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.4 UTjrOR 
 
 LAW, JOHN WILLIAM 
 
 77 / LE: 
 
 THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL 
 
 n. 1 CE. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DATE 
 
 • 
 
 1866 
 
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 Law, William John, 1786~18G9. 
 
 The Alps of Hannibal. By AVilliam John Law 
 Macmillan and co., 18GG. 
 
 2 V. 2 fold. maps. 23''™ 
 
 London, 
 
 Restrictions on Use: 
 
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 Columbia (initif rsiitp 
 
 mt\]t€itvof'Mmfcxk 
 
 THE LIBRARIES 
 
 L 
 
 m 
 
i 
 
 THE ALPS OF HANNIJ3AI 
 
 J 
 
 IN ^J^WO A^OLl^MES. 
 
 n 
 
 ^r^ 
 
THE ALPS 
 
 OF 
 
 HANNIBAL. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM JOHN LAW, M.A 
 
 FORMERLY .".TrDENT OF rilRL><T rnUnfTT, 
 OXFORD. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1886. 
 
 [The Right of Translathn and Reprodncflon U reserved.] 
 
??/.^/ 
 ^</// 
 
 V 
 
 ,/ 
 
 *1 
 
 4 
 
 ■J 
 
 LONDON : 
 B (.LAV, SON. AND TAVLOR, PRINTER^ 
 BRFAD STRKET HfLL 
 
 
 
 ,TN 
 
 \ 
 
 THESE PAGES ARE INSCKIBED 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 MY REVERED GRANDFATHERS, 
 
 EDMUND LAW, BISHOP OF CAKLISLE, 
 
 AND 
 
 WILLIAM MARKHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ; 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 X 
 
 ^ 
 
 MEN OF LEARNING AND PIETY, 
 
 AND SINCERE LOVERS OF TRUTH. 
 / 
 
 W. J. L. 
 
 il 
 
 
 » : « 
 
 JO 
 
 
 ) 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 Some apology will be expected for treating at large 
 this very old topic of dissension. A few facts must 
 plead my excuse. At the end of July, 1854, I was 
 sent for health to Aix-les-Bains, in Savoy ; and I 
 took with me Mr. Ellis's " Treatise on Hannibars 
 Passage of the Alps," then lately issued from the 
 Cambridge University press, a work in which the 
 march is carried over the Little Mont Cenis. 
 At Aix I met with another new work by a savant 
 of that country, who launches the invaders into 
 Italy from the Col de la Seigne. A further circum- 
 stance presently kindled my interest in a subject 
 which had been familiar to me : that an indication 
 of one reputed track was in sight from the garden 
 of my house. I borrowed from my physician the 
 volumes of De Saussure, to help me in my Trench 
 
Vlll 
 
 Preface. 
 
 Preface, 
 
 IX 
 
 and in my Alps, and amused myself during August 
 with some comments, wliicli I printed at Cham- 
 b^ry, on the speculations of M. Eeplat. 
 
 I left Aix on the 17th September with renewed 
 impulse to a favourite theme, proposing for my 
 daughter and myself a week's absence from my 
 family, that we might cross the Little St. Bernard 
 and return by the Col de la Seigne and the valley 
 of Beaufort. The result was calamitous : I made 
 my first and last descent into Italy in a state of 
 serious iUness : for nine weeks I lay within 
 gunshot of the great precipice, without a hope of 
 contemplating it. To avoid being snowed up 
 for the winter at Courmayeur, I was at last moved 
 slowly down the valley to seek a more favouring 
 climate. So began and so ended the chance of 
 contributing by personal investigation to a know- 
 ledge of th(3 disputed track. 
 
 In my progress to convalescence at Nice, I found 
 myself without employment ; and a resource offered 
 itself in tlie examination of Mr. Ellis's theory. 
 I weighed its merits, and sifted them as well as I 
 could under the circumstances ; and on my return 
 to England in April, immediately published the 
 results. In 185G Mr. Ellis defended himself in 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 two numbers of the " Cambridge Journal of 
 Classical and Sacred Philology ; " and I replied 
 promptly to each through the same channel. 
 That warfare was to be excused; I was only 
 criticising a new theory. If now I maintain a 
 theory myself, and strive to overthrow all the 
 rest, it may be asked, why further stir this worn- 
 out controversy ; has not too much been said 
 already ? 
 
 That sentiment would accord with a remark made 
 by the last English writer of eminence who has 
 touched the subject. Dr. Liddell says, "The con- 
 " troversy will probably last for ever : the data 
 " seem insufficient to enable us to form a positive 
 " judgment." This feeling of despair may be alle- 
 viated if the inquiry shall enable us to account for 
 the failure of a few marked men, whom the world 
 would have expected to command assent on the 
 question. Such were D'Anville and Gibbon. But 
 improvement has been slow, and error obstinate. 
 Many a year has passed since the very learned 
 Thirlwall, reviewing the efforts of a distinguished 
 commentator, spoke of " the enormous mass of 
 " literature which has been already piled upon 
 " this theme." Mass, indeed, there is; but it is 
 
X JPreface. 
 
 accounted for in the remark of Niebuhr, 'Hhat 
 " even ingenious and learned men have opposed tiio 
 *' most palpable evidence."' The theme is not worn 
 out : men of learning continue to embarrass truth 
 in their professions to illustrate it : popular and 
 plausible arguments hold their credit, because un- 
 answered ; and reputed difficulties are looked upon 
 with dismay, as if they were real ones. The sub- 
 ject is not exhausted, and the fact that it has 
 been worked so much is the best proof that it 
 needs to be w^orked more. | 
 
 When one comes to interfere in a dispute which 
 has lasted so long, the great discouragement is, that 
 a fit treat/ment of it threatens to be too copious 
 for the patience of a reader : and I expect censure 
 for my prolixity. But who can have the vanity to 
 hope that, inveterate error may be exterminated 
 with a ftjw pages? Heresies must be attacked 
 which took root in the first days of the Eoman 
 empire, which have been cultivated in various forms 
 to the present time ; nourished by men who have 
 adorned 1:he literature of modern Europe. Eew 
 there are who take pains to scrutinise what is 
 plausible, or to sift what is obscure. The laborious 
 effort of novelty, which I have mentioned as 
 
 Freface. 
 
 XI 
 
 inviting me to the combat, has succeeded, as I 
 know, in unsettling the faith of able minds. 
 
 In meeting with the strange contrivances offered 
 for solving this question, one is apt to pause and 
 say, *'Must w^e consume time in combating such a 
 notion as this ? " But, if the notion which suggests 
 the scruple should be countenanced by men like 
 Schweighgeuser, or Gossellin, or Letronne, or Arnold, 
 or Ukert, there is no alternative: the unresisted 
 sanction of such names governs the opinion of the 
 world : and, though an error may in itself seem 
 unworthy of refutation, the friend of truth cannot 
 leave it unassailed. In this controversy there is 
 nothing so extravagant that you may pass it by : 
 the most perverse fancies are found in writers of 
 formidable reputation. All obstacles then must be 
 encountered : we dare not despise what the w^orld 
 esteems : the consequence is, that the subject must 
 not be treated shortly, if it is to be treated safely. 
 
 Eortunately those very circumstances make the 
 pursuit of it exceedingly entertaining. The strange- 
 ness of conceptions, whether in history, geography, 
 logic, or grammar, which offer themselves to notice, 
 provoke a never-ceasing interest, and entice you by 
 degrees into the full current of the dispute. Such 
 
XII 
 
 Preface. 
 
 lias been my fate : and I offer, tliougli not ripened 
 as it should be, the fruit of my temptation. I have 
 endeavoured to perceive the drift of each hostile 
 argument : and, dealing freely with the opinions of 
 others, may be thought not to bespeak indulgence 
 for my own. But, in truth, I bespeak it earnestly. 
 An old man, returning to Greek after long absence, 
 cannot possibly be exempt from error ; and when 
 he finds, in the great names he has to deal with, 
 none that he can in all points follow, he constantly 
 has to apprehend error in himself. The danger is 
 felt and acknowledged: but the fear of it wUl 
 not deter from the utterance of thoughts honestly 
 entertained. Whilst, among the varieties and 
 complications of our subject, we are differing from 
 those whom we greatly respect, in the process 
 which discloses the errors of such men, we 
 become convinced of the fallibility of all, and most 
 conscious of the indulgence needed for ourselves. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME (JNM 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE CONTROVERSY. 
 
 Chap. I. — The Controversy : Progress and State of it . . 
 Chap, II.— The Subject proposed, and Method of treating it. 
 
 CAGE 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 PAliT 11. 
 
 ON THE AUTHORITY OF POLYBIUS. 
 
 Chap, I. — His Journey through the Alps 15 
 
 Chap. II.— Strictures of Dr. Ukert. Italy and the Alps. The 
 
 Khone. Direction of the March 23 
 
 Chap. III.— The Polybian Map of M. Gossellin. His reference 
 
 to Pliny for confirming it. His Theory on the Stado . . 38 
 
 Chap. IY. — On the Stade of Polybius, and his Distances ... 48 
 
 PART III. 
 
 POLYBIUS INTERPRETED. PASSAGE OF THE RHONE. 
 
 Chap. I. — Introduction. Division of the March. Three points 
 to be fixed : the Passage of the Rhone ; the beginning of 
 Alps ; the exit into the Plain 55 
 
XIV 
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAoi: 
 
 Chap. II. — Passage of the Rhone near Eoquemaure indicated 
 by the distance from the Sea ; by the distance from the 
 Island ; by the single Stream 58 
 
 Chap. III. — Theory of Tarascon. Argument of Dr. Ukert. 
 Distance from the Sea. Distance from the Island. Roman 
 measureraents in Gaul and Spain. Roads in Gaul. Policy 
 of Hannibal. Vessels used in the Crossing. March of 
 Scipio (55 
 
 Chap. IY. — Tarascon Theory. Arguments of H. L. Long. 
 Distance from the Sea. Distance from Emporium. The 
 single Stream. Strabo and the Theodosian Table .... 93 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 POLYIJIUS INTERPRETED. THE BEGINNING OF ALPS. 
 
 Chap. T. — The march of 1,400 stadia maybe taken in two parts : 
 1. To the Isere, 2. To the beginning of Alps. Hannibal, 
 crossing the Isere, went forward. Most critics make him 
 recross the Isere and then seek the Alps. Five incidents 
 mark the progress to the Alps : ten days ; 800 stadia ; 
 along the river ; country for cavalry ; country of the Allo- 
 broges y^i 
 
 Chap. II. —The Mont du Chat fulfils all the requisites of 
 
 ^o\y\Au% 10r> 
 
 C^HAp. III.— Adverse Theories on the beginning of Alps. Two 
 by which Hannibal marches forward in the Island. Mr. 
 Whitaker, going through Geneva, finds the Alps at Martigny. 
 Mr. H. L. Long, going through Grenoble, finds them at Fort 
 Barraux -i^o 
 
 Chap. JV. — Theories of tracks south of Isere 164 
 
 Confenfs. 
 
 PART V. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN MARCH. ASCENT. 
 
 XV 
 
 PACK 
 
 Chap. I. — Some theories are not worked out beyond their first 
 Alps. Those of the Ccnis are laboured throughout their 
 1,200 stadia. Termini and distance. By the Little St. 
 Bernard. By the Cenis. By the Little Cenis. The events 
 of each of the fifteen davs . . m-^ 
 
 Chap. II. — Ascent to the Little St. Bernard. The forcing of the 
 Mont du Chat, and occupation of Allobrogiau town. Army 
 rests there one day. Oa fourth day of marchino- from 
 the town, conference with natives, who attend them for two 
 days. Bourg St. Maurice and environs. The Reclus. 
 Ravine and Roche Blanche. Modern evidence. Melville. 
 Brockedon. Arnold. Character of conflict. Summit 
 reached on the morrow, being the ninth day of Alps . . .193 
 
 Chap. III.— Ascent to the Mont Cenis. Larauza. The jS'ine 
 
 Days. Defile and Xevko-etpov 215 
 
 Chap. IV.— Ascent to the Little Mont Cenis. Mr. Ellis and 
 the Rock of Baune. The Combat. Evasion of the Text. 
 Summaries. How Mr. Ellis shortens the reckoning of time. 
 Two days. Two days more. His final argument for 
 Baune. His progress from the Battle to the Summit . 
 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN MARCH. SLMMIT. 
 
 Chap. I.— Hannibal encamps on the Summit for Two Days. 
 He calls his Troops together and addresses them. Evidence 
 of Italy : miscalled view. The Text considered. The fol- 
 lowing day he begins the descent 951 
 
 Chap. II.— No practicable Summit gives a View of Italy. It is 
 claimed for Monte Viso, by St. Simon and the Anonymous 
 of Cambridge 1830 ; for Balbotet, by Folard, who is followed 
 by A\audoncourt and Bande de Lavalette : for the Cenis, by 
 liarauza, the writer in BlacJavood's Magmine, and Mr. Ellis 250 
 
xri 
 
 ^nnfrnfs. 
 
 II 
 
 VAllT VII. 
 
 THK MOUNTAIN MARCH. DESCENT. 
 ^ PAGE 
 
 CiiAP. I. —Descent from the Little St. Bernard. The disaster 
 of tlie first day requires particular cxaniination of circum- 
 stances told. The same phenomena still occur in the ravine 
 helow La Tuile. Arguments on tlie Descent from the Cenis. 
 Larauza. Writer in MrfchmorFs Mac/azme, June, 1845. 
 Mr. Ellis 275) 
 
 Chap. II. — Hannihal, having completed the passage of the Alps 
 in Fifteen Days, came down holdly into the plain of the Po, 
 and the nation of Insuhres. c. 56 299 
 
 Chap. IIL — On the Timj employed in Descent. Many, and 
 among them the Oxford Dissertation, differ from De Luc, 
 who supports Polybius. Dr. Arnold on the Snow-line. 
 His scruples on the Salassi 3()^ 
 
 Chap. IV.— On Passes between Little St. Bernard and the Cenis. 
 
 Brockedon. Albanis Beaumont 327 
 
 Map OF THE Alps To face paye 1 
 
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 1, 
 i* 
 
 / 
 
 THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 u 
 
 
 PAET 1. 
 
 THE CONTROVERSY 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 The Controversy : Progress and State of it. 
 
 Seven cities contended to Le the birth-placcj of Homer. As 
 many mountains contend to be the Alps of Hannibal. Cheat 
 and good men have toiled to fix the death-hour of Alexander, 
 and the landing-spot of Caisar in Britain. There arc who 
 hold such labours to be vain and unprofitable : and it is true 
 that, in the variety of objects which provoke curiosity and 
 research, the interest which they excite is not regulated by 
 their importance. ]3ut the value of the thing pursued is alone 
 not a test of the merit of the pursuit : the scrutiny of a ques- 
 tion which it hardly imports us to solve may nevertheless be 
 deserving of praise : an examination of evidence, as in the 
 case before us, can vindicate an interest far surpassing that of 
 the thing to be proved ; and it is enough to say, that a subject 
 which has engaged Letronne and Ukert and Arnold, bespeaks 
 'itself worthy to be explored. When we regard the various 
 matters which such inquiries will embrace, we make better 
 estimate of their value ; and see danger in a doctrine which, 
 condenming them as useless, would conhne our exercise of 
 
The Co7itrara'si/ : 
 
 [vwrr I. 
 
 
 thinking to the exigencies of tlie passing day. Efforts of 
 retrospect, even sucli as tlicse, arc conducive to tlic interests 
 of society. 
 
 ]^>ut in our sul)jcct is tliere need of effort? ricniains tlien; 
 a question to discuss ? lias not error l)een removed ; and (lu^ 
 evidence of truth been submitted to and confessed ? There is 
 no such acquiescence. The lamented Arnohl, wliose loss we 
 cease not to deplore, studied tlie subject among the Alps 
 themselves: in 1825 he was on the spot with Tolybius in 
 hand; in 1835 he wrote, ''I have been working at Hannibal's 
 passage of the Alps :" zealous in the tracing of military move- 
 ments, he hardly reached a firm opinion on this subject, and 
 to the last declared Polybius an unintelligible guide. Letronne 
 and Ukert are among the later lights on geography and history ; 
 one invites us to the Genevre, the other to the Cenis : while 
 Ar;ieth, director of the Museum at Vienna, has taught that 
 the Carthaginians descended from the Simplon. So late as 
 1851, a savant of Savoy discovered their track through the 
 Alice Blanche, hailing jNFont Blanc as i\\Q XevKoirerpov ; and 
 ]\tr. Ellis in 1851 proclaims the Bock of Biiune as the 
 representative of that landmark, and the little ]\lont Cenis as 
 laid down in the Chart of Pentinger. So long as there are 
 such doubts and such difliculties among learned men, the 
 question is not closed; truth is not established; search is 
 still reasonable: mc modus est ullus investigandi veri, nisi 
 inveneris. 
 
 ProcjTcss and State of the Controversy. 
 
 i\lore than eighteen hundred years ago, Livy brought 
 forward the course of Hannibal as a matter of controversy : 
 and it is controvertcid to this day. In our own times books 
 and pamphlets innumerable have been written upon it, 
 exhibiting various degrees of labour and merit. Tiie subject 
 indeed has been agijtated from time to time for the last three 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Profjress and State of it. 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 # 
 
 I 
 
 liundred years, in works which the curious wlio have leisure 
 may exjdore. A considorable list is given with Dr. Ukert's 
 Dissertation, in his second volume, Part 11. ]>. 5G3 ; and jnany 
 are enumerated in a preface to the work of M. le Comte de 
 Eortia d' Urban. 1821. 
 
 The earliest of modern authors, whose opinion I can quote, 
 is Mr. Breval, Fellow of Trinity College, Candmdge. In his 
 Travels, published 172G,* lie named the Little St. P>ernard as 
 the Pass of Hannibal. lUit, though he saw sonuj essential 
 points correctly, his sulfrage is of no value; for, referring to 
 Polybius, he says that Hannibal passed the Bhone at Lyons. 
 Then, doubting whether the site of that city between the 
 Saone and the Ehone could represent the district called tlie 
 Island, he finds relief in the work of Menetrier, the historian 
 of Lyons, whose antiquarian researches had brought Imn 
 acquainted with an old canal cut from one river to the other 
 — wdiich, says Mr. Breval, " makes the third side of an island 
 in every respect like that described by Polybius ! " 
 
 Soon after Mr. Breval's short notice of the matter, the 
 volununous and wearisome commentaries of the Chevalier 
 Folard appeared, encund)ering the translation of Polyl)ius by 
 Dom Vincent Thuillier, which is in six quaito volumes ; our 
 subject occurring in the fourth, published in 1728. 
 
 DAnville's notions were, I believe, first shown in a map 
 which he published in 1739 to illustrate the march of 
 Hannibal. I saw it for the first time on the 31st December, 
 18G3, at the British Museum: it is entirely founded on his 
 aj)prehension of Livy, and there is nothing in correction of it 
 in his "Ancienne Gaule," published 1700. The labour of 
 intei'preting Polybius does not appear to have been undertaken 
 by him, nor the necessity of such a task recognised. The 
 
 * " Koniarks on sovoral parts of Europe," 2 vols, by J. Broval, 
 Escp late Fellow of Trinity College, Cand)ridge. Vol. I. 228, and 
 V0I.IL2; 
 
 B 2 
 
 
4 The Controversy : [part i. 
 
 remarks of Gibbon on the subject of our inquiry, which he 
 states to be the result of his reading and careful reflection, 
 are dated 1763 : they appear in his miscellaneous works, pub- 
 lished since his death, (Vol. iv. pp. 355, 418). No man could 
 be better qualified to solve such a question : he possessed 
 every advantage ; nevertheless he made a poor business of it, 
 and is without excuse for his abandonment of the question. 
 
 It was some years later that General Melville, on an in- 
 vestigation of the Alps made in 1775, came to a conclusion 
 in favour of the Little St. Bernard. He did not publish his 
 views on the subject, nor were they ever placed before the 
 public till forty-three years after that date. It appears that 
 Mr. Hampton, a translator of Polybius, must have already held 
 the same opiuion on the track ; for there was a third edition 
 of his work, published in 1772, containing a map, where the 
 march is traced in the very line which General Melville 
 conceived. The author calls it "A map for the expedition of 
 Annibal, engraved, with some difference in the route, from the 
 map of Mr. DAnville." 
 
 In 1794 ca,me forth an elaborate work in favour of the 
 Great St. Bernard, which exhibits, for some purpose or other, 
 almost every old text that is applicable to the question. 
 " The Course of Hannibal over the Alps Ascertained. By 
 John Whitaker, B.D. Kector of Euan Lanyhorne, Cornwall." 
 2 vols. 8vo. And in 1812 was produced the work of General 
 Vaudoncourt, '' Histoire des Campagnes d' Annibal en Italic. 
 Par Frederic Guillaume, General de Brigade," 3 tomes 4to. 
 Milan. I conceive that neither D'Anville in 1760, nor 
 Vaudoncourt in 1812, were aware of the rival pretensions of 
 the Little St. Bernard ; but the intermediate writer knew 
 them well. Mr. Whitaker had the advantage of General 
 Melville's notes ; but he did not condescend to be a copier ; 
 his taste was \o be original, and he took no benefit from the 
 assistance. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Progress and State of it. 
 
 Fortunately the General imparted his notes also to M. De 
 Luc, of Geneva, who in 1818 laid the matter of them before 
 the world in a very able and convincing manner. " Histoire 
 du Passage des Alpes par Annibal. Par Jean Andr4 De Luc. 
 Genfeve, 1818." There was a second edition in 1825. This 
 writer also made a correction of General Melville's line, 
 which is of the utmost importance, and essential to a just 
 view of the subject. General Melville fixed the main pass of 
 Alps. De Luc cleared the way for arriving at it. 
 
 From the time when M. De Luc's work appeared, this old 
 controversy has been pushed with vigour : the learned in 
 Germany and France, not without auxiliaries in England, 
 have carried on a lively hostility against the Graian Alp, or 
 Little St. Bernard. M. De Luc was first attacked by M, 
 Letronne, in the "Journal des Savans," Janvier, 1819 ; and 
 the same publication, in the following December, contained 
 an answer from M. De Luc, with M. Letronne's reply to it. 
 The theory was supported in 1820 by the Dissertation of my 
 friends Wickham and Cramer,* who first came forth anony- 
 mously as "a member of the University of Oxford," and 
 published a second edition in 1828. Their Dissertation ably 
 elucidated the subject on many points, though in one matter 
 I consider them to struggle against the juster interpretation 
 of De Luc. 
 
 These are the two works which, in my opinion, support the 
 truth. And yet, great as is their merit, adverse hypotheses 
 have been insisted upon more strenuously than ever. That 
 which, with these two works, I shall acknowledge as the line 
 of march described by Polybius, is not advocated in any work 
 since published on this particular subject ; and our construc- 
 
 * Henry Lewis Wickham, Esq. late Chairman of the Board of 
 Stamps and Taxes; and the Rev. John Antony Cramer, late Dean 
 of Carlisle, and Professor of Modern History in the University of 
 Oxford. 
 
 If 
 
 
The Controversy : 
 
 [PAET I. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Progress and State of it. 
 
 tion of his text on the progress to the first Alps, which is 
 perhaps the clearest point of any that are litigated, has been 
 blinked by all other writers, without exception. I know not 
 how numerous the hostile list may be. I have myself met 
 with the folloY/ing : — 
 
 Criticism by M. Letronne. Journal des Savans. Janvier 
 
 1819. P. 22. 
 Po. do. D^cembre, 1819. P. 783. 
 
 Dissertation sur le Passage du PJione et des Alpes par 
 
 Annibal. Par M. le Comte de Portia d'Urban. 
 
 Paris, 1821. 
 
 Hannibals Zug uber die Alpen : in the Jahrbticher der 
 Literatur for July, August, September, 1823. By 
 Arneth, Director of the Museum, Vienna. 
 
 Histoire Critique du Passage des Alpes par Annibal. 
 Par leu M. J. L. Larauza. Paris, 1826. 
 
 Hannibal's Passage of the Alps. By a Member of the 
 University of Cambridge. London, 1830. 
 X The Mar(;h of Hannibal from the PJione to the Alps. 
 By E'enry Lawes Long, Esq. London, 1831 (Author 
 of " A Survey of the Early Geography of Western 
 Europe," 1859). 
 
 Hannibal's Zug uber die Alpen. By Dr. Fr. A. Ukert. 
 In the Second Part of Second Volume of his work, 
 Geographie der Grechen und Romer, p. 559. Weimar, 
 1832. 
 
 Notice sur le Passage des Alpes par Annibal, ou Com- 
 mentaires du recit qu'en ont fait Polybe et Tite- 
 Live. Par le General St. Cyr :N'ugues. 1837. 
 
 Ptecherches sur I'Histoire du Passage d'Annibal d'Espagne 
 en Italic, a travers les Alpes. Par M. Baude de 
 Lavalette. Montpellier, 1838. 
 
 Geographie Ancienne des Gaules. Par M. le Barqn 
 Walckenaer. Paris, 1839. 
 
 k 
 
 Note sur le Passage d'Annibal. Par Jacques Eeplat, 
 Chambery, 1851. 
 
 A Treatise on Hannibal's Passage of the Alps, in which 
 his Route is traced over the Little Mont Cenis. 
 By Robert Ellis, B.D., Fellow of St. John's College, 
 Cambridge, 1854. 
 
 Two papers by the same author. Journal of Classical 
 and Sacred Philology. Vols. 11. and III. Cam- 
 bridge, 1856. 
 
 AU these writers disclaim the scheme of march, as corrected 
 by De Luc and the Oxford Dissertation, from the mouth of the 
 Iske into Italy : for the partial acquiescence of my friend, 
 H. L. Long, is not more acceptable to the truth of history 
 than the full defiance of the rest. In this list of adversaries 
 there is much of literary reputation, and in their zealous 
 labours much that calls for a reply. Among them is an 
 author of celebrity, enjoying the high commendation of one 
 whose praise is strength. In an admirable work, unhappily not 
 long continued, the " Philological Museum," the very learned 
 Dr. Thirlwall, reviewing, in 1833, the Dissertation of Dr. 
 Ukert, pronounces a deliberate eulogium on him as a geogra- 
 pher and a man of learning : and this is an antagonist whom 
 I resist throughout. He is the champion too of the new 
 doctrine— that the invaders crossed the Rhone at or near 
 Tarascon ; which is a matter of importance, in that it affects 
 the construction of the Greek narrative from one end of the 
 controverted line to the other. The sceptics on this head 
 have appeared only since the last edition of the Oxford Dis- 
 sertation ; and they remain unanswered. 
 
 These persevering hostilities, to which let me add the 
 gravely-expressed doubts of Dr. Arnold, may give excuse to 
 the present attempt. In making the attempt, I abstain from 
 the formula with which ^ome modern commentators wind up 
 
 (I 
 
 i> 
 
 t 
 
 
K ! 
 
 8 
 
 The Controversy. 
 
 [PAET I. 
 
 their preface. Seventy-two years ago the learned Whitaker 
 proclaimed himself the source of " so clear a sunshine as no 
 mistakes can veil, and no wilfulness can darken for ever 
 again:" and among the newer theorists, my friend who 
 sojourned at Grenoble stands convinced that his proofs '' have 
 set this long pending discussion at rest for ever." I am taught 
 to resist the fond delusion. Seeing how the most learned have 
 yielded to erroi', I cannot expect to extinguish a question that 
 has proved so provoking to conjecture, and so seducing into 
 paradox. Still there is hope : we are encouraged to look for the 
 triumph of truth, if ever the causes of her confusion shall be 
 exposed— TToXuz/ 'xpovov iTnaKoriaOelaa, riXo^ avrrj hC eavTr}^ 
 iTTiKparel, koI /i'.araycovi^erac to -^ei/So?. Polyb. xiii. 5. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 The Subject proposed, and Method of treating it 
 
 In the year 218 before Christ, being the 536th year of 
 Eome, Hannibal marched from Carthagena in the month of 
 May ; he crossed the Ehone towards the end of September ; 
 and, clearing the Alps, touched the plain of Italy at the end 
 of October. 
 
 The dates rest on the following grounds. The Greeks, as 
 we learn from I'olybius and Strabo, used to mark the seasons 
 by the rising and setting of the Pleias or Pleiades. When 
 Polybius in his narrative has brought the Carthaginian army 
 to the summit of the Alps, he remarks that the setting of the 
 Pleias is at hand ; which setting is known by a recognised 
 calculation to have been in that year, on the 26th October. 
 Accordingly, as they actually reached the plain of Italy 
 
 n 
 
 'i 
 
 CHAP. II.] The S^thject : Method of Inquiry. 9 
 
 in five days from the summit, we must consider that crisis of 
 the season to have passed, and may place their arrival in the 
 plain at the very end of October. 
 
 The crossing of the Ehone was performed fully a month 
 before they reached the plain ; for the march proceeded on 
 the second day after crossing the river; it lasted fourteen 
 days to the Alps ; and had occupied fifteen days in the Alps 
 when they touched the plain. Accordingly the Ehone was 
 crossed at the end of September. 
 
 In the same sentence where Polybius states the Alps to 
 have been traversed in fifteen days, he says that the entire 
 march from Carthagena was performed in five months ; and, 
 as it was completed at the end of October, we may place its 
 commencement in the latter part of May. Moreover, the 
 setting forth of the expedition is alluded to by Polybius in 
 his introduction to the affairs of Greece at the beginning of 
 the fifth book, where he draws attention to many contempo- 
 raneous events. Having said that the praetorship of the 
 younger Aratus expired at about the rising of the Pleias, he 
 states that about the same time, as summer was coming on, 
 Hannibal began his march. 
 
 Livy ascribes the expedition to the same season of the 
 year ; he states the same duration of the march, and gives the 
 same date to the end of it. On the march through the Alps, 
 he says, nearly in the terms of Polybius, that the summit was 
 reached on the ninth day; that the encampment there was 
 for two days ; that the constellation of the Pleiades was then 
 setting ; that the passage of the Alps was completed on the 
 fifteenth day ; and that they arrived in Italy in the fifth 
 month from Carthagena. 
 
 If a stranger to the subject should ask to be shortly in- 
 formed upon the region which is principally concerned in the 
 controversy, the answer might be this : — Imagine Hannibal 
 with his army about half-way between Orange and Lyons, 
 
 i 
 
 !1 
 
 IH 
 
 (! 
 
10 
 
 The Controversy. 
 
 [part I. 
 
 CHAP. II.] The Subject : Method of Inquiry, 
 
 11 
 
 near to the confluence of the Ehone and Iske ; you have to 
 trace him thence to the plain of Italy. Now you can hardly 
 draw a line from that confluence to the Po, which has not 
 been favoured as the line of the Carthaginian march. Almost 
 every pass from Viso to the Simplon, with almost every route 
 for reaching it, has found an advocate. The Chamouni valley 
 has, I believe, escaped the views of criticism; not so the 
 shores of Lago Maggiore, nor the Col de Bonhomme, nor the 
 vale of Viu. 
 
 Such is the chief, but not the only question made on the 
 track. In the march from the Pyi^nees to the Ehone, all 
 have been satisfied that it proceeded through Mmes, excepting 
 Mr. Whitaker, who carried it through Carcasone, Lodeve, 
 Le Yigan and Anduse, coming upon the Ehone near Loriol, a 
 place about ninfiteen miles below the influx of the Isere. In 
 the period which has elapsed since that course was proposed, I 
 believe that no one has adopted it, unless it was Mr. Tytler, 
 who promptly published an eulogium of Mr. Whitaker's 
 discoveries. When the history comes to be explained, that 
 notion will ap])ear inadmissible ; although Mr. Whitaker 
 considers it demonstrated, and performs the process with his 
 usual accuracy of facts. All are now agreed, that the army 
 passed through Kemausus, Nimes. 
 
 But in the first movement from Nimes there is matter for 
 consideration. A new doctrine has lately been put forth, and 
 supported by an authority much commended, as to the part 
 where Hannibal, coming from Nimes, effected the passage of 
 the Ehone before he marched up to the Is^re ; so that our 
 first business must be with his course from Ntnies to the 
 Ehone. The crossing need not, indeed, have been effected 
 from the point where the march first touched the river ; nor 
 is it quite necessary that the whole force should have pro- 
 ceeded from Nimes to the river in one line. Still the question, 
 where did Hannibal cross the Ehone, is not onlv interesting' in 
 
 i 
 
 itself, as represented in the powerful descriptions of Polybius 
 and Livy, but it bears importantly on matters of ulterior 
 inquiry. 
 
 Method of treating the Inquiry. 
 
 As Polybius and Livy are the two writers whose histories of 
 the Carthaginian invasion have come down to us, the point 
 which it is sought to determine necessarily calls upon all who 
 pretend to understand those historians to consider whether 
 they concur in the Pass of Alps by which Hannibal came to 
 Italy : and, if they shall be found not to concur, to say which 
 is entitled to our belief 
 
 Modern interpreters of these ancient narratives of Hannibal's 
 march may then be ranked in two classes : those who main- 
 tain that the Greek historian and the Latin historian concur 
 on the Pass of Alps by which the invasion was effected, and 
 those who maintain that they do not concur. It is apparent 
 that they who would identify the two tracks are far more 
 numerous than those who insist on their disagreement : and 
 one has to consider whether the former opinion is entitled to 
 respect, by reason that it is the opinion of the majority. I 
 find reason to say that it is not : for, while so many are ready 
 to declare that Polybius and Livy favoured the same line, they 
 rarely agree upon what that line was. 
 
 What then can have provoked so prevailing a persuasion ? 
 Has a conviction of the identity been arrived at by a separate 
 examination of each, followed by a comparison : or has the 
 identity been presumed, and the effort been an attempt at 
 expedients for smoothing differences and reconciling contradic- 
 tions ? The latter has been the case ; and many authors 
 would have escaped the conclusions which they profess, if 
 they had only examined Polybius as if there were no Livy, 
 and Livy as if there were no Polybius. Instead of this, they 
 embark in the subject, determined to make the two agree. 
 
 ' •'I 
 
 ^1' 
 
 H 
 
 M 
 
 11 
 
i\ 
 
 12 
 
 The Controversy. 
 
 [part I. 
 
 M. Letronne tells us, " Polybe et Tite-Live sont nec&saires k 
 rexplication Tun de I'autre. Dans Tite-Live, il ii'y a pas un 
 seul mot h changer pour faire coincider son texte avec celui 
 de Polybe." In the same spirit, General St. Cyr Nugues 
 writes : " 11 faut expliquer et concilier ces deux recits : voil^ 
 le probl^me." M. Baude de Lavalette : " II faut concilier 
 Polybe et Tite-Live : tel est Tceuvre qui doit, en definitif, etre 
 le but de nos (efforts." M. le Baron Walckenaer : " On a cm 
 qu'il y avoit, e]itre le r^cit de Tite-Live et celui de Polybe, une 
 contradiction ; on a cherch(5 k se determiner pour Tun des 
 deux : tandis (^u'il fallait trouver les moyens de les concilier." 
 How shall we account for this predilection ? Can it be 
 that a first perusal of the two narratives produces the impres- 
 sion that they intend the same track ? I am fully persuaded 
 that this has never happened : no one, on tracing the outlines 
 of the two stories, can be impressed in favour of their geogra- 
 phical coincidence. Whence then the prejudice? I appre- 
 hend the cause to be this : Both historians being held in 
 great repute, both are presumed to relate the truth ; and, as 
 truth is one, to relate the same thing : and a repugnance is 
 felt to the notion that they intend different things, unless as 
 a last resource, on failure of the expedients of conciliation. 
 
 This principle is unsound. It assumes that which need 
 not in any case: be true, and which in this case is notoriously 
 otherwise. The greatest historians will sometimes be in 
 error. The wisest man, recounting facts of which he has no 
 proper knowledge, must be liable to error. Further, on this 
 question men celebrated in ancient times are known to have 
 differed ; and we are inquiring whether two among them did 
 differ or not. To presume either solution of such a question 
 is unreasonable. Livy is himself the example that there 
 was diversity of opinion between authors of the highest credit. 
 Writing two ce]ituries after the invasion, he cites the historian 
 Coelius, one wJiom he held in respect, as having named a 
 
 CHAP. IT.] The Subject : Method of Inquiry. 
 
 13 
 
 pass of Alps different from that in which he himself believed. 
 One of these must have been in error. Whether Livy intended 
 to follow Polybius, or to contradict him, is a question to be 
 solved : he has not professed to solve it : he does not allude 
 to Polybius : he adopts a large part of his events, but seems 
 to vary the places to which he would assign them ; whether 
 he intended to vary them is a question on which it is foolish 
 to lean to either alternative without inquiry. 
 
 Seeing how so many critics have embarked in this inquiry 
 under the trammels of a false prepossession, let us avoid it. 
 Also, when great modern names are adduced, when we are 
 told of D^Anville, Gibbon, Ukert, and others, let us answer 
 that we will heed their arguments, not their names. No 
 human judgment stands above scrutiny. Labour and learning 
 cannot ensure a freedom from error. Arnold imagined the 
 elephants to be three or four nights above the snow-line; 
 Cramer and De Luc conceived the Carthaginians marching 
 along the Ticino ; Niebuhr asserted that they crossed the Po 
 below Piacenza ; and Napoleon III. says that Scipio, landing 
 at the mouth of the Ehone, learned that Hannibal had already 
 entered the Alps. 
 
 Many writers are seen to confuse the two histories by 
 applying the narrative of the one author to supply the 
 deficiencies of the other. I approve a different principle; 
 that, antecedent to any comparison of the histories, a separate 
 examination must be made of the matter of each ; not dis- 
 turbing the scrutiny of one by blending with it notices of the 
 other. When this has been fairly done, the similarity or 
 dissimilarity of the results may be viewed : then only shall 
 we be qualified to estimate the practicability of conciliation. 
 
 But, while it is necessary to keep distinct our examination 
 of the ancient authorities, it is requisite that we should set 
 forth the views of modern commentators together with our 
 own. We are not to presume that the reader is already aware 
 
 I 
 
 ■( .1 
 
 It 
 
 \ 
 
 I! 
 
 r 
 
14 
 
 Th£, Co7itrov€mj, 
 
 [part I. 
 
 of the diversities of interpretation ; and it is our business to 
 lay them fairly before him. A very false commentary may 
 make an impression, which it would fail to make if the rival 
 explanation were presented with it. It is proposed, therefore, 
 to combine defence and attack where it shall aid a comparison 
 of one theory of construction with another. 
 
 I hope now to be excused if, in treading the way from 
 Nimes to the Italian plain with the first of our two great 
 historians, I defer for a while the dissection of his evidence, 
 that I may call attention to the value of his authority. 
 
 THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 PAET II. 
 
 ON THE AUTHORITY OF POLYBIUS. 
 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 His Journey through the Al^ps. 
 
 PoLYBius explored in person the Alps of Hannibal. We 
 know not who may have been his companions, and there has 
 been a difference of opinion as to the time when he made the 
 journey. He was born in the fourteenth year of the war : in 
 the vigour of life he was withdrawn from the service of his 
 country, as one of the hostages extorted by the grasping 
 violence of the Koman Kepublic ; and about seventeen years 
 of his mature manhood were passed in a forced separation 
 from Greece. This gave a cast to the part which he had to 
 act as a citizen of the world. When his liberty was regained, 
 the crisis had almost arrived which was to ensure the uni- 
 versal tyranny of Eome : Cato had pronounced the doom of 
 Carthage ; and the downfall of Greece was not to be averted 
 by those few of her citizens who were at the same time wise 
 and honest. 
 
 Polybius was about thirty-seven years old at the time of 
 the Achsean exile. He had filled important posts in the state 
 of which he was a distinguished member ; he had become 
 
16 
 
 AiUhority of Polyhiics. 
 
 [part II. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Hi6 Jowriiey through the Alps. 
 
 17 
 
 acquainted with Eoman generals and Eoman warfare in 
 Thessaly and Macedonia, and such a man might already have 
 travelled westward in search of truth. But this has never 
 been suggested; and we may assume that his visitation of 
 Gaul and Spain through the Alps was performed after 
 167 B.c.^, the date of his removal to Eome. How soon then, 
 after this, may we suppose him to have made the journey? 
 Was it before; or after the return of the exiles? His own 
 words are — "I shall explain these things with confidence, 
 because I hav(2 obtained my information of the events from 
 those who themselves belonged to the times, and have viewed 
 the scenes of those events, and myself performed the journey 
 through the Alps, that I might see and know " (iii. 48. 12). 
 
 Whether such information wa^ sought in Eome or else- 
 where, it would become every day more difficult to obtain, 
 by the deaths of witnesses. It appears that, from the first 
 arrival of Polybius in Italy, he had the peculiar indulgence of 
 residing at Eome, while the other hostages were scattered in 
 distant towns (xxxii. 8. 5). Being so in favour, he might 
 after a time h^ive permission to travel beyond the confines of 
 Italy. The Eoman purpose, of separating such a man from 
 his country, was equally answered, whether he was within or 
 without the Alps. He would not be more tempted to violate 
 his faith as an hostage; for such a course would have 
 brought speedier destruction upon all that was dear to him. 
 Neither would the faculty of escape have been readier than 
 in the full pergonal freedom which he enjoyed at Eome : he 
 could at any time have contrived his own escape, as he pro- 
 moted that of Demetrius. For himself the Alpine enterprise 
 had its attraction; and, while he was peremptorily cut off 
 from his own country, his duties to her suffered no worse 
 suspension by a wandering into the west of Europe. The 
 time too was favourable : for some years the rage of war was 
 
 ^ 587 u.c. of the Varronian period. 
 
 lulled in those quarters, and that embarrassment of a 
 traveller was removed. Looking at these circumstances, and 
 remembering that Polybius was not less than fifty-three years 
 old when he regained his liberty in 151, we may reasonably 
 believe that he had before that time traced Hannibal through 
 the Alps. 
 
 A later period is far less probable. A\Tien the liberation 
 came, the first impulse would probably lead him to seek the 
 shores of Greece. I am not aware that there is any record of 
 his immediate transactions : but he appears to have been in 
 Greece early in 149, when the consul Manilius, ordered to act 
 against Carthage, wrote to the Achaeans, urging that Polybius 
 might join him at Lilybaeum : accordingly he set out, but 
 receiving intelligence at Corfu, from which he concluded that 
 hostilities were at an end, he returned to Greece.* 
 
 Some have imagined that the journey was made on the 
 termination of the exile ; and have conceived the friend and 
 preceptor accompanied by his illustrious pupil Scipio, the 
 younger Africanus. I see great improbability in this. The 
 one, as well as the other, had had better leisure for such an 
 enterprise at an earlier period, whether before or after the death 
 of Scipio's father in 160. I doubt that there is any authority 
 for saying that they ever went through the Alps together. It 
 would no doubt have been agreeable to both, that Polybius 
 should have attended Scipio at the time mentioned ; as after- 
 wards at the age of seventy he attended him to [NTumantia. 
 The discharge of the Greek hostages tended to cement the 
 friendship between them : it was through Scipio's intercession 
 with Cato, that the Achaeans w^ere permitted by the Senate 
 to return to their country ; when that venerable man settled 
 the matter with his well-known remark, that the dispute was 
 whether a few old Greeks should be carried to their gi-aves 
 
 * 
 
 Fast. Hellen. iii. 99. Mr. Clinton quotes Polyb. Fragin. 
 V^aticaii. p. 447. 
 
 VOL. 1. c 
 
 I./ 
 
 I 
 
 11 
 
18 
 
 Authority of Polyhius. 
 
 [part II. 
 
 by Roman corpse-bearers or their own * Scipio then went 
 to Spain, to serve under Luculliis : but did he go through the 
 Alps ? In taking the office of Legate he courted a respon- 
 sibility which others had declined, and had the credit of 
 making a sacrifice to public duty in an unpopular service.f 
 The occasion was pressing : he would not at such a time have 
 exposed himself to the delays and risks of a tour of curiosity 
 in the Alps. No Eoman force had ever then crossed the 
 Ehone : and this young officer, like other servants of the 
 state, must have gone to Spain by sea. 
 
 M. Gossellin, (Recherches, ii. p. 6) speaks of Scipio and 
 Polybius travelling together from Carthagena to the Rhone, 
 as a fact relatied by Polybius himself; and he refers to Polyb. 
 Historiar. lib. iii. 39. This is a mistake: no such thins 
 is mentioned there, nor I believe anywhere. M. Gossellin 
 imagines their companionship not in going to, but in returning 
 from the Cehiberian war. But that notion is as improbable 
 as the other, and cannot be accepted without evidence. 
 Scipio was still too full of weightier business : he only joined 
 the camp in Spain in 151 ; and in 149 we see him serving 
 in the first work of the war against Carthage, the author of 
 every wise movement under an inefficient leader. And note 
 the busy interval : he rapidly gained a reputation in Spain, 
 though holding an inferior command. On one occasion his 
 duties carried him into Africa, where he witnessed the battle 
 between Asdrubal and Masinissa, and returned to Spain with 
 a supply of elephants, the professed object of his mission. 
 When he returned to Rome, as when he left it, the times 
 were teeming with great events ; and there was no leisure for 
 such a man to strike away from the theatre of Roman interests 
 for exploits on his own account in unknown Gaul and un- 
 known Alps. I allow that Polybius's attendance on Scipio 
 was at any time a probable result of their friendship ; but if 
 * Polyb. Reliq. Kb. xxxv. 6. f Polyb. xxxv. 4. 
 
 CHAP. I.] His Journey through the Alps. 19 
 
 we assume such an incident in that space of two years, ^he 
 scene of it would be Spain and JSTumidia, not Gaul and the 
 Alps. Appian records their being together before Carthage 
 at the close of the last Punic war; but does not name Polybius 
 as being concerned in the Celtiberian war, nor notice him as 
 present at the great battle in Numidia. 
 
 When we consider that the return of the Greeks was in 
 151 ; that Carthage was destroyed in 147, and that the fall 
 of Corinth immediately followed ; and, if we observe the 
 extreme activity of the political interval, that interval cannot 
 be thought a probable time for Polybius's journey through 
 the Alps, or for the facts supposed by M. Gosselin. Still 
 more improbable would be that later time, when the inde- 
 pendence of liis country was gone, and his own duties in 
 assuaging her misfortunes had been fulfilled. All things 
 considered, the historical probability seems to be that Polybius 
 explored the tract before his exile was relieved. Gibbon 
 may have been near the truth, when he spoke of him as 
 " examining the country with his own eyes, where he might 
 " collect the precious remains of tradition, whicli the period of 
 " sixty years had not been able to efface, and where he might 
 " converse with some of the old men of the country, who had 
 " in their youth either resisted Hannibal's invasion, or followed 
 " his standard." Sixty years after the invasion denotes seven 
 years before the termination of the Achaean exile. 
 
 Beside the probabilities which rest on the transactions of 
 the times, on the better opportunities for active inquiry and 
 literary employment, which Polybius enjoyed during his 
 domicile at Rome, and the utter disturbance of such advan- 
 tages in the events which succeeded his liberation, we gather 
 evidence to the date of his journey from his own writings. 
 The invasion of Italy by Hannibal is an early fact in that 
 period of history which he first proposes to record, beginning 
 iu the 140th Olympiad. And his own exploration of the 
 
 c 2 
 
 II 
 
 r 
 
 1 1 
 
20 
 
 A iithority of Polyhius. 
 
 [part II. 
 
 Alps is announced as having been made before he wrote his 
 account of that invasion. Niebuhr says (transl. by Smith 
 and Schmitz, iii. 42), that the first edition of Polybius is to 
 be placed about the beginning of the seventh century; which, 
 (601 u.c.) was before the return of the exiles. He says also 
 (21st Lecture, published by Dr. L. Schmitz, i. 283) that that 
 edition ended with the carrying away of the Achaean hostages, 
 and that a S(iCond edition was published afterwards, with 
 the subsequent history. It is curious to notice how the 
 historian incorporated the new matter of his further history 
 with that of the earlier one. 
 
 He announces his history in the outset as one of fifty- 
 three years, the matter of the two first books not belonging 
 to that period, but containing so much of earlier events as 
 may serve for introduction. He says, at the beginning of 
 the first book, that he has thought it necessary to compose 
 that and the next, in order to prepare his readers for the 
 history : and, at the end of the second, he speaks of having 
 completed the opening and preface of his whole history. In 
 the opening ol' the third book, the fifty-three years are again 
 announced as beginning with the 140th Olympiad, and 
 ending with the subversion of the Macedonian empire : in 
 fact that period, beginning from 220 B.C. was completed with 
 the defeat of Perseus in 168, and the seizure of the Achaean 
 exiles in 167. As we read on, the next paragraph shows 
 that those eveaits are not now to close the work, and that the 
 design is enlarged. Thoiigh the limitation to fifty-three years 
 remains in the text, we are informed that new events have 
 arisen so momentous, events of which the author has been 
 himself conc(;rned in many, and an eye-witness of nearly 
 all, that he shall undertake the task of relating them, and 
 begin as it were another history. Pointing out the leading 
 features of this further history, he names the Celtiberian war 
 of Rome, the wars between Carthage and Masinissa, tlie wars 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 His Journey through the Alps. 
 
 21 
 
 between Attains and Prusias, the wars of Cappadocia and 
 Syria, the return of the Achaean exiles, the last war between 
 Rome and Carthage, and the events which have consum- 
 mated the misfortunes of Greece. Further on, when he 
 vindicates the minuteness of his inquiry into the causes of 
 Hannibal's war, he speaks of his work as now intended to 
 comprehend the destruction of Carthage and the battle of the 
 Isthmus, and to be comprised in forty books. 
 
 There is still further evidence in the tone of the historian's 
 remarks, showing that his original work must have been 
 composed during the tranquillity of his residence in Italy ; 
 some things are such as he cannot have produced after the 
 last fatal troubles of Greece liad begun. When he is about 
 to explain the institution of the Achaean confederacy in the 
 second book, he takes occasion, c. 37, to allude to the fortimes 
 of the Macedonian kingdom, and those of that republic ; to 
 the utter destruction of the one, and the unlooked-for growth 
 and harmony of the other — irepi /xev TavTr]v oXocr^epT)^ eV- 
 avaipe<n<iy irepl he tov^ 'Axatoi)? irapdho^o^ av^7](Ti,<; kol 
 (TVfi<^p6vr)(TL^. In the sketch of Achaean annals which foUows, 
 the same feeling of the writer is exhibited ; and this not in 
 the introductory books only; for, having closed the third 
 book with the battle of Cannae, he refers in the fourth to the 
 scheme of his history ; and taking up the affairs of Greece in 
 the 140th Olympiad, notes the remarkable advance which 
 has been made by the Achaean state. Who will believe that 
 Polybius should thus express himself after or shortly before 
 the last convulsion of Greece ? The pride of country struggled 
 hard to make the exile hide her degradation imder some 
 eulogium, at a time when he must in his own person have 
 been deeply sensible of it : but that he should have poured 
 forth those praises after the fall of Corinth, is impossible 
 He uttered those sentiments, not in the period of distraction 
 and strife which followed the crushing of his countr}''s 
 
 ( I 
 
 ; $1 
 > ti 
 
22 
 
 Authority of Polyhius. 
 
 [part II. 
 
 CHAP. IL] 
 
 Strictures of Dr. Ukert. 
 
 23 
 
 I' I i 
 
 
 liberties ; but when, in his Italian banishment, he would 
 quietly and fondly indulge in some contrast between her 
 fate and that of Macedonia. 
 
 Whatever was the precise time at which Polybius in- 
 vestigated the i:rack of Hannibal, on which I have pointed 
 out what appear to me the best grounds of argument, it 
 seems clear that the journey was performed by him; and 
 that, if we can rightly interpret his narrative, we thereby 
 know the course of Hannibal. But that narrative itself is 
 in innumerable particulars interpreted in different ways by 
 learned men. ]:t is natural therefore to suppose, that there 
 is difficulty in making a right interpretation : and we have 
 to search for the cause of this difficulty ; a task which is the 
 more necessary, as some have suggested a cause, by imputing 
 to the historian a singular deficiency in geographical knowt 
 ledge and the faculty of acquiring it. We cannot feel safe 
 in interpreting his geographical matter, without noticing 
 the reasons of those who declare his incompetency to deal 
 with it. 
 
 It is true that this disparaging opinion is not general ; and 
 that some consider Polybius to have been eminently qualified 
 for ascertaining and transmitting truth, as a politician, a 
 soldier, and a man of learning. These are further influenced 
 by knowing that, within forty years after the Carthaginians 
 had evacuated Italy, he was living in familiar intercourse 
 with distinguished Eomans ; that he conversed freely with 
 those who in their youth had served against Hannibal ; that 
 his friendship was sought and adhered to by the celebrated 
 Scipio ^miHanus and his brother, to whom the minuti^ of 
 those campaigns and the memorials of their own illustrious 
 ancestors must have been matter of interesting concern ; also 
 that his study c^f the course through the Alps took place 
 while there may have been upon it stiU living witnesses of 
 the invasion. 
 
 t 
 
 But, though these notions seem to be true, and, being true, 
 to recommend Polybius as one of the safest historians of any 
 times ; still, as in this inquiry importance will be attached to 
 his designation of countries and of rivers that run through 
 them, also to measurements of space where the termini are 
 litigated ; and since, among those who impeach him in these 
 respects, are men themselves celebrated for geographical and 
 historical acquirements, I must sustain an authority on which 
 I purpose to rely. How shall we not fear that that authority 
 may be despised, when such a man as Dr. Arnold, himself 
 so commended for the geographical instinct, has imputed to 
 him *' a total absence of geographical talent," and that in his 
 labours " he laboured against nature ? " How shall we not 
 fear the depreciating tone of the German critic, who is pro- 
 nounced by Dr. Thirlwall " to come to the discussion of the 
 question with all the light that profound geographical learn- 
 ing can throw upon it 1 " Some of the disparaging comments 
 I delay to notice, until the examination of our subject shall 
 have made the matter of them easier to be understood. Some 
 I will advert to now ; examining, as briefly as I may, the 
 reasonings hy which they dissuade us from a confidence in 
 the Greek historian. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Strictures of Dr. Ukert. Italy and the Alps. The Ehotic. 
 
