A Greater than Napoleon by Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart

On arrival at Rome Scipio obtained an audience of the Senate outside the city, at the temple of Bellona, and there gave them a formal report of his campaigns. "On account of these services he rather tried his prospect of a triumph than pressed it pertinaciously," for the honour had never been given except to those whose services were rendered when holders of a magistracy. His tact was wise, for the astonishing success of youth had already inspired envy among his seniors. The Senate did not break with precedent, and at the close of the audience he entered the city in the ordinary way. His reward, however, came without delay. At the assembly for the election of the two consuls for the coming year he was named by all the centuries. The popularity of his election was shown not only by the enthusiasm which greeted it, but by the gathering of a larger number of voters than at any time during the Punic War, crowds swarming to his house and to the Capitol full of curiosity to see the victor of the Spanish wars.

But on the morrow of this personal triumph, compensation for the formal "triumph" denied him by a hidebound Senate, the first shoots appeared of that undergrowth of narrow-minded conservatism, reinforced by envy, which was to choke the personal fruits of his work, though happily not before he had garnered for Rome the first-fruits-Hannibal's overthrow.