35. It happened that the same day on which these events occurred,
the ships which had carried the plunder to Sicily returned with
provisions, as if divining that they came to take another cargo of
booty. All the writers do not vouch for the fact that two generals of
the Carthaginians bearing the same name were slain in the battles of
the cavalry; fearing, I believe, lest the same circumstance related
twice should lead them into error. Caelius, indeed, and Valerius, make
mention of a Hanno also who was made prisoner. Scipio rewarded his
officers and horsemen according to the service they had respectively
rendered, but he presented Masinissa above all the rest with
distinguished gifts. Leaving a strong garrison at Salera, he set out
with the rest of his army; and having not only devastated the country
wherever he marched, but taken some cities and towns, thus spreading
the terrors of war far and wide, he returned to his camp on the
seventh day after he set out, bringing with him an immense quantity
of men and cattle, and booty of every description, and sent away his
ships again loaded with the spoils of the enemy. Then giving up all
expeditions of a minor kind, and predatory excursions, he directed the
whole force of the war to the siege of Utica, that he might make it
for the time to come, if he took it, a position from which he might
set out for the execution of the rest of his designs. At one and the
same time his marines attacked the city from the fleet in that part
which is washed by the sea, and the land forces were brought up from a
rising ground which almost immediately overhung the walls. He had also
brought with him engines and machines which had been conveyed from
Sicily with the stores, and fresh ones were made in the armoury, in
which he had for that purpose employed a number of artificers skilled
in such works. The people of Utica, thus beset on all sides with so
formidable a force, placed all their hopes in the Carthaginians, and
the Carthaginians in the chance there was that Hasdrubal could induce
Syphax to take arms. But all their movements were made too slowly for
the anxiety felt by those who were in want of assistance. Hasdrubal,
though he had by levies, conducted with the utmost diligence, made
up as many as thirty thousand infantry and three thousand horse,
yet dared not move nearer to the enemy before the arrival of Syphax.
Syphax came with fifty thousand foot and ten thousand horse, and,
immediately decamping from Carthage, took up a position not far from
Utica and the Roman works. Their arrival produced, however, this
effect, that Scipio, who had been besieging Utica for forty days,
during which he had tried every expedient without effect, left the
place without accomplishing his object; and as the winter was now fast
approaching, fortified a camp for the winter upon a promontory, which
being attached to the continent by a narrow isthmus, stretched out a
considerable way into the sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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