20.
The Romans, although the land was in the possession of the enemy, whose line of battle could be seen extending all along the shore, continued without the slightest hesitation to press their pursuit of the terror-stricken fleet, and, attaching cables to the stern of every vessel which had neither broken its prow on the beach nor grounded
[2??]
its keel in the shoals, they towed it out to sea, until they had captured some twenty-five of the forty ships.
[3]
Nor was this the most brilliant feature of the victory, but the fact that the Romans in one easy battle had made themselves the masters of all that coast.
[4]
So they spread their sails for Onusa, where they disembarked and stormed and sacked the city, and thence laid a course
[5??]
for Carthage, and after devastating all the country round about, ended by setting fire even to the buildings that adjoined the walls and gates.
[6]
Then the fleet —heavy-laden now with plunder —sailed to Longuntica,1 where they found a great quantity of esparto-grass, which Hasdrubal had got together for the use of his ships. Of this they took what they needed and burned all the rest.
[7]
And they not only cruised along the mainland, but crossed over to the island of Ebusus.2 [p. 269]There they endeavoured strenuously for two days,3 but without success, to capture the chief city of the
[8]
island. And when they saw that their hopes were vain and their time was being wasted, they
[9??]
betook themselves to pillaging the country-side, and after sacking and burning several villages, returned to their ships with more booty than they had collected from the mainland. Here envoys from the Baliaric islands came to Scipio to sue for peace.
[10]
The fleet now put about and returned to the northern part of the province, and thither flocked ambassadors from all the communities on this side of the Ebro and even from many places in farthest Spain; but the communities that gave hostages and really came under the rule and government of Rome were more than a hundred and
[11]
twenty. Feeling, therefore, sufficiently strong on land, as well as on the sea, the Roman general advanced as far as the pass of
[12]
Castulo.4 Hasdrubal retired into Lusitania, nearer the ocean.
1 Longuntica, otherwise unknown, was probably not far from New Carthage, for the Spartarius Campus (so named from a kind of rush-grass, still called esparto, which was used for twisting into rope) lay inland from the latter town (see Strabo, II. iv. 9, p. 160; and Pliny, N.H.XIX. xxx.).
2 Ebusus is the Phoenician name for either of the two islands usually known by their Greek name Pityusae —both names signifying pine-clad. Here the larger of the two is meant.
3 B.C. 217
4 Now Cazlona. The pass led through the Sierra Morena, north of the city, which was famous for the silver and lead mines in its neighbourhood. Castulo enjoyed a close alliance with the Carthaginians and one of its daughters became the wife of Hannibal. In 214 B.C. it revolted to the Romans, but by 211 was again in the hands of the Carthaginians (xxiv. xii. 7; xxvi. xx. 6).
Livy. Boooks XXI-XXII With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1929: no copyright notice.
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