30.13
When
the news arrived that Syphax was being brought into camp, the whole army
turned out as though to watch a triumphal procession. The king himself, in
chains, was the first to appear, he was followed by a crowd of Numidian
nobles. As they passed the soldiers each in turn sought to magnify their
victory by exaggerating the greatness of Syphax and the military reputation
of his nation. "This is the king," they said, "whose greatness has been so far
acknowledged by the most powerful States in the world -Rome and
Carthage -that Scipio left his army in Spain and sailed with two triremes to
Africa to secure his alliance, whilst the Carthaginian Hasdrubal not only
visited him in his kingdom, but even gave him his daughter in marriage. He
has had the Roman and the Carthaginian commanders both in his power at
the same time. As each side has sought peace and friendship from the
immortal gods by sacrifices duly offered, so each side alike has sought peace
and friendships from him. He was powerful enough to expel Masinissa from
his kingdom, and he reduced him to such a condition that he owed his life to
the report of his death and to his concealment in the forest, where he lived
on what he could catch there like a wild beast." Amidst these remarks of the
bystanders, the king was conducted to the headquarters tent. As Scipio
compared the earlier fortunes of the man with his present condition and
recalled to mind his own hospitable relations with him, the mutually pledged
right hands, the political and personal bonds between them, he was greatly
moved. Syphax, too, thought of these things, but they gave him courage in
addressing his conqueror. Scipio questioned him as to his object in first
denouncing his alliance with Rome and then starting an unprovoked war
against her. He admitted that he had done wrong and behaved like a madman
but his taking up arms against Rome was not the beginning of his madness, it
was the last act. He first exhibited his folly, his utter disregard of all private
ties and public obligations, when he admitted a Carthaginian bride into his
house. The torches which illuminated these nuptials had set his palace in a
blaze. That fury of a woman, that scourge, had used every endearment to
alienate and warp his feelings, and would not rest till she had with her own
impious hands armed him against his host and friend. However, broken and
ruined as he was, he had this to console him in his misery -that pestilential
fury had entered the household of his bitterest foe. Masinissa was not wiser
or more consistent than he had been, his youth made him even less cautious;
at all events that marriage proved him to be more foolish and headstrong.
