The Historians' History of the World 05

As for the men of war, their being engaged in the fight, with the hopes of approaching victory, the eagerness of the soldiers heightened by the sounds of the trumpets, the noise made by the majors and captains in giving their orders, made them even like furies and hindered them from amusing themselves at these spectacles. In this bloody toil they continued six days and six nights without respite, save only that the soldiers were from time to time relieved by other fresh ones, lest the continual watchings, labour, slaughter and horror should make their hearts fail them. Scipio only bore out all this time without sleeping; he was continually in action, continually running from one place to another, and taking no food but what offered itself by chance as he was passing, till such time as quite tired out he sat down in an eminent place, that he might see what passed. Meanwhile strange havoc was made on all sides and this calamity seemed likely to continue much longer, when on the seventh day they had recourse to his clemency, and came to him bringing in their hand the Vervein of Æsculapius whose temple is the most considerable in all the fortress, desiring no other composition but that he would please to give their lives to all that would come forth, which he granted to them, except only to the runaways. There came forth fifty thousand as well men as women, who he caused to pass out of the little gate towards the fields with a good guard.

The runaways, who were about nine hundred, seeing there was no mercy for them, withdrew into the temple with Hasdrubal, his wife and children, where, though they were a small number, they might defend themselves, because of the height of the place situated upon rocks, and to which in time of peace they ascended by sixty steps, but at length oppressed with famine, watchings, and fear, and seeing their destruction so nigh, impatience seized them, and quitting the lower part of the temple they fled to the highest story. Hasdrubal meanwhile privately withdrew himself and went to Scipio with a branch of olive in his hand; Scipio having commanded him to come up and prostrate himself at his feet, showed him to the runaways, who seeing him demanded silence, which being granted, after having vomited forth an infinite number of revilings and reproaches against Hasdrubal, they set fire to the temple, and buried themselves in the flame. It is said that whilst the fire was kindling, Hasdrubal’s wife, decking herself in the best manner she could, and placing herself in the sight of Scipio, spoke to him with a loud voice in this manner.

The Oration of Hasdrubal’s Wife; Scipio’s Moralising

“I wish nothing to thee, O Roman, but all prosperity, for thou dost act only according to the rights of war. But I beseech the gods of Carthage, and thou thyself to punish, as he deserves, that Hasdrubal, who has betrayed his country, his gods, his wife, and children,” and then addressing her speech to Hasdrubal: “Perfidious wretch,” said she, “thou most wicked of all mankind! This fire is about to devour me and my children; but thou, great captain of Carthage, for what triumph are not thou reserved, or what punishment will not he make thee suffer, at whose feet I now see thee.”[61]

After these reproaches she cut her children’s throats and cast them into the fire, and then threw herself headlong in; such, as is reported, was the end of this woman, but this death had certainly better become her husband.

As for Scipio, seeing that city which had flourished for seven hundred years since it was first built, comparable to any empire whatsoever for extent of dominion by sea and land, for its arms, for its fleets, for its elephants, for its riches, and preferable even to all nations on the earth for generosity and resolution, since after their arms and ships were taken away, they had supported themselves against famine and war for three years together,—seeing it, I say, now absolutely ruined, it is said that he shed tears and publicly deplored the hard fortune of his enemies. He considered that cities, peoples, and empires are subject to revolutions, as well as the conditions of private men, that the same disgrace had happened to Troy, that powerful city, and afterwards to the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, whose dominion extended so far, and lately to the Macedonians, whose empire was so great and flourishing, which was the reason that unawares, and as it were without thinking of it, that distich of Homer’s escaped him,—

“Priam’s and Troy’s time come, they Fates obey,

And must to fire and sword be made a prey.”

And Polybius who had been his tutor, demanding of him in familiar discourse what he meant by those words, he ingeniously answered, that the consideration of the vicissitude of human affairs had put him in mind of his country, whose fate he likewise feared; as the same Polybius reports in his histories.

Plundering the City