1With these preparations made so that everything proper should be done before the war, they send senior envoys, Quintus Fabius, Marcus Livius, Lucius Aemilius, Gaius Licinius and Quintus Baebius, to Africa to ask the Carthaginians whether Hannibal had attacked Saguntum by the decision of the state, and, if they admitted and defended it as done by the state's decision, as they seemed likely to do, to declare war on the Carthaginian people. 3After the Romans reached Carthage, when they had been granted an audience with the senate and Quintus Fabius had asked nothing beyond the one question he had been charged with, then one of the Carthaginians said: 'Your earlier embassy, Romans, was hasty, when you demanded the surrender of Hannibal as though he were attacking Saguntum on his own decision; 4but this embassy, though so far milder in words, is harsher in substance.
4For then Hannibal was both accused and demanded; 5now a confession of guilt is wrung from us, and reparation is demanded at once, as from men who have confessed. 6But for my part I would think the question to be asked is not whether Saguntum was attacked by private or by public decision, but whether rightly or wrongly. 7For this inquiry and the punishment of our own citizen, as to what he has done on our authority or his own, belong to us; 7with you there is one matter of dispute: whether it was permitted by the treaty. 8And so, since you wish a distinction to be drawn between what generals do by public decision and what of their own accord, we have a treaty with you struck by the consul Gaius Lutatius, in which, while provision was made for the allies of both sides, nothing was provided about the Saguntines — for they were not yet allies.
9"But," you say, "in the treaty that was struck with Hasdrubal the Saguntines are excepted." 9Against this I shall say nothing except what I have learned from you. 10For you denied that you were bound by the treaty which the consul Gaius Lutatius first struck with us, because it had been struck neither on the authority of the senators nor by order of the people; 10and so another treaty was struck afresh by public decision. 11If your treaties do not bind you unless they are struck on your authority or by your order, neither could Hasdrubal's treaty, which he struck without our knowledge, bind us. 12So stop talking of Saguntum and the Ebro, and let your mind at last bring forth what it has long been labouring with.' 13Then the Roman, making a fold in his toga, said: 'Here we bring you war and peace: take whichever you please.' 13At these words there was an answering shout, no less fierce, that he should give whichever he wished.
14And when he had let the fold fall again and said that he gave war, they all replied that they accepted it, and that they would wage it with the same spirit with which they accepted it.