6.
With the Saguntines there was as yet no war,1 but quarrels that might be a pretext for it were already being sown betwixt them and their neighbours, especially the Turdetani.2 Now when the side of the Turdetani was espoused by the same man who had sowed the quarrel, and it was clearly seen that he was aiming not at arbitration but force, the Saguntines sent ambassadors to Rome, imploring help for a war that was now
[3]
indubitably imminent. The Roman consuls at that time were Publius Cornelius Scipio and Tiberius Sempronius Longus.3 After introducing the ambassadors into the senate, they had brought up the question of public policy, and the senators had voted to dispatch envoys to Spain, [p. 19]to examine into the affairs of their
[4??]
allies, to the end4 that, if there appeared to be just cause, they might formally warn Hannibal to keep aloof from the Saguntines, the allies of the Roman People; after which they were to cross over into Africa, to Carthage, and
[5]
present the complaint of Rome's allies. This embassy had been voted but not yet sent off, when, sooner than all expectation, came the news that Saguntum was besieged. The case was
[6]
then referred anew to the senate. Some were for sending the consuls into Spain and Africa respectively and waging war by land and sea; others wanted to direct their
[7]
whole force against Spain and Hannibal; some there were who argued that so grave a quarrel should not be lightly entered on, and proposed to await the return
[8]
of the envoys out of Spain. This last opinion, which seemed the safest, carried the day, and the envoys, Publius Valerius Flaccus and Quintus Baebius Tamphilus, were sent off with the more dispatch. They were to go to Saguntum first, to Hannibal, and thence, if he would not cease hostilities, to Carthage, to demand the surrender of the general himself in satisfaction of the broken treaty.
1 B.C. 219
2 Not the important tribe in the S.W. part of the peninsula, but a lesser one, again mentioned as neighbour to the Saguntines at XXIV. lii. 11, and [2] —there called Turduli —at XXVIII. xxxix. 8.
3 These were the consuls of 218 B.C., but the siege of Saguntum took place in 219. Livy now returns to —and follows until he has finished the story of the siege in chap. xv. § 1 —the source he had used for the opening chapters of this hook. Coelius —if he it was —so telescoped events as to make the attack on Saguntum follow immediately on the appointment of Hannibal, and the war with Rome begin in that same year. In chap. xv. Livy becomes aware of the discrepancy and endeavours to dispose of it.
4 B.C. 219
Livy. Boooks XXI-XXII With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1929: no copyright notice.
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