For the name of Hannibal, even before the destruction of Saguntum, was very celebrated among the Romans; and Hannibal believed Scipio to be a superior man, from the very circumstance of his having been specially chosen to act as commander against himself.

They had increased too their estimation of each other; Scipio, because, being left behind in Gaul, he had met Hannibal when he had crossed into Italy; Hannibal, by his daring attempt of crossing the Alps and by its accomplishment.

Scipio, however, was the first to cross the Po, and having pitched his camp at the river Ticinus, he delivered the following oration for the sake of encouraging his soldiers before he led them out to form for battle: 40.

"If, soldiers, I were leading out that army to battle which I had with me in Gaul, I should have thought it superfluous to address you; for of what use would it be to exhort either those horsemen who so gloriously vanquished the cavalry of the enemy at the river Rhone, or those legions with whom, pursuing this very enemy flying before us, I obtained in lieu of victory, a confession of superiority, shown by his retreat and refusal to fight?
Now because that army, levied for the province of Spain, maintains the war under my auspices [Footnote: Because Spain was his proper province as consul.] and the command of my brother Cneius Scipio, in the country where the senate and people of Rome wished him to serve, and since I, that you might have a consul for your leader against Hannibal and the Carthaginians, have offered myself voluntarily for this contest, few words are required to be addressed from a new commander to soldiers unacquainted with him.

That you may not be ignorant of the nature of the war nor of the enemy, you have to fight, soldiers, with those whom in the former war you conquered both by land and sea; from whom you have exacted tribute for twenty years; from whom you hold Sicily and Sardinia, taken as the prizes of victory.