when the suffetes had taken their seats to administer justice, the tablet was observed, taken down, and read.  Its contents were, that “Aristo came not with a private commission to any person, but with a public one to the elders;” by this name they called the senate.  The imputation being thus thrown on the state, less pains were taken in searching into the suspicions harboured of a few individuals:  however, it was determined, that ambassadors should be sent to Rome, to represent the affair to the consuls and the senate, and, at the same time, to complain of the injuries received from Masinissa.

62.  When Masinissa observed that the Carthaginians were looked on with jealousy by others, and were full of dissensions among themselves; the nobles being suspected by the senate, on account of their conferences with Aristo, and the senate by the people, in consequence of the information given by the same Aristo, he thought that, at such a conjuncture, he might successfully encroach on their rights; and accordingly he laid waste their country along the sea-coast, and compelled several cities, which were tributary to the Carthaginians, to pay their taxes to him.  This tract they call Emporia; it forms the shore of the lesser Syrtis, and has a fertile soil; one of its cities is Leptis, which paid a tribute to the Carthaginians of a talent a day.  At this time, Masinissa not only ravaged that whole tract, but, with respect to a considerable part of it, disputed the right of possession with the Carthaginians; and when he learned that they were sending to Rome, both to justify their conduct, and, at the same time, to make complaints of him, he likewise sent ambassadors to Rome, to load them with suspicions, and to discuss the right to the taxes.  The Carthaginians were heard first, and their account of the Tyrian stranger gave the senate no small uneasiness, as they dreaded being involved in war with Antiochus and the Carthaginians at the same time.  What contributed chiefly to strengthen a suspicion of evil designs, was, that though they had resolved to seize Aristo, and send him to Rome, they had not placed a guard either on himself or his ship.  Then began the controversy with the king’s ambassadors, on the claims of the territory in dispute.  The Carthaginians supported their cause by a boundary claim, urging that “It must belong to them, as being within the limits which Scipio, after conquering the country, had fixed as the boundaries which should be under Carthaginian rule; and also, by the acknowledgment of the king, who, when he was going in pursuit of Aphir, a fugitive from his kingdom, then hovering about Cyrene, with a party of Numidians, had solicited as a favour a passage through that very district, as being confessedly a part of the Carthaginian dominions.”  The Numidians insisted, “that they were guilty of misrepresentation with respect to the limits fixed by Scipio; and if a person chose to recur to the real origin of their property, what title had the Carthaginians