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Livy Book 30 chapter 30 - notes
Chapters 16 to 29
The situation is this: After the events of chapters 12 to 15 Scipio the Roman commander sent his general Laelius and the defeated king Syphax to Rome.
Meanwhile in Africa, the Carthaginian Council of Thirty tried to make peace with Scipio. Envoys went to Rome to ask for peace, and a truce was established.
In Rome, the Senate confirmed the honours that Scipio had granted to Masinissa, and waited for Scipio's advice before deciding whether to make peace with Carthage.
Fighting continued in Italy between Carthaginians and Romans, until Hannibal was recalled to Africa by the Carthaginian government. His arrival in Africa with his army, added to an incident when Roman supply ships, which had run aground and been abandoned by their crews, had been captured by the Carthaginians, led Scipio to claim that the truce had been broken.
Hannibal "went to Scipio, and asked to be allowed a personal conference."
For Hannibal's life and character, use the link above, and also look at
Lempriere's article from his famous Classical Dictionary.
Now read on.
Summotis pari spatio armatis: Armed men having been moved away an equal distance; Livy sets up the scene like the writer of a Greek tragedy. Two speaking actors (Hannibal and Scipio), each with one attendant, take centre stage. Each actor, just as in a tragedy, makes a long speech setting forth opposing arguments.
non suae modo ...: Not only the greatest leaders of their own age, but (also) equal (
pares) to anyone you like (
cuilibet) of kings or (
-ve) generals in history (literally, of all memory before themselves), of every race.
On stage, these would be actors resplendent in gorgeous costumes. Livy gives us the equivalent by reminding us of their greatness. He returns to this theme near the beginning of chapter 32. Was he justified in claiming that both generals were the greatest of their age, and the equals of any commander, of any nation, in history? Certainly Hannibal had posed the greatest threat to the Roman state in its history. He had inflicted, at Cannae, the greatest defeat that any Roman army had ever suffered. He had never lost a battle up to this moment. He had spent 16 years leading his army round Italy, undefeated. Scipio did finally defeat him, as Livy relates in these chapters, and so Livy feels justified in hailing Scipio as his equal.
paulisper ... conticuere: For a little while they remained silent; to update the comparison from Greek theatre to film, this is the point at which the camera lingers on the faces of the actors, heightening our expectation before either speaks.
alter alterius conspectu - the one at the sight of the other;
prope attoniti - attonitus is a very strong word, more so than our 'astonished'. It keeps some of its literal meaning of 'thundered at', and so Livy adds
prope. Latin authors at this period did not cheapen the language by overworking metaphors.
'si hoc ita fato datum erat ...': This sounds much more like the opening of a public speech than the start of a conversation between two individuals. Livy has invented a speech putting into Hannibal's mouth the words that he might have said if he had been trained in Roman oratory and had prepared and honed his words. No Roman reader or hearer would have believed they were what Hannibal actually said. The Greek historian Thucydides used
invented speeches to explain the motives of important historical figures, and later Greek and Roman historians followed this useful example. Thucydides admitted this practice: "What particular people said in their speeches, either just before or during the war, was hard to recall exactly, whether they were speeches I heard myself or those that were reported to me at second hand. I have made each speaker say what I thought the situation demanded, keeping as near as possible to the general sense of what was actually said." (Book 1 chap 22)
si ... datum erat ... laetor: The two verbs that hold this long sentence together, as it were, are both in the indicative, and so the sentence is an 'open' conditional sentence. The literal translation "If it had been granted ... I rejoice" suggests that in fact it has not been granted. It is better, then, to translate 'If (or even "since") it has been granted ...'
fato: Romans had a strong belief in their destiny. Vergil, for example, wrote in the second line of the Aeneid that Aeneas came to Italy
fato. They also believed that a successful general had to be 'lucky'. Hannibal's weak position happened both because of Rome's destiny and Scipio's luck.
ut ... venirem: It has been granted that I should come. Two relative clauses are included in this result clause:
qui ... intuli and
qui habui, and the 'I' implied by the first person verbs is taken up by the pronoun
is. Although
is suggests the third person, it is good, though old-fashioned, English to say "I am he that liveth." (Revelation 1.18 Authorised Version)
ad pacem petendam: a gerundive phrase, for the purpose of seeking peace.
qui primus bellum intuli: Hannibal probably did start the second Punic War. See this brief
Life of Hannibal.
laetor te mihi sorte potissimum datum: I rejoice that (plus accusative and infinitive) you have been given (datum [esse]) to me by lot above all.
