Hieronymus, appointing Agatharchus, Onesigenes, and Hipposthenes, sent them to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a> with Hannibal, their orders being to make a treaty on the following terms:
the Carthaginians were to assist him with land and sea forces, and after expelling the Romans from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a> they were to divide the island so that the frontier of their respective provinces should be the river Himeras, which very nearly bisects <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a>.
On their arrival in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a> they discussed this matter and pursued the negotiations, the Carthaginians showing on all points a most accommodating spirit.
But Hippocrates and his brother, in confidential intercourse with Hieronymus, at first captivated him by giving him glowing accounts of Hannibal's marches, tactics, and battles,
and then went on to tell him that no one had a better right than himself to rule over the whole of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a>, in the first place because he was the son of nereis, the daughter of Pyrrhus, the only man whom all the Sicilians had accepted as their leader and king deliberately out of affection, and secondly, as the heir of the sovereignty of his grandfather Hiero.
Finally, they so far talked over the young man that he paid no heed at all to anyone else, being naturally of an unstable character and being now rendered much more feather-brained by their influence.
So while agatharchus and his colleagues were still negotiating at <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a> in the above sense, he sent off other envoys, affirming that the sovereignty of the whole of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a> was his by right, demanding that the Carthaginians should help him to recover <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a> and promising to assist them in their Italian campaign.
The Carthaginians, though they now clearly perceived in its full extent the fickleness and mental derangement of the young man, still thought it was in many ways against their interests to abandon Sicilian affairs, and therefore agreed to everything he asked, and having previously got ready ships and troops they prepared to send their forces across to <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a>.
Walbank Commentary