When the contest had for a long time continued doubtful, and the courage of the Saguntines had increased, because they had succeeded in their resistance beyond their hopes, while the Carthaginian, because he had not conquered, felt as vanquished, the townsmen suddenly set up a shout, and drive their enemies to the ruins of the wall; thence they force them, while embarrassed and disordered; and lastly, drove them back, routed and put to flight, to their camp. In the mean time it was announced that ambassadors had arrived from Rome; to meet whom messengers were sent to the sea-side by Hannibal, to tell them that they could not safely come to him through so many armed bands of savage tribes, and that Hannibal at such an important conjuncture had not leisure to listen to embassies. It was obvious that, if not admitted, they would immediately repair to Carthage: he therefore sends letters and messengers beforehand to the leaders of the Barcine faction, to prepare the minds of their partisans, so that the other party might not be able in any thing to give an advantage to the Romans.
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That embassy, therefore, excepting that the ambassadors were admitted and heard, proved likewise vain and fruitless. Hanno alone, in opposition to the rest of the senate, pleaded the cause of the treaty, amidst deep silence on account of his authority, and not from the approbation of the audience. He said: that he had admonished and forewarned them by the gods, the arbiters and witnesses of treaties, that they should not send the son of Hamilcar to the army; that the manes, that the offspring of that man could not rest in peace, nor ever, while any one of the Barcine name and blood survived, would the Roman treaties continue undisturbed. "You, supplying as it were fuel to the flame, have sent to your armies a youth burning with the desire of sovereign power, and seeing but one road to his object, if by exciting war after war, he may live surrounded by arms and legions. You have therefore fostered this fire, in which you now burn. Your armies invest Saguntum, whence they are forbidden by the treaty: ere long the Roman legions will invest Carthage, under the guidance of those gods through whose aid they revenged in the former war the infraction of the treaty. Are you unacquainted with the enemy, or with yourselves, or with the fortune of either nation? Your good general refused to admit into his camp ambassadors coming from allies and in behalf of allies, and set at nought the law of nations. They, however, after being there repulsed, where not even the ambassadors of enemies are prohibited admittance, come to you: they require restitution according to the treaty: let not guilt attach to the state, they demand to have delivered up to them the author of the transgression, the person who is chargeable with this offence. The more gently they proceed,--the slower they are to begin, the more unrelentingly, I fear, when they have once commenced, will they indulge resentment. Set before your eyes the islands Aegates and Eryx, all that for twenty-four years ye have suffered by land and sea. Nor was this boy the leader, but his father Hamilcar himself, a second Mars, as these people would have it: but we had not refrained from Tarentum, that is, from Italy, according to the treaty; as now we do not refrain from Saguntum. The gods and men have, therefore, prevailed over us; and as to that about which there was a dispute in words, whether of the two nations had infringed the treaty, the issue of the war, like an equitable judge, hath awarded the victory to the party on whose side justice stood. It is against Carthage that Hannibal is now moving his vineae and towers: it is the wall of Carthage that he is shaking with his battering-ram. The ruins of Saguntum (oh that I may prove a false prophet!) will fall on our heads; and the war commenced against the Saguntines must be continued against the Romans. Shall we, therefore, some one will say, deliver up Hannibal? In what relates to him I am aware that my authority is of little weight, on account of my enmity with his father. But I both rejoice that Hamilcar perished, for this reason, that, had he lived we should have now been engaged in a war with the Romans; and this youth, as the fury and firebrand of this war, I hate and detest. Nor ought he only to be given up in atonement for the violated treaty; but even though no one demanded him, he ought to be transported to the extremest shores of earth or sea, and banished to a distance, whence neither his name nor any tidings of him can reach us, and he be unable to disturb the peace of a tranquil state. I therefore give my opinion, that ambassadors be sent immediately to Rome to satisfy the senate; others to tell Hannibal to lead away his army from Saguntum, and to deliver up Hannibal himself, according to the treaty to the Romans; and I propose a third embassy to make restitution to the Saguntines."
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When Hanno had concluded, there was no occasion for any one to contend with him in debate, to such a decree were almost all the senators devoted to Hannibal; and they accused Hanno of having spoken with more malignity than Flaccus Valerius, the Roman ambassador. It was then said in answer to the Roman ambassadors, "that the war had been commenced by the Saguntines, not by Hannibal; and that the Roman people acted unjustly if they preferred the Saguntines to the most ancient [[15]] alliance of the Carthaginians." Whilst the Romans waste time in sending embassies, Hannibal, because his soldiers were fatigued with the battles and the works, allowed them rest for a few days, parties being stationed to guard the vineae and other works. In the mean time he inflames their minds, now by inciting their anger against the enemy, now with the hope of reward. But when he declared before the assembled army, that the plunder of the captured city should be given to the soldiers, to such a degree were they all excited, that if the signal had been immediately given, it appeared that they could not have been resisted by any force. The Saguntines, as they had a respite from fighting, neither for some days attacking nor attacked, so they had not, by night or day, ever ceased from toiling, that they might repair anew the wall in the quarter where the town had been exposed by the breach. A still more desperate storming than the former then assailed them; nor whilst all quarters resounded with various clamours, could they satisfactorily know where first or principally they should lend assistance. Hannibal, as an encouragement, was present in person, where a movable tower, exceeding in height all the fortifications of the city, was urged forward. When being brought up it had cleared the walls of their defenders by means of the catapultae and ballistae ranged through all its stories, then Hannibal, thinking it a favourable opportunity, sends about five hundred Africans with pickaxes to undermine the wall: nor was the work difficult, since the unhewn stones were not fastened with lime, but filled in their interstices with clay, after the manner of ancient building. It fell, therefore, more extensively than it was struck, and through the open spaces of the ruins troops of armed men rushed into the city. They also obtain possession of a rising ground; and having collected thither catapultae and ballistae, so that they might have a fort in the city itself, commanding it like a citadel, they surround it with a wall: and the Saguntines raise an inner wall before the part of the city which was not yet taken. On both sides they exert the utmost vigour in fortifying and fighting: but the Saguntines, by erecting these inner defences, diminish daily the size of their city. At the same time, the want of all supplies increased through the length of the siege, and the expectation of foreign aid diminished, since the Romans, their only hope, were at such a distance, and all the country round was in the power of the enemy. The sudden departure of Hannibal against the Oretani and Carpetani [[16]] revived for a little their drooping spirits; which two nations, though, exasperated by the severity of the levy, they had occasioned, by detaining the commissaries, the fear of a revolt, having been suddenly checked by the quickness of Hannibal, laid down the arms they had taken up.
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