[4.] The pompous Hasdrubal threw himself on his knees before the Roman commander, quite forgetful of his proud language....
When the Carthaginian commander thus threw himself as a suppliant at Scipio’s knees, the proconsul with a glance at those present said: “See what Fortune is, gentlemen! What an example she makes of irrational men! This is the Hasdrubal who but the other day disdained the large favours which I offered him, and said that the most glorious funeral pyre was one’s country and its burning ruins. Now he comes with suppliant wreaths, beseeching us for bare life and resting all his hopes on us. Who would not learn from such a spectacle that a mere man should never say or do anything presumptuous?” Then some of the deserters came to the edge of the roof and begged the front ranks of the assailants to hold their hands for a little; and, on Scipio ordering a halt, they began abusing Hasdrubal, some for his perjury, declaring that he had sworn again and again on the altars that he would never abandon them, and others for his cowardice and utter baseness: and they did this in the most unsparing language, and with the bitterest terms of abuse. And just at this moment Hasdrubal’s wife, seeing him seated in front of the enemy with Scipio, advanced in front of the deserters, dressed in noble and dignified attire herself, but holding in her hands, on either side, her two boys dressed only in short tunics and shielded under her own robes.[252] First she addressed Hasdrubal by his name, and when he said nothing but remained with his head bowed to the ground, she began by calling on the name of the gods, and next thanked Scipio warmly because, as far as he could secure it, both she and her children were saved.[253] And then, pausing for a short time, she asked Hasdrubal how he had had the heart to secure this favour from the Roman general for himself alone, ... and, leaving his fellow-citizens who trusted in him in the most miserable plight, had gone over secretly to the enemy? And how he had the assurance to be sitting there holding suppliant boughs, in the face of the very men to whom he had frequently said that the day would never come in which the sun would see Hasdrubal alive and his native city in flames....
Hasdrubal’s wife finally threw herself and children from the citadel into the burning streets. Livy, Ep. 51.
After an interview with [Scipio], in which he was kindly treated, Hasdrubal desired leave to go away from the town....
[5.] At the sight of the city utterly perishing amidst the flames Scipio burst into tears, and stood long reflecting on the inevitable change which awaits cities, nations, and dynasties, one and all, as it does every one of us men. This, he thought, had befallen Ilium, once a powerful city, and the once mighty empires of the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, and that of Macedonia lately so splendid. And unintentionally or purposely he quoted,—the words perhaps escaping him unconsciously,—[254]
“The day shall be when holy Troy shall fall
And Priam, lord of spears, and Priam’s folk.”
And on my asking him boldly (for I had been his tutor) what he meant by these words, he did not name Rome distinctly, but was evidently fearing for her, from this sight of the mutability of human affairs....
Another still more remarkable saying of his I may record.... [When he had given the order for firing the town] he immediately turned round and grasped me by the hand and said: “O Polybius, it is a grand thing, but, I know not how, I feel a terror and dread, lest some one should one day give the same order about my own native city.”... Any observation more practical or sensible it is not easy to make. For in the midst of supreme success for one’s self and of disaster for the enemy, to take thought of one’s own position and of the possible reverse which may come, and in a word to keep well in mind in the midst of prosperity the mutability of Fortune, is the characteristic of a great man, a man free from weaknesses and worthy to be remembered....
After the rejection of the orders conveyed by the legates of Metellus (38, [11]), Critolaus collected the Achaean levies at Corinth, under the pretext of going to war with Sparta; but he soon induced the league to declare themselves openly at war with Rome. He was encouraged by the adhesion of the Boeotarch Pytheas, and of the Chalcidians. The Thebans were the readier to join him because they had lately been ordered by Metellus, as arbiter in the disputes, to pay fines to the Phocians, Euboeans, and Amphissians. When news of these proceedings reached Rome in the spring of B.C. 146, the consul Mummius was ordered to lead a fleet and army against Achaia. But Metellus in Macedonia wished to have the credit of settling the matter himself; he therefore sent envoys to the Achaeans ordering them to release from the league the towns already named by the Senate viz. Sparta, Corinth, Argos, Heracleia, and Orchomenus in Arcadia, and advanced with his army from Macedonia through Thessaly by the coast road, skirting the Sinus Maliacus. Critolaus was already engaged in besieging Heraclea Oetea, to compel it to return to its obedience to the league, and when his scouts informed him of the approach of Metellus, he retreated to Scarphea on the coast of Locris, some miles south of the pass of Thermopylae. But before he could get into Scarphea Metellus caught him up, killed a large number of his men, and took one thousand prisoners. Critolaus himself disappeared; Pausanias seems to imagine that he was drowned in the salt marshes of the coast, but Livy says that he poisoned himself. Pausanias, 7, 14, 15. Livy, Ep. 52. Orosius, 5, 3.