While therefore we find that the crossing of the Romans to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a> was not contrary to treaty, for the second war, that in which they made the treaty about <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sardinia&groupId=947&placeId=1685">Sardinia</a>, it is impossible to discover any reasonable pretext or cause. In this case everyone would agree that the Carthaginians, contrary to all justice, and merely because the occasion permitted it, were forced to evacuate <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sardinia&groupId=947&placeId=1685">Sardinia</a> and pay the additional sum I mentioned. For from the charge brought by the Romans against them in justification of this, that in the Libyan war they inflicted wrongs on the crews of ships sailing from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>, they had freed them on the occasion when they had received back from them all their sailors who had been brought into <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a> and in return gave back all their own prisoners as an act of grace and without ransom. Of this I have spoken at length in my previous Book. Having established these facts it remains for us to consider, after thorough investigation, to which of the two states we should attribute the cause of the Hannibalic war.
Walbank Commentary