 Direction of the March. 
 
 Dr. Fr. a. Ukert, the eminent professor and librarian at 
 Gotha, is author of a work published at Weimar on the 
 Geography of the Greeks and Eomans : and he is, I presume, 
 the "^most learned man among those who have maintained 
 that the course of Hannibal was over the Mont Cenis ; a 
 
[part ir. 
 
 2^ A uthority of Polyhius. 
 
 doctrine which he supports in the 2d division of his second 
 volume, pubHslied in 1832. The recommendations of him 
 to our notice in this matter of criticism are from an authority 
 which IS recognised as the most eminent in this country • 
 and I will without scruple refer to a report made by one 
 so highly qualified to make it justly. I speak of an article 
 on Hanmbal's passage, signed C. T.,* in the Philolo-ical 
 Museum of May, 1833. I may say here that this review 
 was mentioned in 1854 by Mr. Ellis, in his Treatise, p. 18 
 where he says that the reviewer adopts the supposition of 
 i>r. Lkertthat Hannibal crossed the Ehone near Beaucaire 
 I conceive that Mr. EUis must here have mistaken the 
 opinions imputed to Dr. Ukert for the opinions of Dr 
 ThirlwaU himself; who says, " Ukert conceives that Hannibal 
 crossed the river near Beaucaire." I cannot so easily account 
 for another thing which is asserted; namely, that "in many 
 '' material points the views advocated in his, Mr. Ellis's treatise 
 receive the sanction of the learned .vriter of the article "' 
 This proposition is, as far as I can judge, quite erroneous ; 
 and I find nothing to qualify the error 
 ^_ It is said in the Philological Museum, "Our object is 
 not to describe the march, but to explain the nature of the 
 arguments by which Ukert supports ^his hypothesis." TJie 
 learned writer thus introduc.s the German geographer to the 
 
 < IT r. . . ■■'''''• " ^^^^ ""^^ •^^^-'^^'J «- hypothesis 
 ^^ which had been adopted by many learned men, and within 
 
 ^_ hese few years by a French author, Larauza, whose book I 
 
 have not been able to meet with ; that Hannibal crossed the 
 
 Mont Gems. Ukert has the advantage of coming last to 
 
 he discussion of this question, with a thorough knowledge 
 
 " thetSfl. r r .'"' '^ '" predecessors, and with aU 
 ^^ the light that profound geographical learning can throw upon 
 It: so that a review of his arguments may exhibit, though 
 * Connop ThirlwaU, Lord Bishop of St. David's. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Strictures of Dr. Vkert. 
 
 25 
 
 Iff 
 
 " not the history of this controversy, yet the latest stage which 
 " it has reached. There are, it is well known, four main points 
 " on which the whole controversy depends. 1. The passage 
 " of the Ehone. 2. The position of the Island and Hannibal's 
 " movements in it. 3. His march to the foot of the mountains. 
 " 4. The passage of the Alps. These we will consider in their 
 " order. We must however premise that Ukert takes a different 
 " view of the relative authority of Polybius and Livy from 
 " that which has been adopted by many, perhaps by most, pre- 
 " ceding writers, and particularly by the advocates of General 
 " Melville's hypothesis. He observes that, though the zeal 
 " with which Polybius laboured to ascertain the truth is in- 
 " disputable, his means were not exactly proportioned to his 
 " good will. As the Alps in his time were inhabited by fierce 
 '' and unconquered tribes, it was not in his power to explore 
 " them with the same calmness and undivided attention as the 
 " modern travellers who have visited them with his book in 
 " their hands. Notwithstanding his travels, the geographical 
 " knowledge which Polybius had acquired was very imperfect : 
 " his conception of the direction of the Alps, and the course 
 " of the Ehone, erroneous : and his errors in this respect led 
 " him to say, that Hannibal, after crossing the Ehone, marched 
 " away from tlie sea eastward, as if he had been making for 
 " the midland parts of Europe (iii. 47) ; when, if he had 
 " been correctly informed, he would have spoken of the north. 
 " With regard to Livy's relation to Polybius, Ukert observes 
 " that, though the Eoman frequently took the Greek author's 
 " description as the foundation of his own, yet, as the countries 
 " of which Polybius wrote were much better known in the 
 time of Augustus, he also drew more accurate accounts from 
 other sources, with which he supplied the defects of his 
 " predecessor, but sometimes without perceiving that he was 
 " framing his narrative out of statements which were irrecon- 
 " cileably discordant." Phil Mus. May, 1833, C. T. 
 
 it 
 
 (I 
 
 S 
 
 I 
 
 ( ' 
 
 .^«j^k.~.^ 1 1'' iliMii^i \i\ itnif 
 
m 
 
 26 
 
 Authority of Polyhius, 
 
 [part II. 
 
 CHAP. 11.] 
 
 Strictures of Dr. Ukert. 
 
 27 
 
 ^1 
 
 ' 1 
 
 Sucli are reprjrted to be the views of Dr. Ukert concerning 
 the authority of Polybius in the question of Hannibal's 
 march. With due respect for one so laudatus laudato, T 
 cannot perceive that his depreciation of the Greek historian 
 rests on valid grounds. It is most true that, whatever Alps 
 Polybius explored, he explored regions which were inde- 
 pendent of Eome, and whose inhabitants, notwithstanding 
 the mitiora ingenia which Livy ascribes to them in the 
 twelfth year of the war, were still rude and fierce. But to 
 what tends this exposition of the traveller's danger ? It may 
 help to account for the want of the poetic and the pic- 
 turesque which some think should identify the pass of 
 Hannibal. P>ut, as to finding in the barbarism of the Alpine 
 tribes a circumstance that lowers his authority, it only makes 
 us to admire the zeal and daring that incurred the danger, 
 and to estimate the man by his devotion of those powers to 
 the observation and gathering of truth. The question is 
 between the authority of him who made that effort, and of 
 those whom no such thing has qualified. The proposition 
 that he could not explore the Alps with the same calmness 
 as modem trav*illers who maLj visit them with his book in 
 their hands, is most true. If it were not, this controversy 
 would not exist. If Polybius had journeyed with the advan- 
 tages of a modern tourist, the Alps and the district beyond 
 them reposing under the weU-established protection of civi- 
 lised government, instead of being still unexplored by the 
 Eomans, the places which lay in the march would have been 
 enjoying recognised names ; these names would have been 
 found in his work ; and neither Livy nor Ukert would have 
 had a question to litigate. 
 
 It is indeed the modern traveller who has so explored 
 with Polybius in hand. This task was first performed by 
 General Melville, in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 
 If this had been done in the days of Augustus, that age 
 
 
 <( 
 
 i( 
 
 would not have founded a controversy, nor created the diffi- 
 culties which we are even now endeavouring to solve. For 
 why does the traveller explore the Alps with that book in 
 his hand? In order that he may ascertain the track which 
 Polybius intends ; that he may know how to apply his narra- 
 tive. This is our endeavour ; to interpret rightly that which 
 is acknowledged to contain the truth. 
 
 Dr. Ukert having exhibited the disadvantages under which 
 Polybius must have travelled, proceeds, as we have seen, to 
 expose the inaccuracy which resulted from them. He dwells 
 on his erroneous conceptions concerning Italy and the Alps, 
 as a ground on which we should a fortiori distrust his 
 geography beyond the Alps ; saying this,—" His description of 
 " that country, which from his long residence in it he was 
 " able leisurely to investigate ; a task for which, through his 
 acquaintance with the most distinguished and enlightened 
 Eomans, he enjoyed every advantage, may serve as a scale 
 " by which we should estimate his statements concerning less 
 " known and less frequented countries. According to him, the 
 *' whole of Italy is a triangle ; an opinion already censured by 
 " Strabo." He then exposes the descriptions of Italy and the 
 Alps as made by Polybius, with a criticism of what he has 
 said on the course of the Ehone and the course of the Po : 
 and we are invited to the conclusion that the geography of 
 his history is not to be relied on. 
 
 Strictures, which chiefly import, that one who wrote before 
 the last Punic war was not precise upon north, south, east, 
 and west, are sufficiently disarmed, when we view the errors 
 of a later age, whose improvements it is the policy of those 
 criticisms to extol. But retaliation is not enough. Let us 
 sift the value of the strictures themselves, as they affect 
 three subjects of attack; the Alps; the Ehone; and the 
 direction of the march. The Po must be reserved for a 
 future chapter. 
 
 J 
 
 m 
 
 w 1 
 
28 
 
 A uthority of Polyhhcs. 
 
 [part li. 
 
 w 
 
 Italy and the Alps. 
 
 It is perfectly true that Polybius, ii. c. 14, has described 
 
 Italy as a three- sided figure, of which one side is the Adriatic 
 
 and Ionian seas, another the Tyrrhenian and Sicilian seas, and 
 
 the third the range of Alps : also that he has described the 
 
 northern plain of Italy as another three-sided figure, of which 
 
 the Alps form the north side, the Apennine the south side, 
 
 the base being the Adriatic from the end of the gulf to 
 
 Sena. Strabo censured these triangles, saying, rpiycovov Be 
 
 ISlq)<; to evOir/pa/jL/uiov KaXecrat o-xnf^ct' IvravOa 3e Kal al 
 
 ^daei^i koX al ifKevpal 7r€L(f)€p€t<i elalv, — '' a figure, to be 
 
 " rightly called a triangle, must be rectilinear : but there both 
 
 " the bases and the sides are curved/' Then, in objection to 
 
 the eastern side of Italy, he says, wXevpav yap Xeyo/nev rrjv 
 
 dycovLov ypafifjLTjv — " for we call a side that which is a line 
 
 without angles," v. 210. 
 
 These dogmata, not enforced by Strabo when more neces- 
 sary, are pronounced here, not against the knowledge nor the 
 judgment of the writer, but against his style. Polybius is 
 not charged with believing the lines which he calls sides of 
 Italy to be straight, but with calling them sides when they 
 were not straight ; he knew them not to be straight, for he 
 speaks of one as turned partly to the south, partly to the 
 west : as to the other, Strabo himself relieves him of the 
 suspicion; for he cites Polybius (vi. 261) on the distance 
 from the Lacinian promontory to the lapygian across the 
 entrance of the gulf of Tarentum, and (v. 211) reports from 
 him the unequal distances of a land journey and a sea 
 journey from the lapygian to Messana. 
 
 Are then these; rough descriptions given by Polybius to be 
 called erroneous ? Precision is not sought, and is not re- 
 quisite. In these bold outlines he fulfils his avowed purpose 
 
 ■li 
 
 M 
 
 * 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Strictures of Dr. UkerL 
 
 29 
 
 of writing, which is to communicate ideas by well-known 
 symbols. These are to be found in the larger features and 
 more notorious marks of a country. He reminds us that 
 mere unexplained names do not give geographical impres- 
 sions. When he uses the word TpavaakinvoL, ii. c. lo, 
 he takes care to inform his readers that rpav? is Latin for 
 m-epav. He is not compounding the topography of depart- 
 ments for the Italian student : he is providing by large 
 outlines a notion of entire Italy for those who knew it not. 
 In the very beginning of his work, i. c. 3, he announces that 
 he writes for the instruction of Greeks : and again, after he 
 has brought Hannibal into Italy, iii. c. 59, he speaks of his 
 own travels in Spain and elsewhere with the object of them 
 — " that, correcting the ignorance of our predecessors in these 
 " matters, we may bring these parts also of the habitable earth 
 " within the knowledge of Greeks." 
 
 If there existed not these excuses for the roughness of the 
 Polybian delineations, the spirit of fair play would rise against 
 the attack that is made. In the vice of applying the name 
 of a rectilinear figure to that which is really not one, or of 
 making a crooked and curved line to be a side to such 
 figure,°Polybius is not a solitary offender. Strabo himself, 
 the sage whose corrections are appealed to, indicates in his 
 own p'ractice the foibles which in others he condemns. He 
 rejoices in parallelograms, not triangles: he gives, p. 177, as 
 the boundaries of Gaul, the Pyrenees on the west, the Ehine, 
 as their parallel, on the east : the ocean on the north ; the 
 Mediterranean and Alps on the south. As parts of this 
 large figure, he exhibits three other parallelograms: one, 
 p. 178, has, for west and east, the Pyrenees and the Alps ; 
 for nJrth and south, the Cevennes and the Mediterranean : 
 another, p. 189, has, for west and east, the Pyrenees and the 
 Garonne, for north and south, the ocean and the Cevennes : 
 another has, for west and east, the Garonne and the Loire, 
 
30 
 
 A uthority of Polyhius. 
 
 [part II. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Strictures of Dr. Ukert. 
 
 31 
 
 having also tlie ocean and the Cevennes for north and 
 south. 
 
 Let me ask whether, in the broad definitions of Polybius 
 there is anything which so conflicts with the proprieties of 
 modern geogra])hy as these specimens of the Augustan At 
 least let the indulgence which is claimed for the" licentious- 
 ness of a paraHelogram be extended to the extravagance of 
 a triangle. But, if there belongs to the former figure some 
 peculiar privilege, then be it remembered that Strabo too iv 
 199, has his triangle, the Island Brittannia : and she, too, has 
 her ■TrX.vpaL Are these dycipwc r^pa^^aif M. Gossellin 
 says with much gravity, Edcherches, ii. 15, « Au temps 
 " de Polybe I'ltalie n'avoit pas plus une forme triangulaire 
 " qu'elle ne I'a aujourd'luii." He might have added, " La 
 Grande Bretagne n'avoit pas plus une forme triangulaire 
 " qu'eUe ne I'a aujourd'hui :" the Bristol channel and the 
 Solway derogate as much from the ,mypa,.^ov ayfj^a as 
 does the gulf oi' Tarentum. It is most true that Polybius 
 was addicted to the pourtraying of triangular forms : it is 
 seen, i. 26, 14, in his account of naval manoeuvres But 
 there was excuf;e for the radeness of those forms which 
 Strabo, not an illiberal critic, might have acknowledged If 
 Polybms had called Italy a parallelogram, he would have 
 earned the applause of his iUustrious successor 
 
 (t 
 
 The Rhone and the Alps. 
 
 Polybius, iii. 47, thus instracts his readers. " The Ehone 
 " has his sources above the Adriatic gulf, which fall to the 
 " westward in those parts of the Alps which slope away to the 
 " north : his course is to the winter sunset ; and he discharges 
 _ hiniself into the Sardinian sea. He is carried for a consider- 
 able way through a valley, to the north of which dwell the 
 
 ■I! 
 
 " Ardyes* Celts, while the whole southern side of it is bounded 
 
 " by the mountain sides of the Alps, which slope northwards : 
 
 " the higher Alpine chain separating the plains of the Po, 
 
 *' of which I have often spoken already, from the valley of the 
 
 '' Ehone, and spreading as it were from Marseille to the head 
 
 " of the Adriatic gulph — which higher chain Hannibal, having 
 
 *' surmounted from the country on the Ehone, invaded Italy." 
 
 Men of our day, having their map of the Alps, may be 
 
 startled at the introduction of Marseille and the Adriatic into 
 
 this description. But we are to remember, that the aim of 
 
 the writer was to bring his Greek readers to a notion of that 
 
 which he described, by naming things which already existed 
 
 in their minds ; thus enabling them e^apjioTTeiv to Xeyofievov 
 
 eirl T» yvcopLfjLOv, iii. 36, 4. They knew the Adriatic : they 
 
 knew Marseille: they knew not that which intervened: 
 
 accordingly the Alps are described by reference to those 
 
 known objects, and the Ehone by reference to the Alps. 
 
 Precision could not attend this method of instruction : he 
 
 teaches here that the first springs of the Ehone are away to 
 
 * This word *ApSrfs is not explained. AtSves has been sug- 
 gested. May it not be corrected to 'EXovfiTTwi ? In a passage of 
 Strabo, p. 192, we find Atrorartot, which it is pretty clear should 
 be 'EXovrJTTioL. Strabo, enumerating the accolse of the Ehine, seems 
 to take them from Caesar. Both place Nantuates on the lake of 
 Geneva near the Ehone. Caesar's text, iv. 10, carries the Ehine 
 per fines ^N'antuatium, Helvetiorum, Sequanorum, Mediomatricorum, 
 Tribocorum, Trevirorum : and Strabo, probably having Ca?sar before 
 him, writes, " The first of all, Trpwrot twv aTravrtoj', upon the Ehine 
 are Atrovanot." Then he notices the source, length of stream, 
 mouths, &c.; and resumes the accolae in this way ; "Mera 8c rous 
 EXovT/rnovs ^rjKoayoL koX MeSiOfiaTpiKol KaToiKovo-i tov ^Vrjpoy '/' then 
 he names Tpt/3oKxoi and then Tprjompou This leads one to 
 suppose that 'E\ovr;TTtot were meant to be Trpwrroi rwv airdvTwyf and 
 that AlrovcLTioL is a corruption. Kramer has put 'EXovtjttlol in 
 the text. The word Nantuatium in Caesar's 4th book may perhaps 
 be struck out. 
 
 iU 
 
32 
 
 Authority of Pohjhius. 
 
 [part II. 
 
 the north-east, among the Alps : more than this was not 
 within his reach. He had no materials by which to speculate 
 on the longitudes of those fountains : no civilised eye had 
 seen the glacier of the Klione : he conceived its direction, 
 not its place. The Eomans then had no acquaintance with 
 Transalpine Gaul save by the access of Marseille : while he 
 lived, their oaly military performance between that place 
 and the P3n'enees was in Scipio's few days near the Ehone's 
 mouth. The addition which the researches of Polybius gave 
 to a knowledge of that river may have been limited to the 
 line of the Carthaginian march. It cannot be asserted that 
 he ever visited the lake of Geneva, or the town of Lyons. 
 Some may infer his non-acquaintance with the lake from 
 his silence uf ton it : and they are welcome to do so : if he 
 was never there, neither was Hannibal. Not that the mere 
 absence of particulars warrants us to presume a want of 
 information : for, if the lake of Geneva lay not in the march, 
 it would have no place in this narrative. Polybius expressly 
 excuses himself from introducing into historical statement 
 more of geogi'aphy than is necessary for understanding the 
 story which h'3 is relating, iii. bQ. 
 
 In the time of Strabo, 1 40 years later, conquest had made 
 the Ehone a familiar feature in the geography of Gaul : it 
 was known in his earliest days through the efforts of Julius 
 Caesar to puige from obstruction the main route between 
 Italy and the; heart of the Helvetian territory. And yet 
 Strabo's Ehone has its errors : speaking of the Ehone, the 
 Doubs, and the Saone, he says, iv. 186, " It happens that 
 each of these three rivers flows in the first instance to the 
 north, and then to the west : and then they all fall into one 
 stream, whicli by another bend is carried southward to the 
 sea." Thus the Ehone of Strabo begins at Martigny. He 
 could only relate what he had heard. He relates that the 
 Ehone runs iiito and through the lake of Geneva, and that 
 
 ,1 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Strictures of Dr, Ifkert, 
 
 33 
 
 his stream refuses the commixture of other waters : but he 
 knew not of the river above Martigny : so there he conceived 
 the source. The source of Polybius, though less specific, is 
 more correct. 
 
 The direction of the March. 
 
 Dr. Ukert charges Polybius with making Hannibal to 
 march eastward, when in fact he marched northward. This 
 criticism also asserts the improved knowledge of countries in 
 the days of Augustus ; and it would again be enough to 
 answer, that Strabo's north side of Gaul, iv. 177, is from 
 Bayonne to the mouths of the Ehine. The twist which he 
 gives to the countries of the world might well belong in some 
 degree to earlier geography : and Polybius, who deals in 
 general rather than minute instructions, needs little justifi- 
 cation if, in dividing his subject, he deemed the march from 
 Carthagena to the Ehone to bear northward, and the march 
 from the Ehone to Italy to bear eastward. This, after all, 
 would be found the sum of his offence ; but the criticism 
 before us is more feeble than it at first appears : the critic 
 misapprehended the author. 
 
 The notion which is impeached is contained in the fol- 
 lowing sentence, iii. 47, which I give from the edition of 
 Schweighaeuser. IlepaLcoOevTcop Be roov Brjpioiv, avaXa^wv 
 Avj/tySa? Tot'9 eKe(^avTa^ koX Toif<i lirirel^;, Trporjye, tovtol^ 
 dTTovpaySp, irapa rov Trorafiov' diro OoXcltttj^ co9 eirl ttjv ico 
 TTOLOVfievof; ttjv Tropelav, w? e/9 ttjv fieaoyaiov ttj^ EvpcoTrrjf:. 
 
 The elephants having been brought over, Hannibal, taking 
 " with him these and the cavalry, led forward, bringing up 
 
 the rear with them, along the river ; making his march 
 " away from the sea as it were towards the east, as if into the 
 " midland of Europe." 
 
 We know that, immediately after crossing the river, the 
 inclination of the march was, for some way, northward. 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
 III 
 
 <( 
 
 it 
 
34 
 
 Authority of Polyhius. 
 
 [part II. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Strictures of Dr. Ukert. 
 
 3/^ 
 
 But it is not to that first inclination that the idea of east- 
 ward is applied. It is applied to the scope of march which 
 was before ihem to the plain of Italy. The first moving 
 forward is seen in the word irporjye. The making a march 
 is seen in irocovfievo^ Tropelav, words which import a large 
 stretch of tlie expedition, or the whole of it. Ilapa tov 
 irorafMov belongs to irporjye : but «? eVJ rrjv eco belongs to 
 TTOiovfieuo^ mopeiav. Dr. Ukert desires to annex this idea of 
 eastward to irporjyf. : and he would alter the usual punctu- 
 ation by removing the stop from irora^ovy and placing it 
 after %(o. This may also be inferred from the reviewer's 
 report of the criticism * where the sentence is badly divided 
 into two parts, for telling the progress : the words Trporjye 
 cnro OaXaTTt]^ m eVl rrjv eco are translated " marched away 
 from the sea eastward : " and the remaining words iroLovfievo^ 
 T7)v TTopeiav m eh rrjv fjueoSyacov rrj^ Evpw7rr)<; are translated 
 " as if he had been making for the midland parts of Europe." 
 The comma iafter iropelav is rejected. 
 
 This noticjn of fixing " eastward " upon irporjye, and dis- 
 connecting it from the scope of the march, I take to be 
 erroneous. Such frame of sentence as we have here, with 
 the verb and participle and an object of movement, is very 
 usual with Polybius ; and it seems to me that, when a word 
 like TTporjrye represents the idea of setting out or leading 
 forward, wii-h another word of larger sense expressing the 
 idea of mai:ing an expedition or voyage, the words which 
 give the object of movement (as here eVl rrjv eco) cannot be 
 annexed merely to the former, and disconnected from the 
 term of larger sense. We read i. 29, i. avrjyovro iroiov- 
 fjuevoi TOV ttXovv m eVl rriv Acfivrjv — " they set sail making 
 their voyage as for Africa." In the same way, iii. 17, dva- 
 ^ev^w; €K T/'/9 Kacvrjf; 7r6\€a>9 Trporjye iroLOVfieva ttjv iropelav 
 €7rl T-qv Z icavOav — " having disencamped from Carthagena 
 
 * See beginning of this chapter. 
 
 he led forward, making his march for Saguntum." In such 
 instances iirl with its substantive must belong chiefly, if not 
 exclusively, to the word which denotes the making a voyage 
 or expedition. 
 
 It seems equally clear, that, in the sentence before us the 
 other idea, " from the sea," must be subject to the same 
 appropriation; that it fixes itself upon Trotovfievo^ Tropelav, 
 There would be no force in saying that Hannibal set out 
 from the sea; especially if, as is believed, he was already 
 above Avignon. But there is good sense in describing the 
 scope of march that was now before him, as tending from the 
 sea : it was here that, having hitherto advanced, as it were, 
 parallel with the sea-coast,* he turned away from it, and 
 pursued his march from the Rhone to the plain of the Po as 
 the object : especially as the next sentence gives a south- 
 west direction to the course of the Rhone. If he had said 
 that the march from Carthagena to the Rhone had been co? 
 7rpo9 apKToVy and that now it would be «? eirl rrjv eco, the 
 distinction would not have been objected to. 
 
 The rejection of the comma after iropeiav is also sub- 
 servient to the error of Dr. Ukert's criticism. The stop is 
 in its proper place. In fact, the sentence was complete with 
 TTopdaVy and without the words which follow. The idea 
 which those last words express, serves to enforce the purport 
 of the sentence, by suggesting an object of movement in 
 addition to that which is already expressed ; the addition 
 occurring, as is not unusual, to a writer or speaker, just as he 
 is completing his sentence. 
 
 Some have conceived a low estimate of the early authority 
 of Polybius, on the ground that geographical accuracy must 
 
 * He had brought his forces from the Pyrenees to the place 
 where they crossed the Rhone, "having the Sardinian Sea on 
 
 i 
 
 right hand.'' Lib. iii. c. 41. 
 
 D 2 
 
 i 
 
36 
 
 Author if Aj of Polybius. 
 
 [part II. 
 
 have been impioved in the long interval which followed him, 
 giving to the Romans an increased acquaintance with the 
 countries of the world. Hence the distrust of ancient 
 authority seems not to extend to Strabo. This geographer 
 was precisely the contemporary of lAyj. I only advert to 
 his errors, because others on the faith of his superiority 
 criminate his predecessor. Dr. Ukert will deduce a fact of 
 actual distance from the loosest data of Strabo, rather than 
 accept it from the most direct and safe evidence of the 
 present day. 
 
 The fourth book of Strabo was not completed till sixty 
 years after the death of Julius Caesar. This able and accom- 
 plished man })ears in matters of geography an authority 
 analogous to tliat of Polybius : he related things which had 
 come under his own observation, being most competent to 
 judge of them and to explain them : but, as he was not 
 infallible, the geographer by profession, coming after him, 
 might have corrected his faults. When the latter wrote, 
 there had been opportunity of improving upon the knowledge 
 of Gaul and Britain which had belonged to Caesar. Strabo 
 professes to have read the Commentaries : he observes that 
 Caesar had passed twice into Britain, and soon returned, 
 having done no great things, nor penetrated far into the 
 island ; but that in later times some of the British chiefs had 
 cultivated the favour of Augustus, and brought nearly the 
 whole island to be in familiar intimacy with the Eomans ; 
 that they yielded small duties on exports and imports, but 
 needed not a garrison to control them.* 
 
 We are entitled to expect some geographical improvement. 
 Note the amount of it. Caesar wrote that of the three sides 
 of Britain the side opposite to Gaul was the shortest : Strabo 
 writes that it is the longest. Caesar wrote that Ireland was 
 to the west of Britain : Strabo writes that it is to the north. 
 
 ♦ iv. p. 200. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Strictures of Dr. Ukert, 
 
 37 
 
 Caesar wrote that the side of Britain opposite to Gaul was in 
 length 500 miles : Strabo writes that it is 5,000 stadia = 625 
 miles. One is surprised that he did not make it more ; con- 
 sidering that he reports the coast of Britain to face the coast 
 of Gaul, with their extreme points corresponding both east 
 and west— Caesar de Bell. Gall. v. c. 13. Strab. i. 63— iv. 
 199. 
 
 In the passage last referred to, Strabo thus expresses him- 
 self — " Britain is in figure triangular : her longest side is 
 " that which is spread opposite to Gaul, being in extent 
 " neither more nor less : each is as much as 4,300 or 4,400 
 " stadia ; that is to say, the Gallic coast from the mouths of 
 " the Ehine to the northern extremity of the Pyrenees in 
 " Aquitania ; and the British coast from the most easterly 
 " point where Kent lies opposite the mouths of the Ehine, to 
 " the western head which is over against Aquitania and the 
 Pyreneau. This too is the shortest distance from the Pyre- 
 nees to the Ehine, as the greatest has been called 5,000 
 " stadia : but there is probably some convergence from the 
 " parallel position of the river and the mountain, a bend 
 " taking place in each line near its termination at the ocean." 
 Thus does the authority of the Augustan day, writing 
 nearly a century and a half after Polybius, instruct the 
 world that the coast from Margate to Penzance is parallel to 
 and of equal length with the coast from the Brill to the 
 Bidassoa ; and that this is the shortest way, from the course 
 of the Ehine to the chain of the Pyrenees, by reason that 
 these two lines rather converge as they approach the ocean. 
 
 « 
 
 {< 
 
 11 
 
38 
 
 A uthority of Polyhius, 
 
 [part II. 
 
 CHAP. III.] . M. Oossellin's Carte de PolyU. 
 
 39 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 The Polyhian Map of M. Gossellin. His reference to Pliny for 
 confimiing it. His theory on the Stade. 
 
 Nothing can be more injurious to the fame of Polybius 
 than the map cf the celebrated French philosopher, M. Gos- 
 sellin, which professes to represent the Mediterranean of 
 Polybius, with the positions of places according to his 
 writings. This map is annexed to M. Gossellin's great work, 
 " R^cherches s\]Lr la Geographic systematique et positive des 
 Anciens," where it is called " Polybii Internum Mare ;" also 
 to the well-known translation of Strabo, where it is called 
 " Mer Interieure selon Polybe." Such a map ought to be 
 according to the authority of the imputed author. 
 
 Let us suppose a course along the south of the Mediter- 
 ranean in three instalments : Gibraltar to Tunis : Tunis to 
 Cape Passaro : Cape Passaro to Rosetta at the mouth of the 
 Nile. These fDur places represent, sufficiently for our pur- 
 pose, the Pillars of Hercules, Carthage, Pachynus, and Ca- 
 nopus. Now the first distance, from Gibraltar to Tunis, is 
 in fact more than three times as great as the second, from 
 Tunis to Cape Passaro : and the last, from Cape Passaro to 
 Rosetta, is greater than the first. The Polybian chart of 
 M. Gossellin e?:hibits the second or middle distance as being 
 the greatest of the three : it places Carthage farther from 
 Pachynus than from the Pillars of Hercules ; and Pachynus 
 nearly twice ae; far from Carthage as from the mouth of the 
 Nile. Equally monstrous and foreign from fact are the 
 distances pourtrayed from the coast of Carthage to the coast 
 of Sicily and to Marseille : the former of these two is in fact 
 not a fourth of the latter : M. Gossellin, on behalf of Polybius, 
 represents it as more than double of the latter. 
 
 I 
 
 ^ ij 
 
 M. Gossellin*s map represents Italy with a straight line of 
 Mediterranean coast from Narbonne to Policastro. Now Poly- 
 bius distinctly recognises the great bend of Italy, when he says 
 that the Tyrrhenian and Sicilian seas bound that side w^hich 
 faces the south and the west — rrjv tt^o? fieaijfi^pLav Kal Svo-fia^ 
 T€Tpafifievrjv, ii. 14 His apprehension of the bearings appears 
 too in what he says on the chain of the Apennine ; he ranges 
 it along the southern border of the great plain. He says that 
 Ligurians dwell on either side of it as far as Pisae on the sea- 
 side, and the lands of the Arretini on the side towards the 
 plain ; that you then have the Etrurians on one side and 
 the Umbrians on the other : that the Apennine bears away 
 from the great plain to the right, and through the middle of 
 the rest of Italy reaches to the Sicilian sea. As to the other 
 coast, he speaks of the side of Italy which is bounded by the 
 Adriatic and the Ionian strait as the eastern side — rrjy irpb^ 
 avaro\a<; KeKXtfMevrjv ; and he names the promontory of 
 Cocynthus as separating the Ionian strait from the Sicilian 
 sea. Lib. ii. 14, 5. 
 
 One who is acquainted with Polybius, knowing his Italy, 
 and his position of Sicily in relation to Italy and to Africa, 
 will promptly condemn much of the map we speak of as a 
 delusion. But numbers have seen, and wiU see, M. Gossellin's 
 Mediterranean of Polybius in one or other of his celebrated 
 works, who have not read Polybius himself : and these will 
 be misled. 
 
 I believe that not one of the disproportions apparent in 
 this map is based upon anything found in the works of Poly- 
 bius. The chief attempt to fix an extravagant measurement 
 on him is by an inference drawn from Strabo, through which 
 M. Gossellin imputes to Polybius an estimate of 18,766 stadia 
 as the length of a direct sea-line from the Pillars of Hercules 
 to the Sicilian strait. If that numeral were found expressed 
 by Strabo, such authority is surely not safe for what was 
 
SiJBv- 
 
 40 
 
 Authority of Folyhiits, 
 
 [PAET II. 
 
 written by one who preceded him by nearly a century and a 
 half: especially when we remember Strabo's own report of 
 the Mediterranean, and that from the entrance at Gibraltar 
 lie carried a parallel up the Mediterranean, as lying midway 
 between the coast of Europe and the coast of Africa, distant 
 2,500 stadia from. each. 
 
 But we are not quite without evidence from Polybius him- 
 ticlf to show that he would not have so given the line from 
 the strait to the Pillars. We read, in lib. iii. 39, 2—" At this 
 " period (HannibaVs invasion) the Carthaginians were masters 
 " of all parts of Libya which are towards the inner sea, from 
 " the Altars of I^hilsenus which stand above the Great Syrtis, 
 " as far as the Pillars of Hercules : and this length of coast 
 " was above sixteen thousand stadia." Can we believe that 
 Polybius concei\ ed the Sicilian strait to be at a greater dis- 
 tance from the Pillars than the Altars of the Phila^ni were : 
 that, while he reckoned this south-eastern part of the Syrtis 
 to be distant 16,000 stadia from the Pillars by the coasting 
 line, he reckoned the Sicilian strait to be in a direct line 
 18,760? He explored those countries : his history exhibits 
 his information upon them along the whole coast : he tells the 
 operations of the fleets during the first Punic war :* and at a 
 later period the encroachments of Masinissa on the Cartha- 
 ginian possessions : f he knew that the boundary of dominion 
 was far eastward of the district of Carthage herself : | and it 
 was in his time, and before his own eyes, that this empire 
 passed into the hands of the Eomans, when his great pupil 
 Scipio brought these very tracts into the condition of a Eoman 
 province. Did he then, of all men, after he had recorded the 
 much longer line, a coast-line too, to be 16,000 stadia, did he 
 wade through a trigonometrical argument for proving the 
 much shorter line to be 18,766 ? In truth this 16,000 fairly 
 corresponds with other rational estimates made by him, and 
 
 * Polyb. ii. 19. 2. t Ibid, xxxii. 2. % Ibid. x. 40. 7. 
 
 CHAP, til] M. Gosselliii's Carte de Polyhe. 41 
 
 gives a cogent disproof of the extravagant numeral on which 
 M. Gossellin relied. 
 
 In the same region of the same map is another very 
 palpable misrepresentation, where nothing can be said in 
 mitigation of it. I mean the Polybian distance between 
 Carthage and Lilybaeum ; that is to say, between Tunis and 
 :Marsala, represented by M. Gossellin as 8,000 stadia. These 
 are the words of Polybius himself— to he rphov {aKpcorr^pLov) 
 TerpaTTTai ixev ek avrrjv rrjv At^V7]v, eTrUeLTai 8e rok 
 7rpoK€ifievoL<; ttJ? Kap')^7jB6vo<; aKpcoTr)pLOL<; €VKaLpo)<;, hU'Xpv 
 (tf? %fcX/ou9 araBiovr vevet S' et? p^et/xeptm? hva6c<;, BiacpeL Be 
 TO Ac^vKov KUL TO 'EapBwov ireXayof;, irpoaayopeveTai Be 
 Ai\v/3aiov. This is in all points true: the Lilybaean pro- 
 montory does look south-west towards the forelands of 
 Carthage, distant about a thousand stadia, dividing the 
 Libyan and Sardinian seas. And in all the proper works of 
 Polybius not a word can be found to excuse M. Gossellin for 
 substituting 8,000 for 1,000. 
 
 No excuse of ignorance or mistake is made; the thing 
 professes to be a misrepresentation. These words (Eech. ii, 19) 
 avow it : — " Cependant, il existe une grande erreur dans cette 
 '* partie de la Carte de Polybe. En partant de la Sicile, il 
 ' place la promontoire Lilybee au couchant, et dit qu'il est 
 ' eloigne de mille stades des caps qui sont pres de Carthage ; 
 ^ dans notre carte, le distance entre ces deux points se trouve 
 
 etre d'environ 8,000 stades. Une difference si considerable 
 ' ne pent provenir que de deux causes ; ou d'un faux emploi 
 ' que nous aurions fait des gran des distances de Polybe dans 
 ' la Mediterranee, ou d'un defaut d'ensemble dans le systeme 
 ' general des mesures adoptees par cet historien. Pour ce 
 ' qui nous concerne, le doute ne pent tomber que sur la 
 ' correction que nous avons faite au texte de Pline." * 
 
 Does the erroneous exhibition of geography become a fair 
 
 * For this, see the next head. 
 
42 
 
 Authority of Polyhius, 
 
 [PABT n. 
 
 'i 
 
 CHAP. III.] if. Gosselliii's Carte de Polyhc. 
 
 43 
 
 ll 
 
 proceeding by M. Gossellin's confessing the discrepancy 
 between the real I'olybius and his own ? His arguments and 
 his confessions are no doubt accessible to those who will get 
 them and read them ; but how many will see the map and 
 not study the comments ! The knowledge of a published 
 map is far more than commensurate with that of the work to 
 which it belongs. The student may contemplate this " Inter- 
 num mare Polybii," without exploring the four quarto volumes 
 on ancient geography : he may be attracted by the same 
 geographical portrait, "Mer Mediterranee selon Polybe" 
 belonging to the five volumes of Strabo, translated by Du 
 Theil, Coray, and Letronne, not scrutinising the principles on 
 which it was framed, but relying on the name of Gossellin 
 for its truth. It is awkward, under any circumstances, to 
 represent a man as having said eight, when you know that 
 he said one ; and the more so, when you know that, in saying 
 one, he spoke deliberate truth. M. Gossellin was well- 
 informed of the facts from which Polybius's acquaintance 
 with all the groun d of Sicily must be inferred ; his description 
 of the long wars in which every foot of land had been won 
 and lost, and every village subjected to the violence of 
 contending parties. He knew of Polybius's crossings into 
 Africa, and his study of that continent from the Nile to the 
 Atlantic. In som e leading distances the historian had spoken 
 plainly for himself, even if Pliny had said nothing to illustrate 
 liim. Yet, M. Gossellin, clinging to that loose and half-told 
 story of Strabo, constructs upon this basis a system for 
 Polybius, holds him answerable for all results, and bids him 
 bear the blame. One can understand that a man, wanting to 
 make a map for ancient times, may feel himself embarrassed 
 in the "defaut d'ensemble" among the authorities that lie 
 before him. But in pourtraying the geography of some one 
 author, if any mi^asurements can claim to be observed, they 
 are the measurcEients of that author himself ; and one, who 
 
 could only make a Polybian map by sacrificing those, might 
 have abstained from the attempt. 
 
 Hts appeal to Pliny. 
 
 I must be content with my protest against this map. One 
 who ventures to be dissatisfied with M. Gossellin on ancient 
 measures of space, should be prepared to canvas the new 
 doctrines of the Stade, for which he was so great an advocate. 
 I am not armed for such encounter. I may recommend the 
 perusal of what Dr. Ukert has written in vol. I. of his geo- 
 graphy, 2d division, p. 51 — 77 : also of Col. Leake's paper on 
 the Stade in the Journal of the Eoyal Geographical Society, 
 vol. ix. However, as in M. Gossellin's words above quoted, 
 he refers to his own alteration of Pliny's text, and in E^cher- 
 ches, ii. p. 12, acknowledges the propriety of showing the 
 enormous distance which he is imputing to Polybius to be 
 confirmed by other authority, and there commends us to 
 Pliny, I will submit to those who are more competent than 
 I am to deal with such matters, that Pliny does not confirm 
 M. Gossellin's imputation on Polybius, but plainly dissents 
 from it. 
 
 M. GosselUn adduces two passages of Pliny,* one from the 
 5th book, c. 6, the other from the 6th book, c. 38. The 
 earlier passage attributes to Polybius 1,100 miles from the 
 Pillars to Carthage : and this is unequivocally hostile to the 
 notion that he estimated 18,766 stades = 2,345|- miles from 
 the Pillars to the Sicilian Strait. The passage in the 6th 
 book M. Gossellin amends, so that it may answer his purpose; 
 altering the received version of Pliny before he applies it. 
 
 Pliny quotes from Polybius the length of the Mediter- 
 ranean ; a sea-line, from the Pillars to Seleucia Pieria, in 
 six instalments, making a total of 2,440 miles. They are 
 
 "^ Kecherches, tom. ii. pp. 8, 9, 13. 
 
 
44 
 
 Authority of Polyhius. 
 
 [part II. 
 
 stated thus : k (xaditano freto ad orientem recto cursu Sici- 
 lian! : Cretam : Khodum ; Chelidonias : Cyprum : Syri« Seleu- 
 ciam Pieriam — which M. Gosselliii thus presents in trans- 
 lation, with the distances — * 
 
 Du d^troit de Gades, au d(^troit de Sicile 
 Du d^troit de Sicile, h> Tile de Cr^te . 
 De rile de Cr^te, h. Ehodes .... 
 De Rhodes, aux iles Chelidonise . . 
 Des Chelidoniae, k I'ile de Cypre . . 
 De Cypre, h Seleucie en Pierie . . 
 
 1260i m. p. 
 375 
 
 183i 
 
 322 
 
 115i 
 
 2,440 m. p. 
 
 As the total 2,440 m. p. is confessedly inadequate, one or 
 more of the parts must require to be increased beyond the 
 amount so imputed to them. M. Gossellin thinks the total 
 too short by 1,000 miles, and says it should be 3,440. But, 
 though it is in six parts, he bestows the whole increase on 
 one pai-t ; not saying a word upon the other five. He ratifies 
 his favourite esxaggeration a Gaditano freto Siciliam ; and, 
 bestowing the additional 1,000 miles on the l,260j miles of 
 the text, brings out for that interval 2,260^ miles, alias 1 8,837 
 stades ; which keeps 18,766 in countenance. 
 
 Now it may be doubted, whether by Siciliam Pliny meant 
 the first land of Sicily, or, as M. Gossellin renders it, the 
 Strait. If the former, l,260j^ m. p. would need no correction, 
 being 10,084 stades. M. Gossellin, however, construing Sici- 
 liam "to the Strait," includes in the 1,260^ m. p. the length 
 of Sicily : and for that, the stated distance would certainly 
 not be enough : as 12,000 stades (1,500 miles) was the com- 
 monly accepted distance from the Pillars to the Strait. But 
 why add the whole 1,000 miles (8,000 stades) to this first 
 
 * There are various readings. It is convenient to quote as 
 printed in Recherches, ii, 8. 
 
 ~'fl 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 M. Gossellin* s Carte de Polyhe. 
 
 45 
 
 - 1 
 
 instalment ? Supposing the deficiency of the total to have 
 been 1,000 miles, why add it all to this particular portion of 
 the length of the Mediterranean, without inquiring whether 
 some of the other component parts may not require correc- 
 tion ? Manifestly the next instalment requires increase ; 
 Cretam, 375 m. p. This is very much below what it should 
 be. The mere sea-line between those great islands must be 
 more than 500 miles; and, if the first distance was to embrace 
 the length of Sicily, the second would, according to M. Gos- 
 sellin, embrace the length of Crete, about 200 more. If 
 Siciliam means, as he says, " to the eastern end of Sicily," 
 Cretam must mean " to the eastern end of Crete." On the 
 other hand, if Siciliam meant, " to the first land of Sicily," 
 the next distance, "to Crete," should include Sicily itself. 
 The thing told is the whole length a Gaditano freto Seleu- 
 ciam ; and the length of those islands cannot be omitted. 
 
 And now, what is the result of the reference to Pliny ? 
 Does it give countenance to the monster sea-line which M. 
 Gossellin imputes ? does it confirm it and rectify it into 
 18,837 ? It happens that, when Pliny had this 2,440 miles 
 of Polybius under consideration, 3,440 was offered to his 
 attention as more correct, being a distance stated by Agrippa 
 between the same termini. But Pliny questioned this amend- 
 ment as erroneous, and declined to accede to it. If he had 
 listened to so large an addition to the total, it would not 
 follow that M. Gossellin's favourite instalment should enjoy 
 the whole of it. However, all difficulty is met with com- 
 placently assuring us, that Pliny had a bad edition of Poly- 
 bius — " II faut en conclure, que I'erreur que Pline entre- 
 voyoit, etoit dans I'exemplaire de Polybe, qu'il avoit sous 
 les yeux, et non dans celui d' Agrippa, comme il le conjectu- 
 roit." — Geog. des Anciens, ii. p. 10, 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 II 
 
46 
 
 Aidhm'ity of Polyhius. 
 
 [part II. 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 M. Gossellin*s Carte de Polyhe. 
 
 47 
 
 New Theory of the Stade. 
 
 To those wlic» may not be aware of this controversy on the 
 stade, I am safe in saying, that a leading principle of M. 
 Gossellin's theory is, that the apparent errors in distances 
 expressed by the early philosophers, and which were deemed 
 so by one another, were not actually errors : that if one man 
 pronounced th(i circumference of the earth to be twice as 
 long as another man, they were probably both right, and 
 that the cause of the apparent difference was the difference 
 of stades in which the measurements had been originally 
 computed. M. Gossellin exhibits many of these varieties in 
 the total perimeter from 180,000 to 400,000 stadia, and from 
 500 to 1,11 li stadia in the degree. 
 
 I will only observe, that it is easy to imagine that in very 
 early times men might differ, even by two to one, on the 
 size of the ean:h ; but not so easy to believe it as to small 
 superficial distances between one place and another. Here 
 some approach to truth would be perceptible to observation 
 and experience, not in the other case. But M. Gossellin 
 accounts in th(3 same way for differences in measurements on 
 the largest scale and the smallest. When he blames Strabo 
 for censuring those who differed on the large distances in 
 India, he pronounces all their measurements to be "iden- 
 tiques, quoiqu' exprimees en modules differens :" that Patro- 
 cles had expressed himself in stades of 666f to the degree ; 
 Megasthenes in those of 1,1 11^; and Eratosthenes in those 
 of 833^ — and, when he finds in Strabo, iv. 178, that from 
 Aix en Proven9e to the Var it is 73 miles, he explains 
 that this distance had been calculated at the rate of 500 
 stades to a degree. "When presently Strabo reports 200 stadia 
 along the Ehone from Vienne to Lyon, M. Gossellin inter- 
 prets them by the standard of 833 J. Notes to Strabon, torn. ii. 
 pp. 7. and 27. 
 
 
 Among the instances given by M. Gossellin as examples 
 of his method of explaining supposed differences, none is 
 more remarkable than that of the direct sea-line from the 
 Pillars to the Strait. He says that one philosopher treated 
 it as expressed in stades of 500 to the degTee; another in 
 stades of 1,1 11^ to the degree ; another in stades of 700 to 
 the degree : that Eratosthenes happened to adopt an estimate 
 made on the footing of 180,000 to the circumference; that 
 Polybius hit upon a computation resulting from 400,000 ; 
 and Strabo had the good fortune to find one founded upon 
 252,000. 
 
 He insists that all these reckonings were right, though the 
 philosophers were not aware of it themselves. These are 
 his words,* — " Get ancien, (Eratosthenes), comptoit, en ligne 
 " droite, depuis le detroit des Colonnes jusqu'au detroit de 
 " Sicile, 8,800 stades ; Polybe vouloit qu'il en eut 18,837 ; 
 " et Strabon, critiquant ces deus auteurs, pretend qu'il s'en 
 " trouve 12,000." 
 
 " La grande dissemblance de ces dernieres mesures feroit 
 " croire, au premier aspect, qu'il est impossible de les con- 
 " cilier, et que I'une on I'autre, ou toutes les trois peut-etre, 
 
 renferment des erreurs considerables. Cependant, on les 
 
 trouvera assez justes, si Ton soit distinguer le module 
 " du stade qui appartient a chacune d'elles." But I am 
 warned to pause. Our subject is historical ; not pre-histo- 
 rical. And, though a theory which involves the incidents of 
 unrecorded times may tempt to amusing speculations, I will, 
 without further running out of the course, proceed to business 
 in the persuasion that the stade of Herodotus was the stade 
 of Aristotle and Eratosthenes. A few words are wanted 
 touching the stade of Polybius. 
 
 * Kech. tom. iv. p. 315. 
 
 << 
 
 t( 
 
 I 
 
 \ 
 
48 
 
 Authority of Polyhms. 
 
 [PAKT II. 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 On th^ Stade ofPolyhiuSf and his Distances, 
 
 PoLYBius reckons distances from place to place, commonly 
 by the stade, a Greek measure ; sometimes by the mile, a 
 Eoman measure. The one was not a precise multiple of the 
 other ; but the mile was almost equivalent to eight stades, 
 wanting about 22 English feet. Eight stades to a mile is the 
 rate by which Livy adopts distances from Polybius : and 
 Polybius himself sanctioned this ratio, in saying that the 
 Eomans had marked their roads with indications of distance 
 at intervals of eight stades. If ever there was a man in the 
 world who knew rightly what a stade was, and what a mile 
 was, one would think that Polybius had that knowledge. 
 But here again there is controversy. M. Gossellin, in 1798, 
 propounded that Polybius had a stade of his own ; and Dr. 
 Ukert, notwitlistanding what he had written on measure- 
 ments in 1816, became a convert to the notion in 1832. 
 
 The notion that Polybius treated the Eoman mile as equal 
 to 8J stades rests only on a few words of Strabo, lib. vii. 
 p. 322. The i)assage translated is this :— " From Apollonia, 
 " the Egnatian way is eastward into Macedonia, stepped by 
 " the mile ; and furnished with columns as far as Cypselus 
 
 and the rivijr Hebrus, 535 miles. Eeckoning the mile at 
 
 8 stades, as men usually do, this would be 4,280 stades. 
 " But if, like Polybius, you add to the eight stades two plethra, 
 " the third of a stade, the number will be increased by 178, 
 " being a third of the number of miles." 
 
 Here Strabo has been thought to impute to Polybius that, 
 in opposition to the rest of the world, he reckoned the mile 
 as equal to 8 J stades. In D'Anville's Traits des mesures 
 Itin^raires, p. i)4, he says this : — " Quand on lit dans Strabon 
 
 (( 
 
 i€ 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 His Stade and Distances, 
 
 49 
 
 " que selon la comparaison que faisait Polybe de Tintervalle 
 " des colonnes milliaires a des stades sur cette voie, il comp- 
 " toit 8 stades et un tiers pour un mille, il ne s'ensuit pas 
 " qu'on soit dans Tobligation de prolonger le mille d'un tiers 
 " de stade, pour suffire en rigueur k cette evaluation ; et il 
 '' n'y faut voir qu'une meprise, qui pent proceder de la pro- 
 " portion du pied Grec au pied Eomain, comme 25 est k 24." 
 Whatever brought Strabo to make the allusion to Polybius, 
 it was probably caused by a confusion between the Greek 
 and Eoman foot. The stade is a Greek measure, consistinc^ 
 of 600 Greek feet : the mile is a Eoman measure, consisting 
 of 5,000 Eoman feet— that is to say, 1,000 steps of five Eoman 
 feet : thus, 5,000 Eoman feet being a mile, the eighth is 625. 
 And, if a man should imagine such a thing as a stade of 600 
 Eoman feet, and make his mile with eight of such false stades, 
 one should say to him, " If you employ a stade like that, you 
 must take not 8, but 8J of them to make a mile." The 
 blunder would require that correction : but Strabo's words 
 intimate that Polybius, in his own estimation of a Eoman 
 mile, added to eight stades the SiTrXeOpov, which is the third 
 of the Greek measure. Now there is nothing in the works 
 of Polybius, or any other author, where such an idea is to be 
 traced : and one may prefer the /card arahlov^; oktw of Poly- 
 bius himself to the «? UoXv^lo^; of Strabo. 
 
 Strabo does not introduce this observation as appropriate 
 to the matter that he is speaking of in the seventh book, 
 namely, the length of the Egnatian way : it would equally 
 have suited any other assertion of milliary distance in any 
 part of his works ; nothing shows why it has come in here. 
 Macedonia may have been the first conquered state in which 
 the Eoman mile was employed, and indicated by columns ; 
 and, if any such blunder as a Eoman stade had occurred, 
 which does not appear, Polybius was a likely man to notice 
 it. But a greater improbability was never suggested than 
 
 VOL. T. 
 
 £ 
 
50 
 
 AiUhority of Polyhins, 
 
 [part it. 
 
 that he himself made the mile 200 Greek feet longer than 
 the rest of the world ; he had the best opportunity of under- 
 standing both Greek and Koman weights and measures ; and, 
 if such a man, one so much referred to by those who came 
 after him, had so estimated a measure which he has to men- 
 tion in almost every page that he writes, this one oblique 
 reference to it in Strabo's seventh book would not be the 
 only clue. If the fact were true, Strabo would have disclosed 
 the notion in a less questionable manner. But the notion is 
 supported by nothing, either in Strabo or any other author : 
 it is contradicted by Livy when he translates the stades of 
 Polybius into miles, as in the case of Hanno's march up the 
 Ehone, 200 st. = 25 m. p. ; it is contradicted by Polybius 
 himself. When he says in a parenthesis, iii. 39, that the 
 Eomans marked their distances along the Iberian coast at 
 intervals of eight stadia, do we not see that the intervals 
 were Eoman miles ? 
 
