If the senate wishes to invade then we do not need to construct a larger fleet. Even if we did build a fleet of twenty ships it would still not be able to stand against the Carthaginian fleet and so we must still avoid them even then. Building such a large fleet at this point in time would be foolish and unnecessary.

If you look at my plan for the invasion of Afrika we will not need another fleet. Our current fleet will serve us just fine. If we land our forces directly south of Melite as I propose is the most tactically sound plan it will take two seasons to land the entire consular army on the Afrikan shore. This is much less time than it would take for any Carthaginian army to try and oppose our landing. Why do you senators wish to land directly outside of Carthage and risk fighting every single Carthaginian army at the same time? To charge headstrong at the area where the enemy is most well defended is just foolish. If we land on Carthage's outlying prvinces and march up the coast then we can face the Carthaginian army in smaller more manageable pieces instead of facing it all at once. We will also have conquered more provinces in less time and spent much less money on needless expenses like building and maintaining such an unnecessarily large fleet.

To those of you so ignorantly claim that seizing Gaulish territory would only drain our treasury of its funds again I tell you to research your arguments to make sure they are actually true before you decide to open your mouth about topics which you know nothing of.

If you only looked at the latest statistics gathered in our own library you would quickly find that the four Gaulish territories we have captured provide us with more than 1,700 denarii every season. This is not a small sum and it does not even include the amount of additional denarii we have gained from our other cities because some of the cost of maintaining our armed forces has been spread to these new settlements.

So yes you are correct. These Gaulish lands that we have so recently conquered are indeed draining our treasury at an alarming rate. They are draining it of empty space and filling it with gold.