The Senate ordered the envoys they had just then at Carthage to traverse Gaul on returning, and seek out allies there against Hannibal.

The envoys halted amongst the Gallo-Iberian peoplets who lived at the foot of the eastern Pyrenees.

There, in the midst of the warriors assembled in arms, they charged them in the name of the great and powerful Roman people, not to suffer the Carthaginians to pass through their territory.

Tumultuous laughter arose at a request that appeared so strange.

"You wish us," was the answer, "to draw down war upon ourselves to avert it from Italy, and to give our own fields over to devastation to save yours.