 M. Gossellin does not admit this notion of Polybius, though 
 reported by himself, but twists it into another shape by the 
 aid of Strabo. Noticing the Polybian intervals of 8 stadia, 
 between '*les pierres milliaires que mesuroient et ornoient les 
 voies Eomain(Bs," he had said reasonably, " D'apr^s ce passage 
 " il paroitroit que Polybe auroit reconnu que le mille Eomain 
 *' valoit huit stades juste." — Eecherches, ii. p, 6. But in the 
 next page he turns away from those appearances, and sub- 
 mitting hims(3lf to " le t^moignage positif d'un auteur aussi 
 grave que Stiabon," clings to the 8^ with a permanent devo- 
 tion. All his calculations are made on that footing. 
 
 Dr. Ukert, in his elaborate disquisition on ancient measures 
 of length, which occupies twenty-six pages in the second part 
 of his first volume published in 1816, and in w^hich he com. 
 bats M. Gossellin's doctrines on the stade, notices the addition 
 of two plethra to eight stadia which Strabo is said to impute 
 to Polybius : and then says, ** In tlie writings of Polybius 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 His Stade and Difitances. 
 
 51 
 
 " wliich remain to us, we find him to report the relation of 
 " the stade to the mile, the same as others." However, in the 
 volume published in 1832, p. 578, this learned man, taking 
 part in the Hannibal controversy, condemns the passage in 
 Polybius as spurious, and asserts him to reckon 8^ stadia to 
 the mile. He might as well have saved his consistency. It 
 will appear in a future chapter (Part iii. ch. 3), that he shifted 
 into error on this point without any adequate temptation. 
 He is treating " Eoman measurements in Gaul and Spain." 
 
 And now a few words on the distances of Polybius, No 
 one will claim for his measurements that they are minutely 
 accurate : for they are commonly expressed in round hundreds 
 of stades ; and it would be idle to suppose that the length of 
 each space had amounted to a precise multiple of an hundred. 
 Others wrote in the same way. Strabo cites the opinions of 
 his predecessors in hundreds of stades : and in the Eoman 
 Itineraries every space is given in entire miles, the mile being 
 5,000 Eoman feet : no fractions are ever mentioned. 
 
 But, while precision is disclaimed, reasonable accuracy is 
 fairly to be supposed in Polybius. The rudeness of science 
 made calculations of space across the ocean a matter of much 
 difficulty: there was not the same difficulty in a measure- 
 ment from Eome to Milan, or from Nimes to Valence. In 
 the spaces that we must deal with, we have to trust to Poly- 
 bius alone : they had not been registered from prior investiga- 
 tion ; he is responsible ; and the truthful intention, which is 
 conceded to him by all, gives a presumption of accuracy 
 where error is not apparent. The importance of his distances 
 is peculiar, for the usefulness of his evidence depends upon 
 them. The struggle, as we proceed from point to point, is to 
 identify his termini : when he describes a portion of the line 
 of march from an ascertained point, the disputation is, whether 
 it should end at this or that place ; accordingly, the length 
 which he gives to the interval is a criterion towards de- 
 
 £2 
 
52 
 
 A uthority of Polyhius. 
 
 [PAJIT 11. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 His Stade and Distances, 
 
 53 
 
 termining what that place was, and the trustworthiness of 
 such a narrator becomes more than usually important, as there 
 are not the conclusive means of checking his accuracy. 
 
 A country travelled, is ordinarily shown by naming in 
 succession the places through which a traveller has passed. 
 Such is not the index to Hannibars route through Gaul and 
 the Alps : we find our way by description of regions traversed, 
 with allegation of time and space. In telling the story of the 
 invasion, thijre is a point in the progress where Polybius lays 
 aside the usual notices, the names of places and peoples. 
 While the march was yet in Spain, the names of nations who 
 resisted the Carthaginians have been freely told : Hannibal 
 subdued in succession the Ilergetes, the Bargusii, the ^renosii, 
 the Androsini The country spoken of had long been the seat 
 of war, and, in naming the nations, he gave an intelligible 
 clothing to his ideas : all readers might know the points of 
 distance from Carthagena to the Ebro, and from the Ebro to 
 Emporium. But from the Pyrenees to the plain of Italy he 
 was employed on a line of movement which, when he wrote, 
 was untrodden by the armies of Eome from one extremity to 
 the other. Scipio had advanced a little way from the eastern 
 mouth of the Ehone, and visited the site of the Carthaginian 
 encampment ; but he returned to his ships, not having 
 trodden on(i stadium of Hannibal's route. 
 
 Polybius felt the risk of error which there would be in 
 attempting here the usual memorials of a track ; and sought 
 a safer method of instruction. In that whole course, from 
 the Pyrenees to the plain of Italy, we do not find one name 
 of place : to the time when the invaders are actually descend- 
 ing into th(} plain, one people only has been named, and one 
 river besid(»s the Ehone. Of the march from the Pyrenees to 
 the Ehone it was enough to say, that they performed it, 
 having the sea on their right hand ; and the point where they 
 first touched the Ehone, is to be perceived only by its distance 
 
 from natural objects, the sea below it, and a confluent river, 
 the Is^re, above it. In the onward march along the Ehone 
 from that confluence to and through the Alps, we are helped 
 by no names save that of the people called Allobroges : no 
 further name assists us to understand the tale of events, till 
 we come to the Insubres of the plain : the instruction is by 
 local character, with circumstances of opposition and diffi- 
 culty, and allotment of time and space to operations per- 
 formed. The incidents of each day are thus offered to our 
 attention ; and, by such notification of things without names, 
 the historian hoped to show the course of the invasion in a 
 way that should be recognised in after times. 
 
 A plain assurance of this is given in the author's own 
 words. When Hannibal is on the eve of forcing the passes 
 of the Pyrenees, (iii. 36,) Polybius writes as follows—" But 
 " that my narrative carrying you through unknown countries 
 *' may not be altogether obscure, I must state from whence 
 " Hannibal set out, what and how great regions he traversed, 
 " and into what parts of Italy he arrived. I am not going to 
 " set forth the proper names of districts, and rivers, and cities ; 
 " which some writers do, supposing this part of the business 
 " to be all-sufficient for making things intelligible and clear. 
 " I allow that the citation of names in known countries very 
 greatly contributes to cause a recognition of the objects : 
 but in countries utterly unknown, a detail of names has 
 but the effect of words that give sound without sense : for 
 " so long as the mind has nothing to lay hold of, and cannot 
 apply the words to any known ideas, the narrative is with- 
 *' out order and without point. Wherefore a way is to be 
 " shown by which, though speaking of unknown things, it is 
 " practicable to bring one's hearers in some measure to con- 
 " ceptions that have truth and knowledge. The first and 
 " main thing to know, and which all men may know, is the 
 " division and arrangement of the firmament which surrounds 
 
 (( 
 
 t( 
 
 tt 
 
 t< 
 
 k. 
 
54 
 
 Authority of Polyhitis. 
 
 [part 11. 
 
 " us ; by tlu? perception of which all of us, tliat is all in 
 " whom there is usefulness, comprehend East, West, South, 
 " and North. Next is that knowledge by which, apportioning 
 " the several regions of the earth according to those distinc- 
 " tions, and always in our minds applying what we hear to 
 " those distinctions, we come to have clear and familiar 
 " notions about places unknown to us, and unseen."' 
 
 Explanations follow touching the great divisions of the 
 earth, and the greater or less acquaintance which had been 
 arrived at with the several parts of the world : the discussion 
 ends thus — '* For, as we are used, for the purpose of seeing, 
 " to bend our faces towards an object pointed out by the 
 ** finger ; so must we, for the purpose of understanding, make 
 " the effort to bend our thoughts to places that are from time 
 " to time pointed out by the story told." 
 
 Tlie obser^^ations from which these extracts are given, are 
 made in peculiar application to that small portion of the 
 earth's surface w^hicli is the theatre of this controversy. Tlie 
 tale, which for good reasons is weak in names, assumes an 
 increased sti.-ength in its other features : for these I claim 
 attention, because they are so characterized as important by 
 the special announcement of this admirable historian. 
 
 THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 PART III, 
 
 POLYBIUS INTERPRETED. PASSAGE OF THE 
 
 RHONE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introduction, Division of the March, Three points to he 
 fixed : the Passage of the Rhone ; the leginning of Alps ; 
 the exit into the Plain. 
 
 Saguntum fell during the winter of 219 B.C. Tliereupon 
 the Romans sent an embassy to Carthage, demanding the 
 surrender of Hannibal and other chiefs, with war as the alter- 
 native. We may collect from Polybius, that the Consul had 
 completed his successes in Illyria and returned to Rome 
 before the siege of Saguntum was brought to a conclusion. 
 The Romans had despatched ^Emilius with his army to Illyria 
 at the opening of the season ; and Hannibal marched from 
 Carthagena against Saguntum about the same time. His 
 designs were fully understood by the Eomans ; but it does 
 not appear that they knew his operations to have been com- 
 menced when the lUyrian expedition was sent out. We read, 
 c. 20, that ^milius returned and entered Eome in triumph 
 on the close of the summer, XTjyovarj^; rjBi] rrjf; Oepelaf;. Now 
 the siege of Saguntum lasted eight months : so that, before 
 the fall of that place, the winter may have been far advanced. 
 
56 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 After the news of this event was received, the embassy was 
 sent to Carthage; and Hannibal was then in his winter 
 quarters. 
 
 The Carthaginian senate having accepted the declaration 
 of war, Hannibal, being at Carthagena, immediately gave 
 leave to his Spanish soldiers to go home for the remainder 
 of the winter: he framed regulations, for the administration 
 of affairs in Spsin during his absence by his brother Asdru- 
 bal : and with a view to the security of his own country, and 
 to produce a mutual confidence, he transferred a large body 
 of Spanish troops into Africa, bringing in their place African 
 troops into Spain. He had taken great pains to inform him- 
 self on the nature of the country of the Gauls, of their popu- 
 lation, and character, and especially on their feelings towards 
 the Romans; knowing that his hopes of success must rest 
 mainly on their co-operation. In this view he had made com- 
 munication to the Celtic chieftains, both those of Italy and 
 those in the Alps themselves; and was now anxiously expect- 
 ing emissaries from them. At length the desired intelligence 
 was brought : it was in all points favourable ; and towards 
 the spring Hannibal drew his troops together from their 
 winter quarters ; he had also received the last news from 
 Carthage. Elated and confident, he announced to the army 
 his resolution to invade Italy, and named a day for marchin<. 
 from Carthagena. ° 
 
 Having made aU his arrangements during winter quarters 
 on the appointed day he led forward about ninety thousand 
 infantry and about twelve thousand cavaliy : he passed the 
 Ebro, and, after great resistance of the nations whom he had 
 now to bring into subjection, and great loss of men he 
 reached the Pyrenees. Here the heavy baggage was 'laid 
 aside : he left a sufficient force from his own army to keep 
 the newly-conquered peoples in subjection ; and, as a matter 
 of poUcy, freely discharged an equal number of his Iberian 
 
 1 
 
 i i 
 
 CHAP. I.] Three Chief Points in the March. 57 
 
 troops. Taking with him the rest of his army, fifty thousand 
 foot and nine thousand horse, lightly equipped, he led them 
 forward in march through the Pyrenees for the passage of 
 the Rhone. 
 
 At this stage of the naiTative the historian digresses into 
 conmients (c. 36, 37, 38,) which contain very sound advice 
 to the compilers and the readers of history, from which I 
 have already exhibited extracts. The narrative is resumed 
 with the 39th chapter, and the text wHl thence be given in 
 translation,* till the invaders reach the plain of Italy in 
 ch. 61, where the Eoman and Carthaginian leaders will be 
 seen mutually advancing in the valley of the Po, each con- 
 scious of and wondering at the presence of the other. 
 
 The thirty-ninth chapter claims especial notice, and should 
 be always under attention during our consideration of the 
 subject. The line of march, from Carthagena to the Italian 
 plain, is broken into five parts : the termini being Carthagena, 
 the Ebro, Emporium, the passage of the Rhone, the begin'king 
 of Alps, the end of Alps. The last three are the peculiar 
 subjects o£ question in this controversy. 
 
 1. Where was the passage of the Rhone? 
 
 2. Where was the first ascent of Alps ? 
 
 3. Where did the invaders escape from the Alps and touch 
 the plain ? 
 
 Tliis line of march being our subject throughout, it may be 
 set forth in the author's own words, according to the edition 
 of Schweighseuser. 
 
 Having said that the fcaivrj vroXt?, whence Hannibal began 
 his march to Italy, is distant 3,000 stadia from the Pillars of 
 Hercules, he states the five sections of the march thus 
 
 1. d7r6 Bk ra^TTj^ elalv iirl fih rhv "l^rjpa irorafibv, kl^aKOGio, 
 
 * See Appendix. 
 
58 
 
 Polyhius interpretecl. 
 
 [PAKT III. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 The Rlwihc at Roqminaure. 
 
 59 
 
 2. diro he tovtov ttoXlv eh ^E^Tropeiov, j(^lKloi avv €^afcoaLO(.<;, 
 
 3. KOL fJbrjv evrevdev eVl ttjv tov 'PoSavoO Bid^aaiv nrepi ')(Lkiov<i 
 
 e^aKoalov^ {ravra yap vvv ^€^r)/jidTtaTai,Kal o-earj/JLeicorat 
 Kara a-rdBiov; okto) Sid 'Vcofjualayv eVz/^eXft)?). 
 
 4. diro Se T^9 h^,a^dae(d<i TOv'VoBavov,7ropevofievoL^ Trap avTov 
 
 TOV irorafiov ©9 eiri tcl^; TTrjyas €0)9 7rpo9 Trjv dva^oXrjv 
 Twv "AXTTeoiv Trjv 619 'ixaX/av. '^(^lXlol TeTpaKoaiot. 
 
 5. XoLirai he ai twv ^Xireayv virep^oXal, irepl ')(^lXIov^ hiaKO- 
 
 alovi* a9 vwep^dXX(OV efieXXev rf^eiv eh Ta wepl tov TldZov 
 irehCa t»)9 'lTa\/a9. 
 
 The words in parenthesis have been objected to by Dr. 
 Ukert, not, that I am aware of, by other writers. There is 
 good ground of objection ; and he has proposed a remedy. 
 I shall propose a different one, which I hope will be deemed 
 preferable. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Passage of the Rhone near Roquemaure indicated by the distance 
 from the Sea ; hy the distance from the Island ; by the single 
 Stream. 
 
 An inquirer into the subject will propose to himself this 
 question : — " Did Hannibal, coming from the region of Nimes, 
 " proceed to cross the Rhone, above or below the confluence of 
 *' the Durance V* At whatever part the passage should be 
 effected, a good stretch of river, unbroken by islands, was to 
 be desired. A flotilla qualified to transport so large an 
 armament demanded a considerable extent of shore to arrive 
 at. In so broad and rapid a current, miicli distance would 
 be lost in crossing, each boat reaching the opposite bank 
 
 II 
 
 nmch below the point which it had parted from : so that a 
 great stretch of unembarrassed stream, not often found in the 
 lower Rhone, was to be looked for. This idea is expressed by 
 Polybius, in the words KaTa ttjv aTrXrjv pvaiv. 
 
 On observation of the river, and the country about it, all 
 will believe that the passage was effected, either at tlie 
 nearest convenient part above the influx of the Durance, or 
 at some convenient part below that point. Those who lean 
 to the former opinion have usually fixed upon a part of the 
 river between the villages of Roquemaure and Montfaucon, 
 being about five miles from the town of Orange. The few 
 who place the crossing below the Durance have fixed upon 
 the stream at, or just above Beaucaire, in Languedoc, the 
 ancient Ugernum, being opposite to Tarascon, a well-known 
 place in Provence. To decide between these, we look for 
 evidence in the history. As Dr. Ukert has taken pains to 
 prove a crossing near Tarascon, and has received no answer, 
 the question must be sifted. 
 
 Two data guide us to the Passage near Roquemaure, 
 
 Polybius has made statements which serve the purpose of 
 giving to his readers a fair apprehension of the place : 1, that 
 Hannibal undertook this operation, where he was not quite 
 four days' march, or journey, from the sea : 2, that from that 
 place he reached the district called the Island, by a march of 
 four successive days. We have thus a double clue to find the 
 I)lace : its relation to a point lower down the stream, and its 
 relation to a point higher up the stream ; nearly four days' 
 march from the sea, and four days' march to the Island. 
 
 The entire distance from the Isere down the Rhone to the 
 sea may be exhibited in these successive measurements : to the 
 reach between Roquemaure and Montfaucon, about 75 Roman 
 miles ; thence to Tarascon and Beaucaire, about 29 miles : 
 thence to the eastern, or Massiliotic mouth of the Rliune about 
 
60 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [PAKT III. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 The Rhone at Roqitemaure. 
 
 61 
 
 36 miles — total 140. If we recognise, as the place of crossing, 
 the parts near Montfaucon, we assign about 75 miles to the four 
 days' march of Hannibal, and about 65 to the nearly four days* 
 journey below. If we make the passage at Beaucaire and 
 Tarascon, we give about 104 miles to the four days' march, 
 and about 36 to the nearly four days' journey. Whether the 
 distances are apprehended through ancient authorities or 
 modern, this must be admitted : that, if 140 miles of Khone 
 are to be divided into two portions, of about four days' work 
 each, it is more probable that the higher portion should be 
 to the lower as 75 to 65, than as 104 to 36. For the distances 
 themselves, I will refer to the labours of those who have pre- 
 ceded me in the inquiry. 
 
 Distance of the Passage from the Sea. 
 
 If we seek ancient authority for showing the distance from 
 the sea to the pai-t where Hannibal crossed the Rhone, the 
 nearest point on the coast that offers itself in any known writ- 
 ings seems to be a place denoted Fossse Marianae, the Canal of 
 Marius, probably at the sea mouth of the canal. This place 
 is one of the stations in the Via Aurelia, stated there as at 
 48 miles from Maxseille. D'Anville (notice de Gaule) looks 
 upon Foz as the place named Fossa? Marianae in the iSneraries, 
 where we find it to be 33 miles to Aries, and thence 27, 
 through Avignon to Sorgues (Cypresseta) ; beyond which you 
 come in 6|- miles to the part vis-^-vis to Eoquemaure, 
 according to De l^uc ; making that place 66^- from Fossse 
 Marianae. 
 
 By modern measurements, the distance appears much the 
 same. M. De Luc states the lengths of which it is composed, 
 as measured now on the Great Map of France, thus—" Depuis 
 " I'embouchure orientale du Rhone jusqu' h Aries, 26 milles 
 " romains; Tarascon, 10; Avignon, 15; Sorgues, 7 ; vis-a-vis 
 
 y 
 
 " de Eoquemaure, 6^ = 64^ miles." But he conceives that the 
 ancient mouth was to the east of the present mouth, and not 
 carried so far to the sea ; he also points to the village of Foz 
 as on the ancient limit of the land against the sea ; the river 
 stream being now compressed by the atterrissemens which 
 Nature has formed in 2,000 years. 
 
 M. Laranza, adopting Foz as a probable terminus from 
 which to estimate a four days' journey, gives the route in 
 toises, varying little from M. De Luc's estimate, considering 
 that he measures to rather a higher point ; his statement 
 is: "To Aries, 19,000 toises ; to Tarascon, 7,500 ; to Avignon, 
 " 11,500 ; to Sorgues, 5,000 ; to Montfaucon, sur la rive qui 
 " est en face, 6,400 = 49,400 toises = 65^ milles." 
 
 Some have suggested that, in ancient times, a distance 
 from the sea at the Rhone's mouth was greater than now : this 
 shall be noticed presently. In the meantime, I will consider 
 that the distance from the sea to the part where we conceive 
 the army to have crossed the Rhone, namely, between Roque- 
 maure and Montfaucon, was about 65 miles. 
 
 Distance of the Passage from the Island, 
 
 This distance is still less open to question than the other. 
 All but a short space at either extremity is exhibited in the 
 ancient registers. The six stages from Orange to Valence 
 appear in the Jerusalem Itinerary as 66 miles = 49,896 toises. 
 Laranza adds, from the Passage to Orange, 3,600 ; and from 
 Valence to the Isere, 3,800 ; making the whole distance from 
 the Passage of the Rhone to the island, 57,296 toises, which 
 is 75| miles, or 606 stadia. De Luc computes the two spaces 
 at the extremities so as to bring out a precise 75 miles, or 
 600 stadia. Both these writers, who are quite hostile to 
 each other in most points of our subjects, try other tests for 
 the length of the line in question : one referring to an old 
 
02 
 
 Polyhins interpreted. 
 
 (part III. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 The Rhone at Roqnemanre. 
 
 G3 
 
 livre de Poste used before the new metrical system was in 
 force : the other, measuring on the Great Map of France 
 according to the scale. The result is, that they bring it so 
 near to the 75 Roman miles, that they concur in deeming 
 the space to be 600 stadia, and to be part of the 1,400 of 
 Polybius. 
 
 While we contend for a place of crossing the Rhone which 
 is 75 miles =600 stadia below the influx of the Isere, it is 
 plain that Polybius would have recognized the same interval ; 
 for, though he do(;s not assert it, it necessarily results from 
 distances which he does assert. He states that it is 1,400 
 stadia from the passage of the Rhone to the beginning of 
 Alps. When he has brought Hannibal to the Island, there is 
 a pause in the narrative of progress while certain incidents 
 are told. When the tale of progress is resumed, Hannibal 
 marches 800 stadia to the beginning of Alps. Thus the prior 
 portion had required 600. 
 
 Critics the most hostile to our theory, whatever sites they 
 have conceived, either for the Bcdfiaai^; or the ava^oXrj, have, 
 with two exceptions, agreed in accepting 600 stadia as the 
 length of the first four days' march from one to the other : 
 and all agree that this was the distance from Roquemaure to 
 the Island. 
 
 Mr. Whitaker, boldly pronouncing the Island to be the 
 ground on which the city of Lyons stands, says this (p. 8) : 
 " Polybius states the place of Hannibal's passage over the 
 " Rhone to be seventy-five miles below Lyons :" and, in a 
 note, he says, " Polybius, iii. 39, tells us that Hannibal's 
 " march, from his crossing the Rhone to his mounting the 
 " Alps, measured 1,400 stadia ; and in iii. 50, tells us addi- 
 " tionally that, of this distance, 800 stadia, or 100 miles, was 
 *' the length from Lyons to the Alps !" 
 
 M. Letronne says : — " Polybe compte quatorze cents stades 
 " depuis le passage du Rhone jusqu' h la montee des Alpes : 
 
 u 
 
 it 
 
 
 '^ il dit qu* Annibal a parcourir huit cents stados depuis I'ite 
 
 dont il s'agit et la montee des Alpes : c'est done six cents 
 
 stades depuis le passage jusqu' a la riviere, ou 75 milles 
 " Remains." — Journal des Savans, Janv. 1819, 26-7. 
 
 M. Laranza says :— " Nous voyoni dans Polybe lui-meme 
 " qu'il compte quatre jours de marche pour les 600 stades, ou 
 " 75 milles, qu'il fait parcourir a Annibal depuis le passage 
 " du Rhone jusqu' a I'lle." 
 
 General St. Cyr Nugues, expounding Polybius, says : — " La 
 " distance du point de passage du Rhone a celui ou I'armde 
 " s'arreta le quatrieme jour, etoit de 600 stades, 75 milles 
 *' Romains." — Notice, p. 33. 
 
 So M. Baude de Lavalette, Recherches, "Polybe fixe k 
 " 600 stades la distance parcourir dans ces quatre jours de 
 " marche." 
 
 Even Dr. Ukert, though his crossing is at Tarascon, has a 
 sentence which bears testimony to the same truth : — " Poly- 
 " bins spater erklart, von dem Uebergangesorte bis zur Insel 
 " batten die Karthager, in vier Tagemarschen, 600 Stadien 
 " zuriickgelegt." — " Polybius afterwards says, that from the 
 " place of crossing, to the Island, the Carthaginians had 
 " traversed 600 stadia in four days' march."— Geographic, iii 
 580 and 585. 
 
 My friend, H. L. Long, also a Tarasconian, acquiesces in 
 this fact of distance, saying,— " The absolute distance of 
 
 75 M.p. measured from the Isere downwards, must always 
 
 terminate at Roquemaure." — P. 21. 
 
 Though no one has controverted the fact, that the distance 
 of our Sm^ao-£9, from the Island is 600 stadia, two seem to 
 doubt the importance of the fact ; one of whom thinks that 
 Hannibal moved much slower, and the other that he moved 
 much faster. M. le Comte de Portia d' Urban does not allow 
 Hannibal to bend his steps towards the Island at all, and 
 thinks that, having crossed the Rhone, he proceeded very 
 
 (( 
 
 t< 
 
64 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [PAIIT III. 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Tarascon Theory. Ukert. 
 
 slowly, from knowing that the Eomans were trying to over- 
 take him. H. Long, on the contrary, thinks that Hannibal 
 marched, not 600 only, but 800 stadia in those four days ; 
 and says, p. 52 : — " Twenty-five miles per day is in perfect 
 " accordance with the usual pace of Hannibal, who fell like a 
 " thunderbolt upon Italy."— P. 32. 
 
 Tims a Polybian measurement assented to by all, fixes the 
 hid^aat^ for wli ich we contend, at 75 miles below the Iske ; 
 being, as already shown, about 65 miles from the sea. One 
 distance satisfies the notion of " nearly four days* journey : " 
 the other distance satisfies the notion of "four days' march :" 
 these are the indicia of distance expressed by the historian. 
 Tarascon, the other place proposed, is hardly ten miles above 
 Aries : too near to the sea for a short ten days' journey ; and 
 too far from the Isere for a four days' march. 
 
 The single Streain, 
 
 Another circumstance in favour of the passage between 
 Ptoquemaure and Montfaucon is that the stream is here suitable 
 to the transportation of an army. M. De Luc says, p. 54 : — 
 " Entre ces deux villages (Montfaucon et TArdoise) et Eoque- 
 maure, il y a un espace de 1,800 toises, ou le Rhone n'a point 
 d'iles, et ou il n'a que 250 a 300 toises de largeur." General 
 Vaudoncourt's map, which is on a large scale, corresponds 
 with that assertion. In the Oxford DissertatioQ it is said, 
 P- 42 : — " The Ehone flows uninterrupted by islands from 
 " Caderousse (the large island above Montfaucon) to Roque- 
 " maure, a distance of nearly a league ; and, with the excep- 
 " tion of a similar stream imm-ediately below the island at 
 Eoquemaure, though for a much shorter distance, this cir- 
 cumstance doe^s not occur for many miles up or down the 
 
 ({ 
 
 « 
 
 <( 
 
 tt 
 
 " river." 
 
 65 
 
 mous on the perfect absence of islands in this part of the 
 
 Ehone. But the following corroborating statement is made 
 
 by one who is likely to have ascertained safely what he 
 
 relates. M. Baud^ de Lavalette, p. 41 :— - ^inspection des 
 
 " lieux entre Avignon et le Pont St. Esprit donne k ce 
 
 ' rdsultant un nouveau degr^ de prc'cision. Le cours du 
 
 ' Ehone se montre, dans cet intervalle, embarrass^ par une 
 
 ' foule d'iles qui le forceut k se deviser en plusieurs bras 
 
 ' tortueux, entrelac^s de la manike la plus bizarre. On y 
 
 '' remarque huit iles principales indiquees dans les anciennes 
 
 ' cartes par les noms de I'Oiselet, le Chateau de Lers, le 
 
 ' Queironette, Piboulette, la Berre, Cadanet, I'Agace et 
 
 ' Crompa. Le fleuve egare dans ce labyrinthe d'iles ne put 
 
 ' etre traverse ni au-dessus du territoire de Montfaucon, ni 
 
 au-dessous de Eoquemaure : on ne le trouve reuni en %m 
 
 seul courant^ d'une etendue suffisante, qu'entre ces deux 
 
 villages. La, il coule tout entier dans un lit de 245 a 250 
 
 toises de largeur sur un longueur de 1800 toises. C'est done 
 
 aux environs de Montfaucon que furent lancets les bateaux 
 
 et les radeaux dont Annibal fit usage : entrainc^s par le 
 
 courant, ils durent aborder 800 ou 900 toises plus bas sur 
 
 la rive opposee." 
 
 I do not know that all writers and map-makers are unani- 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 Theory of Tarascon. Argument of Dr. Ukert. Distance from 
 the Sea. Distance from the Island. Roman measurements 
 m Gaul and Spain. Roads in Gaul. Policy of Hannilal 
 Vessels used in the Crossing. March of Scipio. 
 
 As Tarascon on the left bank still bears its ancient name 
 while Ugernum on the right bank has become Beaucairc let 
 the former place entitle this theory. I know only of three 
 
 VOL. I. V 
 
 / 
 
G6 
 
 PolyhivyS interjected. 
 
 [part hi. 
 
 who subscribe to it : the anonymous of Cambridge, 1830 ; 
 Br. Ukert ; and Mr. Henry Long. The first draws the red 
 line of march in his map through Tarascon ; and gives a 
 reason, which he probably thinks to be enough. In p. 35, he 
 says, " From Nimes the Eoman road branched off in two 
 " directions, one to Aries, the other to Tarascon : and by one 
 " of these, according to Polybius, the Carthaginian continued 
 - his march to the Ehone." Again, p. 45, " Polybius describes 
 *• Hannibal as arriving by a Eoman road at the banks of the 
 " Ehone." Man}^ besides this critic, have written to the same 
 effect : but they have writen in error : Polybius never said so : 
 he had no more experience of Eoman roads in Languedoc than 
 Hannibal himself : there were none in his day. The learned 
 Ukert is exempt from that delusion : but, as he has laboured 
 much in favour of Tarascon, he claims our serious attention. 
 
 On the didance of Tarascon from the Sea. 
 
 This much commended geographer pronounces the place of 
 crossing thus :-^' When Polybius says that Hannibal crossed 
 " fcaTa TTJv dwX^v pvcnv, this was certainly north of the island 
 " which lies opposite to Beaucaire : and Hanno might choose 
 " a place noith of Aramon.'^ He then takes great pains, but 
 in a mysterious manner, to induce his readers to the notion, 
 that this part just above Beaucaire and Tarascon was, in 
 Hannibal's time, at such a distance from the sea, as to amount 
 to " nearly four days' journey," which he represents as import- 
 ing a distance oi* 600 stadia for an army, and more for a 
 traveller. 
 
 Avoiding all direct assertion of the distance of Tarascon 
 from any other point. Dr. Ukert first contrives a proof that 
 the distance from the Durance to the mouth of the Ehone is 
 from 700 to 800 stadia : and then he pronounces that Tarascon 
 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 t( 
 
 u 
 
 CHAP. III.] Tarascon Thevry. Ukert. 57 
 
 being lower down, might be about four days' journey from the 
 
 T!u r.?'' P'""^ "^ *^^ '^^^ °' ^^^ '' ^y taking the length 
 of the Ehone from Lyons to the mouth, and deducting the 
 distance from Lyons to the Durance. 
 
 He exhibits the difficulty, and prepares us for the process 
 thus :-" We must not think here of exact measurements A 
 map dmvn by Polybius would no doubt give us quite a 
 (Mferent picture of the country from that which our own 
 " maps give ; especiaUy as the whole nature of the country 
 ^ shows us, that south of the Druentia there was formerly 
 much more water than at present : and, as the mouths of 
 the Ehone have experienced many changes, we cannot 
 ^ declare with certainty where the Eoman Consul landed 
 ^^ nor what road it was necessary to take at that time, which 
 ^^ was counted equal to a four days' journey. Our maps alone 
 cannot enable us to amve at any conclusion. 
 " Let us therefore seek for information among the ancients. 
 _^ Strabo^ says, lib. iv. p. I93 :_" „Vi AovyBovrov ^i^, roO 
 ^^ ^VKovavaxCkuov^ra^i^^iarlv iXarrov U ^ Bc^Xdacov rov- 
 
 rov TO atrb r<Su elaffo^, rov 'PoBdvov ^.i^pv Aov^hovvov* 
 ^^ If we attend to this, and at the same time compare with 
 It some other notices from Strabo, lib. iv. p. 185-6 : from 
 the Druentia to the Isere, 700 stadia-to Vienne 320-to 
 Lugdunum 200 = 1220 stadia, we find that the distance 
 from the mouths of the Ehone to the Druentia,. is from 700 
 to 800 stadia ; and the place accepted by us, as that where 
 ^^ the Ehone was crossed, Polybius might justly call about 
 ^four days journey from the sea."-Ukert's Geogi.. ii.2d part, 
 
 * Tramlated. It is 1000 stadia from Lyons to the Seine • and 
 
 inih^^\ ' /! o ^^^^^J"iel up the Saoiie and acioss 
 
 to ine 7r\€ofi€vov of the Seine. 
 
 r 2 
 
 t( 
 
 t( 
 
 u 
 
 <i 
 
 l< 
 
68 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 The calculation is this : — From Lyons to the Ehone's 
 mouth is less than 2,000 stadia ; from Lyons to the Durance 
 is 1,220 stadia. Take 1,220 from less than 2,000 : and less 
 than 780 remains for the length of the Ehone from the 
 Durance to the mouth. 
 
 Now the subject which Dr. XJkert takes in hand is a 
 certain distance down the Ehone to the mouth ; i.e. from the 
 confluence of the Durance. He quotes Strabo for the total 
 length of the Ehone from a higher point of the river, Lyons. 
 Tlien, by way of showing the length below the confluence, he 
 professes to deduc;t the length above the confluence from the 
 total. But he does not do this : the length which he deducts 
 is not a part of the total from which he deducts it : it is for 
 the most part not along the Ehone. The 1,220 stadia which 
 figure in his demonstration are borrowed from a line of dis- 
 tances drawn across country from Marseille through Cavaillon ; 
 and in which line the subject of his proof, Tarascon, would be 
 looked for in vain. 
 
 Tliis much-commended geographer lias not looked atten- 
 tively at his materials. He might have applied them for 
 showing what he aims at. In the very passages from which 
 he derives three distances of Strabo, there is something more 
 to the purpose than " less than the double of a thousand." 
 
 When Dr. Ukert's argument seems to be carrying the 
 reader along the Pwhone to the sea, he is in fact tmvelling in 
 a cross-country road to Marseille ; and, as he did stray into 
 that line, he might have profited by it. Strabo, besides 
 reporting the thrcie distances which Dr. Ukert has extracted 
 as making 1,220 from Lyons to the Durance (which they do to 
 Cavaillon on the Durance), completes that line to the sea at 
 Marseille ; making the whole 1,720 from Lyons. 
 
 Before Strabo gives that 1,220 stadia, which he reckons 
 from Cavaillon to Lyons, he gives 500 stadia from Marseille 
 to Cavaillon. Tlie whole matter upon these distances is as 
 
 • 
 
 \ 
 
 CHAP. III.] Tarascon Theory. Ukert. 69 
 
 follows .— " If you .start from Marseille, and proceed to the 
 •' country between the Alps and the Rhone, the Salyes inhabit 
 
 " It as far as the river Durance, for 500 stadia 
 
 " And if you cross the ferry to CavaUlon, all 
 " belongs to the Cavari, as far as the junction of 
 " the Is^re with the Ehone :— 
 
 "To that point from tlie Durance is a dis- 
 " tance of -qq 
 
 Afterwards we read — 
 
 " From the Isire to Vienue 320 
 
 " From Vienne to Lyons by land 2OO 
 
 By water a little more. * 
 
 1,720 stadia. 
 Perhaps Dr. Ukert may apprehend the confluence of the 
 Rhone and the Durance to be here spoken of. But it is not 
 so : that confluence is never spoken of; and the idea of it is 
 excluded by the traveUer being instructed to cross by the 
 ferry at Cavaillon. Whatever may be the excuse, this matter 
 of Strabo throws more light on the distance from Lyons to 
 the Ehone's mouth than " less than the double of a thousand " 
 Herepoits 1,720 stadia from Lyons to MarseUle.and therefore 
 must have apprehended less than 1,720 to the mouth of the 
 Ehone; for we know that he attributed t« MarseiUe a more 
 southern latitude. He calls the Galatic gulph, into which 
 the Ehone is discharged (p. 122), kSX-jto, ^era^^ Ma<r,raXiu, 
 Ku, ^apfioyvo, : and he states as a fa^t, (p. 115), that Marseille 
 lies more south, poaccoripa, than the recess of the "ulph 
 Thus, when Dr. Ukert was studying the length of the Ehone 
 from Lyons to the sea, he had before him something better 
 worth attending to than the uncertain numeral in p 193 • he 
 would see not only that Strabo considered the line of Ehone 
 below Lyons to be "less than 2,000 stadia," but that he 
 onsidered it less than 1,720 stadia. 
 
 
70 
 
 Polyhms interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 Let us then apply this in aid of Dr. Ukert's estimate of 
 Rhone below Durance. Let us allow the total below Lyons 
 to be the full 1,72(», though it is not so much. How shaU we 
 divide this into two parts, above and below the Durance? 
 Strabo does not help us to do this : and, as Dr. Ukert wishes 
 information to be sought from the ancients, let us refer to the 
 Eoman Itineraries. And first the length above the Durance : 
 the nearest point to the confluence which the Itineraries give 
 is Avignon ; and we make a further concession, if we divide 
 the two parts at that point, instead of the confluence which is 
 below it. These i-egisters exhibit from Lyons to Avignon, 
 162 m. = 1,296 stadia. Take this 1,296 from 1,720, and there 
 remains 424 for the residue to the mouth. The only remain- 
 ing question is,-~where in this length of 424 do we find 
 Tarascon ? The place is mentioned in no Itinerary ; and we 
 must be content with the modern Livre de Poste, which gives 
 from Avignon to Tarascon, 23,000 metres = 124 stadia. When 
 this is taken from the 424, 300 stadia, or 37^ miles, remain as 
 the distance of Tarascon from the mouth of the Ehone : such 
 is, in truth, the maximum distance of Dr. Ukert's hd^aai^ 
 from the sea, if he will interpret Strabo justly : rather a short 
 distance to represent the axehbv ^ixept^v Terrcipcop 6S6p of 
 Polybius. 
 
 It is to be obseived that Dr. Ukert, in recommending his 
 longer distance for four days' work, suggests the embarrassment 
 of water ; and that we know not Scipio's landing-place ; nor 
 the changes since made in the mouths of the Rhone. Wow 
 we may suppose, that the Roman general would not have 
 passed on from the friendly city of Marseille, and disembarked 
 his army nearer to the river's mouth, if he had been thereby 
 involved in greater difficulty of proceeding. He did not land 
 as an adventurer in an unreported region : his native ally 
 added a force to his force, and would aid in fixing the spot 
 for a first encampm.'iit, having in view the obstruction of the 
 
 71 
 
 (( 
 
 CHAP. III.] Tamsmi Theory. Ulert. 
 
 that the sea has gamed on the land, and so to favour the 
 supposition that Tarascon was of old farther from the Ehone's 
 moiith than now, I apprehend the contrary to be the fact 
 De Luc cites the testimony of M. Darluc from his Histoire 
 natureUe de la Provence, 1782, p. 262. '• La Camargue est 
 ^^ un grand terrain qui forme, par sa position, un triangle 
 
 „ 7t"'r\ ''''"* ''^' """"' ^^ ^"'^S"'^"'- ^« -Wue cote. 
 Cette lie s<§pare les deux bras du Rh6ne qui se divisent au- 
 
 dessous d Aries. Son enceinte dtait moins considerable 
 
 ^^ autrefois. Les atterrissemens successifs que le Ehfine a 
 
 ^ formes a son embouchure, I'ont aggrandie. La tour de St. 
 ^_ Louis qu f„t -i^^^^ ^^.^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ j^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ 
 
 est eloignee aujourd'hui d'une lieue." On these facts we 
 may believe that, if the Tarascon of 218 B. c. differed from 
 the Tarascon of to-day, it was in being nearer to, not further 
 from, the sea than now. In other parts of the Mediterranean 
 the land has advanced near the mouths of rivers. I believe 
 this IS the case, at the mouths of the Po, at the mouth of the 
 Tiber, at the mouth of the Arno. In Languedoc, not far 
 from the scenes we are speaking of, there is the Uttle town of 
 Aigues-mortes (equae mortu^) now some miles from the sea 
 formerly close upon the shore. 
 To his iU-advised commentary Dr. Ukert adds this 
 Hanno may have crossed above Aramon." This would not 
 be well said, even if the notion on Tarascon had been a wise 
 one. Polybius relates that the crossing of Hanno was 25 
 miles above that of Hannibal. Aramon is not ten above 
 larascon. 
 
 On the distance of Tarascon from the Island. 
 Dr. Ukert acquiesces in the text so far as to say this, 
 p. 585 :— " After four days' march in succession from the' 
 
72 
 
 Polyhws interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 place of crossing, Hannibal arrives at the Island." Presently, 
 however, he appears dissentient, by starting a doubt on the 
 Island itseK. He says, " Let us look back and ask where the 
 " Island is situated. Polybius tells us to look for it at a 
 '* distance of (500 stadia from the place of crossing the 
 " river." 
 
 So far the writer seems to agree with all other critics, that 
 Polybius intends the length of the Rhone between the Island 
 and the hid^acn^ as 600 stadia. But he proceeds to 
 ascertain whether this is a correct measurement. There are 
 two modes of reckoning the space :— 1. From the Island 
 down to the Std^aaK;. 2. From the BcdjSaa-c^ up to the 
 Island. Now the first mode is the safest ; for the angle of 
 the rivers is a permanent point fixed by nature : the part 
 where Hannibal thought proper to cross the Ehone is not : 
 it is the thing sought. If Dr. Ukert had measured down 
 from the Island, 600 stadia would have brought him to 
 Pioquemaure. But he treats Tarascon as the safe point to be 
 measured from. To try this in earnest would be dangerous : 
 but again he puts himself into the Marseille road, saying, " We 
 " learn from Strabo, that from the Durance to the Isere 
 " is 700 stadia.'' 
 
 The Durance at Cavaillon can prove nothing, being in a 
 very different latitude from the confluence with the Rhone. As 
 it has no application to the subject, it would have been better 
 to try to make out by some means the real distance of 
 Tarascon from the Island. Perhaps Dr. Ukert thought that 
 he had done so : for he does to a certain extent bring forward 
 the very road given by the Itinerary along the Rhone ; but, 
 unhappily, he just omits those parts which would have saved 
 him from a dangerous conclusion. 
 
 His object being to shew that Polybius might intend 
 Tarascon, as on the Rhone 600 stadia below the Island, he 
 
 CHAP. HI.] 
 
 Tarascon Theory. Uhcrt. 
 
 73 
 
 li 
 
 refers to Itinerary (p. 553, Wesseling), and sets forth from 
 it a length of 600 up the Rhone thus (p. 590). * 
 
 Bellintum 
 Avenio . . 
 Cypresseta . 
 Aransio . . 
 Ad Lectore . 
 Novem Gravis 
 Aeunum . . 
 Batiana . . 
 
 V. 
 
 V. 
 
 XV. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 X. 
 
 XV. 
 
 XII. 
 
 75 m. p. = 600 Stadien. 
 
 Now Dr. Ukert knew Tarascon to be lower down than 
 Bellintum : and he knew the Island to be higher up than 
 Batiana. His own map which follows his Dissertation places 
 Tarascon below Bellintum ; and the Jerusalem Itinerary, 
 which he is transcribing, has, above Batiana, XII. to Umben- 
 num ; and Villi, to Valentia. He omits these 21 m. p. = 168 
 stadia, and 40 more which are from Valentia to the Isere : 
 also having first omitted the length, whatever it is, from 
 Tarascon to Bellintum. The enumeration of these 600 stadia 
 is delusive, quite unmeaning. Dr. Ukert would see that the 
 true distance from Tarascon to the Island was not the 
 distance which he was trying to insinuate, but rather about 
 860 stadia. He might as well have reminded us of some 
 length of 600 along the Rhine or the Danube. 
 
 Not feeling that he succeeds in bringing the Island and 
 Tarascon nearer to one another than as nature and art have 
 placed tliem. Dr. Ukert resorts to the opinion, that the four 
 days' march did not bring the Carthaginian army to the 
 Island at all : and that, though Hannibal got there, the army 
 
 * This is an exact copy of the Jems. Itin. except that Wesseling 
 writes Vancianis for Batiana : the fi^^ures are the same. 
 
i/ 
 
 74 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Tarascon Theory Uhert. 
 
 75 
 
 did not. This is lii3 argument, p. 590 :— " The historian does 
 " not assert that Ha.nnibal came to the Island with his army ; 
 " this might remain more south : somewhere in the country 
 " of the Drome. And perhaps he settled the contest of the 
 " brothers, either hy his appearance and the effect which the 
 '' vicinity of his experienced bands gave to his words ; or a 
 " detached division supported the elder one." 
 
 The doubts here suggested must be solved by the context 
 of the history. Things are sometimes to be understood as 
 said of the general alone ; as, that he listened to the proposals 
 of one of the contending parties. But see what things are 
 alleged here. Having put the whole armament in motion, 
 the historian relates that Hannibal, by a four days' march,' 
 came to the Island : he tells of operations carried on by him' 
 in the Island ; that he found in it two brothers at open war 
 for the sovereignty ; that he supported one, and attacked and 
 defeated the other : etnd, further, that after receiving supplies 
 from the chief whom he had befriended, his whole force being 
 refitted with necessaries, he advanced to the Alps attended 
 by his ally. The movements so told must be applied to 
 Hannibal with the force under his command. The words tjks 
 and d(t>tf€6fi€vo<;, as well as aweirceifievo^ and o-vpefc/SaXc^v, 
 must be understood of Hannibal with his army, not of 
 Hannibal without his army; and, whatever road he after- 
 wards took to the Alps, the four days' march had been a 
 march to the Island. 
 
 I hope it has been shown that the h^dlBa<n<^ of Dr. Ukert 
 is too near to the sea, and too far from the Island. In both 
 instances Polybius gives the idea of space through the men- 
 tion of four days ; one is " nearly four days," and must be 
 taken as less than the average for that time : the advance to 
 the Isere was, by obvious motive, a rapid march, and would 
 cover the full space. 
 
 I have expended many words upon that which is but a 
 
 small part of our entire subject. My apology is this : ad- 
 verse arguments are not to be neglected because ourselves 
 think them feeble : the character of the adversary is to be 
 considered : and Dr. Ukert is placed before me on so high an 
 eminence by the eulogies of Dr. Thirlwall, that, whatever I 
 may think of his reasonings, no pains can be superfluous that 
 are applied to resist them. There are further arguments of 
 Dr. Ukert, which have as yet met with no resistance. 
 
 On Roman Measurements in Gaul and Spain. 
 
 Polybius, in c. 39, enumerates six distances, beginning 
 from the Pillars of Hercules. To Carthagena : to the Ebro*^ 
 to Emporium : to the passage of the Ehone : to the beginning 
 of Alps : to the plain of Italy. And after the statement o'f 
 distance to the Ehone, we read these words— "for these 
 " distances have now been carefully stepped, and marked at 
 " every eight stadia, by the Romans." 
 
 Every commentator, with the exception of Dr. Ukert, 
 seems satisfied with those words as they appear in the text ; 
 thereby assenting to the notion, that the Romans had, in the 
 days of Polybius, placed mile-stones, or other marks of dis- 
 tance, both along the Spanish and French coasts, as far as 
 the Rhone. Dr. Ukert, with due regard to history, disowns 
 Polybius as a witness to Roman roads in Languedoc : but he 
 solves the difficulty by rejecting the words as spurious. I 
 believe them to be genuine, but to have got out of their 
 place.* 
 
 Dr. Ukert finds several reasons for rejecting the proposition 
 altogether ; having quoted the words, Tavra ydp vvv, &c. ; he 
 writes thus—- What ! Polybius, having the distances mea- 
 " sured and given by the Romans, and himself giving a ratio 
 
 * Henry Long applies ravra to the French line of coast only ' 
 —P. 16. ^ ' 
 
 \\ 
 
 \y 
 
76 
 
 Polyhius interjected. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 ' between the stadium and the Eoman mile, could he satisfy 
 himself with employing about— ttc/^I 1600 st. — ? Our doubt 
 ' is increased, when we see that the ratio stated is not that 
 ' which Polybius foUows : for he reckons a mile equivalent to 
 ' 8-J- stadia. When Polybius travelled through the south of 
 ' Gaul, no Eoman roads had been made then : it was in the 
 ' year 118 B.C. that the Eomans first entered these countries 
 ' as conquerors, and in the same year founded the colony of 
 ' Narbo : they could hardly have constructed regular roads 
 ' before this peiiod. Moreover, Polybius wrote his work 
 'earlier than tliat : he was writing it in the year 145 
 'B.C., and he died in the year 124 B.C.— the words in 
 'question are probably a note of some later writer, 
 'which has fallen into the text. The accounts confirm 
 ' this view, in stating that Caius Gracchus was the first 
 ' who had roads properly measured and marked out by niile- 
 ' stones. Probably the merit of constructing a road into 
 Spain through Narbonese Gaul belongs to Fonteius, who, 
 in Cicero's time, occupied it with an army. Polybius too] 
 in this passage, speaks of the measured road as reaching to 
 Cadiz : an inscription, by Gruter, ascribes this addition to 
 Augustus." 
 
 One fact here stated is incontrovertible. Polybius died 
 before the Eomans had begun the conquest of Gaul. He 
 cannot, therefore, have spoken of Eoman roads in that country. 
 This objection of Dr. Ukert claims, and will receive, an 
 answer. The rest of his comment I consider to be of no vllue. 
 
 The notion thai^ Polybius estimated a mile at one-third of a 
 stadium more than other persons, has already been dealt with 
 in Part II. of this work. Dr. Ukert adopted that opinion in 
 1832, when he engaged in the controversy on Hannibal's 
 march : he had declined to acquiesce in it, when he was 
 writing on Eoman measurements in 1816. And I hope to 
 show that, while his correction of cln-onology is accepted, he 
 
 <. 
 
 I 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Tamscon Theory. Ukert. 
 
 11 
 
 \ 
 
 is still at liberty to reject the notion of ^ stadia to a Eoman 
 mile. 
 
 As to what Plutarch says upon Gracchus bringing the 
 business of roads and mile-stones into a system, this does not 
 help us to the date when military measuring and marking 
 of distances was first practised by the Eomans : and the 
 suggestion that Fonteius first constructed a road through 
 Narbonese Gaul, though quite unimportant, is a mistake. 
 Dr. Ukert himself helps to disprove it, by referring to Cicero's 
 defence of him against the charge of extortion. Fonteius was 
 prosecuted, among other things, for conniving at the neglect 
 of the roads : in fact, for taking bribes from the natives, from 
 whom he ought to have exacted the repair of them. Cicero 
 thus notices the charge—" Objectum est etiam, qusestum M. 
 Fonteium ex viarum munitione fecisse : ut aut ne cogeret 
 munire, aut id, quod munitum esset, ne improbaret." In 
 urging the injustice of making Fonteius criminally respon- 
 sible for the roads, he represents that the immediate duty 
 devolved upon his legates, themselves eminent men, " cum 
 majoribus reipublica negotiis M. Fonteius impediretur." Cicero 
 names the Via Domitia, which was made in that country 
 fifty years before the delinquencies of Fonteius. The charge 
 against that officer concerned the repair of roads, not the first 
 construction of them. 
 
 Dr. Ukert at last deems the passage spurious, on the im- 
 probability that Polybius should speak of a road measured to 
 Cadiz. He might have spoken of a road to that place : for 
 it existed. But he does not mention it : he only states the 
 distance from the Pillars to Carthagena : and from that city 
 his measurements of the march begin. 
 
 On the main historical fact, concerning roads in Gaul, Dr. 
 Ukert's position is unimpeachable. The chronology of Eoman 
 dominion shows conclusively that Polybius can never have 
 spoken of their indications of distance between the Ehone 
 
78 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part hi. 
 
 and the Pyreneejs. Such things did not take place in time 
 for him to notice them, even in his latest days. It was not 
 till 122 B.C., two years * after his death, that the Komans 
 founded their first colony without the Alps, but within the 
 Ehone, Aquae Sextiae. In the next year they had their 
 successes on the banks of the Ehone and Is^re : and not till 
 118 B.C., as stated by Ukert, being six years after the death of 
 Polybius, was fc'unded the first colony beyond the Ehone. 
 Even then it is ])robable that for some time their armaments 
 continued to proc eed from Italy to Spain by sea. 
 
 But, while history contradicts the existence of a stepped 
 and marked road along the Celtic coast at the period in 
 question, it does not contradict tlie existence of such a road 
 along the Iberia a coast. And it seems to me, that the pro- 
 position in parenthesis, ravra yap, &c., which is quite Poly- 
 bian, is not spuiious, but has been shifted from its proper 
 place in the catalogue of distances. It should be read after 
 the 1,600 stadia to Emporium, not after the 1,600 to the 
 Ehone. When I'olybius made his journey, the Eomans were 
 in military possession of the Iberian coast, and had been so 
 from the time of his birth. During that period their entrance 
 to Spain was by sea : Emporium, the terminus of the mea- 
 surement we are speaking of, was their place of landing ; and 
 here began their military line along the Iberian coast. We 
 may well believe that this 6S6^ was stepped, and its division 
 into miles indicated cr€ar)fi€V(o/jLevrj, if not KarearTrfkcDfiivi]. 
 Their military ^vv^ay, when afterwards made through the 
 Pyrenees into Spain, did not go through Emporium : it went 
 direct from Juncaria to Gerunda. Emporium is not in the 
 Itinerary. 
 
