Though Rome and Carthage remained outwardly at peace for fifty years, Carthage, in spite of the numerous restrictions with which her rival sought to cripple her, so waxed in prosperity and wealth that the Roman leaders, despairing of wresting from her commercial supremacy, determined on her destruction. This ruthless decision was inspired by both jealousy and fear, and, in some measure at least, by the eloquence of the celebrated orator Marcus Cato, who, as chairman of a commission sent to Carthage to settle a boundary question, had been so impressed by what he saw there that thenceforward he devoted himself to inflaming the passions of his countrymen against Carthage. It is said that after his return from Africa he never failed to conclude a speech with the impassioned declaration, “_Delenda est Carthago!_”—“Carthage must be wiped out!” History has shown that, when one power has determined to attack another, it has never been found difficult to invent a plausible pretext. In this instance, however, no pretext was necessary; in deliberately forcing war upon a people with whom she was at peace, and who wished to remain at peace, Rome was scourged by the lashes of those terrible sisters, Hatred, Jealousy, and Fear. No demands, no ultimatum, no declaration of war preceded the outbreak of hostilities, the news that the Roman fleet was approaching being the first intimation the Carthaginians had that they were again to undergo the horrors of war. The expedition landed unopposed at Utica in 149 B.C., where the Roman commander was waited upon by peace commissioners sent by Carthage to learn the city’s fate. They were informed that peace terms would not even be discussed until the complete disarmament of the city had been effected. Whereupon all military and naval stores, all arms and armor, whether owned privately or by the state, even the insignificant remnant of the once all-powerful fleet, were surrendered. Now that the city was apparently helpless, and even a semblance of resistance was out of the question, the Roman commander informed the Carthaginian envoys of the brutal sentence which had been passed by the Senate and which he had been ordered to carry out. Carthage was to be utterly destroyed! But the Romans had made one serious miscalculation; they had failed to take into account the fighting spirit which can be aroused in the most unwarlike of peoples, as in the most timid of animals, when driven to desperation. In fact, the Roman ultimatum had precisely the opposite effect to that which was intended, for, instead of paralyzing the Carthaginians with fear, it fanned their smoldering resentment into a fierce flame of heroism; it inspired them with a determination to sell their city and their lives at a price which would stagger Rome.