§31.1.1me quoque iuvat, velut ipse in parte laboris ac periculi fuerim, ad finem belli Punici pervenisse.
It is a pleasure for me as well, as if I myself had been a partaker of the labor and danger, to have arrived at the end of the Punic War.
§31.1.2nam etsi profiteri ausum perscripturum res omnis Romanas in partibus singulis tanti operis fatigari minime conveniat, tamen, cum in mentem venit tris et sexaginta annos — §31.1.3tot enim sunt a primo Punico ad secundum bellum finitum — §31.1.4aeque multa volumina occupasse mihi, quam occupaverint quadringenti octoginta septem anni a condita urbe ad Ap. Claudium consulem, qui primum bellum Carthaginiensibus intulit, §31.1.5iam provideo animo, velut qui proximis litori vadis inducti mare pedibus ingrediuntur, quidquid progredior, in vastiorem me altitudinem ac velut profundum invehi, et crescere paene opus, quod prima quaeque perficiendo minui videbatur.
For although it would be highly unfitting for one who has dared to promise that he will write the entire Roman history to grow weary in the individual parts of so great a work, yet, when it comes to mind that sixty-three years— for so many there are from the first Punic war to the end of the second— have occupied just as many volumes for me as the four hundred and eighty-seven years from the founding of the city to the consul Appius Claudius, who first brought war upon the Carthaginians, occupied, I now foresee in my mind, like those who, led into the shallows nearest the shore, enter the sea on foot, that the further I advance, the more I am carried into a vaster depth and, as it were, an abyss, and that the work almost increases, which seemed to be diminished by completing each of the first parts.
§31.1.6pacem Punicam bellum Macedonicum excepit, periculo haudquaquam comparandum aut virtute ducis aut militum robore, §31.1.7claritate regum antiquorum vetustaque fama gentis et magnitudine imperii, quo multa quondam Europae, maiorem partem Asiae obtinuerant armis, prope nobilius.
The Punic peace was followed by the Macedonian war, by no means to be compared in danger, or in the virtue of the commander, or in the strength of the soldiers, yet almost more famous for the brilliance of its ancient kings, the old renown of the nation, and the greatness of its empire, by which they had formerly held by arms much of Europe and the greater part of Asia.
§31.1.8ceterum coeptum bellum adversus Philippum decem ferme ante annis triennio prius depositum erat, cum Aetoli et belli et pacis fuissent causa.
For the rest, the war begun against Philip nearly ten years before had been suspended three years earlier, when the Aetolians had been the cause both of the war and of the peace.
§31.1.9vacuos deinde pace Punica iam Romanos et infensos Philippo cum ob infidam adversus Aetolos aliosque regionis eiusdem socios pacem, §31.1.10tum ob auxilia cum pecunia nuper in Africam missa Hannibali Poenisque preces Atheniensium, quos agro pervastato in urbem compulerat, excitaverunt ad renovandum bellum.
Subsequently, the Romans, now free through the Punic peace and hostile to Philip, both on account of the faithless peace towards the Aetolians and other allies of the same region, and on account of the auxiliary forces with money recently sent into Africa to Hannibal and the Carthaginians, were aroused to renew the war by the entreaties of the Athenians, whom Philip had driven into their city after utterly devastating their territory.