In our attempts to acquire the possessions of others we have been compelled to fight for our own; and not only have you had a war in Italy, and we also in Africa, but you have beheld the standards and arms of your enemies almost in your gates and on your walls, and we now, from the walls of Carthage, distinctly hear the din of a Roman camp.

What, therefore, we should most earnestly deprecate, and you should most devoutly wish for, is now the case: peace is proposed at a time when you have the advantage.
We who negotiate it are the persons whom it most concerns to obtain it, and we are persons whose arrangements, be they what they will, our states will ratify.

All we want is a disposition not averse from peaceful counsels.

As far as relates to myself, time, (for I am returning to that country an old man which I left a boy,) and prosperity, and adversity, have so schooled me, that I am more inclined to follow reason than fortune.

But I fear your youth and uninterrupted good fortune, both of which are apt to inspire a degree of confidence ill comporting with pacific counsels.