From Hannibal's point of view, this is a compliment to Scipio, to win him over to Hannibal's requests. From Livy's point of view, it serves to enhance the reputation of his Roman hero Scipio.
a quo peterem: relative plus subjunctive, a purpose clause: that I might seek from you.
tibi quoque ...: Hannibal was not grovelling when he complimented Scipio. He now claims that he is such a great man that Scipio should count it his chief glory and achievement to receive his submission.
non in ultimis laudum: not among the last of your praises; in Latin such a negative is often a very strong way of stating the positive.
fuerit: A future perfect. When generations to come look back at Scipio's brilliant career, this
will have been the high point.
Hannibalem ...cessisse, teque ... imposuisse: two accusative and infinitive indirect statements: That Hannibal yielded to you, and that you imposed on this war ...
cui ... dedissent: Hannibal is tactful enough to ascribe his victories to the gift of the gods. He also avoids stating too directly that he beat so many Roman commanders:
de, as regards so many commanders, the gods gave me victory.
dedissent is subjunctive because it is in a subordinate clause in oratio obliqua.
bello ... insigni: to this war distinguished by your, before our, defeats. As noted previously, Hannibal had won every single battle that he fought. He is holding out to Scipio the prospect of bringing the war to an end - and getting the glory for it - by negotiation.
ludibrium: this does really mean a mockery, so 'irony' is too kind a translation. Hannibal suggests that fate has mocked him by making him yield to the son of the first Roman he fought. Writing this on the evening of George W Bush's second inauguration, I seem to see possible parallels...
ediderit fortuna ut cum ...ceperim arma, cum ...: The syntax works like this: The luck of chance shall have produced this mockery, that (ut) although (cum) I took up arms - while your father was consul (ablative absolute) - [and] I joined battle with (cum) ...
ediderit is future perfect for the same reason as
fuerit above.
signa contulerim: Brought military standards together, i.e. joined battle. In 218 B.C. Hannibal crossed the Alps and beat Publius Scipio, father of the great Scipio, in a cavalry engagement at Ticinus, and beat Scipio and Sempronius Longus at the great battle of Trebia, where the Romans lost two thirds of their army. Publius Scipio was Consul that year.
ad filium eius inermis: The contrast is between taking up arms against the father, and coming unarmed to his son.
ueniam is present subjunctive after
ut. Note the sound of words fitting the sense. The 'l', 'm' and 'n' sounds here go with the peaceful approach, whereas the fighting with Scipio's father has more hard consonants.
optimum ... fuerat: It would have been best. One might expect a pluperfect subjunctive to show that this is an unfulfilled possibility. The indicative may suggest "It
really would have been best."
eam ... mentem datam ... esse: that that mental attitude had been granted.
ut et uos ... et nos ... imperio contenti essemus: with the result that both you and we had been contented with the command. The verb agrees with the nearer subject. Both
Italiae and
Africae depend on
imperio.
pro tot ... tot ... tot: A common trick of public speakers is to use groups of three (tricolon), often each beginning with the same word (anaphora), and sometimes with each phrase a bit longer than the last (tricolon crescendo). Count the syllables and decide whether this is an example of tricolon crescendo with anaphora.
amissis is to be taken with
classibus and
exercitibus as well as with
egregiis ducibus.
praeterita: things that have gone by, the past.
ita ... appetiuimus ut: we so coveted ... that. This begins a result clause, with the subjunctive verbs
dimicaremus and
esset. From
appetiuimus comes 'appetite'.
