This embassy having been decreed but not yet despatched, the news arrived, more quickly than any one expected, that Saguntum was besieged.

The business was then referred anew to the senate.

And some, decreeing Spain and Africa as provinces for the consuls, thought the war should be maintained both by sea and land, while others wished to direct the whole hostilities against Spain and Hannibal.

There were others again who thought that an affair of such importance should not be entered on rashly; and that the return of the ambassadors from Spain ought to be awaited.

This opinion, which seemed the safest, prevailed; and Publius Valerius Flaccus, and Quintus Baebius Tamphilus, were, on that account, the more quickly despatched as ambassadors to Hannibal at Saguntum, and from thence to Carthage, if he did not desist from the war, to demand the general himself in atonement for the violation of the treaty.
7.