e had
foreseen that such a hot and turbulent spirit as his would involve
them in inextricable difficulties with the Roman power. Hannibal had,
he said, plainly violated the treaty. He had invested and besieged
Saguntum, which they were solemnly bound not to molest, and they had
nothing to expect in return but that the Roman legions would soon be
investing and besieging their own city. In the mean time, the Romans,
he added, had been moderate and forbearing. They had brought nothing
to the charge of the Carthaginians. They accused nobody but Hannibal,
who, thus far, alone was guilty. The Carthaginians, by disavowing his
acts, could save themselves from the responsibility of them. He
urged, therefore, that an embassage of apology should be sent to Rome,
that Hannibal should be deposed and delivered up to the Romans, and
that ample restitution should be made to the Saguntines for the
injuries they had received.

On the other hand, the friends of Hannibal urged in the Carthaginian
senate their defense of the general. They reviewed the history of the
transactions in which the war had originated, and showed, or attempted
to show, that the Saguntines themselves commenced hostilities, and
that consequently they, and not Hannibal, were responsible for all
that followed; that, under those circumstances, the Romans ought not
to take their part, and if they did so, it proved that they preferred
the friendship of Saguntum to that of Carthage; and that it would be
cowardly and dishonorable in the extreme for them to deliver the
general whom they had placed in power, and who had shown himself so
worthy of their choice by his courage and energy, into the hands of
their ancient and implacable foes.

Thus Hannibal was waging at the same time two wars, one in the
Carthaginian senate, where the weapons were arguments and eloquence,
and the other under the walls of Saguntum, which was fought with
battering rains and fiery javelins. He conquered in both. The senate
decided to send the Roman embassadors home without acceding to their
demands, and the walls of Saguntum were battered down by Hannibal's
engines. The inhabitants refused all terms of compromise, and resisted
to the last, so that, when the victorious soldiery broke over the
prostrate walls, and poured into the city, it was given up to them to
plunder, and they killed and destroyed all that came in their way. The
disappointed embassadors returned to Rome with the news that Saguntu