When Hasdrubal, the Carthaginian commander, threw himself as a suppliant at Scipio's knees, the general turning to those round him said, "Look, my friends, how well Fortune knows to make and example of inconsiderate men.
This is that very Hasdrubal who lately rejected the many kind offers I made him, and said that his native city and her flames were the most splendid obsequies for him; and here he is with suppliant boughs begging for his life from me and reposing all his hopes on me.
Without that witnesses this with his eyes can fail to understand that a mere man should never either act or speak presumptuously?"
Some of the deserters now came forward to the edge of the roof and begged the front ranks of the assailants to hold back for a moment, and when Scipio gave this order they began to abuse Hasdrubal, some of them for having violated his oath, saying that he had often sworn solemnly that he would not desert them, and others for his cowardice and general baseness of spirit.
And this they did with jeers and in the most insulting, coarse, and hostile language.
At this moment his wife, seeing Hasdrubal seated with Scipio in front of the enemy, came out from the crowd of deserters, herself dressed like a great lady, but holding her children, who wore nothing but their smocks, by each hand and wrapping them in her cloak.
At first she called on Hasdrubal by his name, but when he maintained silence and bent his eyes to the ground, she began by calling on the gods and expressing her deepest thanks to Scipio for sparing as far as he was concerned not only herself but her children.
Then, after a short silence, she asked Hasdrubal how without saying a word to her he had deserted them all and betaken himself to the Roman general to secure his own safety; how he had thus shamelessly abandoned the state and the citizens who trusted in him, and gone over secretly to the enemy;
and how he had the face to sit now beside the enemy with suppliant boughs in his hands, that enemy to whom he had often boasted that the day would never dawn on which the sun would look on Hasdrubal alive and his city in flames . . .
Walbank Commentary