And now there were, in a manner, two contests going on together, the
Carthaginians being compelled to fight at once with the enemy and with
their own party. Not even then, however, did they receive into their
line the terrified and exasperated troops; but, closing their ranks,
drove them out of the scene of action to the wings and the surrounding
plain, lest they should mingle these soldiers, terrified with defeat
and wounds, with that part of their line which was firm and fresh. But
such a heap of men and arms had filled the space in which the
auxiliaries a little while ago had stood that it was almost more
difficult to pass through it than through a close line of troops. The
spearmen, therefore, who formed the front line, pursuing the enemy as
each could find a way through the heap of firms and men, and streams
of blood, threw into complete disorder the battalions and companies.
The standards, also, of the principes had begun to waver when they saw
the line before them driven from their ground. Scipio, perceiving
this, promptly ordered the signal to be given for the spearmen to
retreat, and, having taken his wounded into the rear, brought the
principes and triarii to the wings, in order that the line of
spearmen in the center might be more strong and secure. Thus a fresh
and renewed battle commenced, inasmuch as they had penetrated to their
real antagonists, men equal to them in the nature of their arms, in
their experience in war, in the fame of their achievements, and the
greatness of their hopes and fears. But the Romans were superior both
in numbers and courage, for they had now routed both the cavalry and
the elephants, and, having already defeated the front line, were
fighting against the second....

Hannibal, after performing this, as it were, his last work of valor,
fled to Adrumetum, whence, having been summoned to Carthage, he
returned thither in the six and thirtieth year after he had left it
when a boy, and confest in the senate house that he was defeated, not
only in the battle, but in the war, and that there was no hope o+-
safety in anything but obtaining peace.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 67: "The most eloquent of all historians," says Cruttwell.
Livy understood the spirit of ancient times, making it real to modern
minds because he possest "antiquity of soul." In his own day Livy's
popularity was almost limitless. Pliny the Younger recalled that a man
once traveled to Rome from Cadiz with the express