[The following is the moment the Second Punic War was officially declared, one of the most brutal and costly wars the Roman Republic ever fought. According to Wikipedia, which draws on a number of sources, as many as 300,000 or more Romans died during the course of this campaign. The opening dialogue to this conflict is sobering, to say the least.]
After they [the Roman delegation] had heard the Carthaginians’ statement of their case, they spoke no word in reply, but the senior member of the delegation pointed to the bosom of his toga and declared to the [Carthaginian] Senate that in its folds he carried both peace and war, and that he would let fall from it whichever they instructed them to leave.
The Carthaginian Suffete answered that he should bring out whichever he thought best, and when the envoy replied that it would be war, many of the senators shouted at once, ‘We accept it!’
It was on these terms that the Senate and the Roman ambassadors parted.
Source:
Polybius, et al. “The Second Punic War.” The Rise of the Roman Empire. Penguin, 2003. 209. Print.
Further Reading:
No comments, yet...