“The Histories (Book I)” (Chap. 68)

1 Now, when there was no mending, it was brought home to the Carthaginians how blind they had been.

2 For they had committed two great mistakes. The first was in collecting at one place so large a body of mercenaries while themselves they could hope for nothing from the fighting power of their civic force.

3 Their second error was even more serious, to let out of their hands the women and children of the mercenaries as well as their movables, all which would have served as hostages, giving themselves greater security in their deliberations about the circumstances and ensuring a more favourable reception for their demands.

4 Still now, in their alarm at the troops encamping so near, they were ready to put up with anything in their eagerness to propitiate them.

5 Sending out lavish supplies of provisions which they sold to them at any price they chose to pay and constantly dispatching envoys from the Senate, promising to meet all their demands as far as it was in their power.

6 These increased daily, the mercenaries continuing to invent new claims, gaining confidence as they witnessed the terror and cowardice of the Carthaginians.

7 And being convinced in their arrogance, owing to their success in Sicily against the Roman legions, that not only the Carthaginians, but any other people in the world would not readily face them in arms.

8 When, therefore, the Carthaginians had agreed to their claims for pay, they went a step further and asked for the value of the horses they had lost.

9 This also was conceded, whereupon they maintained that they ought to get the value of the rations of corn due to them for a considerable time at the highest price corn had stood at during the war.

10 In short they always went on devising some new claim, putting matters off so as to make it impossible to come to terms, a great many of them being disaffected and mutinous.

11 However, on the Carthaginians promising to concede everything in their power, they agreed to refer the disputed points to one of the generals who had been present in Sicily.

12 Now to Hamilcar Barcas, with whom they had served there, they were ill disposed, thinking that it was largely his fault that they had been slighted, since he never came himself as an envoy to them and was believed to have resigned his command voluntarily.

13 But being very favourably inclined to Gesco, who had been general in Sicily and had been full of attention to them in other matters and in that of their transport, they submitted the points in dispute to him.