1'If your fellow citizen Alco, just as he came to Hannibal to seek peace, had brought the terms of peace back from Hannibal to you, this journey of mine would have been unnecessary, a journey on which I have come to you neither as Hannibal's spokesman nor as a deserter; 2but since he has remained with the enemy, through either your fault or his own — his own, if he feigned fear, yours, if there is danger among you for those who report the truth — I have come to you, for the sake of the old bond of hospitality between us, so that you should not be unaware that there are some terms for both your safety and peace.
3And that what I say to you I say for your sake and nobody else's, let this at least be proof: as long as you resisted with your own strength, and as long as you hoped for help from the Romans, I never once made mention of peace to you. 4Now that you have no hope from the Romans, and neither your arms nor your walls defend you adequately any longer, I bring you a peace more necessary than fair. 5There is some hope of it on these terms: if you will listen to it as conquered men, just as Hannibal offers it as conqueror, and if you will regard not what is lost as a loss, since everything belongs to the conqueror, but whatever is left as a gift.
6Your city, which he holds largely destroyed and almost wholly captured, he takes from you; he leaves you your fields, and will assign a place in which you may build a new town. 6All gold and silver, public and private, he orders to be brought to him; 7your persons, and those of your wives and children, he keeps unharmed, if you are willing to leave Saguntum unarmed with two garments each. 8These are the commands of a victorious enemy; 8these, though they are heavy and bitter, your fortune urges upon you. 8For my part I do not despair that, since he has been given power over everything, he will remit something of these terms; 9but I think you should endure even these rather than allow your persons to be slaughtered and your wives and children to be seized and dragged off before your eyes by the law of war.'