empts to acquire
the possessions of others we have been compelled to fight for our own;
and not only have you had a war in Italy, and we also in Africa, but
you have beheld the standards and arms of your enemies almost in
your gates and on your walls, and we now, from the walls of Carthage,
distinctly hear the din of a Roman camp. What, therefore, we should
most earnestly deprecate, and you should most devoutly wish for, is
now the case: peace is proposed at a time when you have the advantage.
We who negotiate it are the persons whom it most concerns to obtain
it, and we are persons whose arrangements, be they what they will,
our states will ratify. All we want is a disposition not averse
from peaceful counsels. As far as relates to myself, time, (for I
am returning to that country an old man which I left a boy,) and
prosperity, and adversity, have so schooled me, that I am more
inclined to follow reason than fortune. But I fear your youth and
uninterrupted good fortune, both of which are apt to inspire a degree
of confidence ill comporting with pacific counsels. Rarely does
that man consider the uncertainty of events whom fortune hath never
deceived. What I was at Trasimenus, and at Cannae, that you are this
day. Invested with command when you had scarcely yet attained
the military age, though all your enterprises were of the boldest
description, in no instance has fortune deserted you. Avenging the
death of your father and uncle, you have derived from the calamity of
your house the high honour of distinguished valour and filial duty.
You have recovered Spain, which had been lost, after driving thence
four Carthaginian armies. When elected consul, though all others
wanted courage to defend Italy, you crossed over into Africa; where
having cut to pieces two armies, having at once captured and burnt two
camps in the same hour; having made prisoner Syphax, a most powerful
king, and seized so many towns of his dominions and so many of ours,
you have dragged me from Italy, the possession of which I had firmly
held for now sixteen years. Your mind, I say, may possibly be more
disposed to conquest than peace. I know the spirits of your country
aim rather at great than useful objects. On me, too, a similar fortune
once shone. But if with prosperity the gods would also bestow upon us
sound judgment, we should not only consider those things which have
happened, but those also which may occur. Even if you should forget
all others