ans.

But the captains understood Punic as little as the soldiers, although
the Mercenaries saluted one another in that language. It was usual to
place a few Carthaginian officers in the Barbarian armies to act as
interpreters; after the war they had concealed themselves through fear
of vengeance, and Hanno had not thought of taking them with him; his
hollow voice, too, was lost in the wind.

The Greeks, girthed in their iron waist-belts, strained their ears as
they strove to guess at his words, while the mountaineers, covered with
furs like bears, looked at him with distrust, or yawned as they leaned
on their brass-nailed clubs. The heedless Gauls sneered as they
shook their lofty heads of hair, and the men of the desert listened
motionless, cowled in their garments of grey wool; others kept coming up
behind; the guards, crushed by the mob, staggered on their horses;
the Negroes held out burning fir branches at arm's length; and the big
Carthaginian, mounted on a grassy hillock, continued his harangue.

The Barbarians, however, were growing impatient; murmuring arose, and
every one apostrophized him. Hanno gesticulated with his spatula; and
those who wished the others to be quiet shouted still more loudly,
thereby adding to the din.

Suddenly a man of mean appearance bounded to Hanno's feet, snatched up
a herald's trumpet, blew it, and Spendius (for it was he) announced that
he was going to say something of importance. At this declaration, which
was rapidly uttered in five different languages, Greek, Latin, Gallic,
Libyan and Balearic, the captains, half laughing and half surprised,
replied: "Speak! Speak!"

Spendius hesitated; he trembled; at last, addressing the Libyans who
were the most numerous, he said to them:

"You have all heard this man's horrible threats!"

Hanno made no exclamation, therefore he did not understand Libyan; and,
to carry on the experiment, Spendius repeated the same phrase in the
other Barbarian dialects.

They looked at one another in astonishment; then, as by a tacit
agreement, and believing perhaps that they had understood, they bent
their heads in token of assent.

Then Spendius began in vehement tones:

"He said first that all the Gods of the other nations were but dreams
besides the Gods of Carthage! He called you cowards, thieves, liars,
dogs, and the sons of dogs! But for you (he said that!) the Republic
would not be forced to pay excessive tribute to the Romans; and throug