Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D. (Editor), Frank Gardener Moore (Editor), Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. (Editor), Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D. (Editor), 30.29.2

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[2] ¹ that Syphax had been captured, that they had been driven out of Spain, driven out of Italy, and all this accomplished by the courage and strategy of Scipio alone, they dreaded him as a predestined commander, born to work their destruction.

XXIX. By this time Hannibal had reached Hadrumetum. ²

From there, after he had spent a few days that his soldiers might recuperate from sea-sickness, he was called away by alarming news brought by men who reported that all the country round Carthage was occupied by armed forces, and he hastened ³ to Zama by forced marches. Zama ⁴ is distant five day's marches

Ab urbe condita. Titus Livius (Livy). Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D. (Editor), Frank Gardener Moore (Editor), Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. (Editor), Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D. (Editor). Medford, MA. .

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

History of Rome (English) (Foster, Benjamin Oliver; Moore, Frank Gardener; Sage, Evan T.; Schlesinger, Alfred C., translators. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1919-1959. (Loeb Classical Library))

Editions (3)

Ab urbe condita Perseus (Pars I-IV, Libri I-XL. Editio Stereotypica. Weissenborn, Wilhelm; Mueller, Moritz, editors. Leipzig: Teubner, 1884-1911.) — 30.29.2 focus

[2] Zama quinque dierum iter ab Carthagine abest. inde praemissi speculatores cum excepti ab custodibus Romanis deducti ad Scipionem essent, traditos eos tribunos militum iussosque omisso metu visere omnia per castra, qua vellent, circumduci iussit;

Ab urbe condita Perseus (Conway, Robert Seymour; Walters, Charles Flamstead; Johnson, Stephen Keymer, editors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1914-1935. (Oxford Classical Texts)) — 30.29.2 focus

[2] — inde praemissi speculatores cum excepti ab custodibus Romanis deducti ad Scipionem essent, traditos eos tribuno militum, iussosque omisso metu uisere omnia, per castra qua uellent circumduci iussit;

Ab urbe condita Perseus (Livy in Fourteen Volumes. Foster, Benjamin Oliver; Moore, Frank Gardener; Schlesinger, Alfred C., editors. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1919-1959 (printing).) — 30.29.2 focus

[2] Zama quinque dierum iter ab Carthagine abest. inde praemissi speculatores ¹ cum excepti ab custodibus Romanis deducti ad Scipionem essent, traditos eos tribuno ² militum, iussosque omisso metu visere omnia, per castra qua vellent circumduci iussit;

Translations (2)

History of Rome Perseus (Spillan, D.; Edmonds, Cyrus; McDevitte, William A., translators. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1849-1868. (Bohn's Classical Library)) — 30.29.2 focus

[2] Zama is distant from Carthage a five days' journey. Some spies, whom he sent out from this place, being intercepted by the Roman guard, and brought before Scipio, he directed that they should be handed over to the military tribunes, and, after having been desired fearlessly to survey every thing, to be conducted through the camp wherever they chose;

History of Rome Perseus (Volumes 1-2. Roberts, Canon, Rev, translator. London, New York: J. M. Dent and Sons; E. P. Dutton and Co., 1912.) — 30.29.2 focus

[2] The scouts whom he had sent forward to reconnoitre were captured by the Roman outposts and conducted to Scipio. Scipio placed them in charge of the military tribunes and gave orders for them to be taken round the camp where they were to look at everything they wished to see without fear.

Notes on the current edition

Ab Urbe Condita With An English Translation, books 1-10, 21-45, with periochae 11-20

1. 1 xxxiv. 8-17. The surprise attack on two camps (v. 7 —vi. 9) made no use of an acies.

2. A Tyrian colony and the most important town in the region, now Sousse, 20 miles north-west of Leptis Minor (Lemta), where Hannibal had landed. But he immediately established his winter camp at Hadrumetum. Polybius cannot have failed to give the time and place of Hannibal's landing in lost chapters from the beginning of Book XV.; for he is in Africa already at iii. 5, if not at i. 10 f. It was now autumn, 203 B.C. He would not have risked a winter passage. Cf. De Sanctis 545 ff., 586 f.; Scullard 326 f.

3. If we could follow Livy here we should place the final battle within an incredibly short time after Hannibal's landing. That this was the case no one can believe after comparing the passage Livy must have had before him, or tried to recall, as he wrote our sentence. For Polybius'

after a few days

(v. 3) makes no connection with the landing, but merely with the receipt of an urgent message from Carthage. That may have come to him many months —even a year —after disembarkation. Hannibal would be the last to shorten the long preparation indispensable to the making of an army out of his heterogeneous forces.

4. Probably Zama Regia, ca. 90 m.p. due west of Hadrumetum (Sousse). An old Numidian city, it is now Seba Biar, on the edge of a plain just west of the long dorsal ridge extending from Cap Bon south-west some distance beyond Kasserine and Tebessa. Lying north of Maktar this city was a residence of Jugurtha (Sallust 56-61); strongly fortified by King Juba I.; Bell. Afr. 91 f., 97 (Caesar leaves Sallust there as proconsul); Vitruvius VIII. iii. 24. Captured by Sextius in 41 B.C. (Dio Cass. XLVIII. xxiii. 4), it long lay desolate (Strabo XVII. iii. 9, 12). Absence of ruins from the Empire shows that the city was not rebuilt. Polybius plainly indicates that the battle was considerably farther inland than Hannibal's first position at Zama (v. 14; vi. 2). Cf. p. 472, n. 1. For modern works and the controverted questions see Appendix.

Titus Livius (Livy) Ab urbe condita 30.29.2

Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D. (Editor), Frank Gardener Moore (Editor), Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. (Editor), Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D. (Editor)

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