[1]
20. About this time Massinis'sa, the Numidian, having made some
incursions into a territory claimed by the Carthaginians, they
attempted to repel the invasion. 21. This brought on a war between
that monarch and them; while the Romans, who pretended to consider
this conduct of theirs as an infraction of the treaty, sent to make a
complaint. 22. The ambassadors who were employed upon this occasion,
finding the city very rich and flourishing, from the long interval of
peace which it had now enjoyed for nearly fifty years, either from
motives of avarice to possess its plunder, or from fear of its growing
greatness, insisted much on the necessity of a war, which was soon
after proclaimed, and the consuls set out with a thorough resolution
utterly to demolish Carthage.
The territory thus invaded by Massinis'sa, was Tysca, a rich province,
undoubtedly belonging to the Carthaginians. One of the ambassadors
sent from Rome was the celebrated Cato, the censor, who, whatever his
virtues may have been, appears to have imbibed an inveterate hatred to
Carthage.
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