nerals of any
nation whatever. When they came within sight of each other they
remained silent for a short time, thunderstruck, as it were, with
mutual admiration. At length Hannibal thus began:

"Since fate hath so ordained it, that I, who was the first to wage war
upon the Romans, and who have so often had victory almost within my
reach, should voluntarily come to sue for peace, I rejoice that it is
you, above all others, from whom it is my lot to solicit it. To you,
also, amidst the many distinguished events of your life, it will not
be esteemed one of the least glorious that Hannibal, to whom the gods
had so often granted victory over the Roman generals, should have
yielded to you; and that you should have put an end to this war, which
has been rendered remarkable by your calamities before it was by
ours. In this, also, fortune would seem to have exhibited a
disposition to sport with events, for it was when your father was
Consul that I first took up arms; he was the first Roman general with
whom I engaged in a pitched battle; and it is to his son that I now
come unarmed to solicit peace. It were, indeed, most to have been
desired that the gods should have put such dispositions into the minds
of our fathers, that you should have been content with the empire of
Italy, and we with that of Africa; nor, indeed, even to you, are
Sicily and Sardinia of sufficient value to compensate you for the loss
of so many fleets, so many armies, so many and such distinguished
generals.

"But what is past may be more easily censured than retrieved. In our
attempts to acquire the possessions of others, we have been compelled
to fight for our own; and not only have you had a war in Italy, and we
also in Africa, but you have beheld the standards and arms of your
enemies almost in your gates and on your walls, and we now, from the
walls of Carthage, distinctly hear the din of a Roman camp. What,
therefore, we should most earnestly deprecate, and you should most
devoutly wish for, is now the case: peace is proposed at a time when
you have the advantage. We who negotiate it are the persons whom it
most concerns to obtain it, and we are persons 'whose arrangements, be
they what they will, our states will ratify. All we want is a
disposition not averse from peaceful counsels. So far as relates to
myself, time (for I am returning to that country an old man which I
left a boy),[74] and prosperity, and adversity, have so schooled me
that I am