fear, when they have once commenced, will they indulge resentment. Set
before your eyes the islands Aegates and Eryx, all that for
twenty-four years ye have suffered by land and sea. Nor was this boy
the leader, but his father Hamilcar himself, a second Mars, as these
people would have it: but we had not refrained from Tarentum, that is,
from Italy, according to the treaty; as now we do not refrain from
Saguntum. The gods and men have, therefore, prevailed over us; and as
to that about which there was a dispute in words, whether of the two
nations had infringed the treaty, the issue of the war, like an
equitable judge, hath awarded the victory to the party on whose side
justice stood. It is against Carthage that Hannibal is now moving his
vineae and towers: it is the wall of Carthage that he is shaking with
his battering-ram. The ruins of Saguntum (oh that I may prove a false
prophet!) will fall on our heads; and the war commenced against the
Saguntines must be continued against the Romans. Shall we, therefore,
some one will say, deliver up Hannibal? In what relates to him I am
aware that my authority is of little weight, on account of my enmity
with his father. But I both rejoice that Hamilcar perished, for this
reason, that, had he lived we should have now been engaged in a war
with the Romans; and this youth, as the fury and firebrand of this
war, I hate and detest. Nor ought he only to be given up in atonement
for the violated treaty; but even though no one demanded him, he ought
to be transported to the extremest shores of earth or sea, and
banished to a distance, whence neither his name nor any tidings of him
can reach us, and he be unable to disturb the peace of a tranquil
state. I therefore give my opinion, that ambassadors be sent
immediately to Rome to satisfy the senate; others to tell Hannibal to
lead away his army from Saguntum, and to deliver up Hannibal himself,
according to the treaty to the Romans; and I propose a third embassy
to make restitution to the Saguntines."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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