Nor was his army capable of affording sufficient protection to the distressed colonists, unless he chose to expose five thousand allies to be slaughtered by forty thousand invaders (for so many there were in arms); and by such a loss, on his side, to augment the courage of the enemy, already elated on having destroyed one Roman colony." 11.

This letter having been read they decreed, that the consul Aurelius should order the army which he had appointed to assemble on a certain day in Etruria, to attend him on the same day at Ariminum; and should either go in person, if the public business would permit, to suppress the tumult of the Gauls, or write to the praetor Lucius Furius, that, as soon as the legions from Etruria came to him, he should send five thousand of the allies to guard that place in the mean time, and should himself proceed to relieve the colony from the siege.

They also determined, that ambassadors should be sent to Carthage, and also into Numidia, to Masinissa: to Carthage, to announce that "their countryman, Hamilcar, having been left in Gaul, (either with a part of the army formerly commanded by Hasdrubal, or with that of Mago--they did not with certainty know which,) was waging war, contrary to the treaty.

That he had excited the armies of the Gauls and Ligurians to arms against the Roman people.

That, if they wished for peace, they must recall him, and give him up to the Roman people." They were ordered at the same time to tell them, that "all the deserters had not been sent back; that a great part of them were said to appear openly in Carthage, who ought to be sought after, and surrendered according to the treaty." Such was the message to the Carthaginians.