30.32
On
their return to their camps, the commanders-in-chief each issued an order of
the day to their troops. "They were to get their arms ready and brace up their
courage for a final and decisive struggle; if success attended them they
would be victors not for a day only but for all time; they would know before
the next day closed whether Rome or Carthage was to give laws to the
nations. For not Africa and Italy only -the whole world will be the prize of
victory. Great as is the prize, the peril in case of defeat will be as great. "For
no escape lay open to the Romans in a strange and unknown land; and
Carthage was making her last effort, if that failed, her destruction was
imminent. On the morrow they went out to battle -the two most brilliant
generals and the two strongest armies that the two most powerful nations
possessed -to crown on that day the many honours they had won, or for
ever lose them. The soldiers were filled with alternate hopes and fears as
they gazed at their own and then at the opposing lines and measured their
comparative strength with the eye rather than the mind, cheerful and
despondent in turn. The encouragement which they could not give to
themselves their generals gave them in their exhortations. The Carthaginian
reminded his men of their sixteen years' successes on Italian soil, of all the
Roman generals who had fallen and all the armies that had been destroyed,
and as he came to each soldier who had distinguished himself in any battle,
he recounted his gallant deeds. Scipio recalled the conquest of Spain and the
recent battles in Africa and showed up the enemies' confession of weakness,
since their fears compelled them to sue for peace and their innate
faithlessness prevented them from abiding by it. He turned to his own
purpose the conference with Hannibal, which being private allowed free
scope for invention. He drew an omen and declared that the gods had
vouchsafed the same auspices to them as those under which their fathers
fought at the Aegates. The end of the war and of their labours, he assured
them, had come; the spoils of Carthage were in their hands, and the return
home to their wives and children and household gods. He spoke with
uplifted head and a face so radiant that you might suppose he had already
won the victory.