The ambassadors, thus denied admittance by Hannibal, repaired to Carthage and laid their demands before the senate. Upon this occasion Livy introduces Hanno inveighing bitterly in a formal harangue against the sending Hannibal into Spain, a measure which he foretells, must terminate in the utter destruction of Carthage.[233] And after testifying his joy for the death of his father Hamilcar, whom he acknowledges he most cordially hated, as he did the whole Barcan family, whom he terms the fire-brands of the state, he advises them to give up Hannibal, and make full satisfaction for the injury then done to the Saguntines. When Hanno had done speaking, there was no occasion, as Livy observes, for a reply.[234] For almost all the senate were so entirely in the interest of Hannibal, that they accused Hanno of declaiming against him, with more bitterness and rancour than even the Roman ambassadors, who were dismissed with this short answer, “that not Hannibal, but the Saguntines, were the authors of the war, and that the Romans treated them with great injustice, if they preferred the friendship of the Saguntines before that of their most ancient allies the Carthaginians.” Livy’s account of the second embassy, which followed the destruction of Saguntum, differs so very little from that of Polybius, both as to the question put by the Romans, the answer given by the Carthaginian senate, and the declaration of war which was the consequence, that it is needless to repeat it.[235] If what Hanno said in the speech above-mentioned, had been his real sentiments from any consciousness of the superior power of the Romans, and the imprudence of engaging in a war of that consequence before his country had recovered her former strength, he would have acted upon principles worthy of an honest and prudent patriot. For Polybius,[236] after enumerating the superior excellencies of Hannibal as a general, is strongly of opinion, that if he had begun with other nations, and left the Romans for his last enterprise, he would certainly have succeeded in whatever he had attempted against them, but he miscarried by attacking those first, whom he ought to have reserved for his last enterprise. The subsequent behaviour of Hanno, during the whole time that Italy was the seat of war, evidently proves, that his opposition to this war proceeded entirely from party motives, and his personal hatred to the Barcan family, consequently is by no means to be ascribed to any regard for the true interest of his country. Appian informs us,[237] that when Fabius had greatly streightened Hannibal by his cautious conduct, the Carthaginian general sent a pressing message to Carthage for a supply both of men and money. But according to that author, he was flatly refused, and could obtain neither, by the influence of his enemies, who were averse to that war, and cavilled perpetually at every enterprise which Hannibal undertook. Livy,[238] in his relation of the account,