Gaius Laelius

Cato, who had been appointed Quaestor in 205 BCE, in the next year enters upon the duties of his place of work, following Scipio to Sicily.

When Scipio, acting on the consent which, after much opposition, he had obtained from the senate, transports the armed forces from Sicily into Africa, Cato and Gaius Laelius ware appointed to escort the baggage ships.

There is not the friendliness of cooperation between Cato and Scipio which ought to exist between a quaestor and his proconsul.

Fabius had opposed the permission given to Scipio to carry out the attack into the enemy's home, and Cato, whose appointment is intended to monitor Scipio's behavior, adopts the views of his friend.

Scipio sails at the commissioners' bidding from Sicily in 204 BCE at the head of his army of volunteers and lands near Utica.

Carthage, meanwhile, has secured the friendship of Syphax, whose advance compels Scipio to abandon the siege of Utica and dig in on the shore between there and Carthage.

The arrival of four thousand Celtiberian mercenaries from Southern Iberia makes the Carthaginians determined to make one more effort to stop the armies of Scipio from advancing across North Africa.

New levies are raised in Carthage and in Numidia, and soon Hasdrubal and Syphax find themselves at the head of an army of thirty thousand men.

Scipio feigns negotiations, then mounts a treacherous surprise attack on Syphax, approaching by stealth and setting fire to the enemy camp, where the combined armies of the Carthaginians and Numidians become panicked and flee, and are mostly killed by Scipio's army.

Though not a "battle," both Polybius and Livy estimate that the death toll in this single attack exceeded forty thousand Carthaginian and Numidian dead, and more captured.

Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax, both men having succeeded in escaping from their camps, which Scipio and his Numidian ally Masinissa had destroyed with the aid of and Laelius, fall back with a few followers who had also escaped the massacre.

Scipio, his command extended until the end of the war, marches to meet Hasdrubal and Syphax at a place called the Great Plains.

The charge of the Roman cavalry causes the Carthaginian infantry and cavalry flee from the field; only the Spanish infantry remain standing, defending themselves fiercely.

The number of Spanish mercenaries is about equal to the first line of the Romans, the hastati.

Then Scipio orders his principes and triarii to march from behind the hastati and attack the flanks of the Spanish mercenaries, who are routed, with only a handful managing to escape.

Syphax, fleeing back to his kingdom in Numidia, is pursued by Masinissa and Laelius, who defeat him at the Battle of Cirta, as a result of which he is captured and brought back to the Roman camp as a prisoner.

Masinissa is given command of Syphax's kingdom, the land from which he had originally been exiled.

Masinissa, with Roman backing, establishes himself in 202 BCE as king of Numidia, a collection of diverse, seminomadic tribes.

Masinissa has meanwhile fallen in love with Sophonisba and married her, but Scipio refuses to agree to this arrangement, insisting on the immediate surrender of the princess so that she can be taken to Rome and appear in the triumphal parade.

Upbraided by Scipio for his weakness, Masinissa is urged to leave her.

Fearing the Romans more than he loves Sophonisba, Masinissa goes to her, swears his love to her, and tells her that he cannot free her from captivity or shield her from Roman wrath, and so asks her to die like a true Carthaginian princess.

With great composure, she drinks a cup of poison that he offers her, thus escaping the outrage of being led in a triumphal parade at Rome, with its accompanying degradations and humiliations.