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Scipio in Spain, After the Battle of the Metaurus

Hasdrubal having collected his forces from the various
Hasdrubal son of Gesco encamps near Ilipa (or Silpia) in Baetica, B.C. 206. Livy 28, 13-6.
towns in which they had wintered, advanced to within a short distance of Ilipa and there encamped; forming his entrenchment at the foot of the mountains, with a plain in front of him well suited for a contest and battle. His infantry amounted to seventy thousand, his cavalry to four thousand, and his elephants to thirty-two. On his part, Scipio sent M. Junius Silanus to visit Colichas and take over from him the forces that had been prepared by him.
Scipio advances into Baetica,
These amounted to three thousand infantry and five hundred horse. The other allies he received personally in the course of his march up the country to his destination. When he approached Castalo and Baecula, and had there been joined by Marcus Junius and the troops from Colichas, he found himself in a position of great perplexity. For without their allies the Roman forces were not strong enough to risk a battle; yet to do so, in dependence upon the allies for his hopes of ultimate success, appeared to him to be dangerous and too venturesome. In spite however of his perplexity, he was obliged to yield to the force of circumstances so far as to employ the Iberians; but he resolved to do so only to make a show of numbers to the enemy, while he really fought the action with his own legions.
and encamps close to the Carthaginian forces.
With this purpose in his mind he got his whole army on the march, forty-five thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry; and when he had come within the view of the Carthaginians, he pitched his camp on some low hills exactly opposite the enemy.

Histories. Polybius. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. translator. London, New York. Macmillan. 1889. Reprint Bloomington 1962.

Robert B. Strassler provided support for entering this text.

This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry, Running heads in Walbank's reprint have been converted to chapter titles, and titles have been added, usually from the marginal notes, for chapters without them. Some pages have notes of the form "line X: A should read B," which I believe are Walbank's; they have "resp=fww". Summaries of missing sections are encoded as inline notes with "resp=ess." A very few unidentified quotations are marked in notes with "resp=aem" (the markup editor) Citations are marked using Perseus abbreviations. and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.

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hide References (6 total)
  • Cross-references to this page (5):
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), EXE´RCITUS
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), BAE´CULA
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CA´STULO
    • Smith's Bio, Hasdrubal
    • Smith's Bio, Mago
  • Cross-references in notes from this page (1):
    • Livy, The History of Rome, Book 28, 13
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