29.22
Whilst
they were on their way to Syracuse Scipio prepared to justify himself, not by
words but by acts. He gave orders for the whole of the army to muster at
Syracuse and the fleet to be prepared for action as though he had to engage
the Carthaginians that day both by land and sea. When the commission had
landed he received them courteously, and the following day he invited them
to watch the maneuvers of his land and sea forces, the troops performing
their evolutions as in battle, whilst the ships in the harbour engaged in a
sham sea-fight. Then the praetor and the commissioners were taken for a
tour of inspection round the arsenals and magazines and the other
preparations for war, and the impression made by the whole and by each
separate detail was such as to convince them that if that general and that
army could not conquer Carthage, no one ever could. They bade him sail for
Africa with the blessing of heaven, and fulfil as speedily as possible the hopes
and expectations in which the centuries had unanimously chosen him as their
consul. They left in such joyous spirits that they seemed to be taking back
the announcement of a victory, and not simply reporting the magnificent
preparations for war. Pleminius and his fellow criminals were thrown into
prison as soon as they reached Rome. When they were first brought before
the people by the tribunes the minds of all were too full of the sufferings of
the Locrians to leave any room for pity. But after they had been brought
forward several times the feeling against them became gradually less
embittered, the mutilation which Pleminius had suffered and the thought of
the absent Scipio who had befriended him disposed the populace in his
favour. However, before the trial was over he died in prison. Clodius
Licinius in the Third Book of his Roman History says that Pleminius bribed
some men to set fire to various parts of the City during the Games which
Scipio Africanus was celebrating, in fulfilment of a vow, during his second
consulship, to give him an opportunity of breaking out of gaol and making
his escape. The plot was discovered, and he was by order of the senate
consigned to the Tullianum. No proceedings took place with regard to
Scipio except in the senate, where all the commissioners and the tribunes
spoke in such glowing terms of the general and his fleet and army that the
senate resolved that an expedition should start for Africa as soon as possible.
They gave Scipio permission to select from the armies in Sicily what troops
he would like to take with him, and what he would leave in occupation of
the island.
