Once more Carthaginian envoys--on this occasion thirty in number and with unlimited powers--were sent to Rome.

When they arrived, war was already declared (beginning of 605), and the double consular army had embarked.

Yet they even now attempted to dispel the storm by complete submission.

The senate replied that Rome was ready to guarantee to the Carthaginian community its territory, its municipal freedom and its laws, its public and private property, provided that it would furnish to the consuls who had just departed for Sicily within the space of a month at Lilybaeum 300 hostages from the children of the leading families, and would fulfil the further orders which the consuls in conformity with their instructions should issue to them.

The reply has been called ambiguous; but very erroneously, as even at the time clearsighted men among the Carthaginians themselves pointed out.