at mattered and he knew
what it was. At the same time Scipio had in his nature no tinge of what
the Greeks called the 'daemon' in man and we the divine spark. The
impossible did not beckon to him. His imagination and his desires moved
among the things that could be done. He was incapable of a passion like
Hannibal's. He could never have set out to conquer the world, and held
on year after year, beaten but not defeated, knowing that he could not
win but refusing to give up. He was the natural leader of a successful
people. Always he had Rome behind him. Hannibal had nothing behind him,
in that sense. He had to create his instruments by the sheer force of
his own fiery energy. Scipio could never have done this. It would have
seemed to him foolish to try.

Although Scipio cared for many things outside the business of war, it
was as a soldier that he was admired and honoured by most of his
countrymen. War was the only road to high place and distinction
recognized in Rome. Scipio, like other young men of his class--he
belonged to a very ancient and honourable family, that of the
Cornelii--was trained as a soldier from his boyhood.

At the battle of the Ticinus the life of the consul Publius Cornelius
Scipio was saved by the gallantry of a lad of eighteen, serving his
first campaign. This lad was his son, named like himself Publius
Cornelius Scipio. He fought again at Cannae, and was, with the son of
old Fabius Cunctator, among the very few young officers who escaped
alive. As he made his way from the stricken field he came upon a group
of men, one or two being officers, who in despair after the frightful
day felt that Rome was lost. All that was left for them was to cross the
seas and try, in a new country, to carve a career for themselves. Scipio
and young Fabius, their swords drawn, compelled them to give up this
idea and swear that they would not desert their country. These young men
did yeoman service in helping Varro to collect the remnants of his
scattered army; and Scipio was clearly marked out for high command in
years to come.

That it would come as soon as it actually did no one, however, could
have foreseen. After the battles of Ticinus and Trebia, Scipio's father
and his uncle were sent to Spain to reconquer the lost provinces there
and prevent any help coming to Hannibal. They also stirred up trouble in
Africa. But their success was brief. When Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal
returned to Spain the Spaniards who