"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.