gods avert, and which my mind shrinks back with alarm from mentioning,—­but what has happened may happen again,—­) what I say, if Hannibal, having gained a victory, should advance to the city?  Shall we then at length send for you, our consul, out of Africa, as we formerly sent for Quintus Fulvius from Capua?  What shall we say when we consider that in Africa also both parties will be liable to the chances of war?  Let your own house, your father and your uncle, slain together with their armies within the space of thirty days, after that, having spent several years in the performance of the most important services, both by sea and land, they had inspired foreign nations with the highest reverence for the name of the Roman people and your family, be a warning to you.  The day would fail me were I disposed to enumerate the kings and generals who have brought the most signal calamities upon themselves and their armies by rashly passing into the territories of their enemies.  The Athenians, a state distinguished for prudence, leaving a war at home, sent a great fleet into Sicily at the instance of a youth equally enterprising and illustrious; but by one naval battle they reduced their flourishing republic to a state of humiliation from which she could never recover.

42.  “But I am adducing foreign and too remote examples.  That same Africa, and Marcus Atilius, who was a signal example of both extremes of fortune, may form a warning to us.  Without doubt, Publius Cornelius, when you shall have a view of Africa from the sea, the reduction of your province of Spain will appear to you to have been a mere matter of sport and pastime.  For what similarity is there between them?  After sailing along the coast of Italy and Gaul to Emporiae without any enemy to oppose you, you brought your fleet to land at a city of our allies.  There landing your soldiers, you marched them through countries entirely secure from danger to Tarraco, to join the allies and friends of the Roman people.  After that, from Tarraco you marched through places garrisoned by Roman troops.  On the banks of the Iberus were the armies of your father and your uncle, rendered still more furious after the loss of their generals, even by the very calamity they had suffered.  The general, indeed, Lucius Marcius, had been irregularly constituted and chosen for the time by the suffrages of the soldiers; but had he been adorned with noble birth and the regular gradation of preferment, he would have been equal to the most distinguished generals, from his skill in every art of war.  You then laid siege to Carthage, quite at your leisure, not one of the three Punic armies coming to the defence of their allies.  The rest of your achievements, nor do I wish to disparage them, are by no means to be compared with what you will have to do in a war in Africa, where there is not a single harbour open to receive our fleet, no part of the country at peace with us, no state in alliance, no king in friendship with us, no room in