Three ambassadors were sent, Caius Servilius, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, and Quintus Terentius Culleo.

These, when they had arrived at Carthage, by the advice of Hannibal's enemies, ordered, that any who inquired the cause of their coming should be told, that they came to determine the disputes subsisting between the Carthaginians and Masinissa, king of Numidia; and this was generally believed.

But Hannibal was not ignorant that he was the sole object aimed at by the Romans; and that, though they had granted peace to the Carthaginians, their war against him, individually, remained irreconcilable.

He therefore determined to give way to fortune and the times; and having already made every preparation for flight, he showed himself that day in the forum, in order to guard against suspicion; and, as soon as it grew dark, went in his common dress to one of the gates, with his two attendants, who knew nothing of his intention.
[Footnote 1: _Subscribere actioni_ is to join the prosecutor as an assistant; and the prosecutors were obliged _calumniam jurare_, to swear that they did not carry on the prosecution through malice, or a vexatious design.

Scipio, therefore, means to reprobate the interference of the Roman state, which could bring it into the situation of a common prosecutor in a court of justice.] 48.