From
sed praeterita to
de pace agitur there is a series of contrasts:
-
reprehendi ... corrigi
-
aliena ... de nostris
-
in Italia ... in Africa
-
et uos in portis uestris uidistis ... et nos ab Carthagine exaudimus
-
nos maxime abominaremur ... uos ante omnia optaretis
The last two contrasts are pointed up by the reinforcement of unnecessary pronouns
nos and
uos. There is also an interesting order of phrases: uos .. nos; nos .. uos. This is called chiasmus, from the Greek letter chi, X.
The contrast between wanting other people's possessions and fighting for one's own is expanded and explained by saying that the Carthaginians fought not only in Italy but also around Carthage, while the Romans fought not only in Africa but also saw the enemy at the gates of Rome itself.
in portis uestris prope ac moenibus: After his crushing victory over the Romans at Cannae (216 B.C.), Hannibal did not, as expected, march on Rome, but he did try unsuccessfully in 211 B.C. to attack the city.
abominaremur ... optaretis: imperfect subjunctives, meaning the thing that we would loathe and you would hope for.
de pace agitur:
agere, to do or act, also means to treat or confer. Here the verb is an impersonal passive, there is a conferring about peace.
agimus ii: another example of the (normally) third person pronoun with a first person verb. We who are conferring are those to whom it is most important ...
qui quodcumque egerimus: The Latin word
qui should not be translated, but is there to balance
quorum, which introduces the previous clause. (To be honest, the Latin clauses
et qui ... habiturae sunt read rather awkwardly!) The two relative clauses are also linked by
et ... et.
habiturae sunt: They are about-to-hold. A different way of expressing the future tense.
ratum means fixed, settled - hence 'ratify'.
animo tantum nobis opus est:
opus est there is a need
nobis to us [i.e. we have a need]
tantum only
animo of a spirit (opus est is used with the ablative).
iam aetas ... iam secundae iam aduersae res: The three subjects of
erudierunt each introduced by
iam form a tricolon with anaphora.
senem: Hannibal was about 45 years old, hardly an old man, even in an age of shorter lives than now. (Scipio was 34.) Hannibal's self-portrait is cleverly drawn. "As for me, old age - I'm returning as an old man to the home country I left as a boy - good fortune and bad, have taken the rough edges off me, so I don't trust to luck any more - I use my head." And you, young man, should use your head too. Hannibal knows that his chances in battle are not good, so he tries to persuade Scipio that fighting (which is what Hannibal has been doing very successfully for 20 years or more!) is a mug's game.
puer: Hannibal went to Spain with his father at the age of nine.
erudierunt: Good fortune and evil fortune have made Hannibal less uncouth, unformed.
rudis means 'rude' in that sense, as in Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard:
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
E + rudis, no longer 'rude', leads to the verb
erudio. Our word erudite comes from this verb.
rationem sequi quam fortunam malim: I'm older and wiser than you, Hannibal implies, and I don't want you to make now the mistakes I made at your age, committing everything to Fortune.
adulescentiam et perpetuam felicitatem: Just what Hannibal had enjoyed. Now he fears them in Scipio.
ferociora ... quam: The two abstract nouns,
adulescentiam and
felicitatem, are picked up by the neuter plural
ferociora utraque which, technically speaking, is in apposition to them. We distinguish two distinct meanings of the comparative, more fierce and too fierce, but to the Roman there was only the one word, so
ferociora quam, fiercer than there is a need for quiet counsels, is a rather awkward phrase which we would translate 'too fierce for ...'.
non temere .. decepit: A neatly expressed thought, sounding almost like a proverb, such as this one: 'He laughs at scars who never felt a wound.'
incerta casuum literally: 'the uncertain things of accidents or chances.'
ad Trasumennum, ad Cannas: These two battles were Hannibal's greatest victories.
The battle at Lake Trasimene was his first major engagement on Italian soil, after crossing the Alps. Livy describes it vividly in
Book 22 Chapters 4-6. About 15,000 Roman soldiers were killed.
The battle of Cannae was the greatest defeat the Romans ever suffered. They lost about 30,000 men, and the city of Rome braced itself for Hannibal's attack, which never came. The course of the battle is
described with diagrams here, and there is an
animation here.