 If my suggestion is accepted, the historical error is relieved : 
 it vanishes as completely on transposing the words as on 
 erasing them. The minor objection, also, of irepl being 
 applied to an ascertained distance, is removed at the same 
 
 CllAP. III.] Tarascon Theory. Ukert. 79 
 
 time. The Iberian distances are alleged without irepL Xlepl 
 is only applied to the scope of march which includes tlie 
 Pyrenees, and to that which includes the Alps. Let us then 
 read Polybius thus : — 
 
 From the Pillars to the New City, whence 
 Hannibal commenced his expedition into 
 Italy, it is 3,000 stadia. 
 
 And from this city to the river Ebro, it is . . 2,600 „ 
 
 And from this river, again, to Emporium . . 1,600 „ 
 (For these distances have now been care- 
 fully stepped, and marked at every 8 
 stadia by the Eomans.) 
 
 And on from thence to the passage of the 
 
 Ehone, about 1,600 
 
 And from the passage of the Ehone, for those 
 who travel along that river as if to the 
 source as far as the ascent of Alps, which 
 leads to Italy 1,400 
 
 And the rest of the way over the heights of 
 
 Alps, about 1,200 „ 
 
 Surmounting which, he would arrive in 
 the Padan Plain of Italy. 
 
 On the Roads of Gaul in HannibaVs time. 
 
 Although Dr. Ukert has rightly rejected the notion that 
 Polybius lived to see Eoman roads in Languedoc, he seeks 
 the aid of Eoman roads to support his interpretation of the 
 6ta^acrt9— he says this : — " Supposing the passage {ravra 
 *' yap, &c.) to be an interpolation, still we may, with good 
 " reason, assume that the early roads in these countries had 
 " been in the same lines that were afterwards used by the 
 " Eomans when they formed their roads. The nature of the 
 *•■ countiy itself would require them to pursue nearly the same 
 " track along the plain region between the coast and the line 
 
80 PoUjUus interjmted. [part hi. 
 
 " of mountains : we find that here in later times there were 
 " Eoman roads, and these in all probability led to the Khone 
 " at that part wh(Te, according to the means then in use, a 
 " passage would be most easily effected. Polybius speaks of 
 " such a place ; but not of any town in the neighbourhood— 
 « which Strabo does in his description of this road. 
 " Xemausus (he says) lies on the road from Iberia to Italy, 
 " being 100 stadia from the Ehone and Tarasco." 
 
 It is true that the confined nature of the country between 
 the coast and the lines of mountains prescribed the route 
 from the Pyrenees as far as Nimes. But from thence to the 
 Ehone there is no confinement : a north-east course, a straight 
 onward course, and a south-east course were equally open to 
 the invaders ; nature offers no obstruction to a march for 
 Avignon or Montfaucon, which lies over undulating plains. 
 
 Strabo tells us iihat the country near the Ehone is usefully 
 practicable. While he commends the depth of the river for 
 navigation, he saj-s that the difficulty of ascending it is so 
 great, from the rapidity of the current, that merchants avoid 
 it, and transport their goods in waggoiis, the country bein^ 
 level, towards the Arverni and the Loire, notwithstanding the 
 vicinity of the Ehone. iv. 189. 
 
 We know not that, so early as the time of Hannibal, a 
 route from Nimesi was established in any direction for crossing 
 the Ehone. He woidd make his election according to the 
 further parts to which he was tending. The state of things 
 two centuries later gives no criterion. When after the death 
 of Polybius, the two sides of the river, instead of belonging 
 to smaller separate states, came under one dominion, inter- 
 course was promoted for Italian objects, and new tracks over 
 the Ehone would be established for travellers. But if Eoman 
 usage could have borne upon our question, Aries would claim 
 the preference ; ibr it was in the great military way to Spain, 
 whether from the north or south of Italy : that way crossed 
 
 V 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Tar o scon Theory. Ukert. 
 
 81 
 
 the Ehone at Aries, not at Tarascon. Strabo speaks of 
 Aries as 7ro\t9 koX i^iropiov ov fiiicpov. The virtues of the 
 Tarascon road from Nimes are also alluded to : passable in 
 summer, but deep in mud and flooded in spring and winter: 
 OipQV^ fiev ev^arov ovaav, ')(^6LfiSvo<; Be kol €apo<; irrfKwhr) 
 Kol TTorafioKkvcrrov. ii. 187. At a later period it came to be 
 improved. M. Astruc relates (Hist. Nat. de Languedoc, 
 p. 225) that milliary columns, of the age of Tiberius, have 
 been found between Nimes and Beaucaire: a fact which 
 DAnville tells with much satisfaction ; adding that the space 
 between two of them, as they were found, was just 754} 
 toises. " Notice de Gaule." Nemausus. 
 . But all this has no bearing on the particulars or induce- 
 ments of Hannibal. If you imagine, for the period of the 
 Carthaginian march, the improvement in a Tarascon road 
 which the Eomans gave it two or three centuries later, 
 Hannibal would not have availed himself of it for effecting 
 his march to the Island. The notion of crossing the Ehone 
 below the influx of the Durance, is only suitable to a theory 
 of going on direct to the Mont Genevre. But Dr. Ukert does 
 not so construe Polybius. Why then does he struggle for a 
 passage at Tarascon ? Because he intends his four days' 
 march to halt short of the Is^re. Therefore it suits him to 
 find arguments for crossing the Ehone below the junction of 
 the Durance : a scheme favoured by no intrinsic probability, 
 but in favour of which he has provided other arguments 
 equally untenable. 
 
 On the Policy of Hannibal. The Durance. 
 
 Dr. Ukert says, p. 583 : — " If it is objected to our doctrine, 
 ** that Hannibal would have crossed too near to the coast and 
 " thereby to the Eomans, this objection will be removed, if 
 " we consider that he did not expect the enemy here, as little 
 " indeed as the latter expected him. The difficulty which 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 G 
 
 # 
 
82 
 
 PolyUus interpreted. [pakt hi. 
 
 " attended the passage of the Durance would also be as little 
 '* thought of then as in later times, when the principal Eoman 
 « Koad was earned over the Ehone south of that river. People 
 « from Nemausus came either to Ugernum, or more south to 
 " Arelate : the road to the latter place then branched into two ; 
 << one went south-east to Aquce Sexti^, the other north-east 
 " over the Druentia. Hannibal came upon the dry season, 
 " before the river had been swollen with rain." I certainly 
 do make the anticipated objections, and I consider that Dr. 
 Ukert is mistaken in all the points which he here makes : the 
 expectation of resistance, the Durance, and the security against 
 
 floods. 
 
 Hannibal must have calculated upon opposition by the 
 Eoman force : and that alone was a strong reason for him to 
 seek a passage above the influx of the Durance : his plan was 
 framed upon a study of all things necessary to be observed, 
 and was executed according to the purpose in which it was 
 framed. The risk of opposition by a Eoman army must 
 always have dissuaded from crossing the Ehone too near the 
 sea. What ]3retence is there for saying, that the arrival of 
 the Eoman army was unexpected ? A wise commander will 
 deem his enemy capable of wisdom. The question of Scipio's 
 approach must have been a subject of intense anxiety on the 
 part of Hannibal ; and he had far less reason to be surprised 
 by his arrival, than by his not having arrived sooner. In the 
 history of this war, there is nothing more remarkable than 
 the casualties which required Scipio's army to be retained in 
 Italy, and new levies to be made for his expedition to oppose 
 Hannibal. When the invaders were making their way from 
 the Pyrenees to the Ehone, Hannibal was not so well aware 
 of these favouring circumstances as we are now. The Ehone 
 was a great line of advantage for withstanding the effort of 
 invasion, and the Eomans were just too late to avail them- 
 selves of it. If we believe that Hannibal might have been 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 TaTasco7i Theory. Ukert. 
 
 S3 
 
 repulsed in attempting the passage of the Ehone in face of a 
 Eoman army, we must see the highest wisdom in his evading 
 so dangerous a contingency. 
 
 The avoiding of the additional passage of the Durance was 
 incident to Hannibal's decision on the place of crossing. Dr. 
 Ukert despises that difficulty : and, because in after-times the 
 Eomans, masters of the country, carried one of their great 
 Ways across the Durance, he does not perceive that Hannibal, 
 in a strange country, and an enemy at hand to resist him, 
 could see any additional obstacle in that groat river. But 
 presently this critic contradicts himself with a different argu- 
 ment : he proves the importance of the Durance, by contend- 
 ing that, if the Eomans had to cross it, which they must if 
 Hannibal did not, the fact would have found place in the 
 history. He says, p. 584 : — *' If we do not allow Hannibal to 
 '' have crossed it, the Eoman consul with his army must have 
 " crossed it, and the detachment of cavalry twice : which 
 " would certainly have been mentioned by the historians." 
 It would be fitter to say that if, as Dr. Ukert imputes, Hanno 
 in his march down, and Hannibal in his march up, had been 
 required to pass the Durance, these are things which would 
 have been mentioned by the historian. Such inipediments 
 are left by Polybius without description, when no incident of 
 interest has belonged to the surmounting of them. The 
 country was unfriendly to the Carthaginians, and they would 
 have had to force the Durance against resistance. This would 
 have called for the notice of history far more than the un- 
 opposed passage of that river by the Eomans, when Hannibal 
 was in full retreat. 
 
 Dr. Ukert further requires us to believe that, at the end of 
 September or beginning of October, the Durance is so dry that 
 it could offer no impediment to military movements. It may 
 be that this season is not commonly considered as the season 
 uf floods. But that Alpine river may be swollen b}/ rains and 
 
 (J 2 
 
84 
 
 PolyUus interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 melted snow any day in the year. To shun it at any season was 
 prudence, even in Sei^temher and October. In October, 1841, 
 when bridges were seriously damaged at Yienne and Grenoble, 
 the inundations at. Tarascon were such that the communica- 
 tions were in danger of being cut off, and a regiment of 
 chasseurs were oliiged to move to Nimes. About the same 
 time the passengers by diligence between Avignon and Sorgues 
 were with difficulty rescued by boats, some having mounted 
 the roof, others clinging to the backs of the horses who were 
 swimming for their lives. The valley of the lower Rhone was 
 probably not better drained in 218 B.C. than it is now : and I 
 know, from a friend travelling in 1840, that the water stand- 
 ing in the road from Marseilles to Lyons was very inconvenient 
 to his boots as he sat in the diligence. 
 
 In October, 1842, the Courier de Grenoble reported that 
 houses had fallen at Vienne ; that the bridge of the Gabati^res 
 had been again carried away by the floods ; that the Eoute de 
 Beaurepaire and the Route Royale had been rendered im- 
 passable, and the bridge of chains carried away : that an inn 
 near the bridge had fallen, buiying an ostler in the ruins. 
 The report from Tarascon was that the Rhone had so inun- 
 dated the country that all communication was cut off. Who 
 knows but that the Alpine Durance, tum forte imbribus auctus, 
 had its share in these casualties, notwithstanding the eulogies 
 on its dry season pronounced by Mr. H. Long and Dr. Ukei-t ? 
 In the inundations of 1846, when the overflowiugs of the 
 Loire and the V;=ir were so calamitous, the sudden rise of the 
 Durance arrestee! the construction of a railway viaduct ; and 
 the same cause might in 218 B.C. have disturbed the progress 
 of an army. On the 12th September, 1860, the Times corre- 
 spondent at Paris reported a letter from Remusat, in the 
 Drome, saying that a waterspout, accompanied with terrific 
 thunder and torrents of rain, so suddenly increased the waters 
 in the rivers, that a new bridge over the Aigues was swept 
 
 t 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Tarascon Theory. Ukert. 
 
 85 
 
 away. Another at Yaucluse suffered the same fate, and a 
 vast amount of property was destroyed. 
 
 Dr. Ukert having given his argument on the motives of 
 Hannibal, founds another on the motives of Scipio. He 
 says, p. 584 : — '* The Romans, from the known unfriendly 
 " feeling of the people of Gaul, would hardly have ventured 
 " so far into the country : whereas on the other hand the 
 " more southerly of these might be friendly through the 
 " mediation of the people of Marseille." Surely our question 
 is, not whether the Romans would desire to venture so far as 
 the Carthaginian entrenchments ; but whether they did ven- 
 ture so far under a necessity to do so. We have to discuss 
 the probable motives of Hannibal, not those by which Scipio 
 would have determined the place of his enemy's crossing, if 
 he could have prescribed it. He no doubt would have 
 preferred a point nearer to his ships and to Marseille : the 
 Massiliots were warm allies, and had some Celtic horse in 
 their pay. But these very things bring us again to a conclu- 
 sion which is not that of Dr. Ukert ; namely, that the alliance 
 between Rome and those who dwelt nearer to the mouth of 
 the Rhone, would from the first disincline Hannibal from that 
 neighbourhood and the region south of Durance, and add one 
 to his many motives to seek a higher crossing. 
 
 Oil the Vessels used iri the Passage. 
 
 Dr. Ukert offers us this further argument against Mont- 
 faucon and Roquemaure. "We ought to remember that 
 " Hannibal, in order to transport his troops, depended upon 
 " ships which could also serve upon the sea, like those which 
 " Caesar at a later time caused to be built at Aries ; and the 
 " question is, whether these could be used higher up the 
 " stream. On the other hand, the spot where we suppose 
 " Hannibal to have crossed, is even now one of the most 
 " frequented ; two bridges of l>oats lead over the Rhone there, 
 " and it is a place of considerable traffic." (p. 582.) 
 
 ..« UHiKJ>iitLi 
 
•«.. - .s:-"^"-' 
 
 86 
 
 Polyhiiis intei'prded. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 I kiiow not hov/ Dr. Ukert lias discovered that the \€yL6/9o<? 
 of Hannibal, and the navis longa of Csesar, were built on the 
 same model. Is the resemblance in bulk, or outline, or con- 
 struction? And why should either one or the other have 
 been capable of swimming at Tarascon and not capable at 
 Montfaucon ? Ctesar's ships were never put to either of those 
 tests : they were built at Aries, and w^ent at once to the sea — 
 " Naves longas A relate numero XII. facere instituit. Quibus 
 " effectis armatis([ue diebus XXX. a qua die materia csesa est, 
 *' adductisque M;issiliam, his D. Brutum pr^fecit."* These 
 ships had no occasion and no opportunity to explore the river 
 above the dockyard in which they were built. They were 
 very soon engaged against the Massilian fleet, and, though 
 successful, were less efficient, from being built in a hurry and 
 of unseasoned timber (factse subito ex humida materia). They 
 certainly never found themselves in the reach above Eoque- 
 maure, but neither were they ever off Tarascon. 
 
 The vessels which took over the cavalry soldiers of Hannibal, 
 are called by Polybius Kefi^ot : a term applicable to any kind 
 of transport vessel, and to river barges ; as, when Latinized, 
 — qui adverso \ix flumine lembum Eemigio subigit. The 
 facts alleged of them are, that they were in great numbers ; 
 that they were much larger and heavier than the single-timber 
 barks used by the light infantry ; that the horses swam after 
 them, one man holding three or four from either side of the 
 poop ; and that they were employed for towing tne rafts which 
 bore the elephants across the river. All these purposes seem 
 appropriate to a river barge or small coasting vessel, more 
 than to the Eoman war-ship. 
 
 The difiiculti(\s of the Khone that affect the sufficiency of 
 water for navigation, are not at the towns here mentioned ; 
 they offer themselves near the mouth ; there it is that shallows 
 and shifting mud-banks are recorded as a nuisance. Marius 
 
 * Comment, do Bello Civili, i. c. 34. 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Tarascon Theory. Ukert. 
 
 87 
 
 made the canal to avoid these impediments of entrance ; and 
 the Massilians, to whom he presented this work, derived a 
 considerable revenue from the duties which they levied on 
 vessels thus entering and quitting the river. Str. iv. 183. 
 Caesar's ships probably found their way to the sea by this 
 canal, which was cut from the eastern channel of the Ehone, 
 a little below Aries. M. Gosselin, in opposition to D'Anville, 
 and professing to interpret Ptolemy on the site of Fossse 
 Marianae, places the canal west of Aigues-mortes — Geog. de 
 Strabon. ii. p. 21, n. 1. This notion is contradicted by all 
 probability, and by the Itinerary, in w^hich Possse Marianse 
 occurs between Marseille and Aries. The military object, 
 when the canal was made in the Cimbrian war, was commu- 
 nication with Marseille, w^hence supplies would come to the 
 army on the Ehone. If the canal had come into the sea west 
 of the river's channels, the exit, besides being less convenient 
 for Eoman purposes, would have been exposed to the atter- 
 rissemens from the river which the currents carried westward. 
 The climax of the merits of Tarascon pourtrayed by Dr. 
 Ukert is, that there are now two bridges of boats w^hich, I pre- 
 sume, means one from Beaucaire and one from Tarascon into the 
 island which is between them. He does not explain in what 
 way this fact affects the probabilities of the subject. It may 
 be that the river there has a deeper current than elsewhere, 
 but he does not reason upon it, or assert it. 
 
 Br. Vkcrt on Scipio's MaixK 
 
 Scipio advanced up the country from near the mouth of the 
 Ehone to the place where Hannibal had crossed that river. 
 Accordingly, an estimate of the time in which he could reach 
 that place may help to an opinion on its distance from the 
 sea. 
 
 Dr. Ukert (p. 583) invites that question in words which, I 
 believe, are fairly translated thus—'' That the distance of the 
 
88 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 tt 
 
 u 
 
 tt 
 
 tt 
 
 tl 
 
 *' point of crossing was not so higli up the river as Mandajors 
 and others have supposed, is evident from the account, that 
 Scipio, who had his camp near the coast on the eastern arm 
 of the Ehone, came to the camp which the Carthaginians 
 had left, on the third day after their decampment. One 
 may, according to Polybius and Livy, reckon the time 
 " double : but, even if calculated the longest, the return of the 
 " cavalry, the preparations of the consul, his decampment and 
 " march to the position, cannot have occupied more than five 
 *' or five and a half days at the most." .» 
 
 The expression so translated, * reckon the time ' double,' 
 appearing obscure, I sought an explanation of it in the 
 Philological Museum, where (ii. 679) Dr. Ukert's views are 
 thus exhibited by Dr. Thirlwall— ^^ That the distance of the 
 ** place, where Hannibal crossed, from the sea w^as not so 
 *' great as has been supposed by De Luc, seems to follow 
 " from Scipio's march to the Carthaginian camp from the 
 " mouth of the river. He reached it in three days, if, 
 " indeed, this is not the time spent both in going and re- 
 " turning to his ships, as the language both of Polybius and 
 *' Livy might be construed." I cannot find that either history 
 suggests such a meaning for three days. Polybius only says 
 that Publius was at the place of crossing yfiepaa varepov 
 Tpcal TTJ^ dm^i>yTJ<; twv Kapxv^ovicov. Livy says that he came 
 to the encampment triduo fere post quam Hannibal ab ripa 
 Khodani movit. j^either historian assigns a duration to 
 Scipio's march. 
 
 I had recourse to competent persons, and received different 
 constructions of the words Man kann die Zeit doppelt 
 berechnen. None were satisfactory in terms : but the words 
 certainly seem to contain the idea of measuring the time from 
 Hannibars camp, down to Scipio's camp, and back again : for 
 it was near to the former that the conflict of the cavalry took 
 place. The drift of the criticism appears from the words that 
 
 4 
 
 i 
 
 89 
 
 CHAP. III.] Tarascon Theory. Ukert. 
 
 follow : those words suggest a calculation of the time which 
 would intervene between the conflict of cavaliy and the 
 arrival of Scipio at the deserted entrenchments : Dr Ukert 
 asserts that the things done in that time., namely, the return 
 of the cavalry, the consul's preparations, his decampment and 
 march to the position, would at the most have occupied five 
 daj-s, or live and a half; and, by this, he seems to insinuate 
 hat, If the encampment had been as high up as Eoquemaure, 
 those things must have occupied a longer time 
 
 I cannot admit that they would. Scipio came to the posi- 
 tion •' m three days after the decampment of the Cartha- 
 ginians : those three days are exclusive of the day of that 
 decampment : and it seems to me that all the things which 
 Dr. Ukert enumerates as only requiring five days and a half, 
 Jhich he thinks not enough for our theory, could not only be 
 done in that time he names, but in less time. Three or four 
 days after the dvaft^^, ^ould have been ample for our 
 theory, and decidedly too much for the theory of Tarascoii. 
 
 on air"' r^'"' ""* '''' -gagement of cavalry took place 
 on a Monday morning, and that Hannibal and his army were 
 en route the following day, Tuesday: Scipio might reach thd 
 ncampmen m tln.e days after they were en^oute, name^^ 
 
 Place in l"^- " "'^' '' "" e^S^Sement. which took 
 nsul int '"°™'^8 ^"^d was soon over, would reach the 
 
 may believe that he marched the next morning, and, by three 
 days march reached the position which tie enemy had 
 abancWed. It is to be observed that the day of Haimibars 
 ^a^ure was before those three days of Scipio, who Z^^^ 
 
 o ttvelf 1 ' '^^ '''^ ' "^''^ -"Pl^ f- the intelligence 
 tl r tJ: ')' ""™"^' ''^f"- H--W assembled his 
 
 utThe fiv^h f Tx^ "'"' "" ^'^^'P"- ^l>-*'«' he had sent 
 out the five hundred Numidian horse to reconnoitre : they fell 
 
90 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 in with the Koman detachment almost immediately ; " not 
 " far from their own encampment." After a sharp encounter 
 the survivors came in again pursued by the enemy, and 
 arrived just as the assembly was broken up. They were in 
 their own quarters again early in the day. The residue of 
 this day, together with the next day, sufficed for the report of 
 these proceedings to be carried to the consul. The speed of 
 this intelligence is not to be measured by the speed of an 
 army's march : and, though the history says that the Eonian 
 horse returned to their camp and reported to Scipio, we need 
 not suppose them all moving together, the best horses keeping 
 back for the worst. Kews travels according to the speed of 
 the swiftest, not the slowest ; and the native horse, familiar 
 with the country, were acting in this detachment. Even if 
 Scipio, neglecting ordinary foresight, had not provided for the 
 transmission of intelligence, sixty miles was no impossible 
 distance, in a day and a half with the intervening night, for 
 the best horses to carry news to head-quarters on so momen- 
 tous an occasion. 
 
 The intelligtmce found Scipio in a full state of readiness. 
 He had knowia Hannibal to be on the Ehone before ever 
 he sent the cavalry forward, and had consulted wdth the 
 tribunes where he might best bring the enemy to action ; he 
 could not tell which he might see first, his own cavalry 
 returning or the enemy. We cannot doubt that he was in 
 march the next morning ; and three days' march would 
 easily bring him to the site of the encampment, opposite to 
 Eoquemaure. 
 
 If any should doubt that a Roman army could be moved 
 sixty or sixty-five miles in three days, I say that my argu- 
 ment does not require it. I am not bound to contend that 
 Scipio's army did march that whole distance. In the first 
 place, sixty-fi\e miles is our distance from the sea, and 
 the camp may have been some miles above high water-mark. 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Tarascoih Theory. Uhert, 
 
 91 
 
 Then it is not improbable that the force was beginning to 
 move to the interior, while this detachment was away ; and 
 certainly it is not to be assumed that the entire force ever 
 completed that march, and actually reached the scene of the 
 deserted entrenchments. Polybius says, '' The Eoman general 
 coming to the place and finding the enemy gone, was ex- 
 ceedingly astonished." At this time, the mass of his army 
 may have halted short of that place. But the consul would 
 desire to satisfy himself on the enemy's proceedings : intelli- 
 gence of what happened would meet him on his advance ; 
 and he would hasten forward with a sufficient escort. We 
 are told that, when he found the Carthaginians to have aban- 
 doned the position, and to be three days in advance of him, 
 he determined at once to retrace his steps to his ships. In 
 all probability the order to that effect was received and 
 obeyed by the mass of the army, without their ever reaching 
 the site of the encam])ment. 
 
 mw consider the events as applied to the Tarascon theory. 
 If the passage and the encampment were near to that place, 
 the Eoman cavaliy must have gained their success at a dis- 
 tance of about thirty-six, certainly not forty, miles from the 
 sea, and less from their own camp. Suppose this to be on a 
 Monday morning— is it to be believed that Scipio, all ready 
 and eager for action, ^-rrevZi^v avixy^L^ai roh virevavrioi^, 
 with no Durance intervening, with a more unqualified favour 
 from the natives for expediting his communications, could 
 not find his way to the place so as to know that the enemy 
 was gone, until the Friday ? He would have been there on 
 the Wednesday. 
 
 My friends of the Oxford Dissertation relate, p. 45, that 
 Hannibal put his infantry in march on the day after the 
 conflict, and himself followed with the cavalry and elephants 
 two days after the infantry marched up the river ; and that 
 the consul arrived three days after the departure of Han- 
 
92 
 
 Poll/hi (IS interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] Tarasmi Theory, II L. Long. 
 
 93 
 
 nibal. Polybius says, " after the decampment of the Car- 
 *' thaginians/' t^9 dva^vyrj^i to)v Kapxn^ovioiv : and, if Han- 
 nibal had stayed two days behind, which he did not, ava^^vyrf 
 was the breaking up of the force when the infantry marched : 
 rrjv Tcov ire^cov eKcvei Bvvaficv i/c rov ')(apaKO^ el<; iropelav : 
 this was the dva^vytj of the Carthaginians : and Scipio, 
 coming to the place in three days after this, came four days 
 after the fight. 
 
 But Hannibal did not stay two days behind : Polybius says 
 nothing to authorise that notion. H. Long says justly, that 
 " there is no reason for assigning different days to the departure 
 " of one force and of the other." The narrative imports 
 unambiguously, that Hannibal moved forward with the cavalry 
 and elephants in the course of the same day on which he 
 had sent forward the infantry. And why not? He had 
 been engaged in providing for the transport of the elephants 
 (c. 42) during the absence of Hanno. He had selected men 
 for the execution of the work (c. 44) before the conference 
 with the Cisalpine chiefs. The preparations being complete, 
 why should he not bring them over the river the next 
 morning, and proceed with them the same day ? There are 
 no words which import the contrary ; none that indicate 
 a continued separation of the forces, or that he passed a 
 night near the place of passage after the infantry had moved. 
 The historian, says, that Hannibal at daybreak drew out all 
 his cavalry towards the sea (i. c, below the scene of opera- 
 tions), and put the infantry in motion, &c., and that he 
 waited himself for the elephants : he describes the process 
 of their transportation ; and then tells us that, when they 
 had been brought over the river, Hannibal went forward, 
 bringing up the rear with them and the cavalry. A march 
 of four consecutive days brought them to the island. 
 
 ; 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Tarascon Theory. Arguments of H. L. Long. Distance from 
 the Sea, Distance from Emporium. The single Stream, 
 Straho and the Theodosian Table, 
 
 Mr. Henry Long, as well as Dr. Ukert, has endeavoured to 
 prove that Hannibal crossed the Ehone at Tarascon. But 
 they have hardly a point of agreement in common. Ukert, 
 assenting to the obvious construction, by which the 1,400 
 stadia, from the passage of the Ehone to the first Alps, 
 are divided into 600 and 800, struggles against the most 
 palpable facts, to reconcile his route with these proportions. 
 Long, by a new mode of construing the text, makes the 
 division to be 800 for tlie march to the Isere, and 600 for the 
 progress to the Alps. This novelty, with tlie general merits of 
 his scheme, will be most conveniently examined under our 
 second head of inquiry : at present I notice those arguments 
 which are applied directly to the place of crossing the Ehone. 
 
 On the distance from the Sea. 
 The question of measurement along the Ehone is dispensed 
 with in Long's commentary, pp. 22, 23, by an intimation that 
 the four days' journey or march from the sea, which Polybius 
 speaks of, does not import a distance from the sea at the 
 mouth of the Ehone, but from the sea which Hannibal had 
 left behind him at :Nrarbo. The idea is new. Suppose that 
 my friend, having just come up from Southampton, was 
 deaUng with white bait at BlackwaU, and some one should 
 inquire the distance to the sea. Would he in his answer 
 compute a measurement to Southampton, or to the mouth of 
 the Thames ? I think he would reckon to the mouth of the 
 Thames, though he would be much farther from the sea there, 
 than if he were at Tarascon. In the matter now before us,' 
 
94. 
 
 Polyhms interpreted. 
 
 [PAKT III 
 
 context as well as proximity, bespeaks the mouth of the 
 Ehone : in tlie same sentence where Hannibal is said to be 
 nearly four days from the sea, he is said to be employed in 
 effecting a passage of the Ehone ; and the historian speaks 
 of vessels used for descending that river to the sea. Tlie 
 reason for notifying the distance from the sea, is to define the 
 latitude of Hannibal's position on the Ehone. Very different 
 words would have been used, if he had desired to give the 
 distance traversed from a past point of the march. Eeading 
 forward, we find that, while the elephants are passing over 
 the Ehone, ihe cavalry is drawn out m wpo^ OdXarrav. Is 
 this too the sea at Narbo ? 
 
 It is fair to say that Long announces this notion with great 
 diffidence. 1" quote it, because it is useful to show the argu- 
 ments to wliich the ingenuity of a theorist can be driven. 
 If ever he shall renounce Narbo, a terminus which requires 
 110 miles to be accomplished by hardly four days' work, 
 I hope he will lean to our construction, which performs 65 in 
 that time, rallier than to Dr. Ukert's, which reduces it to 35. 
 But alas ! if my friend gives up Tarascon, what will become 
 of Grenoble! 
 
 On the distance from Emporium to the passage of the Rhone. 
 
 Polybius s1;ates this distance to be about 1,600 stadia = 200 
 miles : an amount which, upon fair examination, is found to 
 accord so nearly with both the rival crossings, that it furnishes 
 no preference to either. From Emporium to Mmes, a space 
 which is common to both these lines, it is agreed to reckon 
 177 miles : the Oxford Dissertation adds 30 for their con- 
 tinuation to Eoquemaure; making 207 m. = 1,656 stadia. 
 H. Long adds 15 for his continuation to Beaucaire, making 
 192 m. = 1,552 stadia. JSTeed we discuss whether 1,552 or 
 1,656 best represents "about 1,600 ?*' 
 
 95 
 
 CHAP. IV.] Tarascon Theory. H. L. Long, 
 
 Long relies on this, that liis distance is below the amount 
 named, not above it: and he insists, p. 20, that, when Poly- 
 bins employs the word irepl, adding it to a round number, 
 he commonly exceeds the real distance. Now if a man in- 
 tends to exceed the real distance, he must have means of 
 apprehending what the real distance is. Polybius in ex- 
 pressing the distances of this march, has used Trepi twice ; 
 and he does so because he could not know the real distances : 
 once, when he includes the passage of the Pyrenees ; once 
 when he mcludes the passage of the Alps. He could not 
 have ascertained or heard of any measured distance in these 
 two mstances. Where was he to find an estimate to aid 
 hmi ? There was none ; and therefore he used irepL My 
 friend is in the common error of supposing that Polybius 
 spoke with knowledge of Eoman measurements between 
 Empormm and the Ehone. When they did establish a Way 
 through Prance into Spain, it did not touch Emporium It 
 IS true that Polybius applies irepC for qualifying an ex- 
 aggerated total; when he has enumerated many amounts 
 which added together would be 960, he will probably say 
 0)^7X6 elvac Trepl 1,000 : but where, as in the instance before 
 us, TrepUs merely prefixed to an amount not alleged as the 
 addition of others, it need only imply doubt, and the number 
 expressed need not be excessive. It is vain to strive here for 
 a few stadia more or less than 1,600. We cannot plant a fla- 
 staff on the shore of the Ehone as the very terminus of that 
 section of the march : and, if any man should propose Aries in 
 preference to Eoquemaure or Tarascon, we would controvert 
 It on better grounds than the distance from Emporium. 
 
 The single Stream. 
 
 Tliough diffident of one discoveiy, Long rests confidently 
 on anotl.er which he has made, for indicating tlie place of 
 
PoJyhim interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 (( 
 
 96 
 
 passage, and which has escaped all other critics : it concerns 
 the words Karh r^v aTrX^v pvavv. " at the single stream His 
 views are expressed thus :-" These words have been thought 
 « to mean a part of the stream uninterrupted by any of those 
 " islands with which the Khone abounds : an explanation in 
 « which I cannot at all concur ; for the words are most cer- 
 " tainly applied by Polybius to the passage at Beaucaire, in 
 " contradistinction to the passage at Aries : for at Aries the 
 « bifurcation o1: the Khone begins : at Aries there are two 
 " streams, and the passage would have been Kara r^v ^cirXrjv 
 " hva.v. Polybius, speaking of the Po, employs the same 
 '^ expression-T^v /.ev 7«P ^/>^^^^ ^'^ ''^' ^^'^^^ '^'' ^^^'' 
 '• airXriv, cxi^^raL 8' eU B{^o ^^ipv icar^ rov, ^poaayopevo^ 
 " aivov, Tpcyafi6\ov,, the river flows from its source in a 
 "Single stream at first, but is divided into two branches in 
 " the country of the Trigaboli."— P. 18. 
 
 The illustration is expected to help us in assuming, that the 
 term aTrXr) pv^rc, not only negatived the double crossing at 
 Aries but that it affirmed another place of crossing : so that 
 we may learn from it, both where Hannibal did not cross, and 
 where he did cross. A hasty inference under any state of 
 facts ! Here it is connected with the old blunder of supposing 
 that Polybius testifies to Koman roads in France. Long 
 stamps them as Koman ways, saying, p. 17 :— " The words of 
 " Polybius ai.^. decisive : he distinctly points out a road 
 " between Emporium and the Khone, measured and marked 
 
 - by the Komans. No other Koman way leading from Mmes 
 « to the Khone exists, even in tradition : it follows therefore, 
 « that, either at Beaucaire or Aries, Hannibal must have 
 
 - effected his passage ; and we are at once relieved from all 
 " doubt as to which of the two places we are to choose, by 
 " the words of Polybius himself, Kara r^v dirX^v pvcrcv," 
 The best excuse for Long's error on Koman ways is, that our 
 common friends of the Oxford Dissertation had themselves 
 
 CHAP. IV.] Tarascon Theory. H. L. Long. 97 
 
 been similarly oblivious : they tell us, p. 39 :— " Polybius 
 " observes that lie is correct in his reckoning, because the 
 " Komans have carefully measured and marked it at every 
 " eight stadia. It is evident from this, that he wishes us to 
 " understand that the army marched along that track which 
 " was afterwards tlie great Koman road to Nimes." It lias 
 been shown that Polybius never heard of it himself. 
 
 This argument, however, on the single stream is intrinsically 
 void of effect. If Koman ways had been established while 
 Polybius lived, and at the very points desired, he would not 
 have sought to be understood through so blind a reference. 
 If he had trusted that his Greek countrymen whom he 
 addressed, or anybody else, would identify " single stream " 
 with one town, and « double stream " with another, while he 
 mentioned neither, he would ill deserve the character which 
 he enjoys, of imparting ideas through intelligible symbols. 
 No student, Greek, Koman, or Gaul, would have been wiser 
 by such instruction. Moreover, the instruction would not 
 have been true. It is true that about 600 years after the 
 invasion, Aries was celebrated for the dupHcity of its river. 
 The double bridge is among the praises sung by the poet 
 Ausonius : and this renown of Aries perhaps excited the 
 argument, and seduced a lover of poetry into his contrast of 
 airkri and hnrXi). But the contrast is imagined against fact : 
 in this river of islands, other places, more or less favoured by 
 fame than Aries, can boast a dupl icity of stream. Not only 
 the greater towns on the Lower Khone, but Long's own emblem 
 of simplicity, Beaucaire itself, enjoys a double crossing, having 
 the same advantage by means of a small island, which Aries 
 has by the apex of a large one : and, when he proclaims " at 
 Aries there are two streams," he may add with equal truth, 
 " at Avignon there are two streams," and '' at Tarascon there 
 are two streams :" Kard, r^v ^7rXr> pvaiv, without more, dis- 
 proves a crossing at Tarascon. 
 VOL. 1. H 
 
98 
 
 PolyUus interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 On ancient Registers of Distance. 
 As Dr. Ukert declines to antedate tlie commencement of 
 the conquest of Gaul, there is not much comment in which he 
 and H. Long nm together. Indeed Strabo's fact, that in the 
 time of Augustus there was a way of getting over the Ehone 
 at Tarascon, su]3plies the only item in which there is sympathy 
 between them. From this result of Eoman conquest, both are 
 encouraged to conceive, that, two centuries earlier, a Cartha- 
 ginian invader of Italy had taken that crossing : one critic 
 making it incident to the route of the Mont Cenis, the other 
 to the passage of the Little St. Bernard ; each with a view to 
 his own ulterior constructions. But neither backs his case 
 with practical authority. They bring forward no instances of 
 that crossing being used by armies : it is not suggested that 
 the colonisers of Narbo crossed at Tarascon ; nor the troops 
 of Fabius, or of Marius, or Pompey, or Csesar. lUustration is 
 
 wanting. 
 
 The Itineraries have been searched in vain ; both that 
 which bears the name of Antoninus, and the later one of 
 Jerusalem : uohappily, neither furnishes the wished-for track. 
 The Via Aurelia proceeds by the Maritime Alps to the Rhone 
 at Aries : the Iter in Hispanias proceeds by the Cottian Alps 
 to the Ehone at Aries : nor Ugernum nor Tarasco exist in 
 these registei's. Long at last brings forth a witness not 
 adverted to b^ the other patron of this passage : he appeals 
 to the Theodosian Table, a geographical portrait of unknown 
 manufacture, but considered to represent a state of things 600 
 years after Hannibal. The artist certainly might have known 
 that there was some crossing at Tarascon : and, if he had 
 exhibited it, we should take the fact for what it is worth : he 
 may have known more than he draws : but we are asked to 
 reason from what he does draw. 
 
 In page 17 of Long's march of Hannibal, he rejoices in 
 
 CHAP. IV.] Tarascon Theonj, H. Z. Long, 99 
 
 two roads leading from Nismes to the Ehone. He says, 
 '' they are really Eoman, as well as being still in use as' 
 " important thoroughfares. Of these, one runs in a direction 
 " due east from Msmes to Beaucaire, the ancient Ugernum; 
 1^^ the other takes a south-easterly course to the celebrated 
 " city of Aries, formerly the more celebrated Arelate. The 
 '' road to Aries seems to have been the most frequented 
 '' of the two, and appears in all the Itineraries ; that to 
 ^'' Beaucaire is given in the Theodosian Table, and is noticed 
 "^ by Sfcrabo." Unhappily, in this Theodosian Table we look 
 m vam for - two roads leading from Msmes to the Ehone." 
 ^ e know that Beaucaire is on the Ehone : but perhaps the 
 Theodosian artist did not : his Ugernum is not on the Ehone : 
 the portrait which is appealed to, gives only one road, which 
 seems to reach the Ehone at Aries ; and Ugernum is exhibited 
 as a half-way house between that place and Mmes. Whatever 
 be the pretensions of Beaucaire and Tarascon to have -iven 
 passage to Hannibal, my friend must not rest them on the 
 delmeations of the Pentingerian Chart-animum pictura 
 pascit inani. 
 
 Tahula Peutingeriana. 
 Carte de Pmtinger, or, TaUe Theodosienne. 
 
 This old document, just referred to, will be mentioned again 
 so I take the opportunity of giving some account of it. 
 
 These tables are supposed to have been made a d 393 at 
 Constantinople, by order of the Emperor Theodosiu^, and to 
 have accompanied him when he crossed the Alps to oppose 
 Eugenius, and when he came after his successes to Milan 
 On the decay of the Empire, they fell with other spoils into 
 the hands of barbarians, and were carried into Germany • 
 they are supposed to be aUuded to by Jornandes, Bishop of 
 Kavenna, who flourished about a.d. 552. 
 
 H 2 ' 
 
100 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part III. 
 
 Their known history is this,— In 1459 Conrad Celtes was 
 employed by the Emperor Maximilian to travel in search of 
 ancient manuscripts and curiosities ; he found this document 
 in a library at Spiers : instead of carrying it to his patron, he 
 gave it to his friend Conrad Peutinger of Augsburg, and 
 confirmed the gift by his will. Peutinger always intended to 
 have these tables engraved and published ; but he died in 
 1547, not having carried his intention into effect. He had a 
 small portion c-f them copied ; and the copy was discovered 
 in 1587 by Marc Velser, a friend of the Peutinger family, who 
 published it at Venice in 1591 : in about seven years after 
 that, Velser succeeded in finding the original parchments ; 
 and he had them engraved in copper-plate on a reduced 
 scale, and published at Antwerp. Towards the end of the 
 seventeenth century and the early part of the eighteenth, there 
 were fresh editions by different persons ; but all derived from 
 that of Velser, without any fresh inspection of the original 
 document; the last being that of Nicholas Bergier in 1736. 
 In the meantime the Tables themselves were beginning to 
 move from their obscurity ; about 1714 Wolfgang Sulzer, 
 probing into the dusty recesses of the Peutinger library, 
 discovered them, and suggested to one Kiiz, a bookseller of 
 ATigsburg, that he might endeavour to purchase them. The 
 Peutinger who then owned them, allowed KUz to have them 
 at no extravagant price ; and, on the death of Kiiz, his family 
 were willing tc» sell this curious relic, which many persons of 
 distinction were desirous to possess. Prince Eugene became 
 the purchaser in 1720 ; and in 1738 it went, with other 
 literary treasures that had belonged to that celebrated man, 
 into the imperial library of Charles the Sixth, and it is at 
 Vienna at this day. In 1741 it underwent a scientific 
 reparation: accurate engravings were made by Solomon 
 Kleiner, of th<3 size of the original Tables, and published in 
 1753 by Francis Christopher de Scheyb. 
 
 i 
 
 THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 PAET IV. 
 
 POLYBIUS INTERPEETED. THE BEGINNING 
 
 OF ALPS. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 The march of 1,400 stadia may le taken in two parts : 1. to the 
 Mre, 2. to the beginning of Alps. Hannibal, crossing the 
 Islre, loent forward. Most critics make him recross the Ishre 
 and then seek the A Ips. Five incidents mark the progress to 
 the Alps: ten days; 800 stadia ; along the river ; country 
 for cavalry ; country of the Allobroges. 
 
 In discussing the first litigated terminus, the place of 
 crossmg the Ehone, we have gained a knowledge of the 
 march, for 600 stadia beyond that point ; namely, to the 
 Isere : we now have to delineate the remaining 800 for com- 
 pletmg the 1,400 of Polyhius. 
 
 Here the combatant critics are of two sorts : those who 
 contmue the march north of Isfere, and those who turn to 
 pursue it south of Is^re. None leave that river quite un- 
 touched, save the accola of the Eygues, who finaUy parts 
 trom the Ehone soon after he has crossed it. We propose 
 to cross the Isere with the whole armament, and to proceed 
 on our march to the Alps. Some cairy the whole force over 
 but bring It back again : and our most laborious opponent.' 
 
 \ 
 
102 
 
 Polyhms interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 the Cenisians, make a reluctant admission, tliat some opera- 
 tions may have been at first conducted on the other side 
 of the river. 
 
 Little need })e said for identifying the Island. Some 
 indeed have invented islands for their particular theories. 
 Mr. Whitaker's Island is the town of Lyons, enclosed by 
 its hills and two rivers. Others have insulated a space wdth 
 the Ehone, the Isere, the Drac, and the Drome : and M. 
 Portia d'Urban found the Island near his own farm on the 
 Eygues. Those, however, whose speculations deserve serious 
 notice, commonly accept the region enclosed by the Ehone, 
 the Isere, and their connecting chain of mountains, as the 
 Island of the I'olybian history. 
 
 Some who have pretended that the army did not cross the 
 Is^re, have relied on this— that Polybius does not relate the 
 operation. Theit argument favours no theory. Every scheme 
 of march requires river-crossings not mentioned in the nar- 
 rative. The more recent commentators make Hannibal 
 to recross the Is^re, bringing the auxiliary force with 
 them : and then send the whole expedition over the Drac, 
 which they paint as most formidable. As they cannot pre- 
 tend that Pol}'bius has told them these things, it is idle 
 to rest on his silence about rivers. From the Ebro to the Po 
 the only river whose passage is described or asserted is the 
 Ehone. 
 
 Hannibal's passage of the Isere, however, is not left to 
 conjecture. It is necessarily implied in the operations told : 
 it appears in the words KardXajScDV iv avrfj' avveK^aKwv. 
 If a man has kicked another out of a house, we are apt 
 to believe, that for the operation both -were in the house. 
 And, if it were suggested that he only kicked him out by 
 persuasion, such a word as avveiriOi/jievo^ w^ould give the idea 
 of personal conflict, requiring the presence of the agent as 
 well as the patient. The details prove movements beyond 
 
 / 
 
 CHAP. 1.] Passage of Rhone to the Alps. 103 
 
 the Iske : and the crossing of it is a known fact, without 
 being separately alleged. 
 
 It is because that river was crossed, and because the region 
 beyond it became important as the scene of events, that this 
 region, the Island, is the object of particular description by 
 the historian, as to its character, size, and boundaries : while 
 not a word is bestowed upon the country on the left bank, 
 which so many writers hold up as the course of the march. 
 M. De Luc rightly commends the judgment of Polybius in 
 his designation of the boundaries of the Island, and the 
 assimilation of it to the Delta, a place which his public 
 employments had brought him acquainted with. He says :— 
 " Je ne crois pas que Ton puisse trouver nulle autre part en 
 " Europe, un pays dans une situation semblable h celle de 
 '' cette contree qu'on appeloit I'lsle. II y a bien des rivieres 
 " qui se rencontrent ; mais ou sera la chaine des montagnes 
 " qui, en s'etendant d' une riviere a Tautre comme une 
 " haute muraille, enfermera un pays de mani^re a I'isoler 
 " completement." Dr. Ukert, indeed, refers to the same ex- 
 pressions oprj SvairpoaoBa, koX Bu(T€fi^o\a, Kal axeBov, (w? 
 ecTreiv, airpoacra, for a proof that Polybius did not conceive 
 Hannibal to have marched through the mountains which 
 bound the Island: and Dr. Thirlwall has inadvertently 
 caUed that remark sagacious. Sagacity, if any there wer^ 
 would belong to M. Larauza, who had ventured upon it 
 before. I see far better sense in the Oxford Dissertation, 
 where the description is spoken of as agreeing admirably 
 with the lofty barrier that extends from Grenoble to the 
 Ehone, and where the term axeSov, oJ? direiv, dirpoaira, 
 is said to point evidently to a passage through it. That 
 which is really dirpoairov would not be called <7xeSov, «? 
 etVetv, anpoo-cTov. Niebuhr, recording the irruption of the 
 Gauls, calls the Alps, ^' the seemingly impassable mountain 
 barrier of Italy." * 
 
 * Translation l>y Hare and TJiirhvall. 3d edit. ii. p. .511. 
 
104 
 
 Polyhiits interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 Seeing that Hannibal crossed the Is^re and entered the 
 island, we pursue our subject by inquiring how he got out of 
 it. We read that he aided a prince of that country in re- 
 pressing a revolt of his subjects, and that he received from 
 him substantial proofs of gratitude. The progress to the first 
 Alps is told as follows (c. 49, 50) : — " But the chief thing was 
 '• this : as they were in a state of much apprehension about 
 *' their progress through the country of the Gauls called AUo- 
 " broges, he covered their rear with his own forces, and so 
 " gave security to their march until they got near to the 
 " passage of the Alps. Hannibal, having in ten days per- 
 " formed a march of 800 stadia along the river, began the 
 '* ascent to the- Alps ; and it came to pass that he fell into the 
 " greatest dangers. As long as they were in the plain country, 
 " all the detached chieftains of the Allobroges held off from 
 " them, partly in fear of the cavalry, partly of the barbarians 
 " who escorted them. But, when the latter had turned back 
 " homewards, and Haiinibars troops were beginning to ad- 
 " vance into the difficult places, then the leaders of the 
 " Allobroges, collecting themselves together in sufficient force, 
 " pre-occupied the advantageous posts, by which it was neces- 
 '* sary that Hannibal's forces should make their ascent." 
 
 These few ^.vords exhibit five things as necessary incidents 
 to this very interesting part of the controverted track — 1. The 
 progress was ]3erformed in ten days. 2. It was a progress of 
 800 stadia. 3. It was along the river. 4. It was, so far as 
 the ally accompanied the army, over a country where cavalry 
 could act. 5. It was through the country of the Allobroges. 
 By these five tests I propose to try all the routes which have 
 been offered to us from near the confluence of the rivers to the 
 beginning of Alps. Any which does not fairly embrace these 
 incidents cannot pretend to be that which Polybius has 
 described. 
 
 There are lliree routes by which the march has been sup- 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alps. Mont du Chat. 
 
 105 
 
 posed to proceed onward from the Is^re ; that is to say, to 
 quit the island without recrossing that river. One of these is 
 our own way by the Mont du Chat. Another is that which, 
 following the Rhone to Geneva, and along and beyond the 
 lake, finds the first Alps at Martigny.* Another is that 
 which keeps the right bank of Is^re, through Grenoble to La 
 Buissi^re, under the heights of Fort Barraux. The routes 
 which are traced to the Alps by proceeding southwards from 
 the Isere are numerous. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Mont da Clmt fulfils all the requisites of Polybius. 
 
 In our march to that which we deem the avajBoXri of the 
 history, we satisfy the text in all respects. The line of pro- 
 gress which we maintain attends the Rhone to Yienne. There, 
 leaving the river, it finds it again at St. Genix, and, having 
 attended its course for a time, encounters the first Alps in 
 the Mont du Chat, at the northern part of the mountain 
 barrier which ranges from the Isere to the Rhone, commonly 
 called the chain of the Grand Chartreuse. Tliere, we say, 
 begin the Alps of the history. 
 
 While I support my own views, it will be convenient some- 
 times to contrast them with the doctrines by which the pre- 
 tensions of other tracks are exposed. But I shall give, in 
 addition, some separate notice of each adverse track ; two of 
 which proceed north of Isere, and the rest south of Is^re, till 
 they severally reach the Alps. 
 
 * A fiuthei- progress up tlie Rhone has Ijcen suggested ; but I do 
 not |)ropose any separate discussion of it. 
 
 [ 
 
 V 
 
106 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alps. Mont dit Chat. 
 
 107 
 
 1. The Ten Days. 
 
 The time and space belonging to the progress now spoken 
 of, are to be reckoned from the expiration of the time and* 
 space which belonged to the previous progress, from the pas- 
 sage of the Ehone to the Island. That progress was accom- 
 ]»lished by four days* marching : and our ten days will run 
 from the end of those four days, as our 800 stadia will be in 
 continuation of the 600 which must have been covered in 
 those four days. There is little dissent on this point. Our 
 weightier opponents date their further time and space from 
 near the conflu(mce of the rivers. 
 
 No part of th ese ten days can have been employed in free 
 and easy progress. The march was in some degree em- 
 barrassed by an enemy hovering in front, instead of being 
 urged by the apprehension of one in pursuit. But had all 
 been in so practicable a country as the plain of Dauphine, a 
 continuous maicli of 100 miles would not occupy ten days. 
 But it had been retarded by the operations in the Island : not 
 only by interference with the hostilities, but by the collecting 
 and distributing^ of the supplies ; for which purpose we must 
 suppose a halt at Yienne, the probable head-quarters of the 
 ally. There was also the crossing of the Isere by the Cartha- 
 ginian armament : and, although this must have been facili- 
 tated by friends instead of being obstructed by enemies, we 
 may take it into the account of time. Accordingly, though a 
 given progress ^vas made in the ten days, it is unlikely that 
 each could be a day of progression. We shall find hereafter, 
 that of the fifteen days in which the Alps were traversed, 
 some were not days of progress. In this march to the begin- 
 ning of Alps, til ere is one who must be displeased with the 
 slowness of our advance, Mr. H. L. Long, who, in his own 
 allotment of ten days, reckons six of them as halting days. 
 
 s 
 
 I 
 
 2. The 800 stadia. 
 
 The ten days were in continuation of the four days to the 
 Island. In those four days an advance was made of 600 
 stadia to the Isere : and to reach the ava/3o\r] "AXirecov is now 
 the object of the remaining 800, being the terminus of the 
 1,400 announced by the history. 
 
 General Melville, like Mr. Hampton, had made the track to 
 quit the Rhone at St. Eambert, a place below Yienne, and to 
 cross the country to les Echelles, not touching the llhone 
 again.* M. De Luc made the important correction here, in 
 showing that the line of march, though it would avoid the 
 great elbows made by the Ehone to Lyons and St. Sorlin, 
 would come upon the river again at St. Genix d'Aoste, and 
 proceed near it towards the foot of the Mont du Chat. This 
 beginning of Alps is near to Chevelu, a village which is in 
 front of the Chat, and which corresponds in site with the 
 Lavisco of the Itinerary, a place appearing as being lialf way 
 from Augustum, St. Genix d'Aoste, to Lemincum, Chambery ; 
 14 miles from each. 
 
 The length of this scope of march from the Isere to 
 the foot of the Chat, is such as fairly to satisfy the 800 
 stadia = 100 miles of Polybius. The Itinerary of An- 
 toninus, Wesseling, pp. 346, 358, gives the distances from 
 Yalentia to Ursolis, Yienna, Bergusia, Augustum, Labiscone, 
 98 miles : but this includes the 5 miles from Yalencia to 
 the Is^re, which, being deducted, we have 93 miles. ^I. De 
 Luc, however, measuring from Port de U Isere to Yeune 
 exhibited the actual distance, showing it to amount to 73,550 
 toises = 97J Eoman miles. But Yenne should be avoided 
 in moving to Chevelu : to get to Yenne, you put yourself 
 without any necessity within a range of hills, only to come 
 out again, and go forward to Chevelu; a point on which 
 
 * De Luc. 2d edit. p. 81. 
 
