the beginning of the summer during which these events occurred,
after Publius Scipio had employed the whole of the winter in Spain in
regaining the affections of the barbarians, partly by presents, and
partly by sending home their hostages and prisoners, Edesco, a man
distinguished among the Spanish commanders, came to him. His wife and
children were in the hands of the Romans; but besides this motive,
he was influenced by that apparently fortuitous turn in the state of
feeling which had converted the whole of Spain from the Carthaginian
to the Roman cause. The same motive induced Indibilis and Mandonius,
who were undoubtedly the principal men in all Spain, to desert
Hasdrubal and withdraw with the whole body of their countrymen to the
eminences which overhung his camp, from which they had a safe retreat
along a chain of hills to the Romans. Hasdrubal, perceiving that the
strength of the enemy was increasing by such large accessions, while
his own was diminishing, and that events would continue to flow in the
same course they had taken, unless by a bold effort he effected some
alteration, resolved to come to an engagement as soon as possible.
Scipio was still more eager for a battle, as well from hope which
the success attending his operations had increased, as because he
preferred, before the junction of the enemy's forces, to fight with
one general and one army, rather than with their united troops.
However, in case he should be obliged to fight with more armies than
one at the same time, he had with some ingenuity augmented his forces;
for seeing that there was no necessity for ships, as the whole coast
of Spain was clear of Carthaginian fleets, he hauled his ships on
shore at Tarraco and added his mariners to his land forces. He
had plenty of arms for them, both those which had been captured at
Carthage, and those which he had caused to be made after its capture,
so large a number of workmen having been employed. With these forces,
setting out from Tarraco at the commencement of the spring, for
Laelius had now returned from Rome, without whom he wished nothing
of very great importance to be attempted, Scipio marched against the
enemy. Indibilis and Mandonius, with their forces, met him while on
his march; passing through every place Without molestation, his
allies receiving him courteously, and escorting him as he passed the
boundaries of each district. Indibilis, who spoke for both, addressed
him by no means stupid