his escape to Gades. Scipio, having heard of the
flight of the general of the enemy, left ten thousand foot and one
thousand cavalry for Silanus to carry on the siege of the camp, and
returned to Tarraco with the rest of the troops, after a march of
seventy days, during which he took cognizance of the causes of the
petty princes and states, in order that rewards might be conferred
according to a just estimate of their merits. After his departure,
Masinissa, having held a private conference with Silanus, passed
over into Africa with a few of his countrymen, in order that he might
induce his nation also to acquiesce in his new designs. The cause of
this sudden change was not so evident at the time, as the proof was
convincing which was afforded by his subsequent fidelity, preserved
to extreme old age, that he did not on this occasion act without
reasonable grounds. Mago went to Gades in the ships which had been
sent back by Hasdrubal. Of the rest of the troops thus abandoned by
their generals, some deserted and others betook themselves to flight,
and in this manner were dispersed through the neighbouring states.
There was no body of them considerable either for numbers or strength.
Such were, as near as possible, the circumstances under which the
Carthaginians were driven out of Spain, under the conduct and auspices
of Publius Scipio, in the thirteenth year from the commencement of
the war, and the fifth from the time that Publius Scipio received the
province and the army. Not long after, Silanus returned to Tarraco to
Scipio, with information that the war was at an end.

17. Lucius Scipio was sent to Rome to convey the news of the reduction
of Spain, and with him a number of distinguished captives. While
everybody else extolled this achievement as an event in the highest
degree joyful and glorious, yet the author of it alone, whose valour
was such that he never thought he had achieved enough, and whose
search for true glory was insatiable, considered the reduction of
Spain as affording but a faint idea of the hopes which his aspiring
mind had conceived. He now directed his view to Africa and Great
Carthage, and the glorious termination of the war, as redounding to
his honour, and giving lustre to his name. Judging it therefore to
be now necessary to pave the way to his object, and to conciliate
the friendship of kings and nations, he resolved first to sound the
disposition of Syphax, king of the Masaesylians, a nation b