108 
 
 Polt/hiiis interpreted. 
 
 [PAKT IV. 
 
 De Luc was corrected by the Oxford Dissertation. As to 
 distance, Yenne appears to be but twelve miles beyond 
 Augustum, which is two less than to Chevelu : and I have 
 seen myself, in an excursion from Aix, that the ava^oXrj 
 may fairly be taken as nearer to the Col, than where the 
 village of Chevelu stands. It is quite just to say, that 
 the ascent to Col du Chat well fulfils the 800 stadia of 
 Polybius. 
 
 This route, from its superior facility, became afterwards 
 a regularly constructed road of the Roman empire, the only 
 one through this chain of mountains. Its perfection as a 
 posting road at this day, of course proves nothing for our 
 subject : indeed, there has been of late another equally good, 
 by Les Echelles through the tunnel to Chambery. Between 
 the Chat and that route there are two mountain passes used 
 by the natives : but they are mere mule tracks ; and neither 
 of them has the Col so depressed as that of the Chat: 
 one goes over that part of the range which is called the 
 Mont de I'fipine : the other more south by the village of 
 Aiguebellette. 
 
 D'Anville has conjectured that ISTovalese is the Labisco of 
 the Itinerary : a place by which one, who has come from the 
 west across tlie Guiers, may proceed over the Mont de 
 TEpine to Chambery. This is not said by him in relation to 
 Hannibars track: nor is he contesting the pretensions of 
 any other place to represent Lavisco : he had probably never 
 heard that anj- part of the range of the Grande Chartreuse 
 affected to have given passage to Hannibal. He is dealing 
 with the word Labisco in his " Notice de I'ancienne Gaule : '* 
 and the ground, of his conjecture is, that he perceives a simi- 
 larity between that word and the word Laisse : so he points 
 out the village of Novalese, which is a few miles from St. 
 Genix d'Aoste in the direction of the Mont de TEpine ; and 
 says that a small stream, called, La petite Laisse, runs from 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alps. Mont du Chat, 
 
 109 
 
 thence into the Guiers. I see in Raymond's map the river 
 Laisse, on the other side of the mountains, running from 
 Chambery into the lac de Bourget. But, supposing that 
 there is a petite Laisse, such as D'Anville speaks of, the 
 resemblance of words will not identify it with Lavisco, in the 
 Roman road ; especially when, for supporting his notion, he 
 has to alter the figures of the Itinerary. He admits that 
 a road from Aoste to Chambery by ISTovalese and the Mont 
 de I'Epine would not exceed 17 or 18 Roman miles, en droite 
 ligne : the Itinerary gives 28 : so he reduces it by altering 
 the XIIII of the first half into YIIII. He does not notice 
 the possibility of any other track through those mountains, 
 but says " il faut franchir le Mont de I'Epine," and does his 
 best to manage the word Lavisco. His thoughts never strayed 
 to that region in the view of understanding Polybius. We 
 are now so employed, and in corsidering the most probable 
 track through the Grande Chartreuse chain, are brought to 
 the opinion, that the Polybian incident, distance, accords best 
 with Chevelu and the Mont du Chat. 
 
 3. Along the River — irapa tov Trora/jLov. 
 
 All who have written on this portion of the march, except- 
 ing De Luc and the authors of the Oxford Dissertation, have 
 declined to acknowledge, in the words of Polybius, c. 50, 
 Trapa tov irora^ovy the meaning which I assert as plainly 
 belonging to them — ' along the Rhone.' 
 
 We contend that, by grammatical reference and the ordi- 
 nary use of language, the river Rhone, and no other, must be 
 intended : and that for the ten days, as for the prior four days, 
 the same words must have the same meaning. This also is 
 necessary, for accordance with the primary description of the 
 march in c. 39, where the section of ' 1,400 stadia from the 
 passage of the Rhone to the Alps' is said to be irap aviov 
 
110 
 
 Folyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Tov TTOTafiov. Nevertheless the advocates of rival theories 
 rely on the word Trapa, as excluding our march to the Mont 
 du Chat from all claim to favour ; they say that our course is 
 not along the river Rhone, because it bears away from it at 
 Vienne, and rejoins it at St. Genix ; and that therefore some 
 other river must have been intended. 
 
 I admit that, if the historian was studying to pourtray a 
 march keeping always 'at the river-side' or * along the very 
 ' banks,' as our adversaries express it, he cannot have conceived 
 the line of march which we attribute to him. But, if he meant 
 a march proc(!eding up the valley of a river to a mountain 
 pass which rises in the vicinity of the river, then the march 
 which we giv<} from the passage of it to the Alps, is along 
 the river : and those who will note the distinction between a 
 towing path on the shore of a river and the valley of the river, 
 and will bring plain grammar and common sense to aid the 
 comprehension of a simple expression, will find that the re- 
 quisite conveycid in irapa tov irora^iov is rightly fulfilled by 
 this route only, and is the conclusive test which should remove 
 eveiy scruple of criticism on the first Alps of Polybius. 
 
 The importance which belongs to these words can hardly 
 be overrated. No incident in the narrative so much deserves 
 to be received as a key to the Alps of Hannibal, as the fact of 
 his seeking them along the Ehone. This fact has been denied 
 or held dubious, by all who either know not the narrative of 
 Polybius, or depreciate it, or evade it, from Chevalier Folard 
 to Mr. Ellis. It is, however, to my mind, as clear a fact as 
 ever was told by words. I proceed then to encounter the 
 formidable array of critics, who have declined to recognise in 
 those words the sense which I impute to them. 
 
 At the head of the list I must put the Chevalier Folard, as 
 he has the honour to be cited, and to have been almost followed 
 by Professor Schweighaeuser. The Chevalier is the author of 
 voluminous notes appended to a translation of Polybius by 
 
 First Al}js. Mont du Chat. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Dom Vincent Thuillier, published at Paris in 1728, in six 
 quarto volumes. The work w^ould, perhaps, have been as useful 
 if it had not been ' enrichi de notes.' The translation by Dom 
 Thuillier of the words which express that section of the march 
 with which we are now engaged, is unobjectionable. " Depuis 
 " le passage du Ehone en allant vers ses sources jusqu'^ ce 
 " commencement des Alpes d'ou Ton va en Italic, on compte 
 " quatorze cent stades." But his commentator rejects the 800 
 of Polybius, an important part of the 1,400, as " une faute des 
 copistes," which Polybius would laugh at. Folard, I believe, 
 is the founder of this error, in which he has some distin- 
 guished disciples ; a march up the Isere from that river's 
 mouth. His course is, that Hannibal left Grenoble on his left 
 hand, and proceeded by Vizille and Bourg d'Oysans up the 
 Eomanche, crossing the Mont de Lens and the Lautaret, and 
 BO by Brian^on to the Genevre. This he calls " la route la 
 plus ordinaire et la plus pratiquee des Gaulois en Italie."-— 
 Tom. iv. 89. 
 
 Those opinions of Chevalier Folard were published in 1728 ; 
 and I am not aware of any furtlier criticism that may be 
 adverted to concerning the Trora/uLov of Polybius until the dis- 
 cussion of them by Schweighaeuser in 1792.* During that 
 period D'Anville was flourishing, but was silent on such 
 a subject. That eminent man published his "carte pour 
 Texpt^dition d'Annibal" in 1739. If he had then heeded 
 Polybius, or afterwards when he published his " Notice de 
 TAncienne Gaule" in 1860, he might have questioned or as- 
 sented to the construction of Folard, and roused the attention 
 of others to the river. But he did not heed Polybius, nor 
 canvass his story of Hannibal's march : he attached himself 
 to Livy ; and never invited the learned to Polybius, as the his- 
 torian of Hannibal. I am aware of his citing Polybius once : 
 that was to help Livy; and he got himself into a scrape by doing 
 
 * In the German edition 9 volumes. 5th vol. Adnotationes. 
 
 (I 
 
112 
 
 Pol yh I as interpreted^ 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 i 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alps. Mont du Ghat. 
 
 113 
 
 « 
 
 « 
 
 it 
 
 a 
 
 tt 
 
 SO. But D'An\ille deserves his great name, notwithstanding 
 some obliquities. 
 
 The criticism, of Schweighseuser on Folard is somewhat 
 elaborate ; but at last he rightly hesitates to abide by what 
 he laid down at first. In 1792, commenting on the words '^k€ 
 wpb'i TTjv Kd\ovfJLev7)v vrjaov, he WTote thus : — " Ad insulam 
 dicit, non m insulam. Nee enim dicit Polybius, trajecisse 
 " fluvium Hannibalem cum toto agmine, sed juxta fluvium 
 progressu7n ait cap. 50. l,quod cumFolardo de Isara intelligi 
 potest, ita quidem, ut Isaram k Iseva habuerit. Substitit 
 " quidem per aliquod tempus cum exercitu ad illam insulam, 
 alteri ex fratribus, qui in ilia de regno dissidebant, sup- 
 petias ferens ; sed id facere potuit parte copiamm fluvium 
 *' trajecta, reliquo exercitu interim in stativis agente. Quod 
 " si etiam totum exercitum Isaram trajecit Hannil)al (quod 
 " credi x:)otest (?o consilio fecisse, ut fluvium hunc a tergo 
 " haberet, si se([uerentur Romani), non multum tamen deinde 
 ** versus Septentrionem in Insula progressum videtur agmen, 
 " sed prope Isaram substitisse, ac deinde adverse hujus fluvii 
 " ripa iter continuasse." — Adnotationes ad Polyh. iii. 49. 
 
 In a subsequent note on TropevOeU irapa rbv Trorafjbov, 
 commenting on the Latin version of Casaubon, which is 
 *' propter Rhodaiium," Schweighgeuser says : — " At non propter 
 Rhodannm, Si^A propter fiiivinm Polybius dicit: neque Eho- 
 danum, sed Isaram fluvium nunc dici a Polybio putem. 
 " Nee enim immanem ilium anfractum, quem facit Rhodanus 
 " ad Lugdunum, emensum esse agmen, probabile est ; et, si 
 " hac via iter fecisset, multo longius sane, quam centum 
 '* millium passuum, iter fuisset ab Isara, Ehodani ripam se- 
 " quendo, usque ad eum adscensum Alpium, k quo deinde 
 " quinto decimo die in Italiam pervenire agmen potuit. 
 *' Omninoque hoc dicere Polybius videtur, adversa Isarai ripa 
 " versus fontem ejus fluvii, decern diebus per C. millium pass. 
 " spatium progressum esse agmen ; eamque viam postquam 
 
 tt 
 
 <i 
 
 n 
 
 t< 
 
 tt 
 
 tl 
 
 *• per convalles emensum est, deinde ipsa montium juga con- 
 " scendere coepisse. Sed jam video, eodem loco, quem modo 
 " citavi, (cap. 39, 9) ipsum Polybium diserte dicere videri, non 
 " discessisse k Rhodano Hannibalem, donee ad conscensum 
 '* Alpium pervenit. Quod si ita est, intelligo, corruere ea, 
 '' quae de itinere, adversa Isarse ripa institute, dicta sunt. 
 At dubitare fortasse licebit, an adeo stricte in banc senten- 
 tiam accipienda sint praedicto loco Polybii verba." 
 These are the words of a candid man, not the partisan of a 
 theory ; and his Latin version is " propter Rhodanum." 
 
 Mr. Whitaker does not adopt the Is^re ; he ascends the 
 Rhone, but forgets the limit of 800 stadia : he says, p. 96,— 
 Hannibal kept close to the Rhone, and thus advanced up to 
 Lyon. He still kept close to the Rlione, and thus advanced 
 " up to the Alps." Mr. Whitaker finds Alps for him at last ; 
 not at Lyon, nor Geneva, but at Martigny. 
 
 M. Letronne is strict upon irapd, which he applies to the 
 Rhone for the four days, but afterwards to the Iske and the 
 Drac, saying,— " Annibal, dit Polybe, marcha dix jours, le 
 " long du fleuve, Tespace de huit cent stades, et atteignit la 
 " mont^e des Alpes. Les mots, le long du fleuve, ne s'accord- 
 '' ent pas avec la route qu'a choisi M. De Luc; car, dans son 
 '' idee, Annibal a quitte le Rhone a Vienne, et a traverse la 
 " plaine du Dauphind, &c. tandis que Polybe dit formellement 
 " qu' Annibal a suivi la fleuve— il le suivit jusqu'au dixieme 
 "jour; cette mesure equivaut a 100 milles romains ; prise le 
 " long de I'Isere et du Drac, elle porte k Saint-Bonnet." 
 {Journal des Savans, Janv. 1819, p. 31.) M. Letronne uses 
 bits of three rivers to make '' le fleuve," rather than omit an 
 angle made by one. 
 
 General St. Cyr Nugues pursues boldly the same principle 
 (pp. 49, 50) : — " Les mots irapa rov Trora^ov d^signant le 
 " Rhone, ne permettent pas la moindre aberration. Sur les 
 " 54 miUes de chemin que I'armee d' Annibal, au sortir de 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 
 
 Polyhius interp^etecL 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alps. Mont cht Chat 
 
 115 
 
 n 
 
 i< 
 
 II 
 
 it 
 
 " Vienne, doit purcourir le long dn Ehone pour arriver a la 
 " mont^e des Alpes, M. De Luc commence par lui faire 
 faire 42 milles loin du Ehone." 
 
 M. Bande de Lavalette sings the same song, pp. 54, 55 : — 
 II resulterait de la qu'au lieu de faire les 800 stades en 
 " entier le long du fleuve, Annibal en aurait parcouru 400 
 " LOIN DU FLEUVE !" 
 
 H. L. Long says, " There is no possibility, with any rational 
 " result, to produce a march of 100 m. p. along the river, after 
 " Hannibal's arrival at the Iske (p. 45)." 
 
 M. Larauza, considers that the words irapa rov irorafiov 
 condemn our system below Yienne as well as beyond it. He 
 was ready, no doubt, to limit 50,000 men and thirty-seven 
 elephants to a towing-path. He says, p. 39 :— " Quand on 
 connait ceti:e partie du fleuve, qui se trouve entre Tlske 
 et Lyon, on ne pent douter que de ce cote il lui eut et^ im- 
 " possible de continuer a marcher le long du fleuve irapa rov 
 " TTorafMov : dans toute cette partie de son lit, surtout depuis 
 " les environs de Gisors, jusque vers St. Vallier, il se trouve 
 " encaisse entre des rochers escarpes qui, sur plusieurs points 
 " de sa rive gauche, soit baignes par les eaux, et ne laissent 
 " nul passage aux pietous." The extent of error is exhibited 
 thus, p. 41 :— " De Vienne a St. Genix d'Aouste M. De Luc 
 " compte 32,300 toises, c'est a dire 16 lieues de poste environ 
 " sur 37, peniante lesquelles M. De Luc nous tient eloign^s 
 " du Ehone, a une distance de 6, 5, et 4 lieues a vol d'oiseau. 
 " Or, peut-on dire serieusement que ce soit la marcher le lono" 
 " du fleuve." ^ 
 
 Dr. Ukert c himes in with a liberal translation of the leagues 
 of M. Larauza, saying, - Those who lead Hannibal thro'iigh 
 " the Island, are obliged to make him march some hundred 
 " stadia away from the river : which is contrary to Polybius." 
 
 Dr. Arnold did not doubt the fact of the march up the 
 Ehone to the Mont du Chat, but he does not acknowledge 
 
 )\ 
 
 that he learned it from Polybius. He rather justifies the 
 dissent of other critics, saying, " It does not appear whether 
 " the Carthaginians ascended the left bank of the Tsere or the 
 " right bank ; or whether they continued to ascend the Ehone, 
 " &c." AVithout helping to explain either vra/oa or Trorafiov, he 
 arraigns the historian as the cause of confusion, saying, 
 " These uncertainties cannot now be removed, because Poly- 
 " bins neither possessed suflicient knowledge of the bearings 
 " of the country, nor sufficient liveliness as a painter, to 
 " describe the line of march so as to be clearly recognised." 
 (iii. 83.) 
 
 Mr. Ellis reverses that method : he does not learn from 
 Polybius without confessing his guidance : on the contrary, 
 he confesses that he understands the author well ; but he 
 renounces him in favour of the fancy which he has resolved 
 to cultivate ; his motto is, " video meliora proboque : de- 
 " teriora sequor." He favours us with notions which would 
 have come with useful weight from Dr. Arnold : he states, 
 p. 22, in reference to c. 39 : " From this account it is certainly 
 " most natural to conclude, that it was the same river which 
 " was followed up all the way to the beginning of the 
 " Alpine ascent ; and not, in the first part of the march the 
 " Ehone, and in the second the Isere." Again, p. 27, " The 
 
 most obvious interpretation of the words irapa rov iroTafiov 
 
 in chap. 32 would lead us to think, that Hannibal followed 
 " up the Ehone from the place where he crossed that river, 
 " up to the first ascent of the Alps." These words are the 
 bright spot in Mr. EUis's work. It is effaced, and the good 
 sense of it abandoned, without any reasonable apology. 
 
 M. Eeplat (Chambery, 1851) writes, in subservience to 
 prior authorities, "II est remarquable, que depuis le chap. 
 " 49, otIi il a nomme le Scaras, soit Tlsaras, Polybe cesse 
 " de designer nominativement le Ehone, dont il avait jusque- 
 " \k fait mention plusieurs fois." 
 
 1 2 
 
 t( 
 
 t< 
 
116 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 Dr. Liddell in his history does not deal with irapd or 
 TTOTafiov : he believes in the L. St. Bernard; but as he makes 
 the grateful chief take leave of Hannibal on the Is^re, and 
 near Grenoble, I cannot claim him for an ally on behalf of 
 the Ehone. 
 
 There is still another author, and an able one, Mr. George 
 Long, who rather sides with our opponents. In his article 
 "Insula AUobrogum," in Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Geo- 
 graphy, he says this :— " Hannibal, after staying a short time 
 " in the country about the junction of the Ehone and the 
 " Isere, commenced his march over the Alps. It is not 
 " material to d(;cide whether his whole army crossed over 
 " into the Insula or not, or whether he did himself, though 
 " the words of Polybius imply that he did. It is certain 
 " that he marclied up the valley of the Is^re towards the 
 " Alps ; and the way to find out where he crossed the Alps 
 " is by following the valley of the Isere." Whether the writer 
 of this inclines to the right bank or the left bank, he does not 
 say, nor does he quite say, that the invaders went no farther 
 up the Ehone. 
 
 Such is the accumulation of wisdom, which refuses to con- 
 fess that Polybius in the words Trapa rov irora^iov spoke of 
 the Ehone. Now I doubt exceedingly that any man ever rose 
 from a perusal of the history itself, having received from it 
 the impression that the author meant the Isere ; or that he 
 intended a succession of rivers, together representing Trorafiov. 
 Fact is, however, that critics innumerable have on this 
 point come to be infested with the fancy of substituting the 
 Isere for the Elione of Polybius : and the error, if such it 
 be, ought to receive correction. 
 
 It is quite true, that our line of march up the Ehone does 
 at a particular pcdnt strike away from the river, and, avoiding 
 Lyons, is for a time quite away from the stream. Accord- 
 ingly, you may think, if you will, that Polybius makes too 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alps. Mont ckc Chat. 
 
 117 
 
 liberal use of the word Trapd, and may employ it as an 
 argument against us. But the thing to be debated is this : 
 What river flowed between the passage of the Ehone, which 
 is one terminus of the progress here spoken of by Polybius, 
 and the beginning of Alps, which is the other terminus ? 
 If it is clear from the author himself that this river was the 
 Ehone, the first Alps can be no other than the Mont du 
 Chat. 
 
 From the time of Hannibal's reaching the Ehone, that 
 river is the main geographical feature in the narrative, till 
 the expedition reaches the Alps : the valley of the Ehone is 
 the scene of the events that are told. M. De Luc observed 
 that, before the sentence in question, the Ehone has been de- 
 signated fourteen times as "the river." This is strictly 
 true. He is mentioned by name only in the following in- 
 stances : when the historian describes the course of the 
 Ehone : when he speaks of invasions of Italy made by 
 the dwellers on the Ehone ; and when the Ehone is named 
 as a boundary of the Island : these are all the instances of 
 'PoBav6<;. When he is mentioned in the military movements, 
 he is spoken of as « the river." Hanno marches irapd t6v 
 woTafiov. Scipio marches wapd rov irora/Mov. Hannibal, 
 after crossing, marches 'jrapd rov irorafiov : and in the sen- 
 tence before us, having been refitted by the prince of the 
 Island, he continues his march to the Alps irapd rov 
 TTorafiov. They who allow irora^iov to be the Ehone in 
 every other instance, ought to show good reason when they 
 say that it is not the Ehone in this instance. 
 
 In the host of writers to whom I have referred, many do 
 no more than grumble on the word Trapd. Neither Dr. 
 Arnold, nor Dr. Liddell, nor Mr. G. Long help the question 
 with any reasons for doubt on irapd or on Trora/^oV. M. 
 Letronne alone ventures to argue the question, and deals 
 with the words of the historian, giving reasons that Trora/^oi/ 
 
118 
 
 Polyhiits intevp^eted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 should mean the Isere. He admits the other instances when 
 De Luc has shown it to mean the Ehone ; and says on them, 
 — "Dans ces ])assages, les mots irapa rov irora^iov suivent 
 " immediatement le nom du Ehone, en soi-te qu'il n'y a point 
 " de doute a cet egard ; au lieu qu'ici le nom du fleuve qui 
 "precede immediatement est celui d'Isaras; le nom du 
 "Ehone n'est point r^p^te dans I'intervaUe ; U est done 
 " naturel d'appHquer k Tlsere les mots irap^ t6v Trora/^ov." 
 — Joitrn. des Savans, Janv. 1819. 
 
 In all the criticism that has been heaped upon the subject 
 of the march, there is nothing more futile than this grammati- 
 cal dogma. Dr. Ukert cannot subscribe to it : he is quite 
 ready to get rid of the Ehone : but, as will be seen, he invents 
 facts, instead ol' perverting language. Others, in their emer- 
 gency, have been tempted to accede to the logic of M. Letronne. 
 Larauza tells us, " C^est de I'ls^re qu'il a parM en dernier 
 " lieu, et depuis cet endroit rfj fxev yap 6 '?oBav6<;, rfj S' 6 
 " "lo-dpa^* il ne nom plus le Ehone une seule fois." So De 
 Lavalette :— " I/intention de Polybe a du etre en effet de 
 " designer I'ls^i'e, puisqu' il venoit d'en ecrire le nom." 
 
 If there were truth in the supposed rule of construction, 
 which there is not, this application of " en dernier lieu " 
 would be ludicrous. When Polybius describes the shape of 
 the Island, c. 49, 'PoSavo? and 'ladpa<; are bracketed together, 
 as the nominative to aTro/copi/^oOo-^. Then we have the narra- 
 tive of Hannibal's interference with the contending parties, 
 and the refitting of his army. We then read that, having in 
 ten days march(id 800 stadia irapd rhv 7roTap,6v, he began^he 
 ascent. Here it is that M. Letronne interprets Trorafiov the 
 Isere, because it was " the river last named." C'est de I'lsere 
 qu'il a parle en dernier lieu ! 
 
 * iii. 49, G. This is the only place where Polybius names 11 
 Isere. 
 
 le 
 
 I 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Aljps. Mont du Chat. 
 
 119 
 
 To know what river is intended, we have to regard that 
 which is the subject of the story that we are reading,* not that 
 whose name has last occurred in the text. The historian, in 
 describing country, might pause to enumerate all tributary 
 streams which flow into the Ehone below Geneva : when his 
 narrative is resumed, " the river " will not intend the last of 
 that catalogue. 
 
 This is but common sense ; and we need not go far for a 
 confirmation of it. Let us try M. Letronne by his own test 
 of " the river last-named." Polybius says, c. 49, that in three 
 days after Hannibal had marched forward, Scipio came in 
 search of him to the passage of the river — iirl rrjv rov 
 TTorajjiov Scdfiaacv; and probably, when M. Letronne read 
 the history, he believed this irorafiov to be the Ehone : but, 
 if he had looked back for the river last named, and applied 
 his own rule, he would have found that Scipio was looking 
 for Hannibal on the Po. Indeed that principle would transfer 
 much of these operations to the other side of the Alps : for 
 again, if you will read Hannibal's address to his army after 
 crossing the river, and interpret the word Trora/nov by " le nom 
 " qui precede immediatement," you will perceive that he con- 
 gratulated them on their successful passage of the Po. As for 
 the Isk'e in the instance before us, M. Letronne does not even 
 fulfil the philosophy of his om n precept : for when, to under- 
 stand TTOTafjLov, he retreats through the text in search of a 
 river, the first he stumbles upon is in truth neither Ehodanus 
 nor Isaras : he first encounters rd^ tc3v irora/jLoov pva€L<i, the 
 streams which confine the Egyptian delta. Thus it would 
 better accord with the spirit of his doctrine, to maintain that 
 Hannibal marched to the Alps up the !N'ile. 
 
 There is another test, to which the discovery of M. 
 Letronne must be subjected ; the illustration of an author 
 by himself. This also he encountered boldly. Polybius in 
 
 * See note in Appendix. 
 
 I 
 
120 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [PART IV. 
 
 c. 39, dividinjr the whole march into five sections, mentioned 
 this section, " from the passage of the Ehone to the beginning 
 or ascent of Alps," as being 1,400 stadia irap' aMv rbl 
 TTorafMoy: and one would say, that the term irap^ t6v 
 TTOTafiov, as used in the narrative of this same progress, must 
 import the same river which was described in that section. 
 See how the expression is used. 
 
 Statement of this section of the march in c. 39. 
 
 'Atto he T^9 Bia^daeax^ tov 'VoSavov nopevofiivoii; irap 
 avTov TOV woTUfiov (W9 ijrl T(^9 TTTiy^^; ^a>9 irpb^ t^v ava^oX^v 
 Twv 'A\7rea>v, rrjv €69 "iraXlav, x^'^f'Oi rerpaKOdLOi : and from 
 the passage of the Ehone, for those who proceed along this very 
 river, as if to the source, as far as the ascent to the Alps, 
 which leads to Italy, 1,400 stadia. 
 
 The same process in the narrative, 
 
 C. 47. 1. UepaKoeivTcov Be twv Ovpcoyv, Am'/9a9 Trporjye 
 Trapa tov iroTafioy. The elephants having been 
 brought over, Hannibal led forward along the river. 
 
 c. 49. 5. Avv/^a? Be 7rocij<Tdfievo<; k^<; iirl TeTTapa^ VH'ipaq 
 TTjv iropeiav diro Trj<; Bca^daem rjKe irpo<; ttjv KaXovpLevrjv 
 
 l^rjaop. Hannibal, having marched from the passage of 
 the river far four consecutive days, came to the Island, as 
 it is called. 
 
 c. 50. 1. \vv^,fia^ B'ev rjfiepaL^; BUa iropevOeU irapd tov 
 TTOTUfibv i'l<; OKTaKoalov^ aTaBlov^;, rjp^aTo T7J<: tt/oo? 
 Ta9 *A\7r6(9 dva^oXrj^, Hannibal, having in ten days 
 marched along the river eight hundred stadia, began the 
 ascent to the Alps. 
 Now, supposing a man to have doubted whether the 
 narrative represents the four days^ march to the Island, and 
 the ten days' further march to the ava^oXri, to have been 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alps. Mont du Chat. 
 
 \ 
 
 121 
 
 along one and the same river, one might expect his doubts to 
 be removed on reference to c. 39, which states the entire 
 march of 1,400 stadia as being irap avTov tov iroTafiov, 
 M. Letronne is not so influenced. He assents to the division 
 of the 1,400 stadia into 600 and 800 : but does not allow that 
 the river of the 800 is the river of the 600 ; nor that the 
 words of c. 39 give the whole 1,400 to those who do the 
 journey along the river from the passage of it to the beginning 
 of Alps. He admits 1,400 stadia to be the distance between 
 those termini ; but not that the words iropevofxevoi^ nap 
 avTov TOV TTOTafiov m iirl Ta9 irir/df; are applicable to that 
 scope of march: he limits their effect to this— that the 
 progress was begun up the stream: and contends that 
 TTopevofiac means only " to set out." 
 
 These are his words—" Si M. De Luc avoit fait attention 
 " lui-meme a la phrase de Polybe k laquelle il renvoie, il y 
 " auroit vu que les 1,400 stades n'y sont pas compt^s le long 
 du fleuve, et que son opinion k est egard tient k ce qu'il ne 
 saisit pas le sens de Toriginal, qui du reste a ete fort mal 
 " entendu. Par les mots Trap avTov tov TroTa/iov m eVt Ta^: 
 " 7n77a9, Annibal ne fait qu'indiquer en g^n^ral le direction 
 " de le route a partir du passage du Ehone : il veut dire 
 " simplement qu'au lieu de se diriger droit a Test, vers les 
 " Alpes, on commence par remonter le fleuve ; sans pretendre 
 ' appliquer a la longueur de la route le long du fleuve, la 
 " mesure de 1,400 stades jusqu'a la montee des Alpes." 
 (Journ. des Savam, Dec. 1819.) 
 
 It seems to me that, if this idea of " movement along the 
 river, as if seeking the source," is connected only with the ter- 
 minus a quo, and disconnected from the terminus ad quern, 
 you take from those words all their value. Their value is, 
 that they help us through ea)9 7r/>09 to find the Alps. There 
 is a peculiarity of expression in telling this section of the 
 march, not used for the other four sections of it. The others 
 
 u 
 
 it 
 
 (( 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
 SL 
 
122 
 
 Polybius mterpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 are told in c. 39, by naming the termini and the distance 
 between them. But in this instance, the march is further 
 explained, as j^erformed by those who travel a certain distance 
 of a river to a certain point. What distance ? Not a fraction 
 of 1,400 stadia, but the whole, from one terminus to the other. 
 If 7rop€vo/M€voi<; is applied only to the Bcd^aac^ of the Ehone, 
 as the terminus " k quo," the sentence will not connect the other 
 terminus, and the latter part of the march to it, with any 
 river : and yet the words employed bespeak such connexion : 
 you are to march w9 eV^ Ta<; 7rr}yd<^, and you are to do this 
 60)9 7rpo9 rrjv dva^oXriv. The idea " along the river as if 
 tending to the. source," attaches itself to the whole scope of 
 1,400 stadia : and those who deny the Ehone are driven to 
 maintain, that hiafidaeco^ intends the passage of one river, and 
 irvyd^ the soui'ce of another. If Polybius had only wished to 
 express that the inchoate movement from the place of crossing 
 was up the str.Bam, he would have abstained from aU those 
 expressions, and been content with dvTLOL<^ to3 pevfLarc. 
 
 In each section of the march, the whole length of the 
 section is to be regarded, the terminus "ad quem " being the 
 terminus « k quo " in the next section. The peculiar terms of 
 this fourth section give the most useful instruction. They show 
 where Hannibal was to reach the Alps, and quit the Ehone. 
 They are in conformity with the statement on the three boun- 
 daries of the island— Ehone was one side, Alps were another : 
 and the effect of those words is, that you are not to desert 
 the former till you are brought to the latter. I say, then, that 
 there is a plain and sufficient meaning in the author, more than 
 M. Letronne, or Dr. Ukert, or Dr. Arnold give him credit for. 
 A man in the nineteenth century can say, '' Go to the Mont 
 du Chat." Polybius had no equivocal term : but he would say, 
 and to my apprehension he does say, " Go up the valley of 
 " the Ehone as if seeking his source; do this for 1,400 stadia, 
 '' and you will find the ascent or beginning of Alps." We 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alps. Mmit du GJmL 
 
 123 
 
 
 march from the Sid^aai^ by this instruction; we abstain 
 from wanderings in the plain that would be frivolous for those 
 who are striving towards the source ; we find the Alps at the 
 given distance ; we find them in the Mont du Chat. 
 
 These comments I have thought due to the efforts of an 
 adversary such as M. Letronne. When Schweighseuser saw 
 that the great river crossed by the Carthaginian army lasted 
 to the Alps, he withdrew liis opposition to the Ehone. Not 
 so Mr. Ellis ; he still maintains the Isere, persevering in a 
 bad cause, and after a bad fashion. In my criticism of his 
 " Treatise," I quoted his confessions as they appear above. 
 Either by accident or design, Mr. Ellis had omitted avrov both 
 from his quotation of and his comment on c. 39. I exhibited 
 him in his own words. When he comes to defend himself in 
 the Journal of PMlologT/, ii. 315, he most disingenuously 
 charges me with the omission, saying, '' Mr. Law carefully 
 " ignores the word avrov." It was himself who had omitted 
 the word in that place, and I quoted him accurately. 
 
 He is still shy of the word. In this second effort he makes 
 no comment upon it, but leaves us to speculate on the drift of 
 an empty insinuation. This is not difdcult : though avrop is not 
 to be found in his " Treatise " (for his translation of Polybius 
 does not begin till Scipio has re-embarked for Italy), we know 
 how Mr. Ellis construes avrov. In his own exposition of 
 the history, he says (" Treatise," p. 22), " Hannibal went along 
 the very river bank." Now, if the word bank is thrown away, 
 not being in Polybius, the remaining words which are in 
 Polybius, give the actual meaning— " along the very river;" 
 which is literal and true. I say myself, that the river of the 
 narrative, c. 50, is necessarily the Ehone, without aid from 
 c. 39 ; but the words of chapter 39 leave no excuse for a 
 pretence to doubt. What river can be meant, but " the very 
 river " which is named in the same clause of the same sen- 
 tence ? See the immediate context of the words wopevofievoc^; 
 
124 
 
 Polybius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 nrap avrov rov irorafiov m iirl Ta<i TTT/ya?. The words which 
 immediately precede those words are awo rr}^ hia^daem rov 
 'Vohavov : and the words which immediately foUow them are 
 60)9 7rpo9 T^v ava^oX^v rwv ''AXTrecov. This amount of pro- 
 gress is one of the five sections into which the whole march 
 of invasion is divided by Polybius. You do not walk up one 
 river to find the source of another. 
 
 Some criti(;s have not known that this particular length of 
 march is so expressly alleged to have been up one and the 
 same river. Mr. Ellis did know it ; he does not, like Letronne, 
 proceed under a delusion upon the force of iropevofiivoc^ : he 
 rightly apprehends " the obvious interpretation," and tells us 
 so. Though ]ie only begins his translation of the history in 
 the forty-nintJi chapter, he read the thirty-ninth, and tells us 
 so. ^ Why then persist in pretending that it was one river at 
 the initial terminus, and another at the final terminus of this 
 section of the march ? or, if believing it, why shrink from 
 asserting it in plain English, and insinuate that his adversary 
 avoids a topic, which he himself dares not grapple with ? 
 
 All honest and rational interpretation is set at nought, 
 when it is urged that the author contemplated that progress' 
 of 1,400 stadia as made, not along one river, but along many 
 in succession. If one, it is the Ehone : if more, there is much 
 to choose from. A long list of critics, ending with Replat 
 and Ellis, mali:e up their Trora/^oV 1,400 stadia, with a length 
 of Ehone and a length of Is^re : Letronne and de Lavalette 
 add to this a length of Drac. Tlie Cambridge anonymous 
 of 1830 does not reach his dva^oXTJ, till he has performed 
 fractions of Rhone, Is^re, Drac, Luie, Durance, and Ubaye. 
 Against these and other pluralists, I stand for one : the 
 1,400 stadia were along one and the same river, and that 
 river was the Ehone. 
 
 If noTa,M6v is the Ehone, the protest founded on the word 
 'Trapd becomes an idle scruple, which has unworthily haunted 
 
 CHAP. II.] First Alps. Mont du Chat. 125 
 
 the minds of learned men. They have reproached us with 
 the distance a vol d'oiseau between Bourgoin and the Ehone. 
 An object may be alongside to the right or left, without being 
 near to you. Hannibal was twice as far from the coast when 
 he reached the Ehone, as ever he was from the river in his 
 march to the Alps : yet he reached the Ehone, " having the 
 " Sardinian sea on his right hand." Polybius tells of irruptions 
 into Italy with large armies before the time of Hannibal, 
 made by Celts whom he describes as dwelling along the 
 Ehone, oIkovvt€<; irapd tov 'PoSavov Trorafiov : that they 
 crossed the Alps, and joined force against the Eomans with 
 the Gauls of the Po. I should like to hear from our op- 
 ponents, what Were the limits of this military constituency : 
 how near to the river's bed or banks were the huts of those 
 who were admitted to the ranks of the invaders. Let critics 
 take further example when they come to the great Italian 
 river, and speak of " plaines qu^arrose ce fleuve "— " plaines 
 " que le Po arrose de ses ondes." Let them remember that the 
 chain of Alps divides rd irehla irapd rov irah6v from the 
 valley of the Ehone (Polyb. iii. 47, 4) ; and that those ireUa 
 comprehend a space bounded by the Alps, the Appennine, 
 and the Adriatic, (iii. 14, 18). 
 
 An apology for the historian is made by the Oxford 
 Dissertation, which I think is not needed for him. It is 
 said, " We must remember that Polybius was ignorant of the 
 " angle made by the Ehone at Lyons." Why assume this ? 
 It is possible certainly, that he never explored above the 
 latitudes of the Carthaginian march, and did not appreciate 
 the amount of zigzag. But let him have known the river's 
 course as by the best modern survey ; he would write as he 
 has written : he would estimate a measurement of the march ; 
 not a measurement of the river. Even if he had been re-' 
 porting the length of the river, he need not have traced 
 it in its wanderings. Strabo, the oracle of our strongest 
 
 iXi.a>^wWM 
 
 ^' » -*-• 
 
12G 
 
 Polyhius inter'prctecL 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 adversaries, ];mputes this shorter method to Polybius, and 
 commends it : reporting the length, which Polybius had 
 ascribed to the Tagus from the source to the mouth, he adds, 
 ov hrjirov to avv roh (rKo\ta>fia<nv (ov yap y€(oypa(t>cKov 
 TovTo) aXV eV evdeia^ \ey(ov.~i\. 107. Again, reporting 
 Polybius's estimate of the circumference of the Peloponnesus, 
 he says, viii. 335, that he reckoned it firj KaraKoXTrl^ovTL, for 
 one not coasting the gulphs or inlets. 
 
 These words amply vindicate the Polybian distance from 
 the Is^re to the Alps, as avoiding the aKoXiwfjLa to Lyons. 
 Our adversaries measure the zigzag line of the river, and say 
 that 800 stadia is too short : we measure the line of march, 
 and are satisfied. Hannibal's guides had the sense to save 
 time and distance by not adhering to the banks of that 
 devious stream : he kept away from it till it offered itself 
 again : and tiie history rightly shows his course irapa rov 
 TToraixoVy prescribing it firj KaTaKoXiri^ovTC. 
 
 4. Through a country vjhere Cavalry could act. 
 The correspondence of Northern Dauphine with the country 
 here described by Polybius cannot, be disputed : it is an open 
 country of undulating plain ; and this character is essentially 
 interwoven with the historical explanation of events. To a 
 certain point the hostile bodies, which were apprehended by 
 the Carthaginians as threatening their advance, were deterred 
 from attack by two things ; the native auxiliary force, and 
 the Carthaginian cavalry, that arm of war in which Haimibal 
 was always superior to his enemies. When is this terror said 
 to operate ? so long as they were in the plain country—ew? 
 eV ToU i7rL7riBoL<i rjaav. When did this terror cease ? when 
 the ally turned homewards, and the army moved into the 
 difficult ground for the assault of the Alps : cavalrv the 
 object of fear in an open country, loses all advantage in a 
 mountain pass. 
 
 First Alps. Mont clu Chat. 
 
 127 
 
 % 
 
 In Polybius's account of this part of the route, every term 
 has its value and effect : and in this requisite of a country fit 
 for the operations of cavalry in protecting the advance of the 
 army, there is great value and effect ; it is fulfilled by the 
 march which I am now delineating : whether it belongs to 
 any of the routes south of Is^re, we may hereafter inquire. 
 Though I consider our adversaries to fail in providing this 
 requisite, they acknowledge its importance : and we find the 
 most distinguished man among them, Letronne, on reaching 
 a point deep in the mountains, which, in distance, suits the 
 track that he adopts, rashly to exclaim, « jusque-la I'arm^e 
 " s'^toit trouv^e en plaine !" M. Larauza imputes to our route 
 the want of the required plain, because of the rocks which 
 occur on the shore of the Phone in a part below Vienne, 
 '^ depuis les environs de Gisors jusque vers St. Vallier." But] 
 if the country just there is not quite plain, of whicli I know 
 nothing, our cavalry has less occasion for it short of Vienne. 
 That place was probably the head-quarters of the ally, when 
 he refitted the Carthaginian force after the success which 
 Hannibal procured for him : from that place to the Alps the 
 apprehension of Allobrogian assault operated, and the services 
 of the cavalry became most important. In all theories of a 
 progress south of Is^re, the favouring incident of plain should 
 be expected, from the point at which any critic may require 
 Hannibal to recross that river attended by his ally. 
 
 5. Through the country of the Allohroges. 
 It is important to inquire into the position of this people ; 
 and the importance of it is shown by the efforts which our 
 antagonists make to get rid of them, by the confusion, the 
 perversion, and the invention of history. All are ready to 
 give the Allobroges ^^Tong boundaries, or no boundaries : 
 anxious only to erase them as an item in the argument. It 
 seems to me that, as they are the only people named, from the 
 
128 
 
 Polyhiits intevjpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alps. Mont du Chat. 
 
 129 
 
 n ■ 
 
 IT 
 
 (•'I. 
 
 Pyrenees to the plain of the Po, they claim particular notice 
 when we seek to identify the line of march. Now the pas- 
 sages of the liistory, where this people is expressly named, 
 are these : — 
 
 The friendly prince lent the aid of his force till Hannibal 
 drew near to fche Alps, because of the apprehensions which 
 the Carthaginians entertained of the march through the Gauls 
 called AUobroges. 
 
 Wliile the march was in the plain country, the several 
 leaders of the AUobroges abstained from attacking them. 
 
 When the Carthaginians were getting into the difficult 
 places, the lea«lers of the AUobroges pre-occupied the pass. 
 
 In forcing the pass, Hannibal destroyed, or put to flight, 
 the greater pai-t of the AUobroges ; and afterwards occupied 
 the town whence they had come forth in the morning to the 
 aLiacic 
 
 It is thus aiji essential part of the history, that the progress 
 from the confluence of the rivers to the first Alps was made 
 through the people called AUobroges, and that the pass was 
 forced, and the town beyond it occupied, against the resistance 
 of many separate leaders of that nation. At whatever point 
 began the Alps of Polybius, there was the struggle with the 
 AUobroges : and those who say with Dr. Arnold, that " it 
 " does not ap]3ear whether the Carthaginians ascended the 
 '' left or the right bank of the Is^re, or continued to ascend 
 " the Ehone, aad that these uncertainties cannot be removed," 
 must embrace in this uncertainty whether the AUobroges of 
 Polybius were on one side of the Is^re or the other. Dr. 
 Arnold does not mention them at all : but Mr. G, Long, who 
 has two articles in Dr. Smith's Dictionary, AUobroges and 
 Insula AUobrogum, speaks of them as north of Isere, and 
 gives no hint of their being to the south of it. 
 
 Where then in the time of Hannibal, or in the time of his 
 historian, dwelt the AUobroges? Was the district, which is 
 
 !/ 
 
 so clearly and minutely described as the Island, the Island of 
 the AUobroges? And was the southern boundary of tlie 
 Island, the Isere, also a boundary of their possessions ? One 
 of our strongest opponents, M. Letronne, conceded the former 
 point, when he said, " Cette ile est done I'insula AUobrogum." 
 — Journ. des SavanSj Janv. 1819, p. 27. The concession is 
 complained of by M. Larauza, who says of M. De Luc's argu- 
 ment, that it is ''forte, et tres forte, mais surtout centre 
 " M. Letronne, qui, plagant dans I'Ue les AUobroges, fait k 
 " ses adversaires, et bien gratuitement, une concession tout 
 " k son desavantage." M. Letronne himself regretted the 
 concession : for, in a subsequent number of that work, he 
 retracted it, saying he was without information on the 
 subject. 
 
 But we can afford to lose M. Letronne as a believer in the 
 AUobrogian Island. We have the ancient authorities that 
 this people spread beyond the Island to the north and east. 
 Geneva belonged to them : and their north-eastern boundary 
 may perhaps be drawn from that town by the lake of Annecy 
 to Conflans, where they bordered on the Centrones. The 
 Is^re was a boundary of their island to the south : Polybius 
 plainly places them on the right bank. What we know 
 of the left bank opposite to them, places there in succession 
 the Segalauni, the Yocontii, and the Iconii, otherwise called 
 Uceni. 
 
 The most diligent mystifier of the AUobroges, M. Larauza, 
 says (" Hist. Critique," p. 35) : " Nous convenons que du tems 
 " de Cic^ron, de Cesar, et meme avant, les AUobroges occu- 
 " paient tout ce pays qui se trouve entre le Saone et I'ls^re : 
 *' c'est encore la que, plus tard, les pla9ent Strabon et 
 " Ptolemee, en leur donnant Vienne pour capitale. Mais 
 " etaient-ils Ik k I'epoque dont il est ici question ? Les seuls 
 " auteurs qui puissent fournir quelques lumieres sur ce sujet 
 " sont Polybe et Tite-Live." It is true that these lights are 
 
 VOL. I, 
 
 K 
 
1:30 
 
 Poll/bins mterjprcted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 enough for those who will construe them. But there are 
 other sufficient authorities to the same purpose. 
 
 Caesar, relating his march from the interior to the ulterior 
 Province, savs, i. 1 0, that he arrived " in fines Vocontiorum, 
 " inde in Allobrogum fines : ab Allobrogibus in Segusianos : hi 
 " sunt extra I*rovinciam trans Ehodanum primi." Now, to enter 
 the Allobrogcjs from the Vocontii, he must have crossed the 
 Is^re : and to get on to Lyons, the chief city of the Segusiani, 
 he must have marched through Allobroges and crossed the 
 Ehone. 
 
 In the year which followed the murder of Caesar, Plancus, 
 proconsul in the ulterior province, who had been coming to 
 the relief of Modena, wrote to Cicero — " ipse in Allobrogibus 
 constiti," X. 11. In his next letter, when starting to oppose 
 Anthony, who was flying into Gaul by the maritime Alps, 
 he says — " itaque in Isara, flumine maximo, quod in finibus 
 est Allobrogum, ponteuno die facto, exercitum traduxi,"x. 15. 
 In another letter, he reports that lie is advancing, having 
 secured the bridge on the Isere, for D. Brutus's force to follow 
 on arriving from the Graian Alp : and in another, x. 23, that 
 he has been obliged to retreat through the Yocontii, crossing 
 the Isere and destroying the bridges. This letter is dated 
 " Cularone,* <?x finibus Allobrogum." I think there is another 
 letter, in which the Isere is mentioned as separating the 
 Allobroges and the Segalauni. 
 
 Strabo, after placing the Vocontii along the Durance, iv. 
 179, says that they reach northward through mountain valleys 
 tJ^expt' 'AXKofSpiywv — 203. And of the Allobroges he says, 
 that they are the occupiers from the Isere to Lyons ; and of 
 Vienne he says, that it is now raised to the rank of a city, 
 where those <}f high distinction live ; but that, in the earlier 
 
 * The ancitiiit name was Cularo ; in a later day GratianopoHs, 
 whence Grenoble. Civarone and Cujarone are also found in manu- 
 scripts. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Al]js. Mont da Chat. 
 
 131 
 
 <f 
 
 tt 
 
 days of their power, it had been their metropolis, when only a 
 village. 
 
 Pliny recognises a similar division of peoples by the Isere : he 
 says, iii. 5, " In agro Cavarum Valentia: Vienna, Allobrogum." 
 
 Ptolemy, in his catalogue of States and Towns of Keltoga- 
 latia ISTarbonensis, ii. 10, says : — " Of those who occupy the 
 " country east of the Ehone, the most northerly are the 
 
 Allobroges, whose city is Vienne, in the middle of them : 
 
 and next to them are the Segalauni, whose city is Valentia : 
 " below them the Cavari." 
 
 These testimonies are calculated to satisfy most persons on 
 the position of the Allobroges. But the partisans of the 
 Hannibalian controversy are not persuadable like the rest of 
 mankind. Larauza is prominent among a host of critics who, 
 interpreting the Allobroges of Polybius, deny to them all local 
 habitation. He designates them as "une population essentielle- 
 ment vagabonde : " whereupon Letronne, repenting in December 
 of what he had laid down in January, that the Insula was Insula 
 Allobrogum, consents to be ranked among the ignorant — " On 
 '' pent assurer que nous ignorons tout-c\-fait I'etat des choses 
 " au terns d'Annibal. Comment se faire une objection de ce 
 " qu'il est impossible de connoitre." — Joimi. des Savans, Dec. 
 1819. An anonymous Englishman of bolder chronology 
 declares, " Nor is there any account of the Allobroges that will 
 " assist in the present question till about two centuries after 
 " Hannibal's entrance into their territory." Cambridge, 1830. 
 
 Such conception of ubiquity in this people enables the 
 advocates of the Cenis, the Genevre, or the Viso, to place the 
 overthrow of the Allobroges by Hannibal in any part of Gaul 
 south of Isere, which may suit a theory : one slaughters them 
 near St. Bonnet — another on the Ubaye — another in the 
 valley of the Arc — one catches them, after he has got over 
 the Cottian Alps, in the valley of Cesanne. The curious thing 
 is, that these writers limit the privilege of being AUobrogian 
 
 K 2 
 
) 
 
 132 
 
 Polyhim interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 to the regions south of Iske : regions throughout which in- 
 numerable peoples are acknowledged with their own well- 
 authorized names. It is denied only to the island, a country 
 for whose inhabitants no ingenuity has ever suggested any 
 name other than Allobroges. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that, for knowing who lived in the 
 Island, the narrative of Polybius is much to the purpose. 
 But M. Laranza says, p. 37, that the vagabond life of the 
 population of that period makes topographical distinction 
 impossible. He is content with the etymology of Bochart. 
 '' Ce mot Allobroges est compose de deux mots, all qui veut 
 " dire haut, et hro qui signifie terre, dont on tire aisement le 
 *' nom de montagne, et celui de montagnard, qu'on rend par 
 *' celui d'Allobroge."* Each expression of Polybius is twisted 
 to favour the ubiquity of the Allobroges ; that they were not 
 a nation, but many " peuplades distinctes," as Larauza would 
 explain Kara fiepo^; i^yefiove^ : and he apologizes for livy not 
 having understood the word Allobroges. It seems to me that 
 these separate leaders were influential members of one state. 
 The commonalty in an old Celtic people were subject to the 
 control of an. aristocracy, while they owed allegiance to the 
 government of the nation. In a civil war for the chiefdom, 
 each leader of a clan would exercise his separate influence- 
 it was to be expected that some of t^ese, " quorum auctoritas 
 apud plebem valebat," should be in movement with their 
 immediate dt;pendants. 
 
 Larauza thinks his view to be confirmed by the expression 
 "AWo^plycov KoXovfiivcDv FaXarcov, as if it was meant for a 
 name not national but descriptive; and so applicable to 
 many peophjs. He might have seen that the term kuXov- 
 fiivov is common with Polybius, on mentioning a thing which 
 his hearers may not already be acquainted with. Larauza's 
 
 * Or see the Gallobriges of Mr. Whitaker, and Briges and 
 Brogue, i. p. 136. 
 
 CHAP. IT.] 
 
 First Alps. Mont du Chat. 
 
 133 
 
 fancy suggests a most unfortunate illustration ; namely, that 
 Allobroges may then have comprehended the Tricastini, 
 Vocontii, and Tricorii, also mentioned by Livy. This is a 
 bold denial of nationality. Just before the death of Polybius, 
 the Vocontii suffered a great defeat by the Eomans, and 
 there w^as a consular triumph over them ; two or three years 
 later, the Allobroges were defeated, and there was a consular 
 triumph over them. You might as well include the Allo- 
 broges under a common denomination of Vocontii, as the 
 Vocontii under a common denomination of Allobroges. 
 
 Besides the skirmishing efforts, which have been noticed, 
 for placing the Allobroges everywhere or nowhere, the adver- 
 saries profess to have ascertained that that nation was not 
 on the right, but on the left bank of the Iske. And one argu- 
 ment is, that Polybius must have viewed them as a distinct 
 people from those who inhabited the Island ; inasmuch as he 
 calls that enemy Allobroges, but calls the inhabitants of the 
 Island Barbarians. There is no such distinction, though the 
 suggestion was first made by one of high authority. 
 
 Polybius tells of the two brothers in the Island contending 
 for the sovereignty: one expects therefore that the com- 
 batants in a civil war, if they were Allobroges on one side, 
 would be Allobroges also on the other. Professor Schweig- 
 h^user, in a note on this passage, says, " Duos illos fratres 
 " de regno contendentes, Allobroges fecit Livius, xxi. 31. 
 " Polybius vero hoc cap. vers. 13, et cap. 50, 2. satis disert^ 
 " ab AUobrogibus eos distinguit. Credi tamen potest, varias 
 " fuisse AUobrogum gentes." 
 
 Larauza, p. 35, adopts the distinction. " Polybe ne nomme 
 " nvQle part le peuple qui habitat I'lle : il dit que le chef de 
 " cette nation escorta les Carthaginois qui s'effrayaient d'avoir 
 " k traverser le territoire des Gaulois nommds Allobroges." 
 Dr. Ukert, p. 190, develops the same idea :—'' The inhabit- 
 " ants of the Island are not mentioned by name, but are only 
 
134 
 
 Pohjbius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alps. Mont die Chat, 
 
 13, 
 
 " spoken of in general terms as barbarians. Polybius names 
 " the Allobroges as being inhabitants of the country through 
 " which Hanni1)al pursued his march when he set out again : 
 " they are Gauls : they dwell in the plains, and are under 
 " many chiefs. According to the account of Polybius, we 
 " must look for them in our maps south of the Isere." 
 
