aginians then returned thanks to the senate,
and requested that they might be allowed to enter the city and converse
with their countrymen who had been made prisoners and were in custody of
the State; observing that some of them were their relations and friends,
and men of rank, and some, persons to whom they were charged with
messages from their relations.

Having obtained these requests, they again asked permission to ransom
such of them as they pleased; when they were desired to give in their
names. Having given in a list of about two hundred, a decree of the
senate was passed to the effect that the Carthaginian ambassadors should
be allowed to take away into Africa to Publius Cornelius Scipio two
hundred of the Carthaginian prisoners, selecting whom they pleased; and
that they should convey to him a message that if the peace were
concluded he should restore them to the Carthaginians without ransom.
The heralds being ordered to go into Africa to strike the league, at
their own desire the senate passed a decree that they should take with
them flint stones of their own and vervain of their own; that the Roman
praetor should command them to strike the league, and that they should
demand of him herbs. The description of herb usually given to the
heralds is taken from the Capitol. Thus the Carthaginians being allowed
to depart from Rome, when they had gone into Africa to Scipio concluded
the peace on the terms before mentioned. They delivered up their
men-of-war, their elephants, deserters, fugitives, and four thousand
prisoners, among whom was Quintus Terentius Culleo, a senator. The ships
he ordered to be taken out into the main and burned. Some say there were
five hundred of every description of those which are worked with oars,
and that the sudden sight of these when burning occasioned as deep a
sensation of grief to the Carthaginians as if Carthage had been in
flames. The measures adopted respecting the deserters were more severe
than those respecting the fugitives. Those who were of the Latin
confederacy were decapitated; the Romans were crucified.

The last peace with the Carthaginians was made forty years before this
in the consulate of Quintus Lutatius and Aulus Manlius. The war
commenced twenty-three years afterward in the consulate of Publius
Cornelius and Tiberius Sempronius. It was concluded in the seventeenth
year, in the consulate of Cneius Cornelius and Publius Aelius Paetus. It
is related that Scipio fre