6.  As yet there was no war with the Saguntines, but already, in order to a war, the seeds of dissension were sown between them and their neighbours, particularly the Turetani, with whom when the same person sided who had originated the quarrel, and it was evident, not that a trial of the question of right, but violence, was his object, ambassadors were sent by the Saguntines to Rome to implore assistance in the war which now evidently threatened them.  The consuls then at Rome were Publius Cornelius Scipio and Tiberius Sempronius Longus, who, after the ambassadors were introduced into the senate, having made a motion on the state of public affairs, it was resolved that envoys should be sent into Spain to inspect the circumstances of the allies; and if they saw good reason, both to warn Hannibal that he should refrain from the Saguntines, the allies of the Roman people, and to pass over into Africa to Carthage, and report the complaints of the allies of the Roman people.  This embassy having been decreed but not yet despatched, the news arrived, more quickly than any one expected, that Saguntum was besieged.  The business was then referred anew to the senate.  And some, decreeing Spain and Africa as provinces for the consuls, thought the war should be maintained both by sea and land, while others wished to direct the whole hostilities against Spain and Hannibal.  There were others again who thought that an affair of such importance should not be entered on rashly; and that the return of the ambassadors from Spain ought to be awaited.  This opinion, which seemed the safest, prevailed; and Publius Valerius Flaccus, and Quintus Baebius Tamphilus, were, on that account, the more quickly despatched as ambassadors to Hannibal at Saguntum, and from thence to Carthage, if he did not desist from the war, to demand the general himself in atonement for the violation of the treaty.

7.  While the Romans thus prepare and deliberate, Saguntum was already besieged with the utmost vigour.  That city, situated about a mile from the sea, was by far the most opulent beyond the Iberus.  Its inhabitants are said to have been sprung from the island Zacynthus, and some of the Rutulian race from Ardea to have been also mixed with them; but they had risen in a short time to great wealth, either by their gains from the sea or the land, or by the increase of their numbers, or the integrity of their principles, by which they maintained their faith with their allies, even to their own destruction.  Hannibal having entered their territory with a hostile army, and laid waste the country in every direction, attacks the city in three different quarters.  There was an angle of the wall sloping down into a more level and open valley than the other space around; against this he resolved to move the vineae, by means of which the battering-ram might be brought up to the wall.  But though the ground at a distance from the wall was sufficiently level for working the vineae, yet their undertakings