 Mr. Ellis in his Treatise, p. 133, asserts that it is clear from 
 Polybius, that the AUobroges were not inhabitants of the 
 Island in Hannibars time. In my criticism, p. 17, I pointed 
 out the causes ^vhich had led to that error. Mr. Ellis, in his 
 Defence (Journal of Philol. ii. 316), without replying to my 
 comments, adopts the substantive error himself, and is as 
 proud of it as if he were the inventor. He proclaims that 
 the AUobroges were south of Isere, and denounces the con- 
 trary notion as absurd. He neither defends the view of 
 Schweighseuser and Ukert, nor combats my remarks, but 
 brings out a new idea of his own. He gives in translation 
 sentences from the 49th and 50th chapters, and where 
 Polybius speaks of the allied force he adds the words, " The 
 men of the Island;" and then pronounces judgment thus: 
 " Now if for ' the men of the Island ' the expression Allo- 
 " broges be substituted, these two passages become absolute 
 " nonsense. That the men of the Island w^ere the AUobroges 
 " of Polybius, is thus a proposition at once susceptible of a 
 " reductio ad ahsurdum." 
 
 Mr. EUis seems to defy us to meddle with Polybius ; but 
 in fact he is only defying us to meddle with himself: he is 
 the inventor of the expression " men of the Island." I 
 subscribe to the doctrine which he calls absolute nonsense, 
 and am quite prepared to add the idea " AUobrogian " in 
 both places of the text ; but I should not thereby substitute 
 it for a term wliich never was in the text. 
 
 Schweighseuser, Larauza, and Ukert had been misled by 
 this. They saw that HannibaVs friends were called ^dppapot, 
 
 '% 
 
 and they saw that his enemies were AUobroges. Hence they 
 hastily concluded that the two must be distinct nations, and 
 were emboldened to place them on different sides of the river. 
 But they were not distinct nations. Polybius has first men- 
 tioned the country which he so fully describes, not by the 
 name of the nation or inhabitants, but by another name, the 
 Island. He announces the arrival of Hannibal, not at the 
 country of the AUobroges, but at a region called the Island ; 
 and, having explained why it was so called, he continues to 
 speak of the country under that name ; mentioning, among 
 other things, tlie contention for the sovereignty of it, and all 
 this without occasion to express the name of people or inha- 
 bitants. But on the first occasion, when people or inhabitants 
 are to be named, which is when he states the apprehension 
 entertained about marching through them, he speaks of them 
 by their name AUobroges, and any doubt wliich may have 
 
 been is relieved. 
 
 The error of supposing that the inhabitants are called Bar- 
 barians in contrast with the AUobroges, rests on this : that, 
 when the narrative is bringing us to the Alps, the leaders of 
 AUobrogian detachments are said to abstain from attacking 
 the Carthaginians in the plain country, being deterred partly 
 by their cavalry, partly by the barbarian escort. This was 
 supposed to show a contrast between AUobrogian and barba- 
 rian. But it is not so. It is true that this barbarian escort 
 belonged to the Island, but so also did the AUobrogian enemy. 
 If you read forward, you wiU find that the term '' barbarian " 
 tends to identify Hannibal's ally with AUobroges. not to dis- 
 tinguish them from AUobroges : it is applied to both. In the 
 next sentence but one, we read what was done by the general 
 of the Carthaginians, when he learned that the barbarians 
 had taken possession of the advantageous posts. He occupied 
 those posts, when the barbarians, according to their practice, 
 had withdrawn for tlie uiolit ; and we read of the attacks made 
 
136 
 
 Polyhius inteT])Teted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 by the barbarians, when in tlie morning these things were per- 
 ceived by thein. The barbarians are the Allobroges themselves. 
 Both in the; one instance where the friends are called bar- 
 barian, and in these instances where tlie enemy is called 
 barbarian, the word means, in effect, " native," and is used in 
 contrast with Carthaginian, as it is used elsewhere by Polybius 
 in contrast with civilised nations. This contrast is particu- 
 larly marked in the instance on which the adverse argument 
 is built ; the troops of the ally are called barbarian, being 
 mentioned together with the Carthaginian cavalry, and would 
 have been called so, if tlieir proper name, Allobroges, had 
 occurred twenty times before. The distinction is in frequent 
 use. In the third book, where Polybius describes the opera- 
 tions of Hannibal, against the Carpetani and Olcades, these 
 peoples are called by their proper names in one sentence, and 
 the barbarians in the next. So in the thirty-third Book, c. 8, 
 where the contrast is with Eoman, the Oxybii are named in one 
 sentence, and called the barbarians in the next. In fact, there 
 is no more contrast here between Barbarian and Allobrogian, 
 than there is, in c. 47, between 67}pia and eXet^avre?, words 
 employed in one sentence to signify the same thing. 
 
 Our adversaries, flattering themselves that they have swept 
 the Allobroges of Polybius out of the Island to the other side 
 of the Isere, grow bolder, and seek to push them still further 
 south, and near to the shore of the IVIediterranean. Dr. Ukert, 
 iii. 591, says of the Allobroges : "When in earlier times men- 
 tion is made of wars which they undertook, they appear 
 {stehend — st;and) quite in the most southern part of Gaul." 
 These references are given : — Polybius, iii. 50; Strabo,iv. 186; 
 Livy, xxi. 31 ; Dion Cassius, xxxvii. 47 ; Florus, iii. 2 ; Livy, 
 Epitome, Ivi. — ciii. 
 
 I do not find a word in these passages refen^ed to that 
 warrants the assertion that tlie Allobroges are spoken of by 
 these authors as inhabitants of the south. They are exhibited 
 
 If 
 
 (( 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Fir^t Alps. Mont die Chat. 
 
 137 
 
 fighting for a short time south of Iske, but not inhabiting. 
 In the year when the Eomans, invading Gaul, pushed their 
 course up the Ehone, Allobroges are seen fighting a few miles 
 above Avignon, " ad oppidum Vindalium ; " and again near the 
 confluence of the Isere and the Ehone. What then ? If in 
 the previous year they had sent a brigade across the Durance 
 in aid of the Salluvii, would this locate them south of 
 Durance? Does the field of battle enable you to ^x the 
 national boundaries of the combatants ? A military nation 
 threatened with aggression need not stay at home to receive 
 the enemy. When many peoples are breathing the same 
 hostility to the sweeping ambition of one domineering state, 
 some will come to fight on the soil of their neighbours. Many 
 tribes left their own villages and joined force on mountains 
 not their own to oppose the progress of Caesar through the 
 Alps : and some of these had shortly before descended into 
 the plain of the Ehone to aid a rebellion against the supremacy 
 of the great republic. Her conquests would have been more 
 easy, if each people had fought only on its own ground. 
 
 In the same view of giving a lajte date to their position 
 north of Isere, Larauza had imagined and laid down a history 
 for the Allobroges, with an outline of historical fact asserted 
 positively and without obscurity. He says, pp. 37, 38 : " C'est 
 " en de9a de ITsere, et surtout dans la partie la i)lus me- 
 " ridionale de la Gaule, que Ton voit se passer la plupart des 
 " guerres qu'ils eurent k soutenir centre les Eomains depuis 
 " la premiere, I'an 630 de Eome, jusqu'k celle qui mit fin 
 " a leur independance, I'an 692. Nous serious meme assez 
 " fondes k croire que ce dut etre vers cette epoque que, 
 " subjugues par les Eomains, ils furent repousses au-delk de 
 " riske, et forces de se renfermer dans le pays born^ par se 
 " fleuve, la Saone, et le Ehone." 
 
 This statement has the one merit of perspicuity : it asserts, 
 that a course of warfare was sustained by the Allobroges for a 
 
138 
 
 Polyhim interpreted. 
 
 [PAliT IV. 
 
 period of 62 years— from 630 to 692 u.c. : that is, from 124 
 to 62 B.C. : that their independence was then at last crushed, 
 these wars having been carried on by them in the most 
 southern parts of Gaul: that, though when Strabo WTote 
 they were restricted to the north of Isere, yet, in the time of 
 Caesar, they had only just been driven within that boundary. 
 
 Now, though M. Larauza was a laborious, zealous, and 
 amiable man, and Dr. Ukert enjoys a very high reputation 
 for the knowledge of ancient geograpliy, I conceive this 
 continuous wa]:fare of the Allobroges with liome to be an 
 imauthorized notion : a mistake of a few simple facts, which 
 are these. At the beginning of the period spoken of, the 
 Allobroges in one campaign lost their independence and 
 became subjeci: to Eome : at the end of that period they 
 broke into an insurrection, which was presently quelled by 
 the PraBtor of the Province; and in the intermediate time 
 there were no hostilities at all. 
 
 The first entrance of the Eomans into Gaul by land was 
 in the year 154 B.C., when they came to protect the Massilians 
 against the Oxybii and Deciatae. Polyb. xxxiii. 4. By this 
 interference, which occupied little time, their friends were 
 established in the possession of an increased territory. The 
 Eomans did not cross the ^Maritime Alp again for 29 years. 
 They then went again in aid of the Massilians : this was in 
 125. In 123 they defeated certain transalpine Ligurians, 
 who were sup])orted by the Vocontii.* In the next year, 
 122, they founded their first colony beyond the Alps, Aquse 
 Sextiae, Aix en Provence ; subduing the Salluvii, who seem 
 to have liad some assistance from the Allobroges.t In the 
 
 * It appears from the Fasti Capitolini, quoted by Mr. CHnton, 
 vol. iii. 130, that the Vocontii had fought against Fulvins Flaccus : 
 for he is recorded as having a triumph over them. 
 
 t Velleius Putercidus states that the Allobroges joined the 
 Sallj'es in resisting the Eoman? nnder Sextius, i. 1/5. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alj^s. Mont clu Chat. 
 
 139 
 
 following year, 121, the proconsul Domitius ^nobarbus de- 
 feated the army of the Allobroges ; and the consul Fabius 
 also routed them with prodigious slaughter, together with the 
 Arverni and Euteni, a great force having been brought into 
 the field on the part of the Gauls. Thus speedily was effected 
 the subjugation of the Allobroges. These three campaigns 
 led to the erection of the Province : and never did the 
 Allobroges regain their independence. The accounts of their 
 subjugation are consistently told by Strabo, Livy, Pliny, and 
 others; and there is no reason to think that, when they 
 became subject to Eome, there was any change in their 
 boundaries. 
 
 From the earliest to the last of the extant historians, all 
 give in effect the same representation of this Gallic war 
 of five years, and the consequence of it to the nation of 
 Allobroges, who in the last year bore a prominent part. 
 Ammianus ^larcellinus, writing 500 years after the trans- 
 actions, says this : " Hae regiones, praecipue quae confines 
 " Italicis paulatim levi sudore sub imperium venere Eo- 
 " manum : primo tentatae per Fulvium, deinde praeliis parvis 
 " quassatae per Sextium, ad ultimum per Fabium Maximum 
 " domitae : cui negotii plenus effectus, asperiore AUobrogum 
 " gente devicta, hoc indidit cognomen." Lib. xv. 
 
 Such was the first Allobrogian war of M. Larauza. Where 
 is the next? Having assigned to a particular district "la 
 " plupart des guerres depuis la premiere, I'an 630, jusqu'k la 
 " derniere. Tan 692," he might be expected to bring to our 
 attention something that happened between those two ex- 
 tremes. But he furnishes nothing. Neither in his work, nor 
 elsewhere, is there an act of discord between the Allobroges 
 and the Eomans after that first short war of conquest, until 
 the very end of the stated period, "I'an 692." In that year 
 things are recorded, which M. Larauza treats as the climax 
 of a continuous contest : and, because this people is seen for 
 
140 
 
 Polyhkis interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 a month cr two in arms at the end of that period, he pre- 
 sumes that they had been fighting against Eome throughout 
 the interved. But in trutli even that one fact is misrepre- 
 sented : it was but an effort of insurrection speedily quelled. 
 The only authorities on the subject seem to be Livy and 
 Dion Cassius. There is an interesting question on the 
 identity of places : but it does not affect our inquiry. 
 
 There cannot well be a stronger specimen of exaggeration 
 than the sixty-two years' struggle proclaimed by this critic, 
 founded only on a few conflicts, which cannot have occupied 
 many weelcs, at the close of that period. If this rebellion 
 had been serious enough to require a Eoman reinforcement to 
 cross the boundary of Italy, which it did not, how stands the 
 assumption, that these hostilities concluded a long contest ; 
 and that u]) to that moment the Allobroges maintained their 
 independence ? Two years before this affair of Ventia, we 
 find them to be clearly in a state of subjection. In 691 u.c. 
 was the conspiracy of Catiline: and the accounts of that 
 event show that the AUobroges were at that time subjects 
 of Eome. Their envoys were at Eome, preferring charges 
 against their rulers or magistrates. P. Umbrenus, an agent 
 of the praetor Lentulus, who was a chief performer in Cati- 
 line's plot, sounds them by entering into a discussion of their 
 grievances. " Postquam illos videt queri de avaritia magistra- 
 " tuum, accusare senatum quod eo auxilii nihil esset ; miseriis 
 " suis remedium mortem expectare : At ego, inquit, vobis, si 
 " modo viri esse voltis, rationem ostendam qua tanta ista mala 
 " effugiatis. ' * They pledge themselves to the conspiracy ; and 
 afterwards repent of it. " Quinto Eabio Sangse, cujus patrocinio 
 " civitas phirimum utebatur, rem omnem, uti cognoverant, ape- 
 " riunt." Fabius reports these disclosures to Cicero, who frames 
 the scheme that ensures the public safety : and the senatorial 
 
 *Sallust. Bell. Catilin. c. 40, 41 ; and see Appian. de Belle Civ. 
 ii. 430. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 First Alps, Mont du Chat. 
 
 141 
 
 traitors forfeit their lives through the evidence of the Allobroges. 
 The charge against their magistrates, the grumbling at the 
 non-protection of the Senate, the patronage of the Fabii, 
 the very act of assenting to the conspiracy, all show the 
 Allobroges to have been at this period in a state of political 
 dependence. 
 
 Thus the alleged probability of the Allobroges having been 
 first driven beyond the Isere in the year 692, vanishes, with aU 
 the statements on which it is built. They lost their indepen- 
 dence in 630 : and, while there is no evidence that they ever 
 regained it, there are ample circumstances tending to satisfy 
 us that they did not. See the progress of events in the south 
 of Gaul during that very period, the sixty years of which we 
 speak. What is it but the continuous progress of Eoman 
 power ? The foundations of it were laid gradually but strongly. 
 We may look back to the eighty years that preceded those 
 sixty years, the time of the Ligurian wars, wars with those 
 who shut up the avenue to Spain with their mountains on the 
 sea — airoKeKXeiKOdL ra^ ek Tr)v 'l/Srjplav irapoBov^;, ra^; ^ia 
 Trj<; 7rapa\La<;. Strab. iv. 203. While that struggle lasted, 
 Eome was becoming acquainted with the politics of Gaul 
 through their maritime communications with Marseille and 
 the Ehone. Under pretence of defending the interests of her 
 allies, as Livy calls the (Edui, she attacks the nearer of the 
 transalpine states. The first colony is founded, Aqu^e Sextiae. 
 Then is the downfall of the great states, the Vocontii, the 
 Arverni, the Allobroges. The colony of Narbo is established. 
 Outer Gaul is now their battle-field against the barbarians 
 who had overrun Spain, and carried their hopes of plunder to 
 the plain of Italy. The famous canal is constructed by Marius 
 for avoiding the shallows at the Ehone's mouth, offensive to 
 navigation. Xot restricted to maritime communication, the 
 Eomans now marched to the Pyrenees and Spain through 
 countries tliat owned their mastery. Toulouse is garrisoned, 
 
u 
 
 1 
 
 ii 
 
 142 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. III.] First Alps : other points N. of Istre. 
 
 143 
 
 and a Roman general can withdraw his troops into France for 
 winter quarters. Finally, before the end of the sixty years' 
 imaginary war, the higher central Alps are laid open to the 
 rush of Roman armies into their Gaulish and Spanish 
 provinces. 
 
 This is the period in which it is assumed that, during such 
 progressive movement of Roman power, the Allobroges were 
 stemming the torrent and defying a pressure to which their 
 neighbours Iiad to yield. The notion put forth by Larauza, 
 and assented to by Ukert, as a basis for the migration of 
 Allobroges northwards beyond the Isere in the latter days 
 of the Roman republic, is nothing less than this — that this 
 humbled nation, who had flourished in the south towards the 
 Mediterranean, bordering on states treated with less severity 
 than themselves, rallied from their defeat in 633, and main- 
 tained a series of unrecorded wars, which, after sixty years, 
 were concluded only by the surrender of Ventia and the 
 burning of Solonium, told by Dion Cassius. T believe both 
 those places to have been in their northern and original terri- 
 tory : and I hope it has appeared that a march through the 
 Allobroges, the fifth and last requisite for our accordance with 
 the Polybian narrative, is, with the rest, truly fulfilled by a 
 march from the confluence of the rivers to the Mont du Chat, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Adverse Theories on the beginning of Alps. Tioo ly which 
 Hannibal marches forvmrd in the Island. Mr. Whitaker, 
 going through Geneva, finds the Alps of Martigny. Mr. 
 H. L. Long, going through Grenoble, finds them at Fort 
 Barraux. 
 
 I HAVE now to deal with this terminus, the first Alps, as it 
 has been variously fixed in the several theories hostile to my 
 
 own. In explaining my own views on the subject, I have 
 contrasted them to some extent with others. Nevertheless 
 I will advert to the ava^okrj of each other theory seriatim, 
 only not repeating matters already discussed. 
 
 First, let us take the two schemes of march which, as w^ell 
 as our own, proceed from the Island without turning back to 
 recross the Isere. I encounter Mr. Whitaker as the champion 
 of the Great St. Bernard, seeking his first Alps at Martigny ; 
 and Mr. Henry Lawes Long, who, on entering the Island, 
 proceeds through Grenoble to his first Alps at Fort Barraux, 
 and then joins us at Montmelian. 
 
 March by Lyons cmd Geneva to Martigny. Mr. Whitaker. 
 
 Among the English commentators, Mr. Whitaker stands 
 forth as the laborious, and I believe the most recent, advocate 
 of the Great St. Bernard. And he may be considered to have 
 contributed greatly to the discussion of the matter. General 
 Melville, whose effort to explain Polybius was made in 1775, 
 communicated his notes of what he saw and thouolit to 
 Mr. Whitaker and M. De Luc. In 1794 Mr. AVhitaker pub- 
 lished a long w^ork in support of the Great St. Bernard, and 
 against the views of General Melville. In 1818 M. De Luc 
 was induced to publish his excellent w^ork, havino- become 
 acquainted with the General in 1795, and finding his own 
 views to correspond with what he learned from him. He 
 has not failed to speak his opinion of Mr. Whitaker's 
 merits — '' Anime du diabolique esprit de contradiction, en- 
 " traine par une imagination desordonnee, et priv^ du sens 
 " commun quoiqu'avec une prodigieuse erudition, il voulut 
 " se frayer une route differente de toutes celles qu'on avoit 
 " imagin^es jusqu'a lui, sans s'embarrasser des absurditds 
 " sans nombre dans lesquelles il devait necessairement 
 " tomber." 
 
 < • 1 
 
 i 
 i 
 
 
 4 \\ 
 
 v 
 
 i 
 
ff 
 
 144 
 
 Polyhius inteTprcted. 
 
 [PATiT IV. 
 
 I will deal ^v^ith Mr. Whitaker as I find him. I do not 
 dwell upon his mode of reaching the Rhone, as none are 
 following him. He asserted, that Hannibal, after crossing 
 the Pyrenees, quitted the coast, and made his march through 
 Carcassone, Lodeve, Le Vigan, and Anduse, and so came upon 
 the Ehone at a part opposite to the influx of the Drome, and 
 crossed to a place called Loriol. Mr. Whitaker selected this 
 place as being half-way between Lyons and the sea ; knowing 
 it by means of another circumstance which he reports, 
 namely, that Aries is at the mouth of the Ehone. This fact, 
 which also is exclusively his own, removes in favour of his 
 hypothesis i\m length of Ehone usually recognised below 
 Aries ; and brings his place of crossing so much nearer to 
 the sea. In conformity with these views, Mr. Whitaker 
 makes Hanno's division to cross the Ehone three miles above 
 the influx of the Iske ; so as to have crossed the latter river 
 before he comes down to take the enemy in flank. Being 
 satisfied that a Sta^ao-^? at Loriol fulfils all the requisites of 
 the Greek narrative, Mr. Whitaker conducts the march up 
 the Ehone, and in four days brings the Carthaginians to 
 Lyons ; where his Island is the ground now occupied by the 
 city and enclosed by the two rivers and the hills which over- 
 hang the place;. After settling the affairs of the Segusiani, 
 he replaces Hannibal on the left bank of the Ehone, and 
 continues the march undeviatingly along the windings of the 
 river, by Seyssel, Geneva, and the Lake, to Martigny. 
 
 I am not aware that these tenets have received assent, 
 saving in the applause of Mr. Tytler (Lord Woodhouslee), 
 who promptly published a pamphlet in express commendation 
 of Mr. Whitaker's discoveries. When we remember that 
 Polybius represents the passage of the Ehone to be a short 
 four days' march from the sea, that he attributes 1,400 stadia 
 from that passage to the beginning of Alps ; and prescribes 
 1,200 from tlie beginning of Alps to the plain of Italy, we 
 
 CHAP. III.] Fird A Ips : other jwints N. of Lire. 145 
 
 might be satisfied, without more, to dismiss the Great St. 
 Bernard from the list of candidates for representing the pass 
 intended by Polybius. But, though it would be a waste of 
 labour to scrutinize such a journey through all the tests of 
 conformity with the Greek history, some notice is fitly 
 bestowed on a known writer, whose zealous display of 
 learning upon our subject is among the curiosities of 
 literature : we add to the security of truth by encountering 
 all that has pretended to illustrate her. I shall, however, 
 endeavour to comprise in this chapter all that needs to be 
 said on Mr. Whitaker's construction of Polybius, that I may 
 not recur to it on further topics : also, as he vibrates in his 
 feelings of respect, such as it is, betw^een the two ancient 
 authorities, I hope to be excused if, while I interpret one, I 
 notice his treatment of the other, disregarding in this instance 
 my own rule of criticism. 
 
 Mr. Whitaker expresses his satisfaction, that Polvbius is 
 confirmed by the authority of Livy in bringing the march 
 to Lyons as the Insula of the history. From that place 
 Hannibal marches along the Ehone, being attended as far as 
 Geneva by the "friendly King of Lyons;" and keeping 
 close to the banks of the river, with the stream on his left, 
 Mr. \\Tiitaker discovers a blot in the Eoman historian, for 
 turning at Lyons to his left hand instead of his right : but 
 upon the whole applauds him for his improvements on the 
 Polybian narrative, in the progress to Geneva. 
 
 Among other things, he considers Livy to have forwarded 
 the knowledge of the truth by introducing the river Druentia. 
 He represents that the Arve, which falls into the Ehone at 
 Geneva, is not navigable, and that the Druentia of Livy is 
 "non navium patiens :" that therefore the Arve is the Druentia 
 of Livy. Dw-elling on this discovery, as he says p. 145, with 
 a parental fondness, he rejoices in the confirmation of it by 
 Strabo. That writer has told us, iv. 203, of a river called 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
 \*\ 
 
 II 
 
 ' ! 'I 
 
 n 
 
 \i 
 
 jfl 
 
Polyhiics interjyreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 146 
 
 Druentius, which, rising in the highest summits, runs into the 
 Khone. This Mr. Whitaker declares to be the torrent which, 
 rising near the Col du Bonhomme, rushes down the Yal de 
 Montjoye, and joins the Arve at Passi. After quoting 
 Strabo on the Druentius rusliing to the Ehone, and the Doria 
 on the other side of those mountains mixing with the Po, 
 he says, " This quadrates very accurately with all that I have 
 " said of the Arve ; and forms a full demonstration of itself, 
 «* that the Arve was actually denominated the Druentia or 
 " Druentius by the Romans." i. 141—150. 
 
 Having still further settled the identity of this river by 
 the aid of SHius Italicus, Mr. Whitaker forwards the ex- 
 pedition under the auspices of Livy, who reports Hannibal 
 to have reached the Alps " campestri maxime itinere," which 
 he thinks to have peculiar application to a route from 
 Geneva to Martigny. i. 157—160. 
 
 Having travelled some way amicably enough with the two 
 ancient autb.orities, Mr. Whitaker begins to suspect a want 
 of harmony between them. Not doubting that Hannibal 
 climbed the Great St. Bernard, and knowing, from the third 
 book of Csesar's Commentaries, that, in order to get there, 
 it was expedient to pass through the Nantuates and the 
 Veragri, he is shocked to find these nations quite overlooked 
 by Polybius, who actually brings Hannibal to the ascent 
 of the Alps in 1,400 stadia from the passage of the Ehone. 
 Mr. Whitaker rebukes him in these words : — " AU that march 
 " of Hannibal, though it was pursued through a couple of 
 « nations, is totally omitted by Polybius. He considers the 
 <' position of Geneva as the beginning of the Alps ; therefore 
 " carries Hannibal a hundred miles from Lyons, and instantly 
 " sets him ix) enter the Alps. Hannibal, he tells us, having 
 " marched along the river about a hundred miles, began the 
 " ascent of the Alps. This is certainly one of the many 
 " deficiencies, and of the very important too, that just criticism 
 
 CHAP. III.] First Alps : other points N. of Isere. 
 
 147 
 
 ■ H 
 
 (( 
 
 « 
 
 ic 
 
 (C 
 
 " must for ever lament in the narrative of Polybius. A range 
 " of country about sixty miles in length is annihilated by the 
 " negligence of this writer ; and we find a great gulph yawn- 
 " ing wide before us, when we would pursue his march of 
 " Hannibal with geographical fidelity. Yet such has been 
 " the reverence shown to the pen of Polybius, such the 
 " idolatry paid to his name, that his very faults have been 
 " consecrated with his excellencies, and the erring mortal 
 '* has been enshrined in the glory of the Divinity. Though 
 *' Livy comes in very happily to supply his deficiency here, 
 " and exposes it very strongly by supplying it, yet little 
 " attention has been given him, and the historical world has 
 " generally preferred the falsehoods of this Plato to the truths 
 of Livy. Livy, indeed, has hitherto been considered by 
 all, not as he ought to have been, not as an equal planet 
 with Polybius in the horizon of our history ; but as a kind 
 of satellite only to him, attentive to his movements, re- 
 " fleeting his brightness, and hardly noticeable in the lustre 
 " of his beams, and this false idea has contributed to give 
 " a false turn to many parts of the history of HannibaV 
 i. 168—172. 
 
 . Notwithstanding the contrast thus portrayed, it is difficult 
 to perceive that Livy has so happily supplied the defects of 
 his rival, yet from Martigny to the summit he appears still to 
 supplant him in the favour of Mr. Whitaker. At St. Branchier, 
 above Martigny, Mr. Whitaker brings Hannibal among the 
 Salassi— and says in a note, p. 232: "Livy is most luminously 
 " particular here, while Polybius wraps up all in a dull gene- 
 " rality of narration." At Orsieres a conference is held with 
 natives, some coming from places higher up, Liddes and St. 
 Pierre : and Hannibal is over-reached by their cunning. The 
 Salassi offer to guide him by a better route ; so he casts off 
 his own guides, turns away with these new friends into the 
 Val de Bagnes, and ascends the eastern branch of the Drance. 
 
 l2 
 
 :l 
 
 
\ 4' 
 • % 
 
 us 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 This brings the army to the Eock of Liittier * the destined 
 scene of the outbreak of the treachery ; on which Mr. Whit- 
 aker, p. 274, note, says, " Livy alone informs us of this bold 
 movement in the Salassi, xxi. 34." In pp. 202-3, we find 
 that the assailants received so severe a chastisement that they 
 presently vanished ; Hannibal is exhibited as returning to the 
 guidance of his Italian friends : he still struggles onward, the 
 line of glaciers edging close upon his left, among which Mr. 
 Whitaker names, from a map in De Saussure's second volume, 
 those of Chermotane and La Valpeline, and in another direc- 
 tion those of T)e Tzeudy or Valsoret, as north or west of Mont 
 Noir and Mont Velan, embarrassing his movements and com- 
 pelling him to feel his way. It is said that " Livy is the only 
 " historian sui)plying this portion of the narrative, Polybius 
 " by an unpardonable negligence omitting all notice of it." 
 Again, p. 284, " Polybius smothers that history, which we see 
 " so lively and so active in Livy, concerning the dubious, the 
 " circuitous, the retrograde progression of Hannibal in his 
 " march from the hill of ambuscade to the crest of the Alps." 
 We learn from Mr. Whitaker, that, "moving in a line in 
 " which no array ever moved before or since, Hannibal reached 
 " the regular road at St. Pierre, which he had left five days 
 " before at Orzieres, only about seven miles below." " The 
 " next day he found himself happily mounted, with all his 
 " army, upon the real ridge of the Alps."— P. 289. 
 
 It is right to mention, that, in spite of the apparent satisfac- 
 tion with which Mr. Whitaker seems to accept the aid of 
 Livy, there comes a moment when he spurns it altogether. It 
 happens that diat historian has declared in unequivocal terms 
 that Hannibal did not come over the Great St. Bernard : and 
 
 * I presume this to be the place mentioned as Lourtier in the 
 very interesting account of an excursion in 1856 by Mr, W. Mat- 
 thews. See 3d. edition of " Peaks and Passes," published by the 
 Alpine Club, p, 23. 
 
 i< 
 
 « 
 
 CHAP. III.] First Alps : other points K of Ish'c. 149 
 
 for this error, he falls, pp. 133-4, under the lash of that para- 
 mount authority which is rehed on throughout the work. Mr. 
 Whitaker remarks that " Livy's testimony is of no weight; 
 " that it is opposed by the whole tenour of Polybius's history, 
 " and encountered by the whole tenour of his own ;" and thus 
 condemns him :— " The historian, who stands striding like a 
 "giant across the plain and by the temple on Great St. 
 " Bernard, brandishing his iron mace, and forbidding me all 
 passage with Hannibal along that avenue, I am compelled 
 to face, because he stops me ; to knock down because he 
 " would dislodge me ; and to march over his prostrate body 
 " (if I can) into Italy." As if this were not enough, Mr. 
 Whitaker presently quotes the heretical opinion of Livy, and 
 proceeds: — "This is all a mass of inaccuracy, forgetful- 
 " ness, and error. I am sorry to use such language con^ 
 " cerning such a writer : but it is necessary to the assertion 
 " of truth and the ascertainment of the history. There is a 
 " false modesty hanging upon every mind that comes to 
 " examine a writer of Livy's celebrity in the world of history, 
 which would chill the current of examination, and bind up 
 the critical powers of the judgment in a kind of frost, if we 
 " were not on our guard against it ; if we do not prevent its 
 " benumbing influence by continual exercise." i. 350. 
 
 This explosion coincides with a principle before disclosed, 
 when Mr. Whitaker ridicules the writers " who feel their 
 " weakness too sensibly to walk upon their own legs, and are 
 " obliged to hobble on the crutches of authority." We look 
 back to see how Mr. Whitaker walked himself without his 
 crutches, and gave his clenching argument for the Penine 
 Alps. It was this— that Hannibal came by a road ; a formed 
 road : that there was in those days no formed road over the 
 western Alps : that the tribes upon the Alps made no roads 
 across their mountains, nor suffered them to be made by- 
 others : that they were in hostility with all mankind till the 
 
 it 
 
 ti 
 
 ' il 
 
 
 t 
 
 s 
 
 I ' 
 
 ii 
 
 
150 
 
 Polyhiiis interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. III.] First Al2)S : other poifits N. of Isht. 
 
 151 
 
 days of Augustus, who reduced many of these tribes, and 
 carried along the mountains a train of formed roads. 
 
 These ideas are so laboured by Mr. Whitaker from p. 100 
 to p. 125, that one began to expect that Hannibal cannot have 
 ^come over the Alps at alh But at last a circumstance is 
 disclosed which relieved the author from that conclusion. 
 It is this : that though even in the days of Caesar those 
 western Alps were in a wild and ferocious state, and fur^ 
 nished no good passage from Gaul into Italy, yet in the 
 northern Alps there was such a passage. Mr. Whitaker 
 appeals to Caesar's account of Galba's exploits, where, speaking 
 of the Great St. Bernard, he says that he desired to lay open 
 the road through the Alps, by which the merchants had been 
 used to travel. " This," says Mr. Whitaker, 123-4, " shows 
 us the one only formed road of the times." And he adds, 
 p. 124, *' All tliis coincides in an extraordinary manner with 
 " the movemeats of Hannibal. He goes not towards the 
 " Alps of Mont Gen^vre. He knows there is no formed road 
 " over them. He knows that the only formed road is on the 
 " northern sidcj of the mountains, near the rise of the Ehone." 
 : We certainly read that Caesar was desn^ous of laying open 
 a road over the northern Alps ; but this does not lead to the 
 inference that Hannibal had found a well-formed road there 
 in earlier times : and, as to those northern Alps alone being 
 practicable, we happen to know that Caesar had in his 
 previous campaign himself crossed the western Alps, carrying 
 his army over the Genevre in his expedition to stop the 
 Helvetii. Mr. Whitaker anticipates this remark, and disarms 
 it, by admitting that Caesar did not in that instance carry 
 his legions by a formed road, inasmuch as there was none. 
 Accordingly he apologises for Caesar having taken such a 
 course of mar(;h, pleading the urgency of the occasion, p. 105. 
 " He was too eagerly bent upon his plan of operations, at 
 " this grand commencement of his Gallic warfare, to take the 
 
 / 
 
 " customary way ivova Italy to France. He wanted to push 
 " directly into the north of Dauphiny. He entered the Alps 
 " at Ocelum, that is, Exilles : he turned off short on his right 
 " at once : passed Mont Cenis close on his right, and ^lont 
 " Genevre remotely on his left : and he fell in probably with 
 " the line of the future road from Grenoble to Brian9on at 
 " Villars d'Arenes.'' 
 
 On one point we shall agree here with IMr. Whitaker ; 
 namely, that in Caesar's time there w^as no formed road from 
 Exilles or anywhere near it across country to Villars d' Arenes : 
 we would assent, if he had said that there never will be. 
 But, whatever was Caesar's route from the inner to the outer 
 Province, if it was good enough for him, why not good enough 
 for Hannibal? Why was an African invading Italy to be 
 more fastidious concerning a formed road than a Koman 
 general hurrying to a Eoman province? And was not 
 Hannibal eagerly bent upon his plan of operations ? But let 
 us inquire what could be Mr. Whitaker's ground for sup- 
 posing that Caesar had the advantage of a formed road in his 
 northern Alps and not in his western Alps ? Is it the word 
 " iter " that haunted his mind, so as to warrant the contrast ? 
 I see nothing else in his quotations that could suggest this 
 idea of a formed road, as the peculiar incident of the northern 
 track. He quotes, p. 123, " Causa mittendi fuit, qu6d iter 
 " per Alpes, quo magno cum periculo magnisque portoriis 
 " mercatores ire consueverant, patefieri volebat;" and then 
 says, " These words show us the one only formed road of the 
 times through the Alpine mountains." 
 
 On this we have still to ask, " Why formed ? " and why 
 the only one ? The " iter" through the Penine is spoken of by 
 Caesar as a track used for merchandise ; but which he wished 
 to improve into a route for armies : for this purpose it 
 required patefaction. It escaped Mr. Whitaker's observation, 
 that Caesar also applies the word '' iter " to his route over the 
 
 < » 
 
 

 152 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 western Alps : tlie difference is, that he does not say that this 
 route required patefaction ; indeed, we have good reason to 
 "believe that it had undergone patefaction by Pompey, about 
 sixteen years l-efore Caesar resolved to patefy the Penine. The 
 word "iter" was prominent in Caesar's short account of his 
 march througli. western Alps : indeed, Mr. Whitaker quotes 
 every word of that account (pp. 103—106), excepting these : 
 " qu^ proximum iter in ulteriorem Galliam per Alpes erat, 
 ** ire contendit." 
 
 Mr. Whitaker, however, could not be expected to acknow- 
 ledge Pompey as an improver of the Genevre pass : for he 
 informs us, that that general had himself taken advantage 
 of the Penine when he led his army into Spain; a fact 
 which is not d isclosed by any authority prior to Mr. Whitaker. 
 It happens that Pompey, speaking in a dispatch* of having 
 crossed the Alps, says, " Per eas iter aliud atque Hannibal, 
 nobis opportunius, patefeci." Mr. Whitaker, p. 123, not 
 daunted by these words, and "in deference to common sense," 
 corrects " aliud. " into " idem ; " and so makes Hannibal and 
 Pompey go the same road. With equal facility he brings 
 Appian to confirm the fact. That writer, though his o-eo- 
 graphy is ratlier queer, plainly states that Pompey went 
 a very different way from that of Hannibal : " de Bello Civ." 
 ii. 419. Mr. Whitaker, however, not only understands that 
 it was the same, but gives Pompey's reason for pursuing that 
 line ; a reason which must have been highly satisfactory to 
 the Eoman Senate. " Pompey declined the more direct route 
 '* over the western Alps, and took the circuitous road across 
 " the northern, because this was Hannibars, and because he 
 " was proud to emulate Hannibal." i. 122. 
 
 In summing up the merits of the light which he has 
 thrown on this point of history, Mr. Whitaker acknowledges 
 his obligation to the ancient historians to a degree beyond 
 
 * Sallustii Fraf^menta. 
 
 / 
 
 CHAP. III.] First Alps : other points N. of Isere. 153 
 
 what might be expected. He professes to have conducted 
 Hannibal from the Khine to the Po, "stage by stage, and 
 " step by step, as the concurring narratives of Polybius and 
 " Livy have held out the clue. Geography has united with 
 " history to confirm their narrative and my account." ii. p. 
 230. Notwithstanding this generous expression of gratitude, 
 I look upon Mr. Whitaker as exempt from the foible which 
 I impute to most modern commentators, a vain desire to 
 reconcile conflicting testimonies: he swears only by one 
 master. 
 
 Let all who have any misgivings in favour of the Great 
 St. Bernard, study Mr. Whitaker's volumes. They may rise 
 from the perusal cured of their error. They will find much 
 research of various matters drawn from all ages; much 
 excellent sentiment, moral and political, which, though not 
 bearing at all on the invasion of Italy, well becomes the 
 worthy man who delivers it. He abounds in historical 
 illustration, as in comparing the revolt of the Segusiani with 
 the revolutions of France and Poland ; and establishing the 
 Alps of Hannibal by modern references. If the publication 
 had been delayed till after the battle of Marengo, we should 
 have had additional chapters, proving the route of Hannibal 
 by that of ISTapoleon, The events told excite throughout the 
 feelings of the writer ; as in the chastisement which he inflicts 
 on the native obstructors of the Carthaginian progress. The 
 inhabitants of the vaUey of Aosta appear not to have molested 
 the Carthaginian march in their descent; a circumstance 
 which constitutes one of Dr. Arnold's doubts on the route. 
 Mr. Whitaker, on the contrary, imputes the great calamities 
 of the march to the treacherous conduct of that people : and 
 for that purpose locates them on the ascent, and thus rejoices 
 in the discomfiture of their machinations. " The well-fabri- 
 " cated balloon of Salassian villany had burst with its own 
 ''gas within, and those who were mounting to the clouds 
 
 ij- 
 
 i I 
 
 11^ 
 
 ^!' 
 
154 
 
 Polyhius interpi'eted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. III.] First Alps : other points N, of Isere. 
 
 155 
 
 ** in it were thrown to the ground, severely hurt ! " Many 
 are his reproofs of dissentient critics. Menetrier and Breval, 
 who in their dealings with Lyons rivalled Mr. Whitaker 
 himself, have this as their reward : " The sepulchral lamp 
 " of the antiquary goes out the moment we come up to day- 
 " light, and leaves only a smoke and a stench behind it." 
 Equally crushing is the solemnity with which, after demon- 
 strating Druentia to be the Arve, he condemns some who 
 would construe it the Durance. " The whole backbone of the 
 history is bent double by the violence of this folly." But abler 
 specimens than these will be found of the vituperative powers 
 of this writer. He has faithfully fulfilled his own injunctions 
 to the intellects of others : " To prevent the benumbing in- 
 fluence of false modesty by continual exercise." 
 
 There is an author, a man I believe of high reputation, 
 who, in his zeal to fulfil one of the conditions of Polybius, 
 violates all tli(3 rest, still further pursuing the valby of the 
 Hbone, — ^M. Ai-neth, Director of the Museirai at Vienna. His 
 views on the subject were published in the " Wiener Jahr- 
 biicher" for 1823, and they are criticised, as well as those 
 of Dr. Ukert, by Dr. Thirlwall in the third volume of the 
 " Philological Museum." M. Arneth does not pause with 
 Mr. Whitaker at Martigny ; but, in order to make sure of a 
 descent into tlie Insubres, and to bring Hannibal to Milan, 
 carries the Carthaginian army over the Simplon. Perhaps in 
 an improved edition, Hannibal will explore the Ehone to his 
 glacier, eVl ras: 7rr)yd<:, cross the Furca, and lead the invaders 
 into Italy over the St. Gothard. 
 
 Tlirough GrcnoUe to Fort Barraux. Mr. Henry L. Long. 
 
 The notion of a march up the right bank of the Isere is likely 
 enough to suggest itself to an observer of the map of France. 
 
 But we have to try it by the text of Polybius : and if his 
 history, rightly construed, shall be found to express that 
 Hannibal, after entering the Island, still pursued the valley 
 of the Ehone, the theory of Grenoble cannot stand. Other 
 difficulties present themselves to the doctrines of Mr. 
 Long. 
 
 The local features are known and admitted. The Oxford 
 Dissertation says, p. G4 : — " The rocks on the northern bank 
 " of the Isere came formerly so close to the river, that it 
 " would have been impossible to have turned them." Mr. 
 Long himself, who more than all has studied the environs of 
 Grenoble, says(, p. 57 : — *' The precipices of the Sassenage and 
 " the cliffs of the Grande Chartreuse lock so closely, that the 
 " entrance of the valley leading to Grenoble is in some 
 " lights absolutely undistinguishable ; and we are at a loss 
 " to know whence the river cjau possibly come." So speaks 
 the critic who is taking much pains to prove that Hannibal's 
 march lay through the town of Grenoble. So sensible was 
 he that the army could not have passed through that place 
 without opposition from the Allobroges, that he asserts it as 
 the scene of their conflict with Hannibal. To obviate the 
 numerous objections, he has recourse to that peculiar inter- 
 pretation of the text, which I will set forth and examine. 
 
 Mr. Long's work is entitled " The March of Hannibal from 
 the Ehone to the Alps." JN'ow, though he constantly quotes 
 two or three lines at a time from the Greek text, he never 
 quotes the few words of Polybius which describe that par- 
 ticular section of the march on which he writes. He gives, 
 in the historian's own words, the previous section of the 
 march, from Emporium to the Ehone ; but not that which 
 follows, from the Ehone to the Alps. Accordingly he never 
 deals with those words of the 39th chapter which exhibit that 
 march as " 1,400 stadia along the river." When he is upon 
 the narrative of events in c. 49, and is beginning the march up 
 
 I ■ 1 
 
 
 m 
 
 ! 
 
 i. 
 
156 
 
 Polt/bius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. III.] First Alps : other points K of Isere. 
 
 157 
 
 the Rlione, wliich, as we have seen, he crosses at Tarascon, he 
 notices the expression iraparov Trora/jLov, saying that it shows 
 the march from the passage to be up the Ehone ; and he 
 observes that that expression occurs frequently in Polybius : 
 yet somehow he seems to have missed them in the earlier 
 chapter, where that expression is applied to the whole march 
 from the Rhone to the Alps. Not that he was unacquainted 
 with that cha]3ter : for he fully acknowledges 1,400 stadia as 
 the distance from the passage to the Alps; but he only 
 connects a portion of it with the Ehone. He exhibits the 
 component parts of that distance in a way peculiar to him- 
 self : he does the 800 as soon as the Ehone is crossed ; and, 
 as he crosses it lower down than most other interpreters, 
 600 would not bring him to the Iske : so he takes the 800 
 to be from the crossing, and by that means professes to get 
 as far as Valence, saying, p. 50— "The distance of 800 stadia, 
 " 100 m.p. 'along the river,' having expired at Valence, we 
 '* must at that town turn away from the Ehone, and con- 
 " sequently take the road leading towards Eomans." 
 
 Tliis innovation on Polybius is aided by another, also 
 original. It is commonly thought that four days brought 
 Hannibal along the river to the Island ; and that ten days 
 then brought him 800 stadia further, the two being separate and 
 independent eiforts of progression ; and that the last of the two 
 brings Hannilal to a point, where an interpreter of Polybius 
 is bound to find a beginning of Alps for him to contend with. 
 
 My friend's hypothesis is shortly this — Hannibal, crossing 
 the Ehone at Tarascon, at once made a march of 800 stadia 
 from thence to Valence, marching it in four days: he remained 
 there six days, communicating with certain friendly bar- 
 barians, the Segalauni : a body of whom joined their forces 
 with his, and assisted him in liis progress to invade the land 
 of the Allobroges : with his allies, he entered the Island at 
 Eomans, and .])ursued the present line of route to Grenoble : 
 
 the plain countr}% in which their aid was of service to him, 
 came to an end at Moirans, at which place they left him, and 
 returned home. Long speaks of " the contest between two 
 " brothers for the sovereignty of some Celtic tribe, the name 
 " of which is not given by Polybius ;" but, though Hannibal 
 assisted one, and was recompensed with abundant supplies, it 
 was not this party who attended and gave security to the 
 march until they got near to the passage of the Alps. These 
 are still the Segalauni. 
 
 Long had once thought with the Oxford Dissertation ; but 
 is sincere in his new opinions. He says : " I had always, till 
 " lately, believed that the distance of 800 stadia along the 
 " Ehone ought to be measured north of its confluence with 
 " the Is^re. But, 1. The thing cannot be done. 2. If they are 
 " measured after Hannibal's arrival at the Insula, wherever 
 " they terminate, the Alps ought to begin." 
 
 I hope I have shown, in a past chapter on irapa rov 
 TTorafiov, that the thing can be done : and that, at the ter- 
 mination of the 800 stadia, the Alps do begin, the Mont du 
 Chat being the avafioXr/, 
 
 1 may give quotations of Long's own words to the contrary. 
 In p. 44, having quoted in Greek the first sentence of the 
 50th chapter, he translates it thus :— " Hannibal, after ten 
 " days, having marched along the Ehone to the distance of 
 " 800 stadia, began the ascent towards the Alps." He pro- 
 ceeds :— " The historian here sums up the time and distance 
 " passed by Hannibal on the banks of the Ehone previous to 
 " his striking away from that river towards the Alps. The 
 " 800 stadia is exactly the distance between Tarascon and 
 " Valence ; and the ten days seem to be composed of the 
 '' four days' march from Tarascon, added to six, which we may 
 •' safely assign as the period of his stay among the friendly 
 ^' barbarians." Long had already said, p. 37 :-~" In my own 
 ' mind I have not the slightest doubt but that Valence was 
 
 ¥^ 
 
158 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 tii 
 
 I 
 
 " the scene oi.- these operations." Now it was likely that a 
 reader would be startled at hearing of an ascent from Valence : 
 this is indicated in p. 47, where Long points out that the 
 ava^okri was Trpo? Ta(i *A\7r6fc9, " towards the Alps " — not 
 Twv "XKireoyVj " of the Alps." Now let us try to imagine some 
 practical difference between the expressions : my friend cannot 
 profit by it h«jre : he plainly contradicts the history. Long 
 says that Hannibal began the dva^oXrj 7rp6<; from Valence, 
 when the ally joined him. Polybius says that Hannibal 
 began the dpa/3o\r) irp6<i from Valence, when the ally had left 
 him. As to the other difficulty, no conjecture is offered, to 
 account for four days meaning ten. 
 
 Such is th(5 success with w^hich this theory directs us to 
 Grenoble. When we have got through that place, we must 
 keep a look-out for making up the 1,400 stadia. The features 
 of the country are well and pleasantly described from p. 52 to 
 83 : and anecdotes are introduced for illustrating the history 
 of the district in modern times. As regards the subject of 
 the work, the march to the Alps, the effort is to make us 
 apprehend that the combat with the AUobroges, told by 
 Polybius, was quite unconnected with, and still distant from 
 Alps. Tlie way under the cliff by the river being in those 
 days impracticable, Hannibal and his chosen band are sup- 
 posed to scale the heights of Mont Eachais in the night, 
 gaining the advantageous posts which the enemy had in- 
 cautiously deserted on retiring to rest in Grenoble itself. 
 Long describes his battle of Grenoble with much spirit, 
 still insisting that no Alpine character belongs to the 
 Polybian scene of action, or to his own. He points out, 
 that our Mont du Chat, being at the other end of the same 
 chain of mountains, is far too Alpine to represent the scene of 
 the combat, and assumes that the narrative does not even 
 connect that (jombat with Alps. He exhibits his own appre- 
 hension of the history : — " Instead of Alps, we meet with a 
 
 1 i 
 
 CHAP. III.] First Alps : other points N, of Iserc. 
 
 159 
 
 " battle and the capture of a town. Nothing implies the 
 " difficulties attendant on any arduous ascent and descent. 
 " Now in the Mont du Chat thev would have had to en- 
 
 V 
 
 " counter as severe a mountain for its elevation as any to be 
 " met with in the high Alps." — Pp. 46 and 77. 
 
 In furtherance of these views in favour of Grenoble, Long 
 translates irotHaBai rr^v dva^o\7]v to make a passage, and so 
 spares the invaders the labour of ascent : at the same time 
 he exaggerates the severity of our mountain the Mont du 
 Chat. Now, though the ascent to that col from the west 
 must always have been easy, the descent to the lake of 
 Bourget, then unimproved by art, was exceedingly steep and 
 hazardous. This character Long does not recognise as be- 
 longing to the description of Polybius : but, if that descrip- 
 tion is carefully studied, every expression for defiles and 
 precipices, every term for mountainous obstruction, that 
 occurs afterwards in the Polybian account of the dangers of 
 the higher range, snow only excepted, will be found in the 
 tale of the Allobrogian conflict. Such things indeed are not 
 wanting in Long's own history of the battle : when he grows 
 warm upon the beauties and the terrors of the Grenoble 
 scenery, a semblance of Alpine things betrays itself ; " Arid 
 " w^alls of precipitous mountains — towering precipices — 
 " stupendous crags— cliffs and rocky heights— shaggy steeps 
 " —scuffling on the brink of a precipice :" and at last, p. 78, 
 " Hannibal, at height of at least a thousand feet above his 
 " own men, charging down the hill." 
 
 As one error leads to another, a marked variance appears 
 in the dates of progress between Polybius and his interpreter. 
 According to the history, the ten days along the river to the 
 Alps are followed by nine days of ascent to the summit. 
 According to Long, those ten days are between Tarascon and 
 Valence ; viz. four of marching and six without marching : 
 and at Valence begins the dva/3oXrj tt/^o? rd^ "A\7rei9 : two 
 
IGO 
 
 Folyhms interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 days later Hg.nnibal crosses the Is^re (p. 84), then in two 
 days more gets to Moirans ; and in two days more assaults 
 and captures (xrenoble, and halts for a day : then in two days 
 more reaches Chapereillan : and, the dva^oXrj tt/jo? being 
 finished, he begins the dva^oXrj twv *'A\7rece)v, p. 89. The 
 progress is told thus : — " We roll along the post-road through 
 " the glorious vale of Gresivandan, and meet no obstacle 
 " in the shape of hills until we arrive at the village of La 
 " Buissi^re, lyi ng at the foot of the heights of Fort Barraux — 
 " the Isere runs immediately under the heights of Fort 
 ** Barraux, compelling the road to ascend at once the hills 
 " near the fort, and to approach Mont Meillan by the way of 
 " Chapereillan. This is the first ascent we have encountered : 
 " and, associated with the changes in the country above- 
 " mentioned, and its distance, which begins to be about two 
 '' days* march from Grenoble, it is sufficient to induce us to 
 " conjecture that we must be at or near the dva^oKrj!* 
 —P. 89, &c. 
 
 I have endeavoured fairly to set forth a very curious theory, 
 invented by one capable of doing justice to a better cause. 
 Like many others, he has allowed himself to indulge in a 
 fancy : all is subservient to Grenoble : we see in the lively 
 expressions of the author's feelings how, as he says himself, 
 his convictions have been aided by an examination of the 
 country. Examples abound of this influence : — " It is quite 
 " impossible to hesitate for a moment, in perceiving that this 
 " place of Hannibal's encampment Trpo? Tal<i virep^dXal^ 
 " was at Moirans or in its immediate vicinity. It is so 
 *' clearly just in front of the heights of the Grande Char- 
 " treuse, and so ostensible a situation for a halt, while the 
 " plans of the enemy in advance were investigated, that no 
 " doubt can be entertained on the subject." " Such is the 
 " country and such the objects we come upon at La Bui- 
 " serade : the first burst of it all upon the view is sufficient 
 
 CHAP. III.] First Aljjs : other points X. of Ish'e, 
 
 161 
 
 " to show, that here, along these declivities and rocky 
 " heights, are the Bvax^picth through which the Carthaginians 
 " had of necessity to pass. There, at the Bastile, are the 
 " evKalpoi Toiroi, the advantageous positions, commanding the 
 " road across Mont Eachais, daily guarded by the AUobroges. 
 " And in Grenoble, the ancient Cularo, w^e find, beyond all 
 " doubt, the ' adjacent town,' to which they retired during 
 " the night." " Whatever security we may have experienced 
 '' in fixing upon Moirans as the place of his last encamp- 
 '' ment, is nothing compared with the certainty wdth which 
 " we now see him taking up a position at La Buiserade. No 
 " doubt then can exist as to the exact spot of this encamp- 
 " ment." Thus fascinated by the illusions of his own senses, 
 has a professed disciple of Polybius been enabled " to set 
 this long pending discussion at rest for ever." 
 
