History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita)

A woodcut depicts two Roman envoys addressing the Carthaginian Senate, standing before the gathered council to offer the choice between peace and war.

"we bring you war and peace: take whichever you please." To this voice, it was shouted back no less fiercely that he should give whichever he wanted. And when he said again that he gave war without emotion, they all answered that they accepted it, and that they would carry it on with the same spirits with which they accepted it.

XIX. This direct questioning and declaration of war seemed more in accordance with the dignity of the Roman people than debating the law of treaties with words, especially after Saguntum had been destroyed. For if it were a matter of verbal debate, why should the treaty of Hasdrubal be compared with the previous treaty of Lutatius, which was changed, when in the treaty of Lutatius it was explicitly added that it would be valid only if the people had ratified it? In the treaty of Hasdrubal, no such thing was excepted, and it had been so approved by the silence of so many years while he was alive that nothing was changed even when its author died. Although, even if the former treaty were stood upon, sufficient provision had been made for the Saguntines, the allies of both, as they were excluded: for it was not added "to those who were then," nor "those who were not," nor those who might be added thereafter. And since it was allowed to add new allies, who would judge it fair that either they should not be received into friendship because they had no merits, or that, once received into trust, they should not be defended? Only that the allies of the Carthaginians should not be solicited to defection, or be received if they revolted on their own accord.

The Roman envoys, after leaving Carthage, just as they had been ordered at Rome, crossed into Spain to visit the states, so that they might bring them into an alliance or avert them from the Carthaginians. They came first to the Bargusii, by whom they were kindly received; because they were weary of Punic rule, they raised many peoples across the Ebro to the desire for a new fortune. From there they came to the Volciani, whose response, famous throughout Spain, averted the other peoples from the Roman alliance. For the eldest of them answered in the council: "What shamelessness is this, Romans, that you demand we prefer your friendship to that of the Carthaginians, when you, as allies, betrayed the Saguntines more cruelly than the Carthaginian enemy did? I advise you to seek allies where the disaster of Saguntum is unknown: to the Spanish peoples, the ruins of Saguntum will be as mournful as they are a notable lesson, so that no one may trust in Roman faith or alliance." From there, they were immediately ordered to leave the borders of the Volciani, and thereafter they received no kinder words from any council in Spain. Having traveled through Spain in vain, they crossed into Gaul.

XX. Among them, a new and terrible appearance was seen, because they came into the council armed—such was the custom of the race. When the Romans, extolling in words the glory and virtue of the Roman people and the magnitude of their empire, had requested that they not give passage to the Carthaginian bringing war into Italy through their fields and cities, such laughter arose with a roar that the youth could scarcely be calmed by the magistrates and the elders: so foolish and impudent did the demand seem, that they should decree that the Gauls not transmit the war into Italy, while they themselves diverted it upon themselves and exposed their own fields to be ravaged in place of others. When the uproar was finally calmed, the answer was given to the envoys that neither did the Romans have any merit toward them, nor the Carthaginians any injury, for which they should take up arms either for the Romans or against the Carthaginians: on the contrary, they heard that men of their own race were being driven from the fields and borders of Italy by the Roman people...