Meanwhile the Carthaginian embassy to Rome to sue for terms of peace had not been a success. It was owing to the atrocious behaviour of the Carthaginian party themselves, who had endeavoured to cast the whole blame of the war from start to finish upon Hannibal, and Hannibal alone, that the negotiations broke down.
For the Roman Senate were not children, and there were so many issues at stake in which it could be clearly proved that the Carthaginians, entirely apart from Hannibal, had held the leading hand, that the Romans were disgusted at their excuses.
For the Senate well knew that, while the people in Carthage had been glad enough to vaunt Hannibal’s victories, they had, from jealousy, never supported him properly, or Rome might now have been a mere province of Carthage. They also divined that, defeated in their own country, the Carthaginians were treacherously inclined to give to Rome as a scapegoat the glorious hero who, alone, unaided, and deserted by his country, had won victory upon victory throughout three-quarters of the then known world.
Therefore the Roman Senate refused the terms of peace, and ordained that Scipio should go on with the war or get better terms.
Scipio was personally annoyed at the failure of the negotiations, for he had ever the same object in view, the long-deferred hope of the possession as his bride of the beloved Elissa. He had suffered much since her recapture by her own countrymen off Locri, and, were it only for revenge upon Maharbal, whose insulting message he had received, he longed more than ever to marry her. But, all question of revenge apart, since the letters that had passed between them, and when she had so nearly reached his outstretched arms, he felt that he loved her more than ever—more than it seemed possible for any man on earth to love a woman.
Instead, therefore, of carrying on the war, Scipio for a while continued the truce, pretending to play with the Carthaginian envoys to deceive Rome, and with the Roman envoys to deceive Carthage.
For he argued: “Did I not see the wine-god Bacchus in a vision? and did he not tell me that I shall be married to Elissa by a priest with a long beard flowing to his knees? and has ever yet one of my visions proved false?” For by this time he had himself really begun to believe in these visions or dreams which had for so long been believed in by others.
Scipio being thus inclined, peace might have been made, after all, but for the treachery of the Carthaginians, who seized, during a time of truce, upon some Roman transports full of provisions, which had been driven ashore in a storm. After this no further ideas of peace were possible, and Scipio recommenced the war with all the more fury because he feared that he must for ever renounce his dearest hopes.
The cowardly Carthaginians, who had neglected him for so many years, now wrote letters recalling Hannibal to the country which he had not seen since he was a boy of nine, for they wanted him to come and defend them. They also sent for his brother Mago, from Capua; but the noble Mago, Maharbal’s friend, was wounded on his way down in a drawn battle in the country of the Insubrian Gauls, and died at sea; never living to greet either his brother or his friend Maharbal again, nor indeed to see even his native soil once more.
Hannibal and his daughter, and Maharbal and all the troops, however, obeyed the summons, thus voluntarily this wonderful general left the country out of which the Romans would never have been able to drive him.