Scipio Refuses the Title "King"
Next morning he collected the prisoners, amounting to
ten thousand foot and more than two thousand horse, and
busied himself in making arrangements about them. All the
Iberians of that district, who were in alliance at that time with
the Carthaginians, came in and submitted to the Roman
obedience, and in addressing Scipio called him "king." The
first to do this and to bow the knee before him
had been Edeco, and the next Andobales.
On
these occasions Scipio had passed the word over
without remark; but after the battle, when all alike addressed
him by that title, his attention was drawn to it; and he therefore summoned the Iberians to a meeting, and told them that
"he quite wished to be called a man of royal liberality by them
all, and to be so in the truest sense, but that he had no wish
to be a 'king,' nor to be called one by any one; they should
address him as general."
Even at this early period of his career, an observer might
have remarked the loftiness of Scipio's character. He was
still quite young. His good fortune had been so persistent,
that all who came under his rule were led naturally to think
and speak of him as a king. Yet he did not lose his selfcontrol; but deprecated this popular impulse and this show of
dignity. But this same loftiness of character was still more
admirable in the closing scenes of his life, when, in addition
to his achievements in
Iberia, he crushed the Carthaginians;
reduced the largest and fairest districts of
Libya, from the
Altars of Philaenus to the Pillars of Hercules, under the power
of his country; conquered
Asia and the kings of
Syria; made
the best and largest part of the world subject to
Rome; and
in doing so had numerous opportunities of acquiring regal
sway, in whatever parts of the world suited his purpose or
wish. For such achievements were enough to have kindled
pride, not merely in any human breast, but even, if I may say
so without irreverence, in that of a god. But Scipio's greatness of soul was so superior
to the common standard of mankind, that he again and again rejected what Fortune had put
within his grasp, that prize beyond which men's boldest
prayers do not go—the power of a king: and he steadily preferred his country and his duty to that royalty, which men
gaze at with such admiration and envy.
Scipio next proceeded to select from the captives the
Scipio occupies the position evacuated by the Carthaginians. |
native Iberians, and all these he dismissed to
their homes without ransom; and bidding Andobales select three hundred of the horses, he distributed the remainder among those who had
none. For the rest, he at once occupied the entrenchment of
the Carthaginians, owing to its excellent situation; and there he
remained himself, waiting to see the movements of the other
Carthaginian generals; while he detached a body of men to
the passes of the
Pyrenees to keep a look-out for
Hasdrubal.
After this, as it was getting late in
the season, he retired with his army to
Tarraco
being bent on wintering there. . . .
