Horizon

Polybius Continued

Last week I quoted Polybius on cause vs. pretext, then shot my mouth off about it over on Ahistoricality. Today I'll leave the talking to Polybius:

The Romans called upon Hannibal to leave Saguntum alone, which they claimed lay within their sphere of influence, and to refrain from crossing the Ebro, according to the undertaking given in the agreement made with Hasdrubal. Hannibal responded as might have been expected from a man who was young, full of martial spirit, confident in the success of his enterprises and spurred on by his long-standing hatred of Rome. In replying to the delegates he claimed to be protecting the interests of the Saguntines. Not long before, party strife had broken out in Saguntum and the Romans had been called in to arbitrate, and Hannibal now accused them of having caused some of the leading citizens to be unjustly put to death. The Carthaginians, he warned them, would not overlook this treacherous act of seizure, for it was an ancestral tradition of theirs to always take up the cause of the victims of injustice. . . .

In his dealings with the Romans he was in a mood of unreasoning and violent anger, and so did not cite the true reasons for what had happened, but resorted to a number of groundless pretexts, as is apt to happen to men who disregard the proper course of action because they are obsessed by passion. How much better it would have been if he had demanded that the Romans should hand back Sardinia, and at the same time remit the indemnity which they had unjustly extorted when they took advantages of Carthage's misfortunes to threaten her with war if their ultimatum was rejected. As it was, by saying nothing about the real cause of his country's greivances and inventing a non-existent one about Saguntum, he gave the impression that he was embarking on the war not only in defiance of reason but even of justice.