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 burnt. 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.

44. 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 afterwards, 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 frequently said afterwards, that first the
ambition of Tiberius Claudius, and afterwards of Cneius Cornelius,
were the causes which prevented his terminating the war by the
destruction of Carthage. The Carthaginians, finding difficulty in
raising the first sum of money to be paid, as their finances were
exhausted by a protracted war, and in consequence great lamentation
and grief arising in the senate-house, it is said that Hannibal was
observed laughing; and when Hasdrubal Haedus rebuked him for laughing
amid the public grief, when he himself was the occasion of the tears
which were shed, he said: "If, as the expression of the countenance
is discerned by the sight, so the inward feelings of the mind could be
distinguished, it would clearly appear to you that that laughter which
you censure came from a heart not elated with joy, but frantic with
misfortunes. And yet it is not so ill-timed as those absurd and
inconsistent tears of yours. Then you ought to have wept, when our
arms were taken from us, our ships burnt, and we were forbidden to
engage in foreign wars, for that was the wound by which we fell. Nor
is it just that you should suppose that the measures which the Romans
have adopted towards you have been dictated by animosity. No great
state can remain at rest long together. If it has no enemy abroad
it finds one at home, in t