# CHAPTER 32 — What Methods Some Have Used to Disturb a Peace

Circei and Velitre, two of their colonies, had rebelled against the Roman people in the hope of being defended by the Latins, but when the Latins were later conquered and their hopes were no longer alive, many of their citizens advised that they should send ambassadors to Rome to make a plea to the senate: this decision was overturned by those who had been the authors of the rebellion, who feared that all the punishment would come down upon their heads. In order to eliminate any discussion of peace, they incited the crowd to arm itself and to race across the Roman borders. Truly, when anyone wants either a people or a prince to abandon their inclination to an agreement, there is no truer remedy nor one more lasting than to make them carry out some seriously wicked act against the person with whom you do not wish to conclude the agreement, since the fear of the punishment they think they deserve for the wrong they have committed will always keep such an accord at a distance. After the first war the Carthaginians fought with the Romans, those soldiers employed by the Carthaginians for that war in Sicily and Sardinia went off to Africa once the peace was concluded, where, dissatisfied with their salary, they took up arms against the Carthaginians, and having appointed two of their number as leaders, Matho and Spendius, they seized many Carthaginian cities and sacked many others. Attempting at first every means other than military engagement, the Carthaginians sent them Hasdrubal, * a citizen of theirs, as an ambassador, who they thought might have some authority over them since he had been their commander in the past. When Hasdrubal arrived, wishing to force all those soldiers to lose hope of ever having peace with the Carthaginians, and, in this way, to force them to wage war, Spendius and Matho persuaded the soldiers that it was better to murder Hasdrubal along with all the Carthaginian citizens who were prisoners in their hands. Whereupon they not only killed them but first tortured them with a thousand torments, adding to this wickedness an edict that all Carthaginians captured in the future would be killed in a similar fashion. This decision and its execution made that army cruel and obstinate against the Carthaginians.