1From the day he was declared commander, however, as if Italy had been assigned to him as his province and the war with Rome entrusted to him, thinking that nothing should be put off, lest he too, like his father Hamilcar and then Hasdrubal, should be overtaken by some mishap while he delayed, he decided to make war on the Saguntines. 3Because an attack on them would without doubt set Roman arms in motion, he first led his army into the territory of the Olcades — that people lived beyond the Ebro, within the sphere rather than under the rule of the Carthaginians — so that he might seem not to have aimed at the Saguntines but to have been drawn into that war by the sequence of events, as the neighbouring peoples were subdued and annexed.
4Cartala, a wealthy city, the capital of that people, he storms and plunders; 4struck with fear at this, the smaller communities accepted his rule and had a tribute imposed on them. 4The victorious army, rich with plunder, was led into winter quarters at New Carthage. 5There, by sharing out the plunder generously and faithfully paying the arrears of pay, he made the loyalty of all, citizens and allies alike, firm towards himself, and at the beginning of spring the war was carried forward against the Vaccaei. 5Hermandica and Arbocala, their cities, were taken by storm. 6Arbocala was defended for a long time by both the courage and the numbers of its townspeople.
7Fugitives from Hermandica, having joined the exiles of the Olcades, the people subdued the summer before, stir up the Carpetani; and attacking Hannibal on his return from the Vaccaei not far from the river Tagus, they threw his column, heavy with plunder, into confusion. 9Hannibal refrained from battle, and having pitched camp on the bank, as soon as quiet and silence had settled on the enemy, he crossed the river by a ford, and laying out his rampart in such a way that the enemy would have room to cross, he decided to attack them as they crossed. 10He instructed the cavalry to attack the encumbered column when they saw them entering the water; 10on the bank he posts the elephants — there were forty of them.
11The Carpetani, with the contingents of the Olcades and Vaccaei, numbered a hundred thousand, an army invincible if the fight were on level ground. 12And so, fierce by nature and relying on their numbers, and thinking, since they believed the enemy had withdrawn out of fear, that only the river in between was delaying their victory, they raised a shout and rushed into the river everywhere, without anyone's command, wherever was nearest to each man. 13But from the other bank a huge force of cavalry was sent into the river, and in mid-stream they clashed in a far from equal contest, since there the foot-soldier, unsteady and hardly trusting the ford, could be knocked over even by an unarmed horseman driving his horse at random, while the horseman, free in body and arms, his horse steady even in the middle of the eddies, could fight at close quarters and at a distance.
15A large part were swallowed up by the river; 15some, carried by the swirling stream towards the enemy, were trampled by the elephants. 16The last of them, for whom retreat to their own bank was safer, were gathering together after their scattered panic, when, before they could recover their courage from so great a fright, Hannibal entered the river in square formation, drove them in flight from the bank, and after laying waste their fields received the surrender of the Carpetani too within a few days. 17And now everything beyond the Ebro, apart from the Saguntines, belonged to the Carthaginians.