to the heralds is taken from the Capitol.  Thus the Carthaginians, being allowed to depart from Rome, when they had gone into Africa to Scipio concluded the peace on the terms before mentioned.  They delivered up their men-of-war, their elephants, deserters, fugitives, and four thousand prisoners, among whom was Quintus Terentius Culleo, a senator.  The ships he ordered to be taken out into the main and burnt.  Some say there were five hundred of every description of those which are worked with oars, and that the sudden sight of these, when burning, occasioned as deep a sensation of grief to the Carthaginians as if Carthage had been in flames.  The measures adopted respecting the deserters were more severe than those respecting the fugitives.  Those who were of the Latin confederacy were decapitated; the Romans were crucified.

44.  The last peace with the Carthaginians was made forty years before this, in the consulate of Quintus Lutatius and Aulus Manlius.  The war commenced twenty-three years afterwards, in the consulate of Publius Cornelius and Tiberius Sempronius.  It was concluded in the seventeenth year, in the consulate of Cneius Cornelius and Publius Aelius Paetus.  It is related that Scipio frequently said afterwards, that first the ambition of Tiberius Claudius, and afterwards of Cneius Cornelius, were the causes which prevented his terminating the war by the destruction of Carthage.  The Carthaginians, finding difficulty in raising the first sum of money to be paid, as their finances were exhausted by a protracted war, and in consequence great lamentation and grief arising in the senate-house, it is said that Hannibal was observed laughing; and when Hasdrubal Haedus rebuked him for laughing amid the public grief, when he himself was the occasion of the tears which were shed, he said:  “If, as the expression of the countenance is discerned by the sight, so the inward feelings of the mind could be distinguished, it would clearly appear to you that that laughter which you censure came from a heart not elated with joy, but frantic with misfortunes.  And yet it is not so ill-timed as those absurd and inconsistent tears of yours.  Then you ought to have wept, when our arms were taken from us, our ships burnt, and we were forbidden to engage in foreign wars, for that was the wound by which we fell.  Nor is it just that you should suppose that the measures which the Romans have adopted towards you have been dictated by animosity.  No great state can remain at rest long together.  If it has no enemy abroad it finds one at home, in the same manner as over-robust bodies seem secure from external causes, but are encumbered with their own strength.  So far, forsooth, we are affected with the public calamities as they reach our private affairs; nor is there any circumstance attending them which is felt more acutely than the loss of money.  Accordingly, when the spoils were torn down from vanquished Carthage, when you beheld her left unarmed and defenceless amid so many armed