History of Rome

​Hasdrubal had from his flight sought the nearest city with a few of the Africans, and thither all who survived, following the footsteps of their leader, had betaken themselves; then, from fear lest he should be surrendered to Scipio, he departed from the city.

​Soon after, the Romans were received there through open gates; nor was any hostile act committed, because they had voluntarily yielded to their authority. Immediately afterwards two cities were captured and plundered; that booty, along with what had been snatched from the fire when the camps were burned, was granted to the soldiers.

​Syphax halted in a fortified place about eight miles’ distance from there; Hasdrubal hastened to Carthage, lest any too weak counsel should be taken through fear arising from the recent disaster.

​Whither such great terror was at first brought, that, neglecting Utica, they believed Scipio would immediately besiege Carthage.

​Therefore the sufetes, an office which had among them a power like that of the consuls, convened the senate.

​There the debate was contested between three opinions: one proposed sending envoys to Scipio for peace; another recalled Hannibal to protect his fatherland from a destructive war; the third was characteristic of Roman constancy in adversity:

​it proposed that the army should be rebuilt and Syphax exhorted not to withdraw from the war. This opinion prevailed, because Hasdrubal was present and everyone of the Barcine faction preferred war.

​From that point, a levy began to be held in the city and the countryside, and envoys were sent to Syphax, who was himself also rebuilding the war with all his might, since his wife had prevailed—no longer, as before, with blandishments, which were powerful enough on the mind of a lover, but with prayers and appeals to pity, beseeching him with tears, ​not to betray her father and her country, nor to permit Carthage to be consumed by the same flames by which the camps had burned.

​The envoys also brought a timely offered hope: that four thousand Celtiberians, of excellent youth, hired in Spain by their recruiting agents, had met them near a city named Obba, and that Hasdrubal would shortly be present with a force by no means to be despised.

​Therefore, he not only replied kindly to the envoys, but also showed them a multitude of rustic Numidians to whom he had given arms and horses during those same days, and asserted that he would rouse all the youth from his kingdom;

​he said he knew that the defeat had been received through fire, not in battle; and that he who is conquered by arms is the one inferior in war.

​These were the responses given to the envoys; and after a few days, Hasdrubal and Syphax joined forces again. That entire army consisted of about thirty thousand armed men.