Both Hannibal and Scipio, accordingly, made addresses to their
respective armies--at least so say the historians of those times--each
one expressing to his followers the certainty that the other side
would easily be beaten. The speech attributed to Scipio was somewhat
as follows:

"I wish to say a few words to you, soldiers, before we go into battle.
It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary. It certainly would not be
necessary if I had now under my command the same troops that I took
with me to the mouth of the Rhone. They knew the Carthaginians there,
and would not have feared them here. A body of our horsemen met and
attacked a larger body of theirs, and defeated them. We then advanced
with our whole force toward their encampment, in order to give them
battle. They, however, abandoned the ground and retreated before we
reached the spot, acknowledging, by their flight, their own fear and
our superiority. If you had been with us there, and had witnessed
these facts, there would have been no need that I should say any thing
to convince you now how easily you are going to defeat this
Carthaginian foe.

"We have had a war with this same nation before. We conquered them
then, both by land and sea; and when, finally, peace was made, we
required them to pay us tribute, and we continued to exact it from
them for twenty years. They are a conquered nation; and now this
miserable army has forced its way insanely over the Alps, just to
throw itself into our hands. They meet us reduced in numbers, and
exhausted in resources and strength. More than half of their army
perished in the mountains, and those that survive are weak,
dispirited, ragged, and diseased. And yet they are compelled to meet
us. If there was any chance for retreat, or any possible way for them
to avoid the necessity of a battle, they would avail themselves of it.
But there is not. They are hemmed in by the mountains, which are now,
to them, an impassable wall, for they have not strength to scale them
again. They are not real enemies; they are the mere remnants and
shadows of enemies. They are wholly disheartened and discouraged,
their strength and energy, both of soul and body, being spent and
gone, through the cold, the hunger, and the squalid misery they have
endured. Their joints are benumbed, their sinews stiffened, and their
forms emaciated. Their armor is shattered and broken, their horses are
lamed, and all their equipments worn out and ruined, so that really