and sent a great fleet to Sicily before it had disposed of the war at home, and in one naval battle the flourishing republic was for ever ruined. XLIL“I will not take instances from distant lands and remote times. This very Africa we are speaking about and the fate of Atilius Regulus 18 form a conspicuous example of the fickleness of fortune. “When you, Scipio, have a view of Africa, from the sea will not your conquest of Spain seem mere child's play?What resemblance is there between them?You began by coasting along the shores班Italy and Gaul over a sea free from any hostile fleet, and you brought up at Emporiae, a friendly city. After disembarking your troops you led them through a perfectly safe country to Tarraco, to the friends and allies of Rome, and from Tarraco your route led through the midst of Roman garrisons. Round the Ebro lay the armies of your father and your uncle, whose courage had been raised by defeat and who were burning to avenge the loss of their commanders. Their leader was, it is true, irregularly chosen by the vote of the soldiery to meet the emergency, but had he belonged to an ennobled family and been duly appointed he would have rivalled distinguished generals in his mastery of the art of war. Then you were able to attack New Carthage without the slightest interruption: not one out of‘the three Carthaginian armies attempted to defend their allies. The rest of your operations, though I am far from denreciatinLy them. are not 1 V i to be compared with a war in Africa. There no harbour is open to our fleet, no district which will receive us peaceably, no city in alliance with us, no king friendly to us, no spot which we can use as a base of operations. Wherever you turn your eyes, you see hostility and menace. “Do you put your trust in Syphax and his Numidians?Be satisfied with having trusted them once. Rashness does not always succeed and duplicity prepares.the way for confidence through trifles, so that when the occasion calls for it, it may succeed in securing some great advantage. Your father and your uncle were not defeated until the treachery of their Celtiberian auxiliaries left them victims to the enemy. You yourself were not exposed to anything like the danger from the Carthaginian commanders, Mago and Hasdrubal, that you were from Indibilis and Mandonius after5 you had accepted theiralliance. Can you trust the Numidians after the experience you have had of theMasinissa would黑yalty of your own troops? Syphax andprefer that they rather than the Carthzinians should be the leadinZ Dowers in Africa. but failinz that. trey wouia ratner nave the uartnagmians tnan any one else. At this moment mutual rivalry and numberless grounds of complaint are embittering them against one another, because external dangers are far distant;but once let them see the arms of Rome·and a foreign army, and they will hasten side by side to extinguish, as it were, a conflagration which threatens them both. Those Carthazinians defended SDain in a verv different way from that in which they_would defend their country's walls, the temples of their gods, their hearths and homes, when their trembling wives will follow them and their l 0ittle children cling to them as they march out to battle. What, moreover, if, feeling quite assured of the united support of Africa, the fidelity of their royal allies and the strength of their walls, and seeing that you and your army are no longer here to protect Italy, the Carthaginians should send over a fresh army from Africa, or order Mago, who, we understand, has left the Balearic Isles and is sailing along the Ligurian to form a junction with Hannibal?Surely we should the same state of alarm as we were at the appearance in Italy of Hasdrubal, after you had allowed him to slip ，through your hand who are going to blockade not Carthage only but the whole of Africa with your arm y You will say that you defeated him. Then I regret all the more, both on your account and on behalf of the republic, that you allowed him after his defeat to invade Italy. “川low us to ascribe all that has gone happily for you and for the dominion of Rome to vour wise counsels. and all misfortunes to the uncertain chances of war-the more talent and courage you claim for yourself the more will vour native country and all Italy desire to keep such a doughty defender at home. Even you cannot disguise the fact that where Hannibal_is, there is the centre and mainstay of the war, for you are giving out that the one reason for your going to Africa is to draw Hannibal there. Whether there then or here rnere , you still have Hannibal to deal with. An d will you. I should lik e to know, be ina stronger position in Africa, single-handed, than here with vour own army and your colleague's acting together? What a difference that makes is shown by the recent instance of the consuls Claudius and Livius. Where.pray. is Hannibal Z 1J， more likely to be supplied with men and arms? In the most remote corner of Bruttium where he las so long been vainly. asking for reinforcements from home or in the country round Carthage and on the soil of Africa which is entirely occupied by his allies?What an extraordinary idea that is of yo urs fight where your forces are reduced by one-half and toof th ose the enemy largely augmented, rather than in a country where with two armies you would engage only one, and that, too, exhausted by so many battles, and such long and burdensome service. just think how different your plan is from your father's. On his election as consul he proceeded to Spain, then left his province and returned to Italy in order to meet Hannibal on his descent from the Alps;you are preparing to leave Italy while Hannibal is actually here not in the interest of the grand and glorious thing a general of the Roman army without any legal authority, without any instructions from the senate entrusted to a couple of ships the fortunes of the State the majesty of the empire which were for the time bound with your own safety. “I hold the view that P. Cornelius Scipio was elected consul not for his own private ends, but for us and the commonwealth,