possession of the province of Emporia on the Lesser Syrtis, one of the most fertile in the Carthaginian territory, was at length (about 594) decided by Roman commissioners to the effect that the Carthaginians should evacuate those towns of Eniporia which still remained in their possession, and should pay 500 talents (120,000 pounds) to the king as compensation for the illegal enjoyment of the territory.  The consequence was, that Massinissa immediately seized another Carthaginian district on the western frontier of their territory, the town of Tusca and the great plains near the Bagradas; no course was left to the Carthaginians but to commence another hopeless process at Rome.  After long and, beyond doubt, intentional delay a second commission appeared in Africa (597); but, when the Carthaginians were unwilling to commit themselves unconditionally to a decision to be pronounced by it as arbiter without an exact preliminary investigation into the question of legal right, and insisted on a thorough discussion of the latter question, the commissioners without further ceremony returned to Rome.

The Destruction of Carthage Resolved on at Rome

The question of right between Carthage and Massinissa thus remained unsettled; but the mission gave rise to a more important decision.  The head of this commission had been the old Marcus Cato, at that time perhaps the most influential man in the senate, and, as a veteran survivor from the Hannibalic war, still filled with thorough hatred and thorough dread of the Phoenicians.  With surprise and jealousy Cato had seen with his own eyes the flourishing state of the hereditary foes of Rome, the luxuriant country and the crowded streets, the immense stores of arms in the magazines and the rich materials for a fleet; already he in spirit beheld a second Hannibal wielding all these resources against Rome.  In his honest and manly, but thoroughly narrow-minded, fashion, he came to the conclusion that Rome could not be secure until Carthage had disappeared from the face of the earth, and immediately after his return set forth this view in the senate.  Those of the aristocracy whose ideas were more enlarged, and especially Scipio Nasica, opposed this paltry policy with great earnestness; and showed how blind were the fears entertained regarding a mercantile city whose Phoenician inhabitants were becoming more and more disused to warlike arts and ideas, and how the existence of that rich commercial city was quite compatible with the political supremacy of Rome.  Even the conversion of Carthage into a Roman provincial town would have been practicable, and indeed, compared with the present condition of the Phoenicians, perhaps even not unwelcome.  Cato, however, desired not the submission, but the destruction of the hated city.  His policy, as it would seem, found allies partly in the statesmen who were inclined to bring the transmarine territories into immediate dependence on Rome, partly and especially in the mighty influence of the Roman bankers and great capitalists on whom, after the destruction of the rich moneyed and mercantile city, its inheritance would necessarily devolve.  The majority resolved at the first fitting opportunity—­respect for public opinion required that they should wait for such—­to bring about war with Carthage, or rather the destruction of the city.