to have arrived, he summoned Lucius Marcius from Tarraco,
and sent him with a third of his forces to attack
Castulo, and with the rest of the army he himself reached
Illiturgi, after about five days’ march.
The gates were closed, and every arrangement and preparation
made for repelling an attack; so completely had the
consciousness of what they deserved produced the same
effect as a declaration of war against them. From
this circumstance Scipio commenced his exhortation
to his soldiers: he said, that “by closing
their gates the Spaniards had themselves shown what
their deserts were by what they feared, and that therefore
they ought to prosecute the war against them with
much greater animosity than against the Carthaginians.
For with the latter the contest was carried on for
empire and glory almost without any exasperated feeling,
while they had to punish the former for perfidy, cruelty,
and villany. That the time had now arrived when
they should take vengeance for the horrid massacre
of their fellow soldiers, and for the treachery which
was prepared for themselves, had they been carried
in their flight to the same place; and by the severity
of the punishment inflicted in the present instance,
establish it as a law for ever, that no one should
consider a Roman citizen and soldier, whatever his
situation, a fit object for injurious treatment.”
Animated by this exhortation of their general, they
distributed the scaling-ladders to men selected from
each of the companies; and the army being divided
into two parts, so that Laelius, as lieutenant-general,
might command one, they attacked the city in two places
at once; thus creating an alarm in two quarters at
the same time. It was not by the exhortations
of one general, nor of the several nobles who were
present, that the townsmen were stimulated to a vigorous
defence of the city, but by the fear which they themselves
entertained; they bore in mind, and admonished each
other, that the object aimed at was punishment, and
not victory. That the only question for them was,
where they should meet death, whether in the battle
and in the field, where the indiscriminate chance
of war frequently raised up the vanquished and dashed
the victor to the ground; or whether, after a short
interval, when the city was burnt and plundered, after
suffering every horror and indignity, they should
expire amid stripes and bonds before the eyes of their
captive wives and children. Therefore, not only
those who were of an age to bear arms, or men only,
but women and children, beyond the powers of their
minds and bodies, were there, supplying with weapons
those who were fighting in defence of the place, and
carrying stones to the walls for those who were strengthening
the works; for not only was their liberty at stake,
which excites the energies of the brave only, but
they had before their eyes the utmost extremity of
punishment, to be inflicted on all indiscriminately,
and an ignominious death. Their minds were worked