Notice the anaphora:
ad ... ad ..., instead of 'and' (asyndeton, from the Greek 'a' = not; syn = together; deton = bound).
uixdum militari aetate: An exaggeration. Scipio was 'about 24' according to Livy when he was given high command in Spain. Check the link to Scipio at the top of the page.
omnia audacissime ...: Literally: Fortune has nowhere deceived [you] beginning everything very boldly.
patris et patrui ...: Scipio, as a matter of interest, saved his father's life 'by deeds of unexampled valour and boldness' at the skirmish at Ticinus, before the Battle of Trasimene. His father was
Publius Cornelius Scipio and his uncle
Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio.
Lempriere writes of Scipio's appointment:
"Some time after, the Romans were alarmed by the intelligence that the commanders of their forces in Spain, Publius and Gnaeus Scipio, had been slaughtered, and immediately young Scipio was appointed to avenge the death of his father and of his uncle, and to vindicate the military honour of the republic."
amissas Hispanias: Hannibal speaks of "Spains" because the Romans divided Spain into two Provinces, Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior, nearer and further from Rome. The size and shape of the two provinces shifted as Rome conquered more and more of the Iberian peninsula. Spain had been 'lost' when Hamilcar Barca, Hannibal's father, and Hannibal himself conquered large territories and founded Carthago Nova. Rome had not in fact owned Spain before this, so strictly speaking did not lose it, although it had allies there, notably Saguntum. Hannibal's siege of Saguntum effectively started the Second Punic War. Is Livy making Hannibal speak the language of Roman propaganda here?
quattuor ... Punicis exercitibus: I am not sure exactly what four Carthaginian armies were driven from Spain. The general picture of the war in Spain is given well
here.
consul creatus: This was in 205 B.C., when Scipio was 31 years old, and three years before the conversation with Hannibal. The normal minimum age for consulship was 43.
parum animi esset:
parum is really an adverb, but here used as a noun, with a partitive genitive (too little of spirit). esse with the dative is the equivalent of nominative with habere, i.e. est mihi = habeo.
duobus ...: The burning of the camps: see chapters 5 and 6. Two armies were destroyed in the process, but Scipio also defeated Carthaginians at Utica, killing 3,000 according to Livy.
Syphace ... capto: See chapter 12.
tot ... tot ...: anaphora. Notice how the two phrases share
urbibus ereptis, the noun being in one phrase, the participle in the other. The genitive phrases
regni eius and
nostri imperii are arranged in chiasmus, noun + possessive, possessive + noun.
me: Livy has positioned this little word so that it is very emphatic. The sentence begins
consul creatus, and continues with a string of subordinate clauses and phrases:
-
cum ceteris ... esset (enclosing the purpose clause ad tutandam ..
-
transgressus in Africam
-
duobus ... caesis
-
binis ... captis ...castris
-
Syphace ... capto
-
tot urbibus ... ereptis
Then at last the main sentence continues, and it is with the word
me. Hannibal has listed all the achievements of Scipio, and the climax of them all is that he has forced Hannibal himself to leave Italy. Hannibal has no false modesty.
sextum decimum ... detraxisti: Hannibal, having won the crushing victory of Cannae, was free to roam around Italy virtually unopposed. The Romans knew that he could not be defeated in a pitched battle, and the man they appointed Dictator, Quintus Fabius Maximus, gained the nickname 'Cunctator', the Delayer, by his strategy of shadowing and harrying Hannibal without ever allowing him to meet the Romans in a set-piece battle. The poet Ennius wrote of him the famous line:
unus qui nobis cunctando restituit rem.