 We may sympathise with the fervour of such imaginations, 
 without accepting their aid to the decision of a critical 
 question. They were induced by the contemplation of 
 striking scenery, and they disturbed the author s earlier and 
 more sober apprehension of the Greek narrative. The result 
 was that through Grenoble the march must go : and the 
 1,400 stadia will reach farther up the Isere than the critic 
 would desire : therefore it begins at Tarascon. Still there 
 was this difficulty ; that the 600 stadia, commonly supposed 
 to bring you to the Island, would be exhausted short of the 
 Island. So the 800 are taken first, and the 600 afterwards : 
 the princely combatants become Segalauni instead of AUo- 
 broges : Valence savours of Alps, Grenoble disclaims them. 
 All for an hypothesis ! 
 
 Long, though at last he goes over the right mountain, sadly 
 dislocates the chronology of the march in doing so. Polybius 
 represents Hannibal as fighting his way over the first Alps 
 before he reaches the AUobrogian town. Long finds the 
 Allobrogian town first, and his Alps two days afterwards. 
 
 VOL. I M 
 
 :t 
 
1()2 
 
 Poli/hius i/iterprefeJ. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. III.] First Alps : other po'uits X. of Isere. 
 
 163 
 
 r 
 
 Instead of reai^liing the summit with Polyhius on the ninth 
 day from the beginning of Alps, being the seventh day from 
 the Allobrogian town, he gets there on the ninth day from the 
 town, and the seventh from the beginning of Alps. Lon^ 
 wrote to correct our common friends the authors of the Dis- 
 sertation; prescribing Tarascou for Eoquemaure : 800 stadia 
 as four days' march : ( Irenoble as tlie place assaulted. Un- 
 happily for me, beyond the summit, he agrees with them in 
 the only point on wliich I think them wrong ; namely, where 
 they make tho historian to contradict himself, and impute 
 eighteen days to his Alps instead of fifteen. 
 
 I cannot su])pose that any remonstrance will cure my friend 
 of his theory. The most likely prescriptions I can recommend 
 are, 1. That he will read once more the 39th, 49th, and 50th 
 chapters of Polybius. 2. That he will take into consideration 
 these words of Dr. Thirlwall :— " Polybius contrasts the march 
 " along the plain with the ascent of the mountains, in a 
 " manner whi(3h clearly implies that the latter begins at the 
 " end of the ten days' march." Phil. Mifs. ii. G7o. 
 
 Xofi're of Grcnohle hy Dr. LiddcU. 
 
 It is fair to my friend, Mr. Long, to say that a distinguished 
 scholar, the latest historian on the subject, has said that the 
 track of Hannibal lay near Grenoble. These are the words 
 of Dr. Liddell in which he narrates the Carthaginian j)rogress 
 beyond the Isere to the ava^dXrj, i. 340 : — 
 
 " Hannibal continued his march up the Khone, and crossing 
 " the Isere, found himself in the plains of Dauphin^, then 
 " inhabited by the Allobrogian (ilauls. He marched thus far 
 *'' in a northerly direction, about one hundred miles beyond 
 " the place where he had crossed the river, at the invitation of 
 ** a chieftain who was contending for the dominion of the tribe 
 " with his younger brother. Hannibal's veterans soon put 
 
 I 
 
 ti 
 
 tc 
 
 " the elder brother in possession ; and the grateful chief 
 " furnished the army with a quantity of arms and clothing, 
 and entertained them hospitably for some days. He then 
 guided them to the verge of his own dominions, and 
 " took his leave. This must have brought him to the point, 
 " at which the Isere issues from the lower range of the Alps, 
 " somewhere near the present fortress of Grenoble. Up to 
 " this point there is little doubt as to the route taken by 
 " Hannibal : but after this all is doubtful." 
 
 Up to this point the words of this author seem rather to 
 conduct us to Les Echelles : the introduction of the Isere and 
 Grenoble negatives the Mont du Chat. The particulars of 
 the controversy on the Carthaginian march are not minutely 
 entered into : but in proceeding to Italy an opinion is occa- 
 sionally expressed ; and I will notice the following : — 
 
 Vol. i. p. 341. — " In seven days after Hannibal began the 
 " ascent, did he reach the summit Polybius says nine : but 
 " this must include the two days' halt at the top of the 
 " pass." I confess I think nine to be right ; that is, that 
 Polybius is supported by his context. 
 
 P. 342. — " The last year's snow frozen into ice, lay thick at 
 " the top of the pass, and fresh snow began to fall, which 
 " covered the traces of the path." Here I would observe, 
 that we do not read about the last year's snow at the top of 
 the pass ; but at a very much lower level ; and there it is 
 quite accounted for. 
 
 I am pleased at least to know, that Dr. Liddell' s pass is not 
 doubtful. He says, " Hannibal descended among the moun- 
 tains of the Salassians." Though the Penine, as well as 
 the Graian, would have led him through the Salassians, he 
 was not likely to be there after being just behind Grenoble. 
 
 It is further said, in a note to 343, that General Melville 
 carried Hannibal into the Insubrian country, and so back to 
 Turin. I cannot know whether the General ever said " back 
 
 M 2 
 
 i 
 
 ■■■| , 
 
164 
 
 Folyhiiis interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 i 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 First Alps : povnts 8. of Ish'e. 
 
 165 
 
 Hi 
 
 to Turin.'' I sliould not so express his opinions, so far as 
 M. De Luc has i^eported them. 
 
 Also it is said, that " others follow Livy in taking Hannibal 
 '•' from Grenoble np the Eomanche, and so over the Gen^vre 
 " down to Turin." I am not aware that any but Folard have 
 so construed the route of Livy from the Isere. It is true that 
 all our critics speak of Turin (ie, Augusta Taurinorum) as 
 existing in the time of Hannibal : but I am not aware that 
 any authority is cited for it. 
 
 11 4 
 
 CHAPTEE lY. 
 
 Theories of tracks south of Isere. 
 
 If it has been satisfactorily shown, that the march issued 
 from the Island by the Mont du Chat into the vale of 
 Charabery, the foundation of all theories of a progress 
 south of Is^re from the confluence of the rivers is shaken. 
 Whether the expedition is supposed, on retreating from the 
 Island, to move down the Ehone again, or to ascend the 
 Isere, these suppositions can be indulged no longer, if the 
 Mont du Chat is recognised as the ava^oXrj reached by the 
 valley of the Elione. 
 
 Each route invites notice on the five requisites of Polybius. 
 To some extent this has been given, by contrasting the views 
 of others, when explaining my own. When not done already, 
 I will point out the errors, as they may occur to me. To this 
 hour men of learning and renown have been driving against 
 our hypothesis of the Graian Alp : and the charm of names 
 is to be dispelled. Accordingly, each combatant, though 
 he may have stumbled irrecoverably in an early part of his 
 course, shall nevertheless be watched to the end of it, or so 
 far as he may have developed his scheme. In the further 
 
 progress after reaching the Alps, the Cenisians will claim 
 the chief notice : for they labour their case to the end, and 
 with a perseverance not shown by others. 
 
 Some method is to be observed in bringing to notice the 
 rival plans, so that each may be made intelligible, and com- 
 ments upon them be apprehended without confusion. It 
 seems convenient to set them out in some geographical order, 
 as from the confluence of the rivers ; first taking the scheme 
 by which Hannibal, after his concerns at the Island, is made 
 to retrace his steps far down the Ehone : then those which 
 go down the Ehone, but not so far : then that which, going 
 along the Isere, bends from it to the Drac : then that 
 which leaves the Drac for the Eomanche : then that which 
 parts from the Isere between Grenoble and Montmelian ; and 
 lastly, that which bends from La Chavane to Aiguebelle and 
 the Arc. Thus they may be taken, as they radiate more and 
 more eastward from the common beginning near the m.outh 
 
 of the Isere. 
 
 There will still remain two theories, not brought under this 
 arrangement : one in which Hannibal never has bent towards 
 the Isere at all : and one in which he moves still more north, 
 and has Mont Blanc for his XevKoirerpov. The former will 
 receive a short separate notice : as to the latter, I had an 
 opportunity of challenging it, when sojourning in the district 
 whence it sprang : and that small act of warfare shall tell 
 its own tale, as I gave it from Chambery in September, 1854. 
 
 1. Doion the Rhone again to St. Paul-trois-Chdtcaitx : thence 
 across country to the Alps of the Ulaye. The Marquis de 
 St. Simon, 
 
 This course is urged in a long preface to the author's 
 history of the campaign in the Alps of 1744. Having 
 carried Hannibal over the Isere into the Island near St. 
 
 
 Mil 
 
 I 
 
 m 
 
 
166 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [PAET IV. 
 
 ♦; 
 
 Marcellin, 30 miles above the mouth, he proceeds to Vienne : 
 from that place he supposes him to march down the Ehone 
 again as far as St. Paul-trois-Chateaux, before he bends away 
 in search of the, avajBoXr], which he finds at last in going up 
 the Ubaye. (Quoted by Larauza, Hist. Critique 61, 215). 
 
 This curious march, which should be 800 stadia, and ten 
 days from the mouth of Is^re, does not well answer to that 
 time or to that distance ; nor is much of it 009 iirl ra^ irTjyd^, 
 As little does it suit the tenor of the history. The history pre- 
 scribes a march of 1,400 stadia from the crossing of the Ehone 
 to the Alps, aloQg a river. The progi'ession cannot be fulfilled 
 by a lengthened doubling upon the track, unless matter of 
 context should be found, warranting such construction. But 
 there is not a word in the history which countenances the 
 notion, that in this or in any respect Hannibal ever altered 
 his course from that which he at first designed. 
 
 The latter part of the Marquis's line to the Alps is not 
 more Polybian than the first. Having marched down the 
 Ehone again nearly to where he crossed it, he performs some 
 hundreds of stadia more, in search of mountains ; reaches the 
 valley of the Durance above Tallard ; attends that river for 
 a time ; and, turning from it up the Ubaye, finds the dva^oXrj 
 ^'AXirecov in a defile on this river. 
 
 This critic has not explained the efficiency of Hannibal's 
 cavalry in his cross cut from St. Paul to Tallard : and, though 
 a plain country favourable to his cavalry ought to have given 
 him advantages before he approached the Alps, the plain in 
 which he rejoices is only in the angle made by the Durance 
 and the Ubaye above La Breoule. His AUobroges, as might 
 be expected, rest their claims on etymology. 
 
 This commentator will presently be joined by an English- 
 man, and by some means each will fancy himself at the 
 Viso. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] First Alps : points S. of Ish'e. 1 67 
 
 2. From Valence hj Die and Luc to Remollon on the Durance, 
 General Vaudoncourt, and General St. Cyr Nurjues, 
 These commentators march to their first Alps from Valence. 
 Proceeding by Chabreuil, Crest, Die, Luc, Mont Saleon and 
 Upaix, they find their object near Tallard on the Durance. 
 General Vaudoncourt marks his dva/SoXr) thus, p. 4o :—'' etant 
 « arrive a Tallard, Annibal s'arrete au pied des montagnes : il 
 - s'approche jusqu aux bords de la Vence, au pied d'un 
 " defil6 qui s'eteud jusqu' a pres lleniollon." His Allobrogian 
 
 town is Chorges. 
 
 In vindicating their march of 800 from Valence, these 
 generals exercise rather an arbitrary discipline over the 
 manuscripts. Not thinking the river a necessary accom- 
 paniment of the march of 800 stadia to the first Alps, 
 General Vaudoncourt dispenses with it thus :— " Le passage 
 est ^videmment altere : le genitif a ete change en accusatif 
 par erreur et caprice, des copistes : ahisi il faut hre a 
 " Ehodano et non pas propter Ehodanum." General St. Cyr 
 Nugues in accordance with this idea substitutes diro for 
 irapd ; so as to express the idea, " en s'eloignant du fieuve." 
 Now I cannot think that this exchange of ideas would be 
 satisfactory : diro would not instruct you on the direction 
 of the march so well as irapd. Also those who propose the 
 change ought to make it more largely: irap avrov t6v 
 TTorafjLov describes the march of 1,400 stadia in c. 39, of 
 which the 800 is a part ; the prior part (GOO) being from the 
 crossing to the Island. Polybius applies irapd to each part, 
 and to the whole. But these generals have not told us to 
 change irapd into diro in the other two instances, which seems 
 neces'sary for their consistency. Indeed, if " s'eloignant du 
 fieuve" should become the amendment of the earlier part of 
 the 1,400, Hannibal should strike away across country to the 
 Alps as soon as he has crossed the Ehone : and the two 
 aenerals micrht as well have adopted the theory of "SL iM.rlia 
 
 <( 
 
 « 
 
 ! 1 I 
 
168 
 
 Folyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 I 
 
 d^Urban, who, in order to marcli through his own estate, 
 makes Hannibal go direct from the Eygues to the Po. But 
 m that General St. Cyr :Nrugues could not have joined him : 
 he had local attachments as well as the accola of the Eygues ; 
 he announces, p. 9, " Je suis habitant des bords de I'lsere." 
 We shaU see soon, that tliis fact has some value ; it makes 
 the general a sound witness on the banks of that stream, 
 though it does not make him an authority on manuscripts. 
 
 3. Up the Ishc and the Drac to St. Bon7iet. M. Letronne and 
 
 M. Bands de Lavalette. 
 
 The inventor of this theory, which discloses the first Alps 
 at St. Bonnet on the Drac, is M. Letronne ; " sane baud 
 spernendus auctor : " a man of literary eminence, and the 
 first assailant of M. De Luc. In two papers of the Journal 
 des Savans, 1819, he thus explains the Carthaginian progress 
 to the dva^oX^ tmv 'AXirecov, which he seems to identify with 
 " I'entreeduDepartement desHautes Alpes"— « Annibal arriv^ 
 " sur le bord de I'lsere, marcha dix jours le long de ce fleuve, 
 " jusqu'k la montee des Alpes. Parvenu au confluent de 
 " ris^re avec le: Drac (qui dit-on, avoit alors lieu un pen au 
 " dessus de Grenoble, pres de Giere,) il ne traversa ni Tlske 
 " ni le Drac, torrent extremement large et impetueux a son 
 " embouchure : il remonta ce torrent, que sa largeur dut lui 
 " faire prendre pour la meme riviere que Tlsere. II le suivit 
 " jusqu' au dixieme jour, dans I'espace de huit cents stades, k 
 *' compter du point ou il avoit trouve Tile des AUobroges. 
 '' Cette mesure prise le long de I'lsere et du Drac, porte a 
 " Saint Bonnet, a I'entree du departement des Hautes Alpes. 
 " Jusque-1^ dit Polybe, Tarni^e s'etoit trouv^e enptaine : alors 
 " elle commen9a k gravir les Alpes." It is the distinguished 
 writer of these \7ords, who ventured to designate the theory 
 of M. De Luc as - une opinion insoutenable jusqu' au point 
 'Tetre absurde." 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 First Alps : points S. of Ishre. 
 
 169 
 
 Time and Distance. — Time of travelling will depend not 
 only on distance, but on character of country, on impedi- 
 ments, whether of nature or art. Much of M. Letronne's 
 track, though he calls it all plain, is through a difficult country, 
 both up the left bank of the Isere, and the left bank of the 
 Drac ; and, though, on arriving at St. Bonnet he says here 
 is my dva/3o\r] "AXTrecov, and proclaims, " Jusque la I'armee 
 s'etoit trouvee en plaine," some will consider that he plunges 
 deep into Alps, to find the beginning of Alps ; and that the 
 conformity of his track requires to be considered under the 
 next head. 
 
 Plai7i favourable to Cavalry. — We know, from Polybius, that 
 the march of the army in company with the ally, after being 
 refitted by him, was through plain country, eV i7rc7reBoc<;, 
 where the enemy, hovering about and threatening their pro- 
 gress, was deterred from attack by fear of the Carthaginian 
 cavalry ; and that this was the case till they were near to the 
 first ascent. M. Letronne's course of plain is in two parts : 
 that which borders the left bank of Is^re, and that which 
 borders the left bank of the Drac. I believe that his plain 
 up the former river will, after the first few miles, be found to 
 fail him. Perhaps he had no personal acquaintance with the 
 country. Indeed, not one of those who follow that south 
 bank of Isere and call it plain, profess that they have ever 
 seen it : none have spoken in a way w^hich directly offers 
 their personal credit to the advantages of it for cavalry. 
 Wliile they follow the windings of the stream, there is a 
 careful abstaining from responsible assertion of the character 
 of the banks. 
 
 In questioning this river march of my adversaries, I do not 
 bind them to " son lit ;' I will allow their valleys the scope 
 which belongs to them, though none is allowed to our valley 
 of the Rhone ; my doubt is whether any scope can be foimd 
 in the adjacent country for their cavalry to take advantage of. 
 
 \ 
 
 4 
 
 '. I 
 
 I 
 
^ieSfiieitsi^^i^^^''^^''*^'^^^." 
 
 170 
 
 Polyhius interijreted. 
 
 [PAirr IV. 
 
 I' 
 
 In the Oxfoid Dissertation it is said, p. 157, " Some of the 
 *' highest of the secondary chains of the Alps take their rise 
 " immediately^ to the south of the Isere, and very much lower 
 " down the river than Grenoble. There never was any Eoman 
 " road on the; south bank of the Isere, between Valence and 
 " Grenoble, and the road wliich now exists there is barely 
 " passable, and nothing more than a mere communication 
 " from one village to another, and it is indeed only laid down 
 " in maps of ;i very large scale." I have referred to Cassini's 
 map, where it is not laid down at all : a route will probably 
 be given in the great map of France wliich is now in pro- 
 gress, General St. C>t Xugues, repudiating this as the line 
 of Hannibal, says, " De hautes montagnes escarpees y bordent 
 " risere, depuis les environs de Pont-en-Eoyaus jusque vers 
 " Sassenage ; la dominent et en resserrent le cours, parti- 
 " culierement vis-a-vis Moirans, ou le rocher fait une enormc 
 " saillie." 
 
 There is also an amusing and most honest confirmation of 
 the true character of the river bank that I speak of, in the 
 comment of AI. Bande de Lavalette, who adopts M. Letronne's 
 track, following him to St. Bonnet. M. Larauza's scheme of 
 progress had cjorresponded with theirs, as far as the Drac, and 
 he includes tlie whole line in his description, " riche plaine et 
 fertile ;" but, when he escapes from them into the plain of 
 Gresivaudan. he exposes the roughness of their further march 
 to St. Bonnet, saying, p. 53 : — " Lorsque de ce point (Grenoble) 
 " Ton prend ii droite pour suivre le cours du Drac dans le 
 " direction de la montagne de Sassenage, on le voit traversant 
 " la j)laine de Grenoble, a peine a deux ou trois lieues de la 
 *' ville, s'enfoncer deja dans les gorges que lui ouvrent les 
 " Alpes. Annibal, en se dirigeant de ce cote, serait done 
 " entre dans ccjs montagnes, n'ayant fait au plus que 582 stades 
 " le long du fleuve." 
 
 M. de Lavalette protests against the unfairness of this, and 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 First Alj)s : points S. of hire. 
 
 171 
 
 says with much candour that, if M. Larauza can be satisfied 
 with a march on the south shore of the Is^re below Grenoble, 
 he is not the man to object to the valley of the Drac : — " Si, 
 " malgre les obstacles que parait offrir le pays situe entre 
 " Valence et Grenoble, le savant professeur a cru qu' Annibal 
 " avait franchi cette distance, il ne sauroit etre admis a pre- 
 " senter comme impossible le trajet de Tembouchure du Drac 
 " a St. Bonnet " — p. 64. This piece of good sense might have 
 induced its author to dissent from M. Letronne's doctrine, 
 " j usque la en plaine ;" a proposition which is applied to the 
 Isere below Grenoble, as well as to the Drac above it. We 
 accept the comment as the evidence of a candid adversary, 
 writing at Montpellier, whose summer excursions probably 
 familiarised him with the romantic side of the Isk^e. 
 
 Along the River. — Having admired the usefulness of M. 
 Letronne's cavalry from Pont-en-Royans to Sassenage, and 
 seeing how their manoeuvres still surprise us in approaching 
 St. Bonnet, we may again notice his fulfilment of the re- 
 quisite irapa rbv Trora/xov. In addition to his ingenuity upon 
 words, M. Letronne gives a moral explanation of the turn 
 up the Drac. He has found the cause to be that, when Han- 
 nibal came to that river, he took it for the Isere, and so 
 followed it. He has not told us where he picked up this 
 anecdote : but, if it were true, it would show that Han- 
 nibal's intention had been to proceed along the Isere ; so 
 that, instead of M. Letronne's route by St. Bonnet to the Mont 
 Genevre, he must have designed a march either to the Cenis 
 or the Little St. Bernard. On this point M. Letronne leaves 
 us quite in the dark : he does not go on to say, whether 
 Hannibal ever discovered his mistake, or whether he cared 
 for it. 
 
 March through Allohroges. — M. Letronne insisted on the 
 position of the Allobroges as occupants of the Island, in the 
 Journal des Savans, Janv. 1819 ; but objected to the cir- 
 
172 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 First Alpti : points S. of Ishre, 
 
 173 
 
 N 
 
 cuitous route attributed to Hannibal by De Luc, as " un 
 " d(^tour bien etrange, quand il pouvoit arriver a Montmeillan 
 " en suivant llsere. Eien ne Tempechoit, puisque les Allo- 
 " broges, loin de contrarier alors sa marche, lui fournirent de 
 " vivres, &c. — Quand a ce que Polybe appelle I'ile, habitee, 
 " dit il, par les Allobroges, on ne pent trouver un canton, &c. 
 '' — Cette ile est done I'insula AUobrogum." He speaks 
 of " Topinion incontestable qui place Tile entre le Rhone et 
 Isere : " and explaining his own views of the route, M. 
 Letronne says, "C*est a partir des Allobroges que com- 
 mencent les grand difficultes de la question." 
 
 Such and so rational were M. Letronne's own impressions. 
 "When M. De Luc's reply made him aware that the truths 
 which he admitted were unfavourable to a march up the 
 Isere, he thus shuffles out of his opinions — " Cette difficult^ 
 " repose uniquement sur 1' opinion qu'on a de I'etendue du 
 " pays habite par les Allobroges a une epoque fort posteri- 
 " eure au passage d'Annibal : mais on ignore absolument 
 " si les Allobroges, nation puissante, n'avoient point a cet 
 " epoque etendu leur domination sur la plus grande partie 
 
 du Dauphine ; en sorte qu'il a pu avoir toujours a com- 
 
 battre les armees Allobroges. La circonscription du 
 *' territoire de, la plupart de la Gaule, au temps de Cesar 
 " d'Auguste, est encore fort incertaine : mais on pent assurer 
 " que nous ignorons tout-a-fait I'etat des choses au tems 
 " d'Annibal. Comment se faire une objection de ce qui 
 " n'est pas possible de connoitre 1 " 
 
 We may be satisfied, that such an antagonist has no better 
 consolation against the evidence of Caesar, Cicero, and Strabo, 
 to which in his simplicity he lately subscribed, than that 
 these writers were not coeval with Hannibal. In January he 
 pronounced in a tone of some decision, that the island which 
 Polybius describes as the country of the Allobroges, was 
 on the north of the Isere. In December he reconciles himself 
 
 « 
 
 (( 
 
 to a march up the Drac to St. Bonnet, as the iropela Bia roiv 
 ^AWo^piycov fcaXov/JLevcov FaXaTwv, and proclaims a victory 
 gained over that people in the mountains beyond. 
 
 4. Bi/ Moirans and Grenohle — up the Drac — down the Luie to 
 the Durance near Tallard — up to the plain of La Breoule 
 and to the defile on the Uhaye. A memher of the University 
 of Camhridge. 1830. 
 
 This critic takes his dva/SoXrj from the Marquis de St. 
 Simon : his mode of getting there is his own. Having said 
 that *' after a continued and rapid flight of four days, Han- 
 nibal arrived at the Island," he conducts the army through 
 Moirans to Grenoble, without AUobrogian obstruction. He 
 recrosses the Isere at Grenoble and proceeds along the Drac 
 and by Gap to the Durance — then across the latter river near 
 Tallard, and for some miles along it, to the valley of the 
 Ubaye and the village of La Breoule ; and finds the dva/3o\rj 
 "AXirewv in a defile above that place. 
 
 Time and Distance. — As this author wrote a book to show 
 that Polybius's distances are wholly without value, one could 
 hardly expect him to give to time a respect which he denies 
 to space. His march is singularly favoured by fortune. Un- 
 like Mr. H. Long, he finds no enemy at Grenoble. Unlike 
 M. Letronne, he finds no enemy near St. Bonnet — the hostile 
 population do not avail themselves of local advantages to 
 disturb him. He is aware that the 800 stadia are expended: 
 but pushes on, calling M. Letronne an eminent scholar, and 
 manages a few additional marches before he finds a portion 
 of plain. 
 
 Along the River. — This author, p. 6, in challenging the 
 march to the Mont du Chat, construes Trap avrbv rov 
 TTora/jLov " along the river by its very banks." When, in p. 61, 
 
174 
 
 Folyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] First A Ips : points S. of Ishre. 
 
 175 
 
 hi 
 
 he applies the irorafiov of the narrative to his own route, he 
 says that the river along which Hannibal marched about 800 
 stadia in ten days, must be the river Drac. Still his inter- 
 pretation of Ti-ora/jicv is liberal : his text and his red line of 
 march disclos(3 to us that the partiality to the Drac was not 
 exclusive : the ally seems to have attended the march along 
 the very banks not only of Ehone, Is^re, and Drac, but of 
 Luie, Durance, and perhaps of Ubaye. He then turned 
 homeward. Hannibal vanquishes the defile of the Ubaye, 
 and captures the AUobrogian town. 
 
 Plain country for Cavalry. — Though the march of this 
 commentator Is twice as long as that of Polybius, he does not 
 require the cavalry to act till he is near the end of it, and 
 just begiuniug the ascent. The Allobroges, an unsettled 
 tribe of barbarians, of whom he says that nothing is known 
 till 200 years after Hannibal, were enraged against him : he 
 fortunately had the clothing and stores furnished by the 
 sovereign of the island for assisting him in the battle of the 
 Allobroges, p. 60 : he crosses the Durance near Tallard, then 
 for some miles marches to the valley of the Ubaye, and 
 borrows from the Marquis de St. Simon these words of 
 comfort : — '* On voit au-dessous de la Breoule, sur les bords 
 (le la Duranc(;, une esp^ce de plaine." The failure of plain, 
 and the scene of combat, are thus brought near together : — 
 *' As long as t;he Carthaginians continue in the plains leading 
 " to La Breoule, e<»9 iv to2^ eircTriBotf; ^aavy and the escort 
 " from the island remains to protect them, they are un- 
 " molested ; but, on the departure of their guards, when they 
 *' begin to push forward to the defiles, they find them pre- 
 " occupied and closed against them by the enemy. Hannibal, 
 " entering the pass by night, seizes on the heights. In the 
 '' morning the; barbarians attack as they move slowly out of 
 *' the defile. Hannibal makes a descent on the enemy with 
 '' entire success, and captures their town," &c. — Pp. 62, 63. 
 
 Through the Alhhroges. — In this advanced region, according 
 to the anonymous critic, was fought the battle of the Allo- 
 broges, " who, on the departure of the island guards, com- 
 menced hostilities against Hannibal as he began the ascent." 
 One hardly expected that this people would be allowed so 
 great a stretch of territor}' ; for the writer has recognised the 
 Vocontii at the mouth of the Drac, and is now tending to 
 Barcelonette. However, he sustains the current of Allo- 
 broges, like many other critics, till he has passed his chosen 
 spot for fighting with them. We leave him now, proceeding 
 by the Chemin Eoyal ; but shall hear of him again on the 
 Col de Yiso. 
 
 5. Up the here and the Rornanche hy Bourg d'Oysans to the 
 Mont de Lens and the Lauteret. Chevalier Folard. 
 
 The Chevalier, writing in 1728, sought the Is^re at Eomans : 
 proceeding up the river, and leaving Grenoble on his left 
 hand, he faced the Drac vis-a-vis Vizelle. But, when he had 
 got over it, and found himself in a practicable country, he 
 did not profit by this advantage : he declined the " large et 
 belle vallee," and encountered the arduous defiles of the 
 Eomanche. He says, iv. p. 89 : " Je suis persuade que la route 
 " la plus ordinaire et la plus pratiquee des Gaulois en Italic, 
 " etoit celle qui conduit du Mont de Lens, du Lautaret, et de 
 " Brianc^on au Mont Genevre." One would infer from this 
 that he apprehended the first Alps at the Mont de Lens : for 
 after crossing it, he has the first combat with the natives 
 " ceux du pais." One cannot reconcile the landmarks of this 
 writer with those of Polybius : for the historian certainly 
 places the AUobrogian conflict at the first Alps ; and it is not 
 easy to deny the character of Alps to the mountains between 
 Bourg D'Oysans and Brian9on : but the Chevalier brings the 
 Allobroges into action " entre Sezanne et le Mont de Sestrieres." 
 —P. 91. 
 
17G 
 
 Foli/hius interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 ifi 
 
 This route, by wliicli Folard, in contempt of Polybius, 
 carries Hamiibal to the Alps, is now the direct course from 
 Grenoble to Briaugon, one of the most astonishing works of 
 Napoleon. Those who have seen it may try to imagine how 
 the Carthaginian army would have made their way from 
 Bourg d'Oysans to the Lautaret at a time when nature had 
 received no corrections of art. A knowledge of this line will 
 be gained from Brockedon's illustrations—" Pass of the Mont 
 Genevre." The journey from Grenoble to BrianQon is also 
 weU told by Mr. Weld's " Summer Eamble, 1850." 
 
 There is no hint of this way in any ancient writings earlier 
 than the Chart of Peutinger. The Chevalier, however, re- 
 joicing in his own " experience de la guerre et un grande 
 connaissance du pais," gravely instructs us, that it was the 
 most usual and most frequented route of the Gauls into 
 Italy, and therefore adopted by Hannibal. It is true that a 
 good knowhidge of several tracks qualifies a man for com- 
 paring then-i: but a great familiarity with one may rather 
 disqualify him. So it was with Folard : his campaign in the 
 Alps of France and Piemont had the same partial effect on 
 his historical views that an acqaintance with M. Viso had on 
 the Marquis de St. Simon, and a residence at Grenoble on my 
 friend Henry Long, and the ownership of Lampourdier on the 
 Comte de Fortia d'Urban. We shall meet the Chevalier 
 again on his summit. 
 
 6. Up the Mre to Le Cheylas. Mr. Ellis. 
 
 Distance,'-m. Ellis, looking along the Isere for a begin- 
 ning of Alps, found it at Le Cheylas, 33 kilometres above 
 Grenoble. In p. 89 he says : " The total distance from 
 " Valence (or from the junction of the Ehone and Isere) to Le 
 " Cheylas, is 87J Koman miles." This gives 700 of the 800 
 stadia of Polybius : and I presume the principle of measure- 
 ment is that which Mr. Ellis prescribes elsewhere ; " all the 
 
 t( 
 
 t( 
 
 CHAP. IV.] First A Ips : points S. of Isere. 1 77 
 
 way along the v6ry " bank," which, below Grenoble, is not 
 unimportant. 
 
 River, Plain, Cavalry.— V^e saw, ante, chap. 2, how Mr. Ellis 
 acknowledges the river to be the Rhone, but urges that it 
 must he the Isere. That effort may have distressed him : but, 
 having passed Grenoble, he says comfortably, '' The vale of 
 Gresivaudan from Grenoble to Le Cheylas, being perfectly 
 level, is quite adapted throughout to the action of cavalry." 
 Treatise, p. 97. This is true ; but Mr. Ellis's track has a very 
 brief intimacy with the vale of Gresivaudan. It would have 
 been more to the purpose if he could have said, " The south 
 " bank of Isere is quite adapted throughout to the action 
 " of cavalry." Letronne and Larauza spoke rashly of its 
 being plain below Grenoble. Possibly they felt excused for 
 imagining what their eyes had not contradicted. Mr. Ellis, 
 more cautious, does not apply '' plaine riche et fertile " to the 
 whole, and commends it only from Grenoble to Le Cheylas. 
 
 Is it enough, then, tliat the last 33 kilometres of his march 
 to the Alps are suited to cavalry? The Allobroges of the 
 history were contemplated as an object of fear before the 
 march was resumed after the refitting : they are named as 
 the cause why the prince of the island conferred on Hannibal 
 his greatest benefit, by accompanying the march with his 
 force through their country. Did that potentate cross the 
 Isere with his troops, lead them through the embarrassed 
 country which stands on the left bank below Grenoble, and 
 effect the passage of the Drac, only that he might be ready to 
 support Hannibal in the Gresivaudan during the few miles of 
 plain which would occur before he turned into his Alps at 
 Le Cheylas ? Mr. Ellis has at least avoided the example of 
 Larauza, who, to give length to his mountain march, began to 
 measure without a semblance of mountain to begin with. 
 He has turned sooner into mountain to provide for the elon- 
 Qfation. He says that he gains 2Gi miles by it; so wo may b« 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
 I 
 
Polf/bins interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 178 
 
 more indulgent to what he calls the length of his march in 
 
 the Alps. 
 
 Allohroges.'—We have already examined the reasons which 
 make Mr. Ellis to place this people south of Isere in the time 
 of Hannibal. He has an additional reason in thinking that 
 Allevard was " the chief town of an AUobrogic district, from 
 " its appearing to preserve, in its own name, that of the Allo- 
 " broges." Accordingly, Hannibal goes that way to the Mau- 
 risne,°taking possession of the town of Allevard. Treatise,p. 95. 
 N.B. I shall have strong objections to make to the system 
 of interpreting Polybius pursued by this critic ; but at present 
 confine myself to a short notice of the five requisites, such as 
 is given to every theory. When we come to the merits of 
 his own peculiar doctrines, they will need to be sifted. 
 
 7. La Chamm near the Mre, ojyjyosite to Montmelian. 
 
 Laratiza, Ukert, 
 
 These two commentators are to be taken together, as objects 
 of criticism, b€-,cause their SLva^oXr] is the same. Though one 
 begins the 1,400 stadia at Tarascon, and the other at Eoque- 
 mrure, they both desire to end it at La Chavane. Nothing 
 could have emboldened M. Larauza to suggest such a point, 
 but the pressing expediency of leaving a few miles to help 
 out the scanty complement of his next section, the distance 
 through the i.lps ; and it happened that, from that point to 
 the end, Dr. IJkert took Larauza for his model. 
 
 It is most unreasonable to treat a village standing in the 
 plain as a begianing of Alps. There are earlier points in a track 
 up the Isere, w^here mountain might suggest itself, as between 
 St. Nazaire aii.d Sassenage, after entering the department of the 
 Drome. But, if a traveller along the south shore of Isere can 
 cross the Drac without encountering mountains, he cannot 
 pretend to find one obstructing his journey to Aiguebelle, 
 sooner than the defile at that place. There is undulation of 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Fird Alps: points S. of Isi 
 
 /r. 
 
 170 
 
 4 
 
 surface for the few latter miles. At Planaise, Coize, Malta- 
 verne, Bourgneuf, you are passing through an easy country, 
 not mountain ; there is no pretence of Bvo-'x^copLac till you have 
 passed through the defile. Brockedon says that the road is 
 not interesting till near Aiguebelle, at the entrance of the 
 valley of the Arc about Rwe miles above its confluence with 
 the Isere. Larauza himself writes — " Le chemin va sans cesse 
 " montant et descendant k travers ces riantes collines qui 
 " se succMent depuis La Chavane jusqu'^ la croix d'Aigue- 
 '' belle." 
 
 Along the River. — As I hinted in a previous chapter. Dr. 
 Ukerfc was not disposed to compromise himself as a scholar 
 by making the word Trora/xov to represent two or three rivers 
 in succession, or to have grammatical reference to any but the 
 Ehone. Nevertheless, while he deems the word to refer to 
 'PoSavov, he manages to march up the Iske. The word for 
 this river being in manuscripts " Icaras," not " Isaras," he 
 thinks that Polybius blundered upon both rivers above the 
 confluence, taking the Rhone for the Icaras, and the Icaras for 
 the Rhone ; that Polybius wrote of the Isere as bearing the 
 great name Rhone, and deemed the Rhone to be the tributary 
 under the name of Scaras. Such is the discovery of Dr. 
 Ukert; but I think there can be few, if any other, who do not 
 acquiesce in the good sense which has accounted for Scaras 
 being found in manuscripts. When Holstenius met with rfj 
 fiev yap 6 'Po3avo9, Tjj Be ^icdpa<; (the rivers which form the 
 point of the island), he observed that the capital sigma, now 
 written 2, is in some old manuscripts, C ; hence he supposed 
 that OICAPAC had come to be written CKAPAC,-^IC being 
 made into K. Another version has been found in \pap6<;, 
 which led lac. Gronovius, in his edition of Polybius, to this 
 comment : " rfj Be 6 "kpap6<; — non est hujus fluvii ille cursus 
 '' ut possit cum Alpibus et Rhodano insulam facere. OptimB, 
 " 6 y€coypa<l>CK(OTaT09 Chiverius, lib. i. Italiae, cap. 33, Isaras 
 
 n2 
 
 '. !l 
 
180 
 
 Pull/hi us interpreted. 
 
 [part IV. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 First Alps: 'points S. of Isere. 
 
 181 
 
 " reponit : et acutissimus Holstenius errorem addit natum 
 " majusculis lit.3ris confusis CKOPAC pro OIKAPAC." Dr. 
 Ukert does not yield to this ; and says (ii. 588), '' We dare 
 " not change the name Scaras, as the thing does not admit of 
 " proof, and we find in Gaul many names for the same river." 
 What then ? I'his might furnish Polybius with an excuse, if 
 he really gave 1:he wrong name Icaras ; but it is not believed 
 that he did so. If he had \vritten Scaras, he would have 
 written 6 2/cdpa<; : but the manuscripts have rfj 8e '2Kdpa<;, a 
 noun without ii:s article. There is something, therefore, which 
 requires correct ion, and he who resists the correction of Hol- 
 stenius should favour us with a better one. (See Schweig- 
 haeuser's Adnotationes ad Pol. iii.) 
 
 Whatever might be in a manuscript, as the title of the 
 second river, the Ehone would still be the Rhone ; the Island, 
 which is identified by so many characteristics, would still be 
 the Island ; an d the second river, under any name, must be 
 that which we call Isere. With all due respect for Dr. Ukert, 
 his professed allegiance to manuscripts furnishes no rational 
 excuse for his dogma upon irorafiov. We give him credit, as 
 a scholar, for repudiating the constructions of the many other 
 critics, but th(3 failure in their contrivances is in no degree 
 remedied by his own. 
 
 Te7i days. Plain for Cavalry. —W. Larauza seems to apolo- 
 gise for the ^^ery slow march made by the army along his 
 river, the Is^re: ; and, for making it credible that such a march 
 could occupy ten days, expatiates on the formidable stream of 
 the Drac, as if it would be the one cause of a tardy progress. 
 But the apparently candid confession of this diflftculty must 
 not lead us to blink the other objections to such a course ; it 
 should rather call attention to them. M. Larauza gives a 
 detailed and ibrcible history, pp. 88, 89, 90, of the ravages of 
 this torrent ; of the efforts made in the time of Louis XIII. by 
 the Mar^chal de Lef^dij^ui^res, and in later times, to turn its 
 
 J. 
 
 h 
 
 course and compress its inundations ; saying at last, " Est-il 
 " necessaire de dire qu'un fleuve de cette nature n'est point 
 *' navigable ? " 
 
 Now, though there is no Drac nor anything like it in the 
 tale of Polybius, and though there is in that tale the charac- 
 teristic of eTTLTreSa, which is rather kept out of sight by 
 M. Larauza, I am ready to concede that, if the Carthaginian 
 army had gone up the Isere, they would not have found the 
 Drac navigable. For them to have got over it by any other 
 method than wading, vessels and rafts must have been brought 
 up from the Is^re, either by land-carriage or by towing against 
 the torrent : and either mode would have required the favour- 
 ing aid of the inhabitants ; and, according to the history, the 
 foreign intruders apprehended from them the most vigilant 
 hostility. In the march to the Alps, after the refitting of the 
 force, this enemy, watching the opportunity to destroy, was 
 deterred from attack not only by the presence of the allied 
 force, but by the Carthaginian cavalry. What would have 
 been the terrors of cavalry, themselves struggling through a 
 series of intractable whirlpools ? Why did the Allobroges of 
 Ukert and Larauza tolerate the invaders in their march below 
 Grenoble, and acquiesce in their passage of the Drac ? Wliy 
 permit a progress which they had the power to arrest ? In a 
 line to and over the Drac, conflicts would have ensued worthy to 
 have been prominent among the casualties of the expedition. 
 
 The unfavourable nature of the country along the lower 
 Isere has been shown from the writings of opponents. General 
 St. Cyr Nugues, and M. de Lavalette, as well as from those 
 of our friends. Yet, while M. Larauza imagines, without 
 authority from the historian, the physical impediment of the 
 Drac, as the cause of slow progress, he shuts his eyes to the 
 want of cavalry ground which that authority requires, as 
 favouring the progress of the Carthaginians. At last, however, 
 he cannot help feeling that the exploit which he conceives, 
 
182 
 
 Pohfhius in trrjjirfcd. 
 
 [part IV 
 
 namelv the safe surmountiug of sucli an obstacle as the Drac 
 in defiance of a hostile population, was worthy to find a place 
 in the history. So he accounts for the historian's silence 
 upon it. This is his solution, p. 91 : " II est certain que 
 " ce nom (Dra(3) ne c'est pas conserve dans la geographic 
 " ancienne, et que cette riviere paroit avoir ^te tres pen connu 
 *' des anciens : ne qui pouvait expliquer la silence de Polybe 
 " sur le fait de son passage par Tarmee Carthaginoise." A 
 most indiscreet comment ! It admits that such events were 
 events to be told ; but suggests that Poly bins was prevented 
 from telling them by the uncertainty of a name. Now 
 Polybius in the beginning of the narrative told us that he 
 should not attempt names in an unexplored country ; not 
 that he should omit facts, when he was at a loss for a name. 
 He had no name for man or place, wlien he described 
 the passage of the Rhone : he had no name for man or 
 place, when he described the dangerous conflict which pre- 
 ceded the arrival on the summit : but such events stand 
 forth in their importance. If a river like the Drac had 
 crossed our path when Hannibal traversed the plain of 
 Dauphine with the enemy hanging on his march, M. Larauza 
 would have seen it probable, that the forbearance of the AUo- 
 brogian chiefs would not have lasted to the Alps ; but that 
 the armament which struggled against the floods would have 
 met also with human opposition. 
 
 Alldbroges. I have already controverted the doctrines of 
 Larauza and Ukert on this head ; which rest partly on the 
 perversion of 'words, partly on the supposed ubiquity of that 
 people, and partly on misrepresentation of history, including 
 their supposed migration northwards from the maritime dis- 
 trict just before the time of Strabo. 
 
 There is one auxiliary comment, the merit of which belongs 
 wholly to Dr. Ukert. He writes thus : " Dass diese Yolker- 
 " schaft friiher ein grosseres Gebiet als spiiterbesass und weiter 
 
 CHAP. IV.] First Aljjs : points S. of Ish'c. 183 
 
 "gegen Silden sich ausdehnte, als nachher, davf man wohl 
 " aus des Apollodorus Bekanntschaft mit derselben schliessen, 
 " der sie als die machtigste Nation Gallien's schildert, und zu 
 " seiner Zeit war die Kunde der Griechen auf das der Kilste 
 "nahe Land beschrankt." "That this people possessed a 
 " larger domain in earlier tlian in later times, and extended 
 " itself further to the south, one might infer from Apollodorus's 
 " acquaintance with them, who represents them as the most 
 " powerful nation of Gaul : and in his time the knowledge of 
 " the Greeks was limited to the country near the coast." — 
 
 Pp. 590, 591. 
 
 The works of Apollodorus, all but one short treatise called 
 Bibliotheca, are lost : and the statement here imputed to him 
 is known only from six words which occur in a work of 
 a much later period. In the surviving fragments of a Dic- 
 tionary called eOvLKa, or irepl iroXecov by Stephanus of By- 
 zantium, are these words — 'AWo^pvye^, e^vo? BwaTcorarov 
 TaXariKov, w? ' AiroWohcopo^, Hereupon Dr. Ukert argues 
 that, as the knowledge of the Greeks was restricted to the 
 country near the coast, the name of a great Gaulish nation 
 which reached the Greek Apollodorus, must have been the 
 name of a nation dwelling towards the sea. The argument 
 would be worth nothing, if applied to a time some centuries 
 earlier : for, from the period when a body of strangers founded 
 the city of Marseille, the reputation of a state which rejoiced 
 in the navigation of the Isere and the Pthone, might be carried 
 through commercial channels to the whole civilized world. 
 But who was Apollodorus, the Greek whose knowledge of the 
 Allobroges is deemed incredible? He was a learned Athenian, 
 born (see Fasti HeUenici, iii. p. 546) about the year 168 B.C. ; 
 and who lived to about 88 B.C. He must have read of the 
 Allobroges as a boy in the schools ; he would read of them in 
 the very history which we are examining, and not improbably 
 had acquaintance with the author. Where is the meaning of the 
 proposition that " the knowled^^^e of the Greeks was confined 
 
 I'! t 
 
184 
 
 Pulyhiu6 in terprt^ted. 
 
 [PAKT IV. 
 
 to the country iKiar the coast?" This insinuation of ignorance 
 is surely injudicious. In the time of ApoUodorus there was 
 full intercourse of knowledge between the great stations on 
 the MediteiTanean : the plays of Terence, which tell the ways 
 of Athens, were acted when ApoUodorus was in his cradle. 
 As to the Allohroges, whose very existence it is sought to 
 mystify, it was fifty years before ApoUodorus was born, that 
 Scipio came within four days' march of that people, and 
 vainly hoped that they would give to his enemy the check 
 which he had failed to give himself: and it was nearly a 
 century later, when the account came that this same people 
 had been defeated in a great engagement, and, like Athens 
 herself, had submitted to the dominion of the victorious 
 republic. Dr. Ukert has been sorely pressed for grounds 
 of argument ; and, amidst historical and geographical per- 
 plexities, we see the climax of distress in this desperate appeal 
 to ApoUodorus. 
 
 Such is the list of points, proposed by the writers named, 
 for beginning the march through Alps : we have put forth our 
 reasons for believing Polybius to have intended the Mont du 
 Chat. Before \v^e reach it, we have taken leave of the 
 sovereign of th(5 Island, wishing him a prosperous journey 
 home, not through a series of hostile nations, nor through 
 the prohibitions of unfavouring nature, but over undulating 
 plains, cultivated by those w^hom he claims as his subjects. 
 We pause with Hannibal at the dva^oXrj : the dva^oXrj Trpo? 
 Ta9 *'AX7r6t9, and the dva^oXrj twv "AXttccov ; for they are the 
 same thing. We pause with him 7rpo9 Tal<; vTrep^oXai^, 
 To this point our construction of the line of march is exempt 
 from an embarrassment, which belongs in some degree to all 
 rival theories : our beginning of Alps is unquestionably a 
 beginning ; our course over the plain of Dauphine has never 
 felt the contiguity of mountain. In approaching the Mont 
 du Chat, we rticognise, in a w^ay not to be mistaken, the 
 beginning or first ascent of Alps. 
 
 THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 PART V. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN MARCH. ASCENT. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 Some theories are not vjorked out beyond their first Alps, 
 Those of the Cenis are laboured throughout their 1,200 
 stadia. Termini and distance. By the Little St. Bernard. 
 By the Cenis. By the Little Cenis. The events of each of 
 the fifteen days. 
 
 Having crossed the Khone, and reached the beginning of 
 
 Alps, we look forward to the ultimate terminus, and have to 
 
 trace the march till it brings us to a country beyond the 
 
 mountains, the plain of Italy. This remainder of the march 
 
 should be about 1,200 stadia. Polybius says, Xonral he twv 
 
 "AXTrecDV virep^oXal irepl ^tXtou? hiaKocriov^ : — the heights of 
 
 Alps, being the residue of the march, about twelve hundred 
 
 stadia. This comprehends the entire passage ; the first Alpine 
 
 ascent, and the last Alpine descent. In the fifty-sixth chapter, 
 
 the act of transit is represented by the singular vTrep^oXrj : — 
 
 " Hannibal arrived into the Padan plain and the nation of 
 
 '* Insubrians, having performed the whole march from Cartha- 
 
 " gena in five months, and the passage of the Alps in fifteen 
 
 *' days." The word is similarly used in c. 34, 6, and c. 47, 6. 
 
186 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 CHAP. 1.] 
 
 The Mountain March. 
 
 18' 
 
 The initial e\ent is the forcing of the first Alps, in front of 
 which we left the army on closing the discussion of our second 
 question. The final event is the touching the great northern 
 plain of Italy at the point which gives escape from the barrier 
 of the mountains. The termini of such a march, as proposed 
 by other comm<3ntators, must be considered : but the- scope 
 of inquiry into details will now be narrowed. It would be 
 impracticable to compare henceforward at each step the merits 
 of every advers(i theory, so minutely as has been done to the 
 points at which they severally professed to reach the Alps. 
 The advocates (»f the Cenis will claim a far greater share of 
 attention than other opponents ; indeed they might be treated, 
 as the only survivors in the contest. If I have substantiated 
 the march up the Ehone to the Mont du Chat, the advocates 
 of the Mont Geiievre have broken down irremediably : but it 
 is still open to the Cenisians, to confess the error of so soon 
 deserting the Ehone, and to try their fortune in the Arc vaUey 
 after a march through Chambery. 
 
 There is this reason for attending to tlie pretensions of the 
 Maurienne : armaments are attempted in detail throughout all 
 parts of their progress to the plain, by Larauza and Ellis : and 
 each invites an answer. They have struggled elaborately to 
 show their fulfilment of Polybian requisites ; on which the 
 subscribers to other theories offer little or nothing to be con- 
 troverted. Truth will be better worked out, by directly 
 opposing those systematised errors, than in sifting the confu- 
 sion of writers who hardly express a reason for their opinions. 
 
 Moreover the 'theory of the Cenis has of late acquired some 
 reputation of strength. Dr. Ukert, who, as we have seen, 
 argues against the Ehone, and follows Larauza through the 
 mountains, is proclaimed by one most eminent as " defending 
 " his theory with all the light that profound geogi^aphical 
 " learning can throw upon the question." Dr. Arnold, too, 
 though not adoi)ting the Cenis, has said that it suits the 
 
 description of the march in some respects better than any 
 other pass : it is not clear what those respects may be : but 
 the remark, imperfect as it is, has given encouragement to 
 those who sympatliise with it. 
 
 Termini and Distance. The Little St. Bernard. 
 Tt has been seen how the march up the Ehone, as told by 
 Polybius, brings us to the beginning of Alps, at or near the 
 village of Chevelu, in front of the Mont du Chat : here is one 
 terminus. Where then is the other, the exit from Alps and 
 entrance into the plain ? In determining this point, we must 
 attend to the author whom we are interpreting, as to time 
 and space; cautious of the distinction between plain and 
 
 mountain. 
 
 I have myself passed down the valley of Aosta : but in a 
 state which prohibited all endeavour to notice where should 
 be deemed the exit from the Alps. I can only apprehend it 
 from the writings of others. In his second edition, p. 213, De 
 Luc says, " C'est a St. Martin que finit la vallee d'Aoste, et 
 c'est h une demi-lieue de ce village que Ton decouvre pour 
 la premiere fois les plaines de I'ltalie. On est sorti tout-^ 
 fait des montagnes que Ton est encore k une lieue et demie 
 « d'lvree." The Oxford Dissertation places St. Martin twelve 
 miles below Verres: and it is said, p. 118 : " St. Martin may 
 " fairly be called the entrance of the Alps : for two secondary 
 " chains of mountains, which run off at right angles from the 
 " main chain, meet a little above it, and form a very narrow 
 " pass, that closes the valley of Aoste as with a door. The 
 " descent, which is rapid the greater way from Aoste, ends 
 " here ; and between St. Martin and Ivrea there are no moun- 
 " tains, but only a wide valley with hills on each side, and 
 « Ivrea itself is completely detached, and stands in the plains." 
 Settimo Vittone and Monte-Stretto, which are a little way 
 forward, have been mentioned as points of perfect liberation 
 
 « 
 
 u 
 
 tt 
 
188 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [PAKT V. 
 
 into plain. In short, it is reasonable to say, that at or near 
 St. Martin the Carthaginians hailed their escape from the 
 mountains, 
 
 Roman armiess used this way over the Alps within a century 
 after it was visited by Polybius. The Itinerary of Antoninus 
 gives the distances along the whole line in which our termini 
 stand : that is to say, between Labisco (Chevelu) and Ivrea, 
 which is below St. Martin and the two other points suggested. 
 I give the stations on the route, adding the modern names. 
 See Wesseling's Vet. Roman. Itineraria, and Oxford Disserta- 
 tion. Afjpendix 
 
 Labisco (Chevelu) to Lemincum XIV 
 Mantala*. . . . XVI 
 Ad Publicanos t . XVI 
 Oblimum. . . , III 
 Darantasia . . . XIII 
 Bergintrum . . XVIIII 
 ArebrigiumJ . . XXIV 
 Augusta Prsetoria . XXV 
 Vitricium . . . XXV 
 
 » 
 
 n 
 
 n 
 
 >f 
 
 n 
 
 n 
 
 99 
 
 Chamberri 
 
 near Pierre d' Albigni 
 
 Conflans 
 
 La Batie 
 
 near Moustier 
 
 Bourg St. Maurice 
 
 Pre St. Didier 
 
 Aosta 
 
 Verres 
 
 155 
 
 Farther to St. Martin about 10 
 
 165 R miles. 
 
 I believe these official measurements of distance to be upon 
 the whole excessive. One would suppose that an estimate of 
 
 * D'Anville suggested Montailleu : but it is negatived by the 
 distance XVI : and one cannot doubt that a route from Chainbery 
 up the Isere wouj.d always be carried by Montmelian. 
 
 t At Conflans (confluentes) the river Arly, probably the boundary 
 of the Allobrogesi, falls into the Isere. 
 
 t Peutinger's Chart gives XII to the summit, in Alpe Graia : 
 VI to Ariolica (la Tuile), and then XVI to Arebrigium— this X 
 must be rejected. 
 
