The prince
himself fled from the field with a few attendants during the confusion.
The camp was then pitched near Tunis in the same place as before, and
thirty ambassadors came to Scipio from Carthage. These behaved in a
manner even more calculated to excite compassion than the former, in
proportion as their situation was more pressing; but from the
recollection of their recent perfidy, they were heard with considerably
less pity. In the council, though all were impelled by just resentment
to demolish Carthage, yet, when they reflected upon the magnitude of the
undertaking and the length of time which would be consumed in the siege
of so well fortified and strong a city, while Scipio himself was uneasy
in consequence of the expectation of a successor, who would come in for
the glory of having terminated the war, though it was accomplished
already by the exertions and danger of another, the minds of all were
inclined to peace.
The next day the ambassadors being called in again, and with many
rebukes of their perfidy, warned that instructed by so many disasters
they would at length believe in the existence of the gods and the
obligation of an oath, these conditions of the peace were stated to
them: "That they should enjoy their liberty and live under their own
laws; that they should possess such cities and territories as they had
enjoyed before the war, and with the same boundaries, and that the
Romans should on that day desist from devastation.
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