20.  About this time Massinis’sa, the Numidian, having made some incursions into a territory claimed by the Carthaginians, they attempted to repel the invasion. 21.  This brought on a war between that monarch and them; while the Romans, who pretended to consider this conduct of theirs as an infraction of the treaty, sent to make a complaint. 22.  The ambassadors who were employed upon this occasion, finding the city very rich and flourishing, from the long interval of peace which it had now enjoyed for nearly fifty years, either from motives of avarice to possess its plunder, or from fear of its growing greatness, insisted much on the necessity of a war, which was soon after proclaimed, and the consuls set out with a thorough resolution utterly to demolish Carthage.

The territory thus invaded by Massinis’sa, was Tysca, a rich province, undoubtedly belonging to the Carthaginians.  One of the ambassadors sent from Rome was the celebrated Cato, the censor, who, whatever his virtues may have been, appears to have imbibed an inveterate hatred to Carthage.  For, on whatever subject he debated in the senate, he never failed to conclude in these words, “I am also of opinion that Carthage should be destroyed.”  The war, however, which had broken out in Spain, and the bad success of the Roman arms in that quarter, for some time delayed the fate of that devoted city; and it might, perhaps, have stood much longer, had not some seditious demagogues incited the populace to insult the Roman ambassador, and to banish those senators who voted for peace.

To account for the apparent pusillanimity of the Carthaginians, it is necessary to observe, that they had suffered repeated defeats in their war with Massinis’sa; and that fifty thousand of their troops, after having been blocked up in their camp till from want they were obliged to submit to the most humiliating conditions, were inhumanly massacred by Gulus’sa, the son of the Numidian king.  The Romans chose this distressing juncture to declare war against them.

As one proof of their sincere desire for peace, they had previously delivered up to the Romans all their arms and warlike engines, of which they possessed prodigious magazines; thus leaving themselves still more defenceless than before.

23.  The wretched Carthaginians, finding that the conquerors would not desist from making demands, while the vanquished had any thing to give, attempted to soften the victors by submission; but they received orders to leave the city, which was to be levelled with the ground. 24.  This severe command they received with all the distress of a despairing people:  they implored for a respite from such a hard sentence:  they used tears and lamentations; but finding the consuls inexorable, they departed with a gloomy resolution, prepared to suffer the utmost extremities, and fight to the last for their seat of empire.