§21.40.1“si eum exercitum, milites, educerem in aciem, quem in Gallia mecum habui, supersedissem loqui apud vos; §21.40.2quid enim adhortari referret aut eos equites, qui equitatum hostium ad Rhodanum flumen egregie vicissent, aut eas legiones, cum quibus fugientem hunc ipsum hostem secutus confessionem cedentis ac detractantis certamen pro victoria habui?
“If, soldiers, I were leading out into line of battle that army which I had with me in Gaul, I should have refrained from speaking before you; for what would it have mattered to encourage either those cavalrymen who had so excellently defeated the enemy's cavalry at the river Rhone, or those legions with whom, pursuing this very enemy as he fled, I held the confession of him retreating and declining battle as a victory?
§21.40.3nunc quia ille exercitus, Hispaniae provinciae scriptus, ibi cum fratre Cn. Scipione meis auspiciis rem gerit, ubi eum gerere senatus populusque Romanus voluit, ego, §21.40.4ut consulem ducem adversus Hannibalem ac Poenos haberetis, ipse me huic voluntario certamini obtuli, novo imperatori apud novos milites pauca verba facienda sunt.
Now, because that army, enrolled for the province of Spain, is operating under my auspices there with my brother Gnaeus Scipio where the senate and the Roman people wished it to operate, and I myself, in order that you might have a consul as your leader against Hannibal and the Carthaginians, have offered myself to this voluntary conflict, a few words must be spoken by a new general to new soldiers.
§21.40.5ne genus belli neve hostem ignoretis, cum iis est vobis, milites, pugnandum, quos terra marique priore bello vicistis, a quibus stipendium per viginti annos exegistis, a quibus capta belli praemia Siciliam ac Sardiniam habetis.
Lest you should be ignorant of the nature of the war or of the enemy, you must fight, soldiers, with those whom you defeated by land and sea in the former war, from whom you have exacted tribute for twenty years, and from whom you hold Sicily and Sardinia, taken as the prizes of war.
§21.40.6erit igitur in hoc certamine is vobis illisque animus, qui victoribus et victis esse solet. nec nunc illi, quia audent, sed quia necesse est, pugnaturi sunt;
There will be, therefore, in this conflict such a spirit in you and in them as is wont to be in victors and the vanquished.
§21.40.7nisi creditis, qui exercitu incolumi pugnam detractavere, eos duabus partibus peditum equitumque in transitu Alpium amissis plus spei nactos esse.
And now they are going to fight not because they dare, but because they must; unless you believe that those who declined battle when their army was unimpaired have gained more hope after losing two-thirds of their infantry and cavalry in the crossing of the Alps.
§21.40.8“at enim pauci quidem sunt, sed vigentes animis corporibusque, quorum robora ac vires vix sustinere vis ulla possit. ” §21.40.9effigies immo, umbrae hominum, fame frigore inluvie squalore enecti, contusi ac debilitati inter saxa rupesque; ad hoc praeusti artus, nive rigentes nervi, membra torrida gelu, quassata fractaque arma, claudi ac debiles equi:
‘But indeed,’ you may say, ‘they are few, but vigorous in mind and body, whose strength and power scarcely any force could withstand.’ Rather, they are effigies, shadows of men, wasted away by hunger, cold, filth, and squalor, bruised and weakened among rocks and cliffs; moreover, their limbs are frostbitten, their nerves stiffened by snow, their members paralyzed by ice, their weapons damaged and broken, and their horses lame and feeble.
§21.40.10cum hoc equite, cum hoc pedite pugnaturi estis; reliquias extremas hostis, non hostem habetis; ac nihil magis vereor, quam ne, cum vos pugnaveritis, Alpes vicisse Hannibalem videantur.
With this horse, with this foot you are going to fight; you have the last remains of an enemy, not an enemy; and I fear nothing more than lest, when you have fought, the Alps should seem to have conquered Hannibal.
§21.40.11sed ita forsitan decuit cum foederum ruptore duce ac populo deos ipsos sine ulla humana ope committere ac profligare bellum, nos, qui secundum deos violati sumus, commissum ac profligatum conficere.
But perhaps it was fitting in this way that the gods themselves, without any human aid, should begin and break the back of the war against a general and a people who are breakers of treaties, and that we, who were violated next to the gods, should finish the war thus begun and broken.”