Tom Holland

But Scipio notices something interesting about Sifax's camp.

And that is that all his quarters are made of reeds.

So not made out of kind of earth or mud or whatever, but reeds.

And then his spies come back from Hasdrubal's camp, which isn't far from Sifax's.

And they say, well, Hasdrubal's camp, their winter quarters aren't made of mud or earth either.

They are made of wood.

So Scipio ponders this and then he intimates to Hasdrubal that he might be interested in opening negotiations with him.

And he floats the possibility that perhaps a peace treaty could be arrived at whereby the Romans would keep what they have in Italy and the Carthaginians could keep what they have in Africa.

And maybe that would be the basis for a settlement.

Well, that sounds promising.

That's nice.

And Hasdrubal is interested in this.

And so negotiations start opening between his camp and the Roman camp and Syphax gets involved as well.

And so the Romans, when they send their ambassadorial teams to these two camps, are really able to scope it out.

And they work out the best way to set Sifax's camp, which is made of reeds, and Hasdable's camp, which is made of wood, on fire.

And so Scipio, with this information, he sends Lelius and Massinissa to torch Syphax's camp, which duly goes up, is incinerated, and large numbers of Syphax's men with them.

And then he sends out another squad to set fire to the Carthaginian camp.

All the Carthaginians come rushing out.

Scipio's men are on hand to slaughter them.

And Polybius, he thinks this whole wheeze is absolutely brilliant.