<head>Panic at the Envoys' Report</head>The people had no idea what the announcement was going to be, but suspecting it from<note anchored="yes" place="marg" id="note15">Return of the envoys with the last orders from the Consuls.</note>the expression of the envoys' countenances, they immediately burst into a storm of cries and lamentations. . . .Then all the Senators,<note anchored="yes" place="unspecified" id="note16">The envoys first report to the Gerusia.<bibl n="App. Pun. 91" default="NO" valid="yes">Appian,<title>Pun.</title>91</bibl>.</note>uttering a cry of horror, remained as though paralysed by the shock. But<note anchored="yes" place="marg" id="note17">The popular fury.</note>the report having quickly spread among the people, the general indignation at once found expression. Some made an attack on the envoys, as the guilty authors of their misfortunes, while others wreaked their wrath upon all Italians caught within the city, and others rushed to the town gates. . . .<pb n="504" /><note anchored="yes" type="summary" place="inline" resp="ess" id="note18">The Carthaginians determine to resist, and the consuls, who had not hurried themselves, because they believed that resistance from an unarmed populace was impossible, found, when they approached <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a>, that it was prepared to offer a vigorous resistance. The scene which followed the announcement of the Consul's orders, and the incidents of the siege, are chiefly known to us from Appian,<bibl n="App. Pun. 91" default="NO" valid="yes"><title>Pun.</title>91</bibl>sq.<bibl n="Liv. Per. 49" default="NO" valid="yes">Livy, Ep. 49</bibl>. Scipio was serving as military Tribune, B. C. 149-148; consul, B. C. 147.</note>
Walbank Commentary