Hannibal is generally thought to have thrown away the advantage won at Cannae, and the later years of his 16 in Italy were spent without any obvious aim. He reluctantly left Italy on the orders of the Carthaginian government, when Scipio was threatening Carthage itself.
noui spiritus magnos magis quam utiles: I have known spirits great rather than useful. Does Hannibal mean himself or other men?
magnos contrasted with
utiles suggests the quest for glory at the expense of common sense or what is best for one's country.
et mihi ...: The older Hannibal is still urging young Scipio to avoid the mistakes he himself made. If only, when I was continuously successful, I had thought about the future; but it's not too late for you to think about it.
non ea solum ...: Just because nothing has gone wrong in the past, there is no guarantee that things will not go wrong in future. Hannibal is criticising the attitude of the joy-rider who thinks that his stolen car will never crash, however recklessly he drives it.
obliuiscaris aliorum:
obliuiscor takes a genitive of the thing forgotten.
satis ego documenti:
satis with a partitive genitive. Notice how
ego stands within the phrase
satis documenti. What is the effect of that?
quem ... deprecantem: It is possible to find one's way through this complex sentence by noticing key words:
quem modo ...signa inferentem uideris, hic cernas ... deprecantem.
The man you could recently have seen carrying his standards, you see here begging.
The ablative absolute
castris positis is inserted into the first half of the sentence, and 'carrying his standards' is extended with 'almost climbing the walls of Rome.' The second half of the sentence is filled out with a phrase describing 'the man',
orbatum duobus fratribus, bereaved of two brothers, and the two brothers are described as very brave men, very famous commanders.
quibus terrui ... ea ... deprecantem: These words are tricky to negotiate.
quibus refers forward to
ea. Those things with which I terrified your city, those things [I am] begging away on behalf of my own city.
deprecor means 'avert by prayer'. What Hannibal is trying to avert by prayer is destruction, pillage, fire and sword, which is exactly what the people of Rome feared he would visit on their city. I suspect that Hannibal would not really have reminded Scipio of how near he had come to sacking Rome. This smacks of the patriotic Livy giving Scipio every excuse to fight.
Maximae cuique fortunae minime credendum est.: The gerundive
credendum est takes two datives: one (cuique) is the person who ought to trust; the other (maximae fortunae) is the normal dative after
credo. Each person ought to trust the greatest fortune least.
in bonis ... quam honesta: A number of contrasts here:
-
in bonis tuis rebus -- [in] nostris dubiis [rebus]
-
tibi .. danti -- nostris petentibus
-
(pax est) ampla ac speciosa -- magis necessaria quam honesta
certa pax ... sperata uictoria; haec in tua, illa in deorum: More contrasts. Peace is certain, victory only hoped for. Victory depends on you, peace on the gods.
There are some puzzles here. How can Hannibal promise that peace would be certain, when the Romans believed that the Carthagians did not keep their word? Hannibal will try to answer that later in his speech. The second puzzle is about
haec and
illa.
Haec naturally refers to the nearer word, the hoped-for victory, and
illa to the more distant one, the peace. Yet Hannibal's argument is that it is in Scipio's power to make peace, whereas the outcome of battle would be 'in the lap of the gods'. He says this quite clearly a few sentences further on:
omnia in pace iungenda tuae potestatis sunt, P. Corneli: tunc ea habenda fortuna erit
quam di dederint. The Penguin translation sidesteps the problem, simply referring to 'the one' and 'the other'. Evidently that is all Livy means.
ne ... dederis: One way of expressing a prohibition is to use
ne and the perfect subjunctive. The argument here seems desperate: You have been winning all along - so give up now!
cum ... tum ... -que: both ... and. The use of
-que suggests that
uim fortunae and Martem belli communem are to be taken closely together, meaning almost the same thing.
Mars normally means, not the god, but 'battle'. To refer to the god, Latin seems to prefer Mavors. Here
Martem belli seems to mean 'the luck of battle'.
utrimque ferrum, utrimque corpora: anaphora and asyndeton. Hannibal seems to have run out of arguments. Of course there are human bodies and weapons involved in a battle!
