"On whatever side I turn my eyes I see nothing but what is full of courage
and energy; a veteran infantry; calvary, both those with and those without the
bridle, composed of the most gallant nations, you our most faithful and valiant
allies, you Carthaginians, who are about to fight as well for the sake of your
country as from the justest resentment. We are the assailants in the war, and
descend into Italy with hostile standards, about to engage so much more boldly
and bravely than the foe, as the confidence and courage of the assailant are
greater than those of him who is defensive. Besides suffering, injury and indignity
inflame and excite our minds: they first demanded me your leader for punishment,
and then all of you who had laid siege to Saguntum; and had we been given up
they would have visited us with the severest tortures. That most cruel and haughty
nation considers every thing its own, and at its own disposal; it thinks it
right that it should regulate with whom we are to have war, with whom peace:
it circumscribes and shuts us up by the boundaries of mountains and rivers,
which we must not pass; and then does not adhere to those boundaries which it
appointed. Pass not the Iberus; have nothing to do with the Saguntines. Saguntum
is on the Iberus; you must not move a step in any direction. Is it a small thing
that you take away my most ancient provinces Sicily and Sardinia? will you take
Spain also? and should I withdraw thence, you will cross over into Africa -- will
cross, did I say? they have sent the two consuls of this year one to Africa,
the other to Spain: there is nothing left to us in any quarter, except what
we can assert to ourselves by arms. Those may be cowards and dastards who have
something to look back upon; whom, flying through safe and unmolested roads,
their own lands and their own country will receive: there is a necessity for
you to be brave; and since all between victory and death is broken off from
you by inevitable despair, either to conquer, or, if fortune should waver, to
meet death rather in battle than flight. If this be well fixed and determined
in the minds of you all, I will repeat, you have already conquered: no stronger
incentive to victory has been given to man by the immortal gods."
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