And yet, if the estimate is to be formed with reference to the magnitude of the fleet, it must be owned that two consuls with their armies had passed from thence before, and there were almost as many ships of war in those fleets as the transports with which Scipio was crossing.

For, besides fifty men of war, he conveyed his army over in four hundred transports.

But what made the Romans consider one war as more formidable than the other, the second than the first, was, that it was carried on in Italy, and that so many armies had been destroyed, and their commanders slain.

The general, Scipio, also, who enjoyed the highest degree of renown, partly from his brave achievements, and partly from a peculiar felicity of fortune, which conducted him to the acquisition of boundless glory, attracted extraordinary regard.

At the same time, the very project of passing over into the enemy's country, which had not been formed by any general before during that war, had made him an object of admiration; for he had commonly declared, that he passed over with the object of drawing Hannibal out of Italy, of removing the seat of war into Africa, and terminating it there.