A Greater than Napoleon by Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart

Scipio had ploughed the ground and sown the seeds for his African campaign. The time for reaping its fruits was not yet, however. He had first to complete the subjugation of Spain, and to deal out punishment to those tribes who had forsaken Rome in her hour of crisis on the Peninsula, after the death of the elder Scipios. Their heir had been too shrewd a diplomatist to show his hand earlier while the scales still hung in the balance, but now, with the Carthaginian power finally broken, it was essential for the future security of the Roman power that such treachery should not pass without retribution. The two chief offenders were Illiturgis and Castulo, cities in the neighbourhood of the battlefield of Becula, on the upper reaches of the Betis (Guadalquiver). Sending a third of his forces under Marcius to deal with Castulo, he himself moved with the remainder on Illiturgis. A guilty conscience is an alert sentinel, and Scipio arrived to find that the Illiturgi had made every preparation for defence without awaiting any declaration of hostilities. He thereupon prepared to assault, dividing his army into two parts, giving command of one to Lelius, in order that they might "attack the city in two places simultaneously, thus creating an alarm in two quarters at the same time" (Livy). Here again it is interesting to note how consistently Scipio executes a convergent assault-his force divided into independently manœuvring parts to effect surprise and strain the enemy's defence, yet combining on a common objective. How strongly does his appreciation of this, the essential formula of tactics, contrast with its rarity in ancient warfare, in modern also, for how often do commanders wreck their plan either on the Scylla of a divided objective or on the Charybdis of a feint or "holding" attack to divert the enemy's attention and reserves from their main blow.

His plan made, Scipio, realising the soldiers' inherently lesser ardour against mere insurgents, strove to stimulate their determination by playing on their feelings for their betrayed comrades. He reminded them that the need for a salutary vengeance ought to make them fight more fiercely than against the Carthaginians. "For with the latter the struggle was for empire and glory almost without any exasperation, while they had now to punish perfidy and cruelty. " Such an urge was needful, for the men of Illiturgis, fighting with the courage of despair, with no hope but to sell their lives as dearly as possible, repulsed assault after assault. Indeed, because of the circumstances that Scipio had evidently foreseen, the previously victorious army "showed such a want of resolution as was not very honourable to it. " At this crisis, Scipio, like Napoleon at the bridge of Lodi, did not hesitate to stake his own life. "Considering it incumbent upon him to exert himself in person and share the danger, he reproved his soldiers for their cowardice, and ordered the scaling ladders to be brought up again, threatening to mount the wall himself since the rest hesitated. " "He had now advanced near the walls with no small danger, when a shout was raised from all sides by the soldiers, alarmed at the danger to which their leader was exposed, and the scaling ladders were raised in several places at once. " This fresh impulse, coinciding with Lelius's pressure elsewhere, turned the scales, and the walls were captured. During the resultant confusion the citadel, too, fell to an assault on a side where it was thought impregnable.