tability of human affairs,
but consider the influence of fortune, and am well aware that all
our measures are liable to a thousand casualties. But as I should
acknowledge that my conduct would savour of insolence and oppression,
if I rejected you on your coming in person to solicit peace, before
I crossed over into Africa, you voluntarily retiring from Italy, and
after you had embarked your troops; so now, when I have dragged you
into Africa almost by manual force, notwithstanding your resistance
and evasions, I am not bound to treat you with any respect. Wherefore,
if in addition to those stipulations on which it was considered that a
peace would at that time have been agreed upon, and what they are you
are informed, a compensation is proposed for having seized our ships,
together with their stores, during a truce, and for the violence
offered to our ambassadors, I shall then have matter to lay before my
council. But if these things also appear oppressive, prepare for war,
since you could not brook the conditions of peace." Thus, without
effecting an accommodation, when they had returned from the conference
to their armies, they informed them that words had been bandied to no
purpose, that the question must be decided by arms, and that they must
accept that fortune which the gods assigned them.

32. When they had arrived at their camps, they both issued orders that
their soldiers should get their arms in readiness, and prepare their
minds for the final contest; in which, if fortune should favour them,
they would continue victorious, not for a single day, but for ever.
"Before to-morrow night," they said, "they would know whether Rome or
Carthage should give laws to the world; and that neither Africa nor
Italy, but the whole world, would be the prize of victory. That the
dangers which threatened those who had the misfortune to be defeated,
were proportioned to the rewards of the victors." For the Romans had
not any place of refuge in an unknown and foreign land, and immediate
destruction seemed to await Carthage, if the troops which formed
her last reliance were defeated. To this important contest, the
day following, two generals, by far the most renowned of any, and
belonging to two of the most powerful nations in the world, advanced,
either to crown or overthrow, on that day, the many honours they had
previously acquired. Their minds, therefore, were agitated with the
opposite feelings of hope and fear; and while they