that a hundred and twenty victims of the larger sort should be immolated.  Laelius and the ambassadors of Masinissa having been by this time dismissed, and intelligence having arrived that ambassadors of the Carthaginians, who were coming to the senate to treat about peace, had been seen at Puteoli, and would proceed thence by land, it was resolved, that Caius Laelius should be recalled, that the negotiations respecting the peace might take place in his presence.  Quintus Fulvius Gillo, a lieutenant-general of Scipio, conducted the Carthaginians to Rome; and as they were forbidden to enter the city, they were lodged in a country-house belonging to the state, and admitted to an audience of the senate at the temple of Bellona.

22.  They addressed the senate in nearly the same terms as they had employed before Scipio; laying the whole blame of the war upon Hannibal, and exculpating their state.  They declared, that he had not only crossed the Alps, but the Iberus also, without the sanction of the senate; and that he had made war not only on the Romans, but previously on the Saguntines also, on his own individual responsibility.  That, if the question were viewed in its proper light, it would be found that the league between the senate and people of Carthage and the Romans remained unbroken up to that day.  Accordingly, all they had in charge to solicit was, that they might be allowed to continue in the enjoyment of that peace which was last entered into with the consul Caius Lutatius.  When the praetor, according to the custom handed down from their ancestors, had given the fathers permission to ask the ambassadors any questions they might be pleased to put, and the older members who had been present at the making of the treaties had put some one question and others another, the ambassadors declared that they were not old enough to recollect, for they were nearly all of them young men.  Upon this every part of the senate-house resounded with exclamations, that with Carthaginian knavery men had been chosen to solicit a renewal of the old peace who did not recollect its terms.

23.  After this, the ambassadors having been removed out of the senate-house, the senators began to be asked their opinions.  Marcus Livius recommended, that Caius Servilius, the consul nearest home, should be sent for, that he might be present at the proceedings relative to the peace; for as it was impossible that any subject of deliberation could occur of greater importance than the present, he did not see how it could be discussed, consistently with the dignity of the Roman people, in the absence of one or both of the consuls.  Quintus Metellus, who three years before had been consul, and had filled the office of dictator, said that, since Publius Scipio, by destroying the armies and by devastating the lands of the enemy, had reduced them to such a state that they were compelled as supplicants to sue for peace; and as no one could estimate with more truth the intentions with which