Polybius - "The Histories (Book I)" (Chap. 88) lyrics

1 The rest of Libya at once submitted to Carthage after the battle. 2 But Hippacritaeº and Utica still held out, feeling they had no reasonable grounds to expect terms in view of their having been so proof to all considerations of mercy and humanity when they first rebelled. 3 This shows us that even in such offences it is most advantageous to be moderate and abstain from unpardonable excesses willingly. 4 However, Hanno besieging one town and Barcas the other soon compelled them to accept such conditions and terms as the Carthaginians thought fit to impose. 5 This Libyan war, that had brought Carthage into such peril, resulted not only in the Carthaginians regaining possession of Libya, but in their being able to inflict exemplary punishment on the authors of the rebellion. 6 The last scene in it was a triumphal procession of the young men leading Mathos through the town and inflicting on him all kinds of torture. 7 This war had lasted for three years and four months, and it far excelled all wars we know of in cruelty and defiance of principle. 8 The Romans about the same time, on the invitation of the mercenaries who had deserted to them from Sardinia, undertook an expedition to that island. 9 When the Carthaginians objected on the ground that the sovereignty of Sardinia was rather their own than Rome's, and began preparations for punishing those who were the cause of its revolt. 10 The Romans made this the pretext of declaring war on them, alleging that the preparations were not against Sardinia, but against themselves. 11 The Carthaginians, who had barely escaped destruction in this last war, were in every respect ill-fitted at this moment to resume hostilities with Rome. 12 Yielding therefore to circumstances, they not only gave up Sardinia, but agreed to pay a further sum of twelve hundred talents to the Romans to avoid going to war for the present. Such then was the nature of these events.