Here a strange and appalling sight met their eyes; the men attended the council fully armed, such was the custom of the country. When the Romans, after extolling the renown and courage of the Roman people and the greatness of their dominion, asked the Gauls not to allow the Carthaginian invaders a passage through their fields and cities, such interruption and laughter broke out that the y unger men were with difficulty kept quiet by the magistrates and senior members of the council. They thought it a most stupid and impudent demand to make, that the Gauls, in order to prevent the war from spreading into Italy, should turn it against themselves and expose their own lands to be ravaged instead of other people's. After quiet was restored the envoys were informed that the Romans had rendered them no service, nor had the Carthaginians done them any iniury to make them take up arms either on behalf of the Romans or against the Carthaginians. On the other hand, they hear.d that men of their race were being expelled from Italy, and made to pay tribute to Ro e, and subjected to every other indignity. Their experience was the same in all the other councils of Gaul, nowhere did they hear a kindly or even a tolerably peaceable word till they reached Massilia. There all the facts which their 'allies had carefully and honestly collected were laid before them; they were informed that the interest of the Gauls had already been secured by Hannibal, but even he would not find them very tractable, with their wild and untamable nature, unless the chiefs were also won over with gold, a thing which as a nation they were most eager to procure. After thus traversing Spain and the tribes of Gaul the envoys returned to Rome not long after the consuls had left for their respective commands. They found the whole City in a state of excitement; definite news had been received that the Carthaginians had crossed the Ebro, and every one was looking forward to war.