his war, with isolated exceptions
such as Saguntum on the Roman and Astapa on the Carthaginian side.
But, as neither the Romans nor the Africans had brought with them
sufficient forces of their own, the war necessarily became on both
sides a struggle to gain partisans, which was decided rarely by solid
attachment, more usually by fear, money, or accident, and which, when
it seemed about to end, resolved itself into an endless series of
fortress-sieges and guerilla conflicts, whence it soon revived with
fresh fury. Armies appeared and disappeared like sandhills on the
seashore; on the spot where a hill stood yesterday, not a trace of
it remains today. In general the superiority was on the side of
the Romans, partly because they at first appeared in Spain as the
deliverers of the land from Phoenician despotism, partly because of
the fortunate selection of their leaders and of the stronger nucleus
of trustworthy troops which these brought along with them. It is
hardly possible, however, with the very imperfect and--in point of
chronology especially--very confused accounts which have been handed
down to us, to give a satisfactory view of a war so conducted.

Successes of the Scipios
Syphax against Carthage

The two lieutenant-governors of the Romans in the peninsula, Gnaeus
and Publius Scipio--both of them, but especially Gnaeus, good
generals and excellent administrators--accomplished their task with
the most brilliant success. Not only was the barrier of the Pyrenees
steadfastly maintained, and the attempt to re-establish the
interrupted communication by land between the commander-in-chief of
the enemy and his head-quarters sternly repulsed; not only had a
Spanish New Rome been created, after the model of the Spanish New
Carthage, by means of the comprehensive fortifications and harbour
works of Tarraco, but the Roman armies had already in 539 fought with
success in Andalusia.(2) Their expedition thither was repeated in
the following year (540) with still greater success. The Romans
carried their arms almost to the Pillars of Hercules, extended their
protectorate in South Spain, and lastly by regaining and restoring
Saguntum secured for themselves an important station on the line from
the Ebro to Cartagena, repaying at the same time as far as possible
an old debt which the nation owed. While the Scipios thus almost
dislodged the Carthaginians from Spain, they knew how to raise up a
dangerous enemy to them in wes