During the time of these transactions, Hanno, the lieutenant-general of Mago, having been sent from Gades to the river Baetis with a small body of Africans, by tempting the Spaniards with money, armed as many as four thousand men; but afterwards, being deprived of his camp by Lucius Marcius, and losing the principal part of his troops in the confusion occasioned by its capture, and some also in the flight, for the cavalry pursued them closely while they were dispersed, he made his escape with a few attendants. During these transactions on the river Baetis, Laelius in the mean time, sailing out of the straits into the ocean, came with his fleet before Carteia, a city situated on the coast of the ocean, where the sea begins to expand itself, after being confined in a narrow strait. He had entertained hopes of having Gades betrayed to him without a contest, persons having come unsolicited into the Roman camp to make promises to that effect, as has been before mentioned. The plot was discovered before it was ripe, and all having been apprehended, were placed by Mago in the hands of Adherbal the praetor, to be conveyed to Carthage. Adherbal, having put the conspirators on board a quinquereme, sent it in advance, because it sailed slower than a trireme, and followed himself at a moderate distance with eight triremes. The quinquereme was just entering the strait, when Laelius, who had himself also sailed out of the harbour of Carteia in a quinquereme, followed by seven triremes, bore down upon Adherbal and his triremes, feeling assured that the trireme, when once caught in the rapid strait, would not be able to return against the opposing current. The Carthaginian, alarmed by the suddenness of the affair, hesitated for some little time whether he should follow the trireme, or turn his prows against the enemy. This very delay put it out of his power to decline an action, for they were now within a weapon's cast, and the enemy were bearing down upon him on all sides. The current also had rendered it impossible to manage the ships. Nor was the action like a naval engagement, inasmuch as it was in no respect subject to the control of the will, nor afforded any opportunity for the exercise of skill or method. The nature of the strait and the tide, which solely and entirely governed the contest, carried the ships against those of their own and the enemy's party indiscriminately, though striving in a contrary direction; so that you might see one ship which was flying whirled back by an eddy and driven against the victors, and another which was engaged in pursuit, if it had fallen into an opposite current, turning itself away as if for flight. And when actually engaged, one ship while bearing down upon another with its beak directed against it, assuming an oblique position itself, received a stroke from the beak of the other; while another which lay with its side exposed to the enemy, receiving a sudden impulse, was turned round so as to present its prow. While the triremes were thus engaged in a doubtful and uncertain contest, in which every thing was governed by chance, the Roman quinquereme, whether being more manageable in consequence of its weight, or by means of more banks of oars making its way through the eddies, sunk two triremes, and swept off the oars from one side of another, while sailing by it with great violence. The rest too, had they come in its way, it would have disabled; but Adherbal, with his remaining four ships, sailed over into Africa.
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Laelius returned victorious into Carteia; and hearing there what had occurred at Gades, that the plot had been discovered, the conspirators sent to Carthage, and that the hopes which had brought them there had been completely frustrated, he sent a message to Lucius Marcius, to the effect that, unless they wished to waste time uselessly in lying before Gades, they should return to the general; and Marcius consenting to the proposal, they both returned to Carthage a few days after. In consequence of their departure, Mago not only obtained a temporary relief from the dangers which beset him on all sides, both by sea and land, but also on hearing of the rebellion of the Ilergetians, conceived hopes of recovering Spain, and sent messengers to Carthage to the senate, who, at the same time that they represented to them in exaggerated terms both the intestine dissension in the Roman camp and the defection of their allies, might exhort them to send succours by which the empire of Spain, which had been handed down to them by their ancestors, might be regained. Mandonius and Indibilis, retiring within their borders, remained quiet for a little time, not knowing what course to take, till they knew what was determined upon respecting the mutiny; but not distrusting that if Scipio pardoned the error of his own countrymen, they also might obtain the same. But when the severe punishment inflicted came to be generally known, concluding that their offence also would be considered as demanding a similar expiation, they again summoned their countrymen to arms; and assembling the auxiliaries which had joined them before, they crossed over into the Sedetanian territory, where they had had a fixed camp at the beginning of the revolt, with twenty thousand foot and two thousand five hundred horse.
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Scipio having without difficulty regained the affection of his soldiers, both by his punctuality in discharging the arrears of pay to all, as well the guilty as the innocent, and particularly by the looks and language of reconciliation towards all, before he quitted Carthage summoned an assembly; and after inveighing at large against the perfidy of the petty princes who were in rebellion, declared "that the feelings with which he set out to take revenge for their villany were widely different from those with which he lately corrected the error committed by his countrymen. That on the latter occasion, he had with groans and tears, as though he were cutting his own vitals, expiated either the imprudence or the guilt of eight thousand men with the heads of thirty; but now he was going to the destruction of the Ilergetians with joyful and animated feelings: for they were neither natives of the same soil, nor united with him by any bond of society. The only connexion which did subsist between them, that of honour and friendship, they had themselves severed by their wicked conduct." When he looked at the troops which composed his army, besides that he saw that they were all either of his own country, or allies and of the Latin confederacy; he was also strongly affected by the circumstance, that there was scarcely a soldier in it who was not brought out of Italy into that country either by his uncle, Cneius Scipio, who was the first of the Roman name who had come into that province, or by his father when consul, or by himself. That they were all accustomed to the name and auspices of the Scipios; that it was his wish to take them home to their country to receive a well-earned triumph; and that he hoped that they would support him when he put up for the consulship, as if the honour sought were to be shared in common by them all. With regard to the expedition which they were just going to undertake, that the man who considered it as a war must be forgetful of his own achievements. That, by Hercules, Mago, who had fled for safety with a few ships beyond the limits of the world into an island surrounded by the ocean, was a source of greater concern to him than the Ilergetians; for in it there was both a Carthaginian general and a Carthaginian army, whatever might be its numbers; while here were only robbers and leaders of robbers, who, though they possessed sufficient energy for ravaging the lands of their neighbours, burning their houses, and carrying off their cattle, yet would have none at all in a regular and pitched battle; and who would come to the encounter relying more on the swiftness with which they can fly than on their arms. "Accordingly," he said, "that he had thought it right to quell the Ilergetians before he quitted the province, not because he saw that any danger could arise from them, or that a war of greater importance could grow out of these proceedings; but in the first place, that a revolt of so heinous a character might not go unpunished, and in the next place, that not a single enemy might be said to be left in a province which had been subdued with such valour and success. He bid them, therefore, follow him, with the assistance of the gods, not so much to make war upon, for the contest was not with an enemy who was upon an equality with them, but to take vengeance on the basest of men."
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