," nor "those who should
afterwards be admitted." and since it is allowable to admit new
allies, who could think it proper, either that no people should be
received for any services into friendship? or that, being received
under protection, they should not be defended? It was only stipulated,
that the allies of the Carthaginians should not be excited to revolt,
nor, revolting of their own accord, be received. The Roman
ambassadors, according as they had been commanded at Rome, passed over
from Carthage into Spain, in order to visit the nations, and either to
allure them into an alliance, or dissuade them from joining the
Carthaginians. They came first to the Bargusii, by whom having been
received with welcome, because they were weary of the Carthaginian
government, they excited many of the states beyond the Iberus to the
desire of a revolution. Thence they came to the Volciani, whose reply
being celebrated through Spain, dissuaded the other states from an
alliance with the Romans; for thus the oldest member in their council
made answer: "What sense of shame have ye, Romans, to ask of us that
we should prefer your friendship to that of the Carthaginians, when
you, their allies, betrayed the Saguntines with greater cruelty than
that with which the Carthaginians, their enemies, destroyed them?
There, methinks, you should look for allies, where the massacre of
Saguntum is unknown. The ruins of Saguntum will remain a warning as
melancholy as memorable to the states of Spain, that no one should
confide in the faith or alliance of Rome." Having been then commanded
to depart immediately from the territory of the Volciani, they
afterwards received no kinder words from any of the councils of Spain:
they therefore pass into Gaul, after having gone about through Spain
to no purpose.

20. Among the Gauls a new and alarming spectacle was seen, by reason
of their coming (such is the custom of the nation) in arms to the
assembly. When, extolling in their discourse the renown and valour of
the Roman people, and the wide extent of their empire, they had
requested that they would refuse a passage through their territory and
cities to the Carthaginian invading Italy; such laughter and yelling
is said to have arisen, that the youths were with difficulty composed
to order by the magistrates and old men. So absurd and shameless did
the request seem, to propose that the Gauls, rather than suffer the
war to pass on to Italy, should turn it upo