The Romans, who had carefully abstained from preventing the war Itself by seasonable interposition, had now what they wished:  namely, A serviceable pretext for war—­for the Carthaginians had certainly Now transgressed the stipulations of the treaty, that they should not wage war against the allies of Rome or beyond their own bounds(7)—­ and an antagonist already beaten beforehand.  The Italian contingents were already summoned to Rome, and the ships were assembled; the declaration of war might issue at any moment.  The Carthaginians made every effort to avert the impending blow.  Hasdrubal and Carthalo, the leaders of the patriot party, were condemned to death, and an embassy was sent to Rome to throw the responsibility on them.  But at the same time envoys from Utica, the second city of the Libyan Phoenicians, arrived there with full powers to surrender their Community wholly to the Romans—­compared with such obliging submissiveness, it seemed almost an insolence that the Carthaginians had rested content with ordering, unbidden, the execution of their most eminent men.  The senate declared that the excuse of the Carthaginians was found insufficient; to the question, what in that case would suffice, the reply was given that the Carthaginians knew that themselves.  They might, no doubt, have known what the Romans wished; but yet it seemed impossible to believe that the last hour of their loved native city had really come.  Once more Carthaginian envoys—­on this occasion thirty in number and with unlimited powers—­were sent to Rome.  When they arrived, war was already declared (beginning of 605), and the double consular army had embarked.  Yet they even now attempted to dispel the storm by complete submission.  The senate replied that Rome was ready to guarantee to the Carthaginian community its territory, its municipal freedom and its laws, its public and private property, provided that it would furnish to the consuls who had just departed for Sicily within the space of a month at Lilybaeum 300 hostages from the children of the leading families, and would fulfil the further orders which the consuls in conformity with their instructions should issue to them.  The reply has been called ambiguous; but very erroneously, as even at the time clearsighted men among the Carthaginians themselves pointed out.  The circumstance that everything which they could ask was guaranteed with the single exception of the city, and that nothing was said as to stopping the embarkation of the troops for Africa, showed very clearly what the Roman intentions were; the senate acted with fearful harshness, but it did not assume the semblance of concession.  The Carthaginians, however, would not open their eyes; there was no statesman found, who had the power to move the unstable multitude of the city either to thorough resistance or to thorough resignation.  When they heard at the same time of the horrible decree of war and of the endurable demand for hostages, they complied immediately with