36.
Scipio immediately after the battle stormed and plundered the enemy's camp and with immense booty returned to the sea and his ships, having received
[
2??]
word that Publius Lentulus,
1 in command of fifty war-ships and a hundred transports with supplies of every kind, had arrived near Utica.
[
3]
Thinking therefore that he must bring terror to bear from every side against disheartened Carthage, after sending Laelius to Rome with a report of the victory, he ordered Gnaeus Octavius to bring the legions to Carthage by land. He himself went to his old fleet, now enlarged by the new fleet of Lentulus, and then sailed from Utica towards the harbour of Carthage.
[
4]
He was not far away when a Carthaginian ship bedecked with fillets and olive branches met him. There were ten envoys, leading
[p. 503]citizens, sent at the instance of Hannibal to sue for
2 peace.
[
5]
When they approached the stern of the flagship, holding out the symbols of suppliants, begging and beseeching the help and pity of Scipio, no other answer was given them than that they should come to Tynes;
3 that thither he would move his camp.
[
6]
Scipio sailed near in order to view the situation of Carthage, not so much for the purpose of an immediate reconnaissance as to humiliate the enemy, and returned to Utica, recalling Octavius also to the same place.
[
7]
While proceeding from there to Tynes they received news that Vermina,
4 the son of Syphax, commanding more cavalry than infantry was coming to the help of the Carthaginians.
[
8]
Part of the infantry and all the cavalry attacked the column of the Numidians on the first day
5 of the Saturnalia, and routed it after a slight engagement. As even the way of escape was cut off, with the cavalry surrounding them on all sides, fifteen thousand men were slain, twelve hundred captured alive, fifteen hundred Numidian horses taken and seventy-two military standards. The prince himself in the midst of the confusion escaped with a few men.
[
9]
Then camp was pitched near Tynes on the same site as before, and thirty envoys from Carthage came to Scipio.
[p. 505]
Their pleading was, to be sure, much more piteous
6 than before, in proportion as misfortune was more compelling; but they were heard with much less pity owing to the memory, still fresh, of their treachery.
[
10]
In the council, although righteous indignation spurred them all to the destruction of Carthage, nevertheless they reflected how serious a matter and how protracted also was the siege of a city so well fortified and so strong.
[
11]
Scipio himself was also troubled as he looked forward to a successor
7 who would come into what had been won by the hardship and danger of another —the glory of finishing the war. Consequently they all were inclined to peace.