is ancestors--Should
furnish money and corn to the Roman auxiliaries, till their ambassadors
should be returned from Rome--Should pay to the Romans ten thousand Euboic
talents(807) of silver in fifty annual payments; and give a hundred
hostages, who should be nominated by Scipio. And in order that they might
have time to send to Rome, he agreed to grant them a truce, upon condition
that they should restore the ships taken during the former, without which
they were not to expect either a truce or peace."

When the deputies were returned to Carthage, they laid before the senate
the conditions dictated by Scipio. But they appeared so intolerable to
Gisgo, that rising up, he made a speech, in order to dissuade his citizens
from accepting a peace on such shameful terms. Hannibal, provoked at the
calmness with which such an orator was heard, took Gisgo by the arm, and
dragged him from his seat. A behaviour so outrageous, and so remote from
the manners of a free city like Carthage, raised an universal murmur.
Hannibal himself was vexed when he reflected on what he had done, and
immediately made an apology for it. "As I left," says he, "your city at
nine years of age, and did not return to it till after thirty-six years'
absence, I had full leisure to learn the arts of war, and flatter myself
that I have made some improvement in them. As for your laws and customs,
it is no wonder I am ignorant of them, and I therefore desire you to
instruct me in them." He then expatiated on the indispensable necessity
they were under of concluding a peace. He added, that they ought to thank
the gods for having prompted the Romans to grant them a peace even on
these conditions. He pointed out to them the great importance of their
uniting in opinion; and of not giving an opportunity, by their divisions,
for the people to take an affair of this nature under their cognizance.
The whole city came over to his opinion; and accordingly the peace was
accepted. The senate made Scipio satisfaction with regard to the ships
reclaimed by him; and, after obtaining a truce for three months, they sent
ambassadors to Rome.

These Carthaginians, who were all venerable for their years and dignity,
were admitted immediately to an audience. Asdrubal, surnamed Hoedus, who
was still an irreconcileable enemy to Hannibal and his faction, spoke
first; and after having excused, to the best of his power, the people of
Carthage, by imputing the rupture to the ambition of s