Meanwhile the second Roman corps under Publius found itself vigorously assailed by the two other Phoenician armies under Hasdrubal son of Gisgo and Mago, and the daring squadrons of Massinissa's horse gave to the Carthaginians a decided advantage. The Roman camp was almost surrounded; when the Spanish auxiliaries already on the way should arrive, the Romans would be completely hemmed in. The bold resolve of the proconsul to encounter with his best troops the advancing Spaniards, before their appearance should fill up the gap in the blockade, ended unfortunately. The Romans indeed had at first the advantage; but the Numidian horse, who were rapidly despatched in pursuit, soon overtook them and prevented them both from following up the victory which they had already half gained, and from marching back, until the Phoenician infantry came up and at length the fall of the general converted the lost battle into a defeat. After Publius had thus fallen, Gnaeus, who slowly retreating had with difficulty defended himself against the one Carthaginian army, found himself suddenly assailed at once by three, and all retreat cut off by the Numidian cavalry. Hemmed in upon a bare hill, which did not even afford the possibility of pitching a camp, the whole corps were cut down or taken prisoners. As to the fate of the general himself no certain information was ever obtained. A small division alone was conducted by Gaius Marcius, an excellent officer of the school of Gnaeus, in safety to the other bank of the Ebro; and thither the legate Titus Fonteius also succeeded in bringing safely the portion of the corps of Publius that had been left in the camp; most even of the Roman garrisons scattered in the south of Spain were enabled to flee thither. In all Spain south of the Ebro the Phoenicians ruled undisturbed; and the moment seemed not far distant, when the river would be crossed, the Pyrenees would be open, and the communication with Italy would be restored. But the emergency in the Roman camp called the right man to the command. The choice of the soldiers, passing over older and not incapable officers, summoned that Gaius Marcius to become leader of the army; and his dexterous management and quite as much perhaps, the envy and discord among the three Carthaginian generals, wrested from these the further fruits of their important victory. Such of the Carthaginians as had crossed the river were driven back, and the line of the Ebro was held in the meanwhile, till Rome gained time to send a new army and a new general. Fortunately the turn of the war in Italy, where Capua had just fallen, allowed this to be done. A strong legion--12,000 men--arriving under the propraetor Gaius Claudius Nero, restored the balance of arms. An expedition to Andalusia in the following year (544) was most successful; Hasdrubal Barcas was beset and surrounded, and escaped a capitulation only by ignoble stratagem and open perfidy. But Nero was not the right general for the Spanish war. He was an able officer, but a harsh, irritable, unpopular man, who had little skill in the art of renewing old connections or of forming new ones, or in taking advantage of the injustice and arrogance with which the Carthaginians after the death of the Scipios had treated friend and foe in Further Spain, and had exasperated all against them.
Publius Scipio
The senate, which formed a correct judgment as to the importance and the peculiar character of the Spanish war, and had learned from the Uticenses brought in as prisoners by the Roman fleet the great exertions which were making in Carthage to send Hasdrubal and Massinissa with a numerous army over the Pyrenees, resolved to despatch to Spain new reinforcements and an extraordinary general of higher rank, the nomination of whom they deemed it expedient to leave to the people. For long--so runs the story--nobody announced himself as ready to take in hand the complicated and perilous business; but at last a young officer of twenty-seven, Publius Scipio (son of the general of the same name that had fallen in Spain), who had held the offices of military tribune and aedile, came forward to solicit it. It is incredible that the Roman senate should have left to accident an election of such importance in this meeting of the Comitia which it had itself suggested, and equally incredible that ambition and patriotism should have so died out in Rome that no tried officer presented himself for the important post. If on the other hand the eyes of the senate turned to the young, talented, and experienced officer, who had brilliantly distinguished himself in the hotly- contested days on the Ticinus and at Cannae, but who still had not the rank requisite for his coming forward as the successor of men who had been praetors and consuls, it was very natural to adopt this course, which compelled the people out of good nature to admit the only candidate notwithstanding his defective qualification, and which could not but bring both him and the Spanish expedition, which was doubtless very unpopular, into favour with the multitude. If the effect of this ostensibly unpremeditated candidature was thus calculated, it was perfectly successful. The son, who went to avenge the death of a father whose life he had saved nine years before on the Ticinus; the young man of manly beauty and long locks, who with modest blushes offered himself in the absence of a better for the post of danger; the mere military tribune, whom the votes of the centuries now raised at once to the roll of the highest magistracies--all this made a wonderful and indelible impression on the citizens and farmers of Rome. And in truth Publius Scipio was one, who was himself enthusiastic, and who inspired enthusiasm. He was not one of the few who by their energy and iron will constrain the world to adopt and to move in new paths for centuries, or who at any rate grasp the reins of destiny for years till its wheels roll over them. Publius Scipio gained battles and conquered countries under the instructions of the senate; with the aid of his military laurels he took also a prominent position in Rome as a statesman; but a wide interval separates such a man from an Alexander or a Caesar.