A Greater than Napoleon by Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart

Even at this critical juncture, jealousy of Scipio was rife in the Roman Senate. His backing, as all through, came from the people, not from his military rivals in the Senate. The consuls had done nothing to assist Scipio's campaign through fixing Hannibal in Italy, save that Servilius advanced to the shore after Hannibal was safely away. But at the beginning of the year when the allocation of the various provinces was decided, according to custom, both consuls pressed for the province of Africa, eager to reap the fruits of Scipio's success and thus earn glory cheaply. Metellus again tried to play the part of protecting deity. As a result the consuls were ordered to make application to the tribunes for the question to be put to the people to decide whom they wished to conduct the war in Africa. All the tribes thereupon nominated Scipio. Despite this emphatic popular verdict, the consuls drew lots for the province of Africa, having persuaded the Senate to make a decree to this effect. The lot fell to Tiberius Claudius, who was given an equal command with Scipio, and an armada of fifty quinqueremes for his expedition. Happily for Scipio, this jealousy-inspired move failed to prevent him putting the coping-stone on his own work, for Claudius was slow over his preparations, and when he eventually set out was caught in a storm and driven to Sardinia. Thus he never reached Africa.

Soon, too, as news of the changed situation in Africa filtered through, Scipio's detractors combined with the habitual pessimists in the distillation of gloom. They recalled that "Quintus Fabius, recently deceased, who had foretold how arduous the contest would be, had been accustomed to predict that Hannibal would prove a more formidable enemy in his own country than he had been in a foreign one; and that Scipio would have to encounter not Syphax, a king of undisciplined barbarians .; nor his father-in-law Hasdrubal, that most fugacious general"-a Fabian libel on a man of undaunted spirit; "nor tumultuary armies hastily collected out of a crowd of half-armed rustics, but Hannibal. who, having grown old in victory, had filled Spain, Gaul, and Italy with monuments of his vast achievements; who commanded troops of equal length of service; troops hardened by superhuman endurance; stained a thousand times with Roman blood. " The tension in Rome was increased by the past years of indecisive warfare, carried on languidly and apparently endless, whereas now Scipio and Hannibal had stimulated the minds of all as generals prepared for a final death-clinch.