They declared, that he had not only crossed the Alps, but the Iberus also, without the sanction of the senate; and that he had made war not only on the Romans, but previously on the Saguntines also, on his own individual responsibility.

That, if the question were viewed in its proper light, it would be found that the league between the senate and people of Carthage and the Romans remained unbroken up to that day.

Accordingly, all they had in charge to solicit was, that they might be allowed to continue in the enjoyment of that peace which was last entered into with the consul Caius Lutatius.

When the praetor, according to the custom handed down from their ancestors, had given the fathers permission to ask the ambassadors any questions they might be pleased to put, and the older members who had been present at the making of the treaties had put some one question and others another, the ambassadors declared that they were not old enough to recollect, for they were nearly all of them young men.

Upon this every part of the senate-house resounded with exclamations, that with Carthaginian knavery men had been chosen to solicit a renewal of the old peace who did not recollect its terms.
23.