is not my intention to "ad infinitum" in the Second Punic War, but it does not explain what happened next in what we call Spain. The war in Italy, Scipio's death, had taken a direction favorable to the Roman arms. Hannibal was trying to attract allies multiply their ranks among the peoples of southern Italy, the Macedonians, etc ... but the Romans had managed to turn disaster remake suffered thanks to his extraordinary energy and ability.
When Terence, defeated at Cannae, he returned to Rome, the people and the government en masse went out to meet and thank their confidence in the republic. The partisan struggle between aristocrats and democrats had been forgotten. In parallel, stimulated the religious sentiments of the people, trying to make the fight against the Carthaginians a "crusade." Was sent to the shrine of Delphi a mission to consult with the divine Apollo, barbaric human sacrifices were intended to calm the superstitious terror that had gripped the town. Calamities always exalted the devotion, that's a fact. After failing
all human, but was not expected that the gods send a savior - do you sound the "idea"? -, And Rome found it on the boy of seventeen who, in the battle of Tricinio, had managed to save his father from certain death.
The young hero had become very popular among his countrymen, which he admired in his manly beauty and his deep religiousness, which almost came to mysticism. It was said that he used to spend the long hours locked up in the temples, as if conversing with the gods, and that was favored by them in dreams and apparitions. Polybius, who was closely related to his family, attributed his good fortune to his clairvoyant reason and the confidence he had in his own discretion. Livy and Appian, however, prefer us to believe that the boy was the darling of the gods, an idea that would hold the same hero after his unparalleled success. Appian has
the appointed day to choose a general to Hispania nobody volunteered, adding to the consternation of the Romans. But at last the young man offered to go down in history as Scipio Africanus.
(CONTINUED)
0 comments:
Post a Comment