Marcus Atilius:
See the story of Regulus here. His life and death provide Hannibal with a perfect argument. Regulus was a successful conqueror of Carthaginians, who decided to refuse the Carthaginian's request for peace, whose luck turned against him, and whose end, heroic in Roman eyes, was agonising.
si uictor pacem petentibus dedisset: If as victor, when he was victorious.
pacem is object both of
petentibus and of
dedisset.
non statuendo felicitati modum: By not setting a limit to his prosperity or holding in the fortune that is elating him. I suggested that Livy sets up the meeting between Hannibal and Scipio like a scene from a Greek tragedy. A theme of Greek tragedy was the punishment sent by the gods upon someone who takes his or her prosperity for granted and is too 'elated' by it; who is guilty of hubris.
quanto altius ... eo foedius: Pride goes before a fall. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
est quidem eius qui dat: Hannibal has finished his sermon. Now he makes definite peace proposals, while acknowledging that Scipio must have the last word.
quidem, indeed, may mark his change of direction.
est eius, it belongs to him, it is his right. Sometimes this idiom means 'It is the nature or the duty of someone to do this or that.'
forsitan .. simus: fors sit an, a chance may be that. Because of the derivation of the word
forsitan, it is followed by subjunctive.
non indigni ... qui .. inrogemus:
qui with the subjunctive gives the sense of 'the sort of people to inflict or propose the penalty.' It is always safe to translate a relative with subjunctive as 'to do ...'
multam: a fine. Nothing to do with
multus, -a, -um.
non recusamus quin:
quin in a dependent clause is used only after negatives or virtual negatives. 'But that' is a handy first translation - never a final translation, of course.
itum est: Intransitive verbs may be used in the passive, but only in the third person singular, impersonally: there was a going to war. When translating, choose the subject that makes the best sense, and translate as though the verb were active.
Sicilia, Sardinia, Hispania: At the beginning of the Punic Wars Rome and Carthage were equally strong expanding empires. Sicily, which is part of the state of Italy, and which lies between Rome and Carthage, had been almost overrun by Carthage. Roman and Carthaginian influence there ebbed and flowed. The Carthaginian occupation of Messana was the cause of the First Punic War. By the end of that war the whole island, except Syracuse, belonged to Rome, and in 211 Syracuse too became part of the Roman province.
Sardinia belonged to Carthage until Rome siezed it in 238 B.C., after the end of the First Punic War.
For Spain, see the note and link above.
It is clear that Hannibal is not offering to give the Romans anything they do not already possess - as Scipio points out in his reply.
inclusi Africae litoribus: It is ironic that the Carthaginians, whose empire had been a naval and trading one, are now, Hannibal suggests, to remain within their boundaries, while Rome, whose empire had expanded by land, were now to be lords of the sea (
terra marique).
uideamus: let us see. Jussive subjunctive.
haud negauerim: Hannibal now tries to put Scipio's mind at rest about how
certa the
pax will be. An utterly literal word-by-word translation would be: I would not have denied, on account of not-too-sincerely sought or expected recently peace ... Could
exspectatam mean 'kept', 'abided by'? It would make good sense in the context, although the dictionary does not encourage us to take that meaning. Hannibal has to admit that the Carthaginians have not been reliable in the past, but that was in his absence. Now he is on the spot, and he will guarantee good faith in the future.
multum per quos petita sit ... pertinet:
multum is adverbial.
pertinet is impersonal, it matters.
per quos petita sit is an indirect question, through whom peace is sought, who are the parties to the peace treaty.
ad fidem tuendae pacis: for the reliability of the peace-keeping.
uestri ... patres: Hannibal appeals to the actions of Scipio's own leaders, the Senate.
Hannibal peto pacem: Latin can put it concisely. I am asking for peace, and I am Hannibal.
neque peterem nisi utilem crederem: I would not be asking for peace if it were not for the advantage of Carthage; and because peace is to our advantage I shall see that we keep it. The flaw in this argument is that peace is at this moment to Carthage's advantage, becase the alternative is defeat. Once the Roman army has left, peace may no longer be advantageous.
et quemadmodum ...: I was good at waging war, so I shall be good at keeping peace.
quoad: up to the point when. Hannibal claims the credit for his success for himself, but blames his failures on the envy of the gods. The words
inuidere di take up the theme of hubris, and the anger of the gods against the man who shows it.
ne quem eius paeniteret: me paenitet + genitive: I am sorry for ..., I regret ...
partae: pario means I bear (a child), and so in general I bring about, obtain.
Note: This chapter contains many examples of gerundives, which could form the basis of teaching or revising the use of gerundives.
