generals, and on the other hand their rapacity and insolence, together with the injuries of every kind committed against themselves and their countrymen.  “On this account,” he said, “his person only up to that time had been with them, his heart had long since been on that side where he believed that right and justice were respected.  That people sought for refuge, as suppliants, even with the gods when they could not endure the oppression and injustice of men.  What he had to entreat of Scipio was, that their passing over to him might neither be the occasion of a charge of fraud nor a ground for respect, but that he would estimate their services according to what sort of men he should find them to be from experience from that day.”  The Roman replied, that “he would do so in every particular; nor would he consider those men as deserters who did not look upon an alliance as binding where no law, divine or human, was unviolated.”  Their wives and children were then brought before them and restored to them; on which occasion they wept for joy.  On that day they were conducted to a lodging; on the following they were received as allies, by a treaty, after which they were sent to bring up their forces.  From that time they had their tents in the same camp with the Romans, until under their guidance they had reached the enemy.

18.  The army of Hasdrubal, which was the nearest of the Carthaginian armies, lay near the city Baecula.  Before his camp he had outposts of cavalry.  On these the light-armed, those who fought before the standards and those who composed the vanguard, as they came up from their march, and before they chose the ground for their camp, commenced an attack in so contemptuous a manner, that it was perfectly evident what degree of spirit each party possessed.  The cavalry were driven into their camp in disorderly flight, and the Roman standards were advanced almost within their very gates.  Their minds on that day having only been excited to a contest, the Romans pitched their camp.  At night Hasdrubal withdrew his forces to an eminence, on the summit of which extended a level plain.  There was a river on the rear, in front and on either side a kind of steep bank completely surrounded its extremity.  Beneath this and lower down was another plain of gentle declivity, which was also surrounded by a similar ridge equally difficult of ascent.  Into this lower plain Hasdrubal, the next day, when he saw the troops of the enemy drawn up before their camp, sent his Numidian cavalry and light-armed Baleares.  Scipio riding out to the companies and battalions, pointed out to them, that “the enemy having abandoned, beforehand, all hope of being able to withstand them on level ground, had resorted to hills:  where they stood in view, relying on the strength of their position, and not on their valour and arms.”  But the walls of Carthage, which the Roman soldiers had scaled, were still higher.  That neither hills, nor a citadel, nor even the sea itself, had formed an impediment