[Sidenote:  B.C. 209 (a.u. 545)] 39. ¶ When a mutiny of the soldiers took place, Scipio distributed many gifts to the soldiers and designated many also for the public treasury.  Some of the captives he appointed to service in the general fleet and all the hostages he gave back freely to their relatives.  For this reason many towns and many princes, among them Indibilis and Mandonius of the Ilergetes, came over to his side.  The Celtiberian race, the largest and strongest of those in that region, he gained in the following way.  He had taken among the captives a maiden distinguished for her beauty and it was supposed, on general principles, that he would fall in love with her:  and when he learned that she was betrothed to Allucius, one of the Celtiberian magistrates, he voluntarily sent for him and delivered the girl to him along with the ransom her kinsfolk had brought.  By this deed he attached to his cause both them and the rest of the nation. (Valesius, p.602.  Zonaras, 9, 8.)

40. ¶ Scipio was clever in strategy, agreeable in society, terrifying to his opponents, and humane to such as yielded.  Furthermore, through his father’s and his uncle’s reputation he was thoroughly able to inspire confidence in his projects, because he was thought to have acquired his fame by hereditary excellence and not fortuitously.  At this time the swiftness of his victory, the fact that Hasdrubal had retreated into the interior, and especially the recollection that he had predicted, whether through divine inspiration or by some chance information, that he would encamp in the enemy’s country,—­a prediction now fulfilled,—­caused all to honor him as superior to themselves, while the Spaniards actually named him Great King. (Valesius, p. 605.  Zonaras, 9, 8.)

41. ¶ The king of the Spaniards, taken captive by Scipio, chose to follow the Roman cause, surrendered his own sovereignty, and stood ready to furnish hostages.  Scipio, though he accepted the man’s alliance, said there was no need of hostages, for he possessed the necessary pledge in his own arms. [Footnote:  Probably spurious (Melber).] (Mai, p. 545.)

42.  Dio in 16:  “You all deserve to die:  however, I shall not put you all to death, but I shall execute only a few whom I have already arrested; the rest I shall release.” (Suidas, s. v. [Greek:  edikaiothaesan].  Zonaras, 9, 10.)

43.  Later Hannibal incurred the jealousy of the Sicilians, and when he fell in need of grain, as the islanders did not send it, the former noble conqueror, now by famine conquered, was put to flight by Scipio the Roman, and to the Sicilians became part cause of their utter, dire destruction. (Tzetzes, Hist. 1, 793-797.)

44.  Thus these authorities in regard to the Gymnesian islands.  Dio Cocceianus, however, says they are near the Iberus river and near the European Pillars of Hercules,—­which islands the Greeks and Romans alike call the Gymnesian, but the Spaniards Valerian or Healthful Islands.  (Isaac Tzetzes on Lycophron, 633.  Cp.  Zonaras, 9, 10.)