well, since you are at leisure to tell us tales
about Greece why do you not mention Agathocles, king of Syracuse, who
after Sicily had long been wasted by the flames of the Punic War sailed
across to this same Africa and turned the tide of war back to the country
from which it had started?"