d to Rome, and the ships were assembled; the
declaration of war might issue at any moment. The Carthaginians made
every effort to avert the impending blow. Hasdrubal and Carthalo,
the leaders of the patriot party, were condemned to death, and an
embassy was sent to Rome to throw the responsibility on them.
But at the same time envoys from Utica, the second city of the
Libyan Phoenicians, arrived there with full powers to surrender
their Community wholly to the Romans--compared with such obliging
submissiveness, it seemed almost an insolence that the Carthaginians
had rested content with ordering, unbidden, the execution of their most
eminent men. The senate declared that the excuse of the Carthaginians
was found insufficient; to the question, what in that case would suffice,
the reply was given that the Carthaginians knew that themselves. They
might, no doubt, have known what the Romans wished; but yet it seemed
impossible to believe that the last hour of their loved native city had
really come. Once more Carthaginian envoys--on this occasion thirty
in number and with unlimited powers--were sent to Rome. When they
arrived, war was already declared (beginning of 605), and the double
consular army had embarked. Yet they even now attempted to dispel
the storm by complete submission. The senate replied that Rome was
ready to guarantee to the Carthaginian community its territory, its
municipal freedom and its laws, its public and private property,
provided that it would furnish to the consuls who had just departed for
Sicily within the space of a month at Lilybaeum 300 hostages from the
children of the leading families, and would fulfil the further orders
which the consuls in conformity with their instructions should issue
to them. The reply has been called ambiguous; but very erroneously,
as even at the time clearsighted men among the Carthaginians themselves
pointed out. The circumstance that everything which they could ask
was guaranteed with the single exception of the city, and that
nothing was said as to stopping the embarkation of the troops for
Africa, showed very clearly what the Roman intentions were; the
senate acted with fearful harshness, but it did not assume the
semblance of concession. The Carthaginians, however, would not open
their eyes; there was no statesman found, who had the power to move
the unstable multitude of the city either to thorough resistance or
to thorough resignation. When they he