 THAP. I.] 
 
 The Mountain March. 
 
 189 
 
 distance through unknown mountains made by Polybius with- 
 out any sort of mechanical aid, would be less accurate than an 
 official register made in a much later day. The ^ij/jLarLaral 
 of Rome ought to have advantage over the adventurous 
 traveller. However, which was nearer the truth is a matter of 
 fact to be inquired. It can only be answered by comparison 
 with ascertained distances at the present day. Speaking from 
 what is now before me, I believe at present that the 150 miles 
 of Polybius comes nearest to the actual length of the mountain 
 march by the Graian Alp. The authors of the Dissertation 
 correct from their own experience some figures in the Itinerary 
 as excessive. Albanis Beaumont is referred to : but it is not 
 clear what sort of lieue he uses ; and his estimates are not 
 applied to the Italian side. There is at present no official 
 itinerary : but now that Albertville is in France, we may soon 
 see the whole laid down in a livix de poste. In the mean time, 
 if we carry the measurement to about St. Martin, I expect that 
 about 1,200 stadia from the dva^dXri is nearer the truth than 
 can be gathered from the Itinerary. 
 
 Termini and Distance. Mont Cenis. 
 
 The termini, between which Larauza, followed by Ukert, 
 measures 1,200 stadia in the Alps, are La Chavane on the 
 Is^reand Rivoli. See Larauza, 159, andL^kert, ii. part ii. 606. 
 La Chavane not being in the livre de poste, they take the 
 measurement from Montmelian, which is on the opposite side 
 of the river. La Chavane is an inadmissible point for the 
 beginning of Alps. There is no character which entitles it to 
 represent that critical point in the march. Wherever you 
 apprehend this point of division between the fourth and fifth 
 sections of the march, it must be marked by an ascent of 
 mountain : and, if a traveller is supposed to have arrived into 
 the vale of Oresivaudan without p.ncountering Alps to chal- 
 
190 
 
 Poll/huts interpreted. 
 
 [PAIJT V. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 The Mountain March. 
 
 191 
 
 lenge his advance, there are none to challenge him till he 
 comes to Aiguebelle. 
 
 The consequence of the mistake which I point out, is that, 
 on a scrutiny of M. Larauza's mountain measurement, we 
 must deny to him three postes out of the 28 which he reckons 
 from Montm^lian to Eivoli, quoting them from the " Etat 
 gc^n^ral des Postes du Eoyaume de France, 1814," and reduce 
 them to 25. .AJso they must undergo a further reduction 
 near the other terminus, which is erroneous. I believe that a 
 traveller is quite out of the mountains at Avillano, which is 
 IJ postes short of Eivoli. De Saussure, § 1,294, says of 
 Avillano, " C'(ist k peu pres la que se termine la chaine 
 " des Montagnes qui bordent le cot^ meridional de cette 
 "• valine : la chaine Septentrionale, de I'autre cote de la Doire, 
 " se prolonge un peu davantage. Mais de la jusqu a Turin on 
 " ne rencontre^ plus de Montagnes proprement dites." In 
 accordance with this, I am assured by one on whose observa- 
 tion more recently made I can safely rely, that at Avillano 
 you actually dehouche into the open plain, the feet of the 
 mountains being bent back and pared away. If these obser- 
 vations are jusi:, the 28 are further reduced to 23| ; and that 
 distance at most can be claimed by M. Larauza between the 
 just termini of a mountain march over the Cenis. 
 
 But, in addition to these corrections, we must remember, 
 that the object of our inquiry is not the number of French 
 postes, but the number of Greek stades. A French poste was 
 vulgarly reckoned two lieues of 2,000 toises each, on which 
 estimate 23J postes would be 46,500 toises = 123 E. miles = 
 984 stades. But a poste is not 2,000 toises. The Oxford Disser- 
 tation says with great truth, p. 183 : " The post-book cannot be 
 " considered a fair criterion of mensuration ; for it is well 
 " known, that in mountainous countries the distances are 
 " always over-rated for the benefit of postmasters. Thus, for 
 " instance, the post-book reckons three posts or fifteen miles 
 
 \ 
 
 " (nearer sixteen) from Lanslebourg to the stage on the 
 '* summit of the pass, w^hereas the real distance is not ten 
 " miles ; and of course the old road, by which we ought to 
 " make oar reckoning, would be still shorter." I find this 
 specimen of exaggeration to be practically confirmed by 
 M. Albanis Beaumont ; he accomplished those three postes in 
 3f hours : and 2f of those hours were consumed in the 
 montee to the Chalet de la Meut. In that montee his rate 
 was more likely to be two miles and a half an hour than four. 
 In Brockedon's journal he complains at an earlier part of this 
 same journey, of the extortion in charging distances : saying, 
 " At Modane our voiturier insisted upon resting : we walked 
 " on to Lanslebourg, fourteen miles, though it is stated in 
 " the French post-book to be four posts." No man would be 
 a better judge of his own rate of walking along a road than 
 Mr. Brockedon : he probably intends English miles ; so that 
 he was charged fully nineteen for what was really fourteen. 
 I believe that, if the mountain march over Mont Cenis from 
 Aiguebelle to Avillano were rightly measured, it would be 
 found not only not to reach 1,200 stadia = 150 miles, but to 
 be hardly more than 100 miles. 
 
 Termini and Distance. Little Mont Cenis. 
 
 The termini of Mr. Ellis are Le Cheylas on the Isere and 
 Avillano. He deviates from the track of M. Larauza at Le 
 Cheylas : there quitting the valley of Gresivaudan, he moves 
 into the mountains, and bears up for Aiguebelle in a track 
 separated from that valley by a range of hills parallel with 
 the course of the Is^re : by this he professes to reach 
 Aiguebelle in 26^- Eoman miles : he then makes it 106 miles 
 from Aiguebelle to Avillano. If he becomes mountainous 
 26^ miles sooner than Larauza, he brings out a result which, 
 though short of the estimate of Polybius, is nearer the truth 
 
192 
 
 Folyhius interpreted. 
 
 [PAKT V. 
 
 than those of other patrons of the Maurienne : and, if his 
 theory can survive the more serious impeachments of its 
 merits, we need not care for its defect in mountain distance. 
 
 Time with events of each day. 
 
 In order that my own comments may be intelligible, I will 
 here state how I apprehend the army to have been employed 
 in each part of its progress over the mountains from the 
 dva^oXr] to the plain. Polybius says plainly, in c. b^y that 
 the passage of the Alps had been effected in fifteen days. I 
 believe him to mean what he says ; and I interpret him by 
 distributing the events which occurred in those days, as 
 follows : the subject necessarily dividing itself into ascent, 
 summit, descent. 
 
 1. Hannibal forces the pass of Alps, and occupies the town 
 
 beyond it. 
 
 2. He remains encamped at the town. 
 
 3. 4, 5. The march is resumed, and continued for three 
 days without interruption. 
 
 6. On the fourth day from the town, Hannibal holds con- 
 ference with natives : makes treaty with them : receives 
 supplies and hostages : they attend the march. 
 
 7. 8. The march proceeds, the false friends accompany- 
 ing it. 
 
 8. Hannibal is attacked by the natives, when passing 
 through a ravine ; and he stays back with part of the army 
 about a certain White Kock during the night. 
 
 9. He readier the summit early in the morning, and 
 
 encamps. 
 
 10. He remains on the summit, and addresses the troops. 
 
 11. He begins the descent : comes to the broken way : 
 fails in an att(impt to get round it : encamps, and commences 
 the repair of the road : which becomes practicable for horses 
 by the morning. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Ascent. LittU St. Bernard. 
 
 193 
 
 12. The cavalry and beasts of burthen, with the chief part 
 of the infantry, go forward : the work of repair is continued. 
 
 13. The work is continued; and a passage is effected for 
 the elephants, who are moved on from the broken way. 
 
 14. The army continues the descent. 
 
 15. The advance of the army touches the plain. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Asce7it to the Little St. Bernard. The forcing of the Mont du 
 Chat, and occupation of Allohrogian toivn. Army rests 
 there one day. On fourth day of marching from the to^tm 
 conference ivith natives, who attend them for two days. 
 Bourg St. Maurice and environs. The Reclus. Ravine 
 and Roche Blanche. Modern evidence. Melville. Brocke- 
 don. Arnold. Character of conflict. Summit reached on 
 the morroiv, being the ninth day of A Ips. 
 
 Those who will examine the rise to the Mont du Chat from 
 the plain of Dauphin^, and the precipitous descent on the 
 other side to the level which lead, to Chambeiy, will probably 
 acknowledge the scene to admit of the incidents related by 
 Polybius on the first assault of the Alps by the Carthaginians. 
 In 1854, from the garden of my house at Aix, I had in 
 constant view an indication of Hannibars track : there is a 
 notch in the upper line of the mountain ridge seen from that 
 side of the lake, which announces a passage at this part of the 
 Grande Chartreuse range. The ground on the Col has of 
 course been greatly altered since it was visited by Polybius : 
 within two centuries it probably was disturbed by the engineer- 
 ing of the Eomans, who constructed a military way throuah 
 this natural opening. Very great changes and improvements 
 have taken place in our own days. Objects which called 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
— ^x 
 
 Poli/hius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 194 
 
 attention in 1819 bad ceased to be perceptible in 1854. Just 
 before I left Aix, my friend Wickbam came over to me from 
 Geneva for a day or two : we went, a large party, across tbe 
 lake witb our donkeys ; and, liaving passed tbe Col, turned to 
 tbe left under tbe brow of tbe mountain to a farm called La 
 Yacberie, from wbence tbe young and active usually climb to 
 tbe Dent du Cbat, and enjoy, if atmospbere is propitious, a 
 glorious view of Mont Blanc. My friend was greatly struck 
 witb tbe magnificent road made since he bad examined tbe 
 pass, by tbe King of Sardinia, and wbicb, keeping near to tbe 
 precipice above tbe lake, affords by zigzags a convenient ascent. 
 He bad made tbe journey witb Cramer in 1819 in a two-borse 
 car : and, tbougli it was evident to us wbere tbeir track must 
 bave been, it was evident only because it could be nowbere 
 else : not a vestige was perceptible to tbe eye, to sbow tbat a 
 road ever bad been : on tbe contrary, it seemed impossible. 
 
 The Allobrogian toirn. 
 
 Commentators bave desired to identify some known place 
 witb tbe town to wbicb tbe AUobroges bad retired for tbe 
 nigbt, and wbic b after tbeir defeat on tbe following day was 
 occupied by B-annibal. H. Long, wbo figbts tbe battle at 
 Grenoble before be comes near to bis beginning of Alps, 
 suggests La Troncbe, wbicb seems almost a part of Grenoble. 
 Larauza, p. 103, after entering tbe defile at Aiguebelle, says : 
 *' Entre Argentil et Eypierre on aper9oit divers cbemins qui 
 - conduisent aux viUages jetes 9a et 1^ dans les montagnes : 
 " la ville prise par Annibal devait etre situ^e par Ik au milieu 
 " des monts qu'on a sur la droite, &c." Mr. Ellis, in bis track 
 to tbe Maurienne, fixes upon Allevard. Wickbam and Cramer, 
 after crossing tbe Mont du Cbat, suggest Bourget. If caUed 
 upon to give a name to tbe town spoken of, I would say tbe 
 village of Bordeau : not because tbere are habitations there 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Asrenf. Little Ht. Bernard 
 
 19.^ 
 
 a 
 
 « 
 
 (( 
 
 now, but because the situation is just below tlie col of the 
 Chat. I do not, however, perceive that we need find any 
 modern place for representing the town to which the AUo- 
 broges retired ; if in that day the Gauls of this district 
 resembled those who liad already found their way into Italy 
 (and why should they have surpassed them in refinement?) • 
 " They dwelt in unwalled villages, not acquainted with arti- 
 ficial comforts : with their beds of rushes and their chief 
 diet of meat : practising only war and agriculture, they led 
 " simple lives : ignorant of other science or art, the wealth of 
 " each was his cattle and his gold ; as in all circumstances 
 " these were easy to be shifted with themselves at their 
 " pleasure."* The town whence issued the disturbers of the 
 march of Hannibal, has not only no claim to present identifi- 
 cation, but none to other commemoration of history. 
 
 March muived after a day's rest. 
 
 No incidents are attributed to the first three days of this 
 onward march from the AUobrogian town: it proceeded 
 securely and without aspect of danger, (as we believe, through 
 Chambery, and by Montmelian up the Is^re,) tUl the coming 
 forth of the natives on the fourth day. All that we read is 
 very consistent with the region here spoken of: the booty that 
 was obtamed after the defeat of the Allobrogian leaders was a 
 probable thing in the country near Chambery : the country 
 forward was without difficulty ; and as far as Conflans as 
 thought by some, it continued to be the country of 'the 
 AUobroges ; whose leaders, if any survived, might be satisfied 
 with the defeat which they had sustained. Mr. Brockedon 
 says that from Montmelian to Conflans the road ascends 
 through a succession of beautiful scenes ; that tbe inhabitants 
 are numerous, and the valley highly cultivated. The Oxford 
 
 * Polyb. ii. 17. 
 o 2 
 
Pohjhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 (( 
 
 n 
 
 196 
 
 Dissertation says : " From Chamb^iy to Montm^lian the valley 
 " is larcre and very rich ; and from thence to Conflans, though 
 not quite so wide a^ the valley of Gresivaudan, it is still very 
 " larcre For six miles before we arrive at Conflans the road 
 is quite straight, very fine and broad, the country covered 
 " with fine wood when it is not under corn or vines."* 
 
 In this part oi' the progress there is competition between 
 the valley of the Isere above Montmelian, and the valley of 
 the Arc. They ^vho will investigate the characters of these 
 two approaches to the main chain, will find along the Iske a 
 great degree of richness belonging to the most fertile and 
 most populous valley of the Alps. Along the Arc they will 
 notice variations in the degree of barrenness through a valley 
 poor in produce and inhabitants. This characteristic of the 
 approach to the Cenis is differently appreciated by those who 
 assert its claims. Larauza, seeing that the country traversed 
 must have been competent to support a population such as 
 the history tells, quotes from De Saussure a sentence or two 
 containing some faint idea of vegetation ; and so struggles to 
 bestow fertility on the barren Maurienne. Dr. Ukert con- 
 fesses the sterility, and treats it as favouring the notion that 
 the invaders sujfered from privations. Mr. Ellis regards the 
 fertility of a valley as a matter of inference rather than of 
 fact : and deduces its productiveness from the population of 
 the entire province to which it belongs in comparison with 
 that of other Sardinian provinces. Thus, as there is no 
 population on Mont Blanc or Monte Rosa, and a very small 
 one on the Great St. Bernard and other tracts within the very 
 large province of Aosta, he assumes the barrenness of the 
 Val d' Aosta irom the population of the Province of that 
 name. Treatise, pp. 156-7. 
 
 * M. Replat's theory carries the march north-east from Conflans 
 to Beaufort, thence to the Bonhomme, and over the Col de la 
 Beigne down the A116e Blanche. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Ascent. Little St. Bernard. 
 
 197 
 
 L 
 
 In applying time and events to the track which I support, 
 I will pause, as may be convenient, to compare it with other 
 tracks, in respect of any distinct topic ; but shall afterwards 
 separately point out any further objections to which these 
 may appear liable. 
 
 Conference with Katives, on fourth day of renewed march. 
 
 At Conflans we suppose the natives to have come forth with 
 tokens of peace and amity, and to have conciliated the friend- 
 ship of the invaders, as told by Polybius in i\\^ 52d chapter. 
 From that place, now AlbertvUle, we suppose the march to 
 proceed up the Isere by the usual road through Moutiers and 
 Ayme to Bourg St. Maurice. Some writers desire to fix 
 precisely the point of eacli night's encampment. I pretend 
 not to do this : I cannot even tell what progress they made 
 beyond Conflans on the day of the interview with the natives. 
 It would be vain to delineate each mile of the marcli, either 
 above or below the great bend of the river at Moutiers. The 
 circumstance of an important body of tlie natives coming 
 forth to meet them with professions of amity was likely to 
 take place on the confines of a new people, and Conflans 
 appears probable : but there are no incidents in the narrative 
 which mark the track by any special features of country, till 
 we draw near to the region of the main ascent. We only 
 know, that a portion of the natives were for two days accom- 
 panying the march, acting on the conspiracy which they had 
 formed : their purpose was to defer the onset till the march 
 should be coming to the extremity of the inhabited district. 
 It is to be presumed that the route in use would always 
 attend the course of the river : and this route, though in parts 
 diflicult, afterwards became the line of the Eoman way : the 
 Itinerary gives 34 miles from Ad Publicanos (Conflans) to 
 Bergintrum (Bourg St. Maurice) : Darantasia (Tarentaise) is 
 about midway between those places. 
 
 k 
 
198 
 
 Polyhiiis interpreted. 
 
 [PAKT V. 
 
 Boarg St. Maurice and the environs. 
 We read that on the second day from that on which the 
 conference with the natives took place, the armament was 
 suddenly attacked in passing through a difficult defile. Now 
 it is clear that the conflict which here ensued must have been 
 near to the great mountain of the pass : for on the moiTOW 
 Hannibal was encamped on the summit, gaining it on the 
 ninth day of Alps. Thus the scene of this engagement is 
 looked for under the control of intelligible limits, being 
 clearly within a day's march of the summit, which Hannibal 
 must have intended to reach on the day when the attack was 
 made. There is also a particularity of circumstance in the 
 story of it, which may be expected not to suit the approach 
 to one mountain so well as the approach to another. Let us 
 endeavour to apprehend the nature of country and of the 
 movements ; and. consider whether the facts related may have 
 occurred in the regions to which we assign them. 
 
 The traveller, before he approaches Bourg St. Maurice, has 
 been released from the closer contractions of the valley of the 
 Iske. The place stands in meadow ground on the right bank 
 of the river ; and, as you go down towards it along the side of 
 the mountain below which it stands, you look forwards over 
 the town, when a mile or more distant, to that open ground 
 beyond it whicli has been called the plain of Scez, with the 
 Graian Alp beyond in the distance. The oblong-looking sur- 
 face of this plain, so viewed afar off, might be thought level : 
 but it has a decided acclivity : it may be a mile and a half in 
 length ; less in width. 
 
 I have the impression that, in so descending upon Bourg 
 St. Maurice, and looking over and beyond the town, there was 
 presented to the eye with some distinctness that seeming 
 plain, enclosed as it were in a frame of four sides. The Isere, 
 whose direction has been changed before it comes to Bourg St. 
 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Ascent. Little St. Bernard. 
 
 191) 
 
 Maurice, may be called the under line : pine-clad mountains 
 make the opposite or upper side ; and a similar boundary is 
 continued on the right-hand side : while on the left is a bare 
 crumbling mountain, below which the Eeclus is making its 
 way towards you. In the lower right-hand corner of the 
 picture is the village of Scez : in the upper left-hand corner 
 is the XevKOTrerpov of Polybius. Carrying your sight over the 
 opening there, you have the Alpis Graia in the distance.* 
 
 After you have passed through St. Maurice, and are pro- 
 ceeding up the right bank of Isere, the Yersoy torrent crosses 
 you from the left, bringing the waters from above Chapiu : and 
 presently the Reclus comes in, running directly towards you 
 from the Little St. Bernard : and being crossed, also falls into 
 the Isere : which river has bent his course towards you, from 
 the mountains above Scez, among whom his higher stream is 
 lost to the eye. 
 
 The Reclus. 
 
 The Eeclus has risen under the brink of the summit plain 
 of the Graian Alp, and falling rapidly for some miles in a 
 chasm or trough between mountains that swell on either side, 
 it has at length to struggle through large masses of rock, now 
 confusedly piled together just under the White Eock, which 
 stands erect on the left bank, facing the precipitous ascent to 
 St. Germain : it escapes through a bridge : and, flowing on 
 under tlie mountain on its right bank with the plain of Scez 
 on the left, falls, as stated above, into the Isere. 
 
 The present travelling route from Bourg St. Maurice to the 
 summit, having crossed the Eeclus just above where it falls 
 into the Isere, comes to Scez. There you leave the valley of 
 the Isere, and proceed diagonally over what I call the plain 
 
 * See, in Oxford Dissertation, sketch of the Passage over the 
 Little St. Bernard. 
 
Polybius interpreted. 
 
 [PAKT V. 
 
 200 
 
 of Scez. passing northwards through the small village of 
 ViUars, to the corner where the White Rock overhangs the 
 Eeclus. The road crosses this river hy the bridge close to 
 the end of that rock, and is carried in zigzags up the pre- 
 cipitous mountain on the other side : on which is placed the 
 village of St. Germain. It then keeps the high ground on 
 the right bank of the torrent, far above and out of sight of its 
 
 channel. 
 
 Since I rode up through St. Germain on a mule m 1854, 1 
 have referred to Brockedon's portrait of the \evK6^erpov in 
 his " Passes of the Alps." He does not introduce the opposite 
 precipice with its church and houses : I conceive that, though 
 not so perpendicular, it rises the higher of the two. The 
 position which he took for making this drawing must have 
 turned his view not directly across the stream, but more to 
 the ri-ht beyond the village ; and perhaps the sketch was not 
 finished on the s^oot, but part left to be fiUed up from memory : 
 for I can hardly think that there exists the gentle ascent 
 which is represented on the right bank from near the level of 
 the torrent. Not that any impressions of sceneiy which 1 
 may retain from that expedition can claim to be relied on : 
 but in this instance I feel confirmed by sketches of my 
 
 companion. 
 
 I see no reason that it may not always have been prac- 
 ticable for a pedestrian from Bourg St. Maurice to make his 
 ascent to the Graian Alp by keeping the mountain brow on 
 the ric^ht bank of the Eeclus without ever crossnig it ; or by 
 keeping the brow of the mountain above Scez without ever 
 recrossing that torrent. But the middle course over the plain 
 by the ra^ine and White Eock, is that to which the contro- 
 versy directs our attention; being that which has been brought 
 into use by modern art, and which seems recorded as matter 
 of history 2,000 years ago. Believing that the army ejitered 
 that plain, and that there the assault of the barbarians took 
 
 CHAP. 11.] 
 
 Ascent. Little St. Bernard. 
 
 201 
 
 t 
 
 place, we desire to note all circumstances clearly ; though they, 
 may not all be essential for establishing that the march was 
 over the Little St. Bernard. 
 
 The Ravine and Roche Blanche. 
 
 We read that the lateral attack, with rocks and stones, was 
 made upon Hannibal's troops as they w^ere passing through a 
 difficult ravine ; and that a large part of their force remained 
 during the night near a certain white rock. The rock is 
 obvious : the ravine is open to speculation : for, strange as it 
 may appear, the ground has not, that I can learn, been sur- 
 veyed so as to be duly evidenced. The tracks which suggest 
 the idea of a ravine, (f>dpay^, are the channel of the Eeclus 
 itself, which runs at the foot of the rock ; and one, which is 
 supposed to have been the course of the Eoman road behind 
 the rock. 
 
 Neither of these passages has ever received a sufficient 
 description in any published work ; no modern author has ever 
 reported himself to have explored either of them. Polybius 
 may have been prepared with some information concerning 
 a ravine and a white rock before he made his journey ; 
 such information having been first derived from Carthaginian 
 prisoners, or from Italian friends of the invasion w^ho had 
 accompanied it. When he reached the scenes we speak of, 
 he would himself have to conjecture which was the ravine 
 where the van of the march was assailed ; and we have to 
 conjecture now, which was the place that his mind recognised, 
 when he used the terms, ^dpay^ or ■)(apdhpa. I will advert 
 to what has been said by modern writers on the two passages 
 alluded to. 
 
 In the Oxford Dissertation, p. 01, the description is 
 this : — 
 
 " On the left bank, just above the bridge by which the modern 
 
 \i 
 
202 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 - road crosses the Eeclus, stands a high white rock of gypsum, 
 " called in the country universally La Eoche Blanche. The 
 
 - Eeclus runs under its side, and is confined in a very deep 
 « rocky channel. On the other side of the rock is a woody 
 « ravine, through which another small stream flows, which 
 " afterwards com(3S down through Villars to Scez. The 
 " remains of the Eoman road made by Augustus have been 
 " discovered in th«? neighbourhood of Yillars, and it probably 
 " went up this woody ravine in the manner laid down in the 
 '* plan.* From tlie words used by Polybius, (j)dpayya rcva 
 - Bvafidrov Kal Kpr)fjLV(oh], which apply extremely well to the 
 *' bed of the Eeclus, we might be tempted to suppose that the 
 " army had marched up this torrent : but this passage would 
 " have been so diificult, that I can hardly conceive it possible 
 '' to have been accomplished. The Eoman road, though very 
 " much exposed to the attacks of the barbarians, would have 
 
 " been more easy." 
 
 This statement invites comment on the two tracks mentioned. 
 Now that which is up the bed of the Eeclus is, I conceive, at 
 the present day not only extremely difficult, but utterly im- 
 possible : yet it need not have been so 2,000 years ago. The 
 bridge is now just below the end of the white cM; and the 
 traveller, in crossing it, hardly sees the river running to him : 
 for a high mass of large accumulated rocks, covering the 
 stream, prohibits all prospect in that direction. In the 
 precipitous ascent through St. Germain, I certainly do not 
 remember that I could see the torrent at all, as it flows to 
 that great obstruction : and, when we had attained the higher 
 ground above St. Germain, and were advancing towards the 
 Little St. Bernard, the channel was too deeply sunk below for 
 one to perceive the character of its immediate banks. I am 
 not aware that any investigator has scrambled down to it for 
 the purpose of examination ; but believe that our acquaintance 
 * Sketch of the Passago in that work. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Ascent. Little St. Berncvrd. 
 
 203 
 
 with this (f>dpay^ is limited to the fact that there is now no 
 entrance to it. 
 
 But this does not conclude the subject of inquiry: two 
 thousand years ago the passage may have been free from the 
 masses of rock by which it is now blocked up ; these deposits 
 may not at that time have been detached from the mountains 
 and brought into their present position, where they are arrested 
 by the narrowness of the channel between two precipitous 
 sides. When these obstructions did not exist, the shape of 
 this trough and the character of its banks onwards may have 
 permitted the operations which the history describes : the 
 immediate banks of the stream higher up may not be very 
 steep ; and the onward tread of man and beast need not have 
 been limited to the soil which is covered by the waters. I 
 would observe also, that the sides which were pre-occupied by 
 the assailants must have been practicable : if very steep, they 
 would not themselves have moved so nimbly along them : and, 
 if very rugged, there would not have been due freedom for the 
 rolling of rocks and the hurling of stones, which are the acts 
 of hostility recorded. 
 
 On the 19th September, 1854, as I looked on the stream 
 just below the bridge, it seemed, that one might have stepped 
 across from one stone to another, w^ithout much wetting the 
 shoes. I know not in what state it was a month later : but 
 there was only one day of rain at Courmayeur in the interval 
 to the 25th October, when my son walked over the mountain 
 on his return to Oxford : the weather was rough, but no snow 
 lay on the plain of the Little St. Bernard. On the 11th No- 
 vember, another friend, bound for London, took the same walk 
 from Courmayeur, and had no snow in his path. They did 
 not, however, notice the stream. It would be vain to insist on 
 the particular state of this channel in the time of Hannibal, 
 either in regard to rock or water : no one, that I am aware of, 
 takes the trouble to examine it now : and I can fully believe, 
 
i^ a . ~r» ..^ 
 
 .HM* ' 
 
 204 Polyhius interpreted. [''ai*'' "^• 
 
 that the enormous rocks which blockade it have arrived since 
 that period : it may be that neither rock nor water at that 
 time prohibited the progress of the expedition. 
 
 As to the other suggested passage in rear of the White Eock, 
 the sketch, in the Oxford Dissertation, gives the line of it, 
 and shows the rounded and worn-out end of the Eoche Blanche 
 standing into the plain of Scez, and a second similar projection 
 into it from the mountain behind the rock, at some distance 
 to the south-east;, with a line drawn between them to represent 
 the Eoman track. Afterwards, p. 95, they say : " It had been 
 " in Bonaparte's contemplation to carry a new road up the 
 " ravine where the Eoman one passed, and we saw traces of 
 .. the preparations that had been made for it." When I passed 
 through ViUars to the bridge, I was wholly unconscious ot 
 this second promontory, or of any sort of opening m the 
 mountain after passing Villars : my impending illness had 
 subdued all energy, and power of scrutiny ; and I omitted to 
 
 look out for it. 
 
 General Meh'iUe first noticed the White Eock, as illustrating 
 the statement of Polybius. His notes have never been pub- 
 lished but M. De Luc, who had them, writes thus : — " tes 
 " circonstances et une autre dont je vais faire mention, firent 
 " iu-er au General Melville, lorsqu'il traversa cette montagne. 
 " que dans le tems d'Annibal, la route ne traversoit pas le 
 •' torrent, mai.. qu'eUe montoit le long de sa rive gauche. 
 •• D'apres cette opinion, form^e par la lecture de Polybe et 
 " I'inspection des Ueux, le general auroit voulu monter par 
 " Ik pour examiner cette vallee de plus pr^s : mais son guide 
 " s'y opposa, en disant que c'^oit un vieux chemin tres 
 " mauvais, abandonne depuis longtemps, et que les contre- 
 " handlers seids frequentaient : il ajouta, que depuis la route 
 " actuelle qui suit la rive droite du torrent, il ponrroit ais^- 
 " ment juger de la nature de I'ancienne. I^ General Melville 
 
 • 2d edition. 182.5. V. 173. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Aseent. Little St. Bernard. 
 
 205 
 
 " remarqua, qii'en effet le local repondoit parfaitement k la 
 " description que fait Polybe d'un passage difficile au pied 
 " d'une montagne escai-pee." I conceive this to refer to some 
 onward point high above the right bank, after you have left 
 St. Germain, and are beyond those heights wliich face the 
 Eoche Blanche, and can look back to the exit from the second 
 ravine said to be behind that rock. 
 
 Mr. Brockedoii has spoken of Hannibal's passage not only in 
 his admirable work on the " Passes of tlie Alps," but in other 
 publications. In a journal of an excursion in the Alps, third 
 edition, 1845, p. 148, after saying that "Hannibal passed around 
 and behind the Eoche Blanche," he adds : " In the surveys of 
 " this pass which were made under Napoleon, in contem- 
 " plation of the formation of a carriage-road over the Little 
 " St. Bernard, the engineers were led to decide upon tlie old 
 " Eoman road as the intended line." I remember hearinsr 
 Mr. Brockedon speak as having some acquaintance with that 
 ravine, if such it should be called : but I do not feel certain 
 whether he said that he had gone through it. I believe that 
 neither he nor any one has written on the interior of such a 
 passage. As to the angustice of the Eeclus itself, all I know 
 with certainty is, that it is impenetrable now. A man might, 
 I apprehend, go forward and climb down to it, and make 
 examination of it. A day devoted to this task would be a 
 day well spent. 
 
 Such are statements made by modern authors, which seem 
 to affect the question on the ravine of Polybius. On the 
 XevKOTrerpov, I should say that, whatever ascent of Alps may 
 pretend to be tliat of Hannibal, it ought to exhibit a rock 
 corresponding w^ith that of Polybius : he rarely notices local 
 peculiarities, and, when he has pointedly marked an object 
 like this, we may expect it to admit of recognition at the 
 present day. 
 
 Some theories exhibit a XevKoirerpov : not all. M. Larauza 
 
 -I 
 
206 
 
 Polyhim interpreted. 
 
 [PART V. 
 
 fomid it in tlie Iloclier de la Barmette between Termignon 
 and Lanslebourg. ^Ir. Ellis found it in tlie rock of Baune, 
 between St. Jean de Maurienne and S. Michel ; and we 
 accept the whitcmess of those rocks on their reports, A 
 writer in " Blackwood's Magazine " of June, 1845, says that 
 he found it on the summit of Mont Cenis, ^' of magnitude to 
 be a place of night refuge to Hannibal" ! Some see no 
 occasion to point out a white rock : M. Letronne, on behalf 
 of Mont Genevre, intimates, Jaiiv. 1819, that he could 
 find one for his theory if he tried : " II n'existe point de 
 " passage dans les Alpes ou Ton ne trouvat quelque roche 
 '' blanche, puisqu'il y a de gypses blanchatres sur tons les 
 " cols de la chaine." M. Larauza says of this assertion : 
 " Elle est, je crois, fort hasarde : j'avoue, pour mon compte, 
 
 - que sur les points que j'ai parcouru en traversant soit le 
 
 - Simplon, soit le Grand St. Bernard, soit le Mont Genevre, 
 " je n'ai remarque niille part de montagne de gypse dont 
 " la blancheur i*ut sensible." Tlie Little St. Bernard is not 
 among M. Laraijza's exclusions. 
 
 M.^Letronne, however, seems to deny that XevKOTrerpov is a 
 white rock : he relies on the translation by Schweighseuser, 
 " deserta nudaqne petra," and says : « II est fricheux pour cette 
 " decouverte du General Melville, que dans Polybe le mot 
 " XevKSirerpov, qui revient plusieurs fois, soit pris comme le 
 " Xecoirerpa des autres auteurs, pour \eto9 'XlOo^, et ne signifie 
 " rien autre chose que roche nue, escarpee : c'est ce qui est 
 " prouve surtoat par un passage du livre X." " Eevient 
 plusieurs fois" is a very rash expression: the followers of 
 M. Letronne are welcome to conceive that Xeu/co? may mean 
 " smooth ; " but, whatever it means, it recurs in Polybius, not 
 " plusieurs fois," but only in that one passage x. 30. 5. He 
 is describing the progress of an army through a defile in 
 Hyrcania, obstructed by masses of rock fallen from precipices 
 on either side ; and he states that, while the heavy forces 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Ascent. Little St. Bernard. 
 
 207 
 
 were obliged to proceed along the bottom of the valley, an 
 ascent Be avrwv tcov XevKoir'Tpcov was not impracticable to 
 the liglit-armed troops. I have no authority to refer to for 
 the character and colour of these Hyrcanian rocks : the pre- 
 sumption is that they were white, shining, conspicuous : they 
 may also have been bare, and steep, and slippery. But XeuAro? 
 vi termini imports none of these latter qualities ; any face of 
 rock, not obscured by vegetable matter, whether it be gypsum, 
 limestone, granite, or any other, is bare, uncovered ; but such 
 is not the sense of XevKo^ ; the primary sense is " conspicuous," 
 from Xdo), video. Tlie meanings " bright " and " white " are 
 not far removed : those terms represent the effect of colour to 
 the eye. Bareness may be a cause of conspicuousness ; but 
 it is not sufficiently akin to the original sense that it should 
 be represented by the same word. When a lady's arms are 
 uncovered, you may apply the epithet X€VKwXevo<; ; but we 
 do not construe X€vk(oX€vo<; "Uprj, bare-armed Juno. 
 
 I believe that the word XevKonrerpov, as meaning an indi- 
 vidual of a species, is found in no other author, and only in 
 these two passages of Polybius. But we find the same com- 
 bination in proper names ; and in such instances the names 
 have been bestowed upon rocks or mountains, for the reason 
 that they are white. There is XevKoirerpa on the coast of 
 Italy, of which Strabo says, p. 259, dirb Be rod "VrjyLov irXeovTU 
 irpof; eo) AevKoirerpav KaXovaiv ciKpav diro Trj<; %/Doa9, " They 
 " call the promontory, which you approach coasting southward 
 " from Ehegium, Leucopetra from its colour." So XevKa oprj 
 in Crete are reputed to have their name from their constant 
 covering of snow. Theophrastus says, iv. 1, eV Kpijrr} yovv 
 (jiaalv iv roU 'iBaioc^ opeac koL toI<; AevKol<; fcaXovfjuevoc^, 
 ovirep ovheirore eKXeliTeL %ia)v, KvirdpifTov etvac, " They say 
 '' that in Crete the cypress is found in the mountains of Ida, 
 " and in those called Leuca, which are never free from snow." 
 Pliny, xvi. 60, describes those mountains inthe same way — 
 
'r 
 
 208 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [PATIT V. 
 
 " Quos Albos Yocant, unde nives nunquam absimt." If 
 Polybius had lived a century later, and had been the friend 
 of C^sar instead of Scipio,he might have applied XevKSirerpov 
 to the Dover cliff, and we should have construed \€vk6<; white. 
 For the same sufficient reason the rock in question has been 
 called Roche Blanche. 
 
 Dr. A mold on the Defile and White Rock, 
 
 On so important a matter as the scene of this engagement, 
 which we believe to have taken place when the armament 
 had quitted the Is^re and was pushing on to the summit, the 
 views of Dr. i^.rnold must not be left unnoticed ; for he has 
 expressed them on this latter part of the ascent. He prefaces 
 them with a fact which does not appear in Polybius, saying, 
 Hist. iii. p. 87 : " It appears that the barbarians persuaded 
 " Hannibal to pass through one of these defiles instead of 
 
 - going round it ; and, while his whole army was involved in 
 " it, they suddenly, and without a provocation, as we are told, 
 
 - attacked him." Now there is nothing in Polybius on 
 Hannibal's getting into a wrong course, or of his wavering as 
 to the line of march, or of the natives obtaining his confidence 
 and guiding tb.e march. His feeling towards them is told in 
 avvvTreKplBv rideadaL (t>c\iav Trpo? avTov<>. iii. c. 52. 
 
 Some may infer from the word KadrjyefMoaLv, that these 
 natives must have become the authors of a track of march to 
 be adopted by the general, and may assume that they led 
 him into a false track, though no such fact is told. This is 
 not reasonable : the inhabitants of a country can be useful to 
 soldiers as to others, and may be called guides without being 
 the directors of a line of movement. Can we believe that 
 these barbarians were in the counsels of Hannibal? The 
 friends from the Italian plain, Magilus and his companions, 
 enjoyed his confidence ; they were pledged otI KaOrjyriaovTai 
 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Ascent Little St. Bernard. 
 
 209 
 
 Sta Toircov tolovtcov, &c. The useful spies, who ascertained 
 the enemy's plans at the first Alps, also called guides, 
 /€a07}yovfjLevoL, were in a trust superior to that of the bar- 
 barians of the Ishve : it was policy to tolerate the attendance 
 of the latter, and to put on the semblance of trusting them ; 
 but there is no hint that Hannibal ever ceased to suspect 
 them, or laid aside his precautions. Who, then, can believe 
 that they were allowed to interfere with the route of the 
 army ? On the wise direction of this all safety depended. 
 Hannibal had those whom he could trust; and the entire 
 narrative imports that he kept his intended track. If he had 
 withdrawn his confidence from approved friends, and trans- 
 ferred it to the natives of the invaded valley, the success 
 of treachery might have been realized at Scez, and the arma- 
 ment have been forwarded to destruction on the glaciers of 
 the Isere. 
 
 Dr. Arnold may be considered as assenting to our march 
 till it ultimately quits the Is^re, though he is not prepared so 
 to construe Polybius. He had examined these scenes more 
 than once : and it would be interesting to know which he 
 looked upon as the right path, which Hannibal was dissuaded 
 from following. He seems almost to assent to the channel of 
 the Eeclus as that which he did follow : for he says in his own 
 history: "At last Hannibal with his own infantry forced his 
 " way to the summit of one of the bare cliffs overhanging the 
 " defile, and remained there during the night." Polybius says 
 nothing about " the summit of the cliff," but " cliff overhanging 
 the defile " rather accords with Roche Blanche and the Eeclus. 
 Dr. Arnold does not otherwise favour our XevKoirerpov : he 
 says, iii. 480, note M. : — "I lay no stress upon the Roche 
 " Blanche : it did not strike me, when I saw it, as at all con- 
 spicuous : nor does XevKoTrerpov mean any remarkably white 
 cliff, but simply one of those bare limestone cliffs which are 
 " so common in the Alps and Apennines." In this Dr. Arnold 
 
 VOL. I. p 
 
 <( 
 
 i( 
 
Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 210 
 
 follows Scliweij^li^user and Letronne. But the rock is not 
 limestone : I am assured that it is common plaster-stone ; 
 gypsum ; hydrated sulphate of lime. I have had opportunity 
 to get one for layself, and have specimens from H. Long and 
 Brockedon. ^^hen broken, it has the whiteness of fine loaf 
 sugar : and though the brilliancy will not be sustained under 
 exposure to clhnate, we may think that a lengthened precipice 
 of such material was weU selected by Polybius to mark the 
 scene which he commemorates. 
 
 It is curious, that the two ravines near the White Eock, 
 whose existence is testified by the clearest evidence, and 
 which invite the attention of every one who knows the con- 
 troversy on tlie ascent of this mountain, should be so im- 
 perfectly explored. I cannot myself doubt that both were 
 used by the combatants of 118 B.C. But the blocks of 
 mountain rock which have come to choke up the trough of 
 the Keclus, have, I suppose, dissuaded all from exerting them- 
 selves to the examination of its present state ; so as to see 
 what it would, be without the rocks. As to the hinder ravine 
 to the east, one would think that it must always have been 
 comparatively easy ; but of that also there is no published 
 account. General Melville abstained from exploring it, and 
 Mr. Brockedon, if he went through it, has never printed an 
 account of his doing so. 
 
 Accordingly doubt may remain as to which of the two 
 ravines is the defile where Polybius conceived the enemy to 
 have made j^reparations for overwdielming the invaders with 
 missiles. If some sensible man will make his abode for two 
 or three days at Bourg St. Maurice or Scez, and will investi- 
 gate the ground through both ravines, he may throw con- 
 clusive light on these difdculties. But the solution of them 
 is by no means essential to our main question. If the 
 Carthaginian army ever came to the site of Bourg St. Maurice, 
 there was no choice on their further way to Italy. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Asce7it. Little St. Bernard. 
 
 211 
 
 Character of the Conjlict 
 
 Having collected some statements of modern witnesses on 
 the scene of action, it is expedient to notice, in addition, the 
 character of the conflict as seen in a few facts alleged by the 
 historian, and to apply the tale of what was done by the 
 combatants, whether in attack or defence, to the scenes we 
 speak of. Polybius states that the barbarians assailed the 
 Carthaginian armament on their march through a difficult 
 defile ; and that the heavy armed infantry, who were in the 
 rear, withstood the onset and saved the army. Nevertheless 
 a considerable loss was sustained : and he gives the reason 
 why a great number, not only of men, but of horses and 
 baggage-cattle, who were in the van, were destroyed : the 
 cause was in the nature of the hostilities practised in the 
 ravine, the stratagem of injury by missiles. This inflicted 
 much loss : but the main onset was from the rear, and was 
 repelled by the heavy troops-eWefai; r^y i'jn<t>op^y r&y 
 fiap^dptov. It seems that, before the column of march had 
 arrived at the defile, a certain multitude of the barbarians 
 had already occupied it, and taken post on the lateral slopes, 
 so as to be able to inflict injury in the way described : these! 
 who so got forward, had deHberately prepared themselves for 
 handling their weapons, rocks and stones. It became then 
 essential that Hannibars heavy battalions, who sustained the 
 weight of the enemy in the plain, should arrest their further 
 ingress into the defile ; not only by excluding them from the 
 direct entrance, but by opposing their endeavours to get 
 round by any way towards the head of the column which was 
 moving onwards, and to prohibit any attempt upon the 
 heights which skirt the plain behind the White Rock, or which 
 belong to the other side of the Reclus. If the mass of the 
 barbarians had not thus been kept back, the artillery which 
 molested the advance in the defile would have received 
 
 V 2 
 
212 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 continual reinforcements, and the passage would not easily 
 have been purgt-d of their harassing assaults. 
 
 It is clear that the natives never attacked front to front : if 
 the dwellers on the Isere could have brought out their 
 strength in time to face the invaders, they would not have 
 done it : their object was plunder with the smallest risk to 
 themselves. Had they attacked at a lower part of the vaUey 
 of the Isere, there would have been danger of retaliation 
 upon their own possessions. The scenes were now passed in 
 which vengeance would have been injurious ; the strangers 
 were in view of the desired heights, and longed only to 
 surmount them with the least delay. If indeed you suppose 
 that the policy of the barbarians would have been to face the 
 advancing army, they had hardly the option of doing so. 
 This armament visited their valley as a sweeping pestilence, 
 and waited not : they saw it as it passed : they followed, and 
 following gathered strength : they chased a foe willing to fly, 
 themselves unable, had they desired it, to intercept the flight. 
 Thus the mass of the native force was necessarily in rear 
 of the invaders : and we must conceive the attack to be made 
 when the army, after a pause in the plain of Scez, was 
 moving from it, and had begun to thread the narrower track 
 where the enemy made preparations of injury. When the 
 danger began, i:he column was compressed in part within the 
 defile : freer and more elastic in the open ground behind. 
 The success with which the onset was here withstood by the 
 heavy armed troops is told by express words : but we are left 
 to conjecture how the fighters with rocks and stones were 
 disposed of: it is consistent with the narrative to suppose 
 that they were hunted out by the lighter troops, and at length 
 dislodged from their positions and overpowered by numbers. 
 StiU the onward progress had to be guarded against fresh 
 intruders from each direction : and it was not before the 
 morning dawned, that the whole army had defiled on to the 
 
 CHAP. II,] 
 
 Ascent. Little St. Bernard. 
 
 2ia 
 
 open mountain. This sketch of the engagement wiU be found 
 warranted by the words of the histoiy : the main shock of 
 arms was not in the ravine. 
 
 There is an incident in the narrative, which I think has 
 been misunderstood: we read, Sar' dvayKaaeijvac tov 
 'kvvi^av /.era t^9 ^i^iadm ^vvdf,em WKrepevaai irepl rl 
 XevKoirerpov oxvphv x^oph rchv riTTrcov koX to^v {jiro^vylcov 
 i<t>e^pevovTa tovtoc,—" so that Hannibal was obliged to pass' 
 " the night, with half his force, about a certain white rock, a 
 "tenable post, away from his horses and baggage cattle, in 
 " reserve for their protection." My notion is that Hannibal 
 so stayed back to withstand the weight and bulk of the 
 enemy, which was always on his rear ; and to prevent them 
 from making their way round and reinforcing that system of 
 attack on the van with which the conflict had begun. I 
 conceive that those first aggressors must have been rooted out 
 from their positions of offence before the night came on ; and 
 that the great business was to prevent a recruiting of that 
 force from the multitude in the rear, where the enemy was 
 most formidable in numbers. 
 
 The sentence in which Trepl XevKSirerpov occurs, seems to 
 have been accepted, as showing that Hannibal, by his occupa- 
 tion of the summit of a cliff, protected the passage of the 
 army during the night. In the Oxford Dissertation it is said : 
 " The position of the Eoche Blanche was eminently cal- 
 " culated for the defence of this march : from hence Hannibal 
 commanded the whole plain of Scez, and was able to act 
 against the enemy, on the heights above St. Germain, as 
 " well as upon those on the flanks of the road." Dr. Arnold 
 writes : " At last Hannibal with his infantry forced his way to 
 " the summit of one of the bare cliffs overlianging the defile, 
 " and remained there during the night, while the cavalry and 
 " baggage slowly struggled out of the defile." Hist. iii. 88. 
 M. Larauza is so persuaded that the upper surface of a cliff is 
 
 t< 
 
 ({ 
 
214 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 the thing spoken of, that he considers (p. 115) half of the 
 army to have stood upon it at the same time. 
 
 Now it is prctbahle that, after the struggle by which the 
 ravine must have been purged of its barbarian occupants, a 
 sufficient numb(;r of the Carthaginian force were posted all 
 about this rock, so far as it was possible to post them : and 
 one need not object to the conjecture that, while daylight 
 lasted, the archers and slingers might act upon a hostile force 
 appearing on the opposite bank. Still the idea which the 
 words dvayKaaOrjvai vvnTepexxjai irepl XevKOTrerpop convey 
 to me is this : that Hannibal kept possession, through 
 the night, of the surrounding ground to which this cliff 
 belonged, the iground outside the gorge and where the 
 enemy were most in force ; and that, to give security to the 
 toilsome passage of the great armament, which was con- 
 tinuing its ascent from the defile and up the mountain, it was 
 necessary that he should maintain himself in the open ground 
 from which the passage was entered. Tliere I conceive that 
 he passed much of the night under arms : and, as the other 
 portion of the army was struggling onward, there ensued a 
 discontinuance in the whole line of movement : but his com- 
 munications ceased to be forcibly intercepted; and, by the 
 time that day had dawned, the assailants had melted away, 
 and the rearmost of the Carthaginians under their great 
 leader were freci to pursue their onward course to the summit. 
 It may be that the epithet o^vpov, tenable, has inclined 
 some to think (jhiefly of the upper surface of this rock, as a 
 position to be gained : but it need only import generally a 
 station of defence : the sentence has no word of movement, 
 and vvKTepevaat irepi imports none. The rock probably was 
 always precipitous to the torrent : but we may not know 
 what was the form which it presented towards the plain in 
 the time of Hannibal, by the aspect which it presents now. 
 I conceive tliat some centuries ago it must have extended far 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Ascent. Mont Cenis. 
 
 216 
 
 more prominently into the plain : at the moment when I 
 passed, a good-sized cart was employed near the bridge in 
 carrying away portions of gypsum which a labouring man 
 was detaching and removing ; and our White Eock may have 
 been subject to the daily spoil of house-decorators and others, 
 ever since its neighbourhood came to have a human popula- 
 tion, in the early Christian times when a Church was planted 
 on the heights of St. Germain. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Ascent to the Mont Cenis, Larauza. The Nine Days. Defile 
 
 and XevKoirerpov. 
 
 Two theories only can here be said to challenge considera- 
 tion : for, on the line of march through the mountains. Dr. 
 Ukert is but a disciple of Larauza, translating him and his 
 Itinerary. Larauza and Ellis must be controverted separately. 
 They reach the valley of the Arc at different points : they quit 
 it at different points: the XevKoirerpov of one is in special 
 contradiction of the XevKoirerpov of the other: and they 
 move over different summits. 
 
 Larauza placed the dva/SoXrj "AXweeov at La Chavane : and, 
 in doing so, desired to gain three ^^ostcs into his mountain 
 march. But a mountain march from the Graisivaudan up the 
 Arc must be content to begin at Aiguebelle. The distance to 
 it from La Chavane cannot be deemed space in the mountains, 
 nor the time between them be reckoned as time in the moun- 
 tains. The defile at Aiguebelle is the first point which, to M. 
 Larauza coming up the valley of Graisivaudan, could represent 
 the dpa^oXr) "AXirecov. He says himself (p. 66) of all the pre- 
 vious ground from La Chavane,—" L'on n'est pas dans les 
 Alpes." 
 
21G 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part V. 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 But when M. Larauza gets to tlie defile of Aigttebelle as a 
 beginning of Alps, there is a question whether he finds such a 
 mountain as corresponds with that which the AUobroges had 
 to defend. We say that the Carthaginians fought their way- 
 over a mountain. This M. Larauza denies : he calls it, p. 98 : 
 " entree des Alp6;s, et non la montee des Alpes." " Si le mot 
 " dva^oXr) d^signe quelquefois Taction de traverser en montant, 
 " il pent aussi d(3signer celle de traverser en penetrant." He 
 hardly tolerates the word as connected with the idea of ascent ; 
 saying, — " Polybe se sert en general preferablement du mot 
 v7r€p^oXrj (vid. cap. 53) pour designer la montee des Alpes." 
 This is a mistake : the word vTrep^dKrj is used twice in that 
 chapter, and in both instances means unequivocally the 
 heights themselves. 
 
 M. Larauza would have been more prudent, had he been 
 content with the metaphor by which dva^oXrj signifies a 
 beginning. Ascent is the beginning of transcent : you begin 
 your mountain by ascending it. The first onset of other things 
 is also called dva^oXr^ : when we speak of " striking up " as 
 the beginning of a musical performance, we translate dva^oXrj. 
 In relating a fox -chase, if we had to find a Greek word for the 
 throwing off, it would be dvaj^oKr) : listening to the leading 
 hound one miglit say, as of the minstrel, dve^dWero koXov 
 delSeiv. 
 
 M. Larauza might thus have had a pretence for beginning 
 his course of mountain march at Aiguebelle. But he strains 
 for more. Under the pretence of Hannibal preparing himself 
 for the mountain attack when he got to La Chavane, he 
 measures the mountain march from that place ; that is, by the 
 road back from Montmelian. Now, though Hannibal, for the 
 last day or two of the ten, might be laying his plan for forcing 
 the first mountain, the day of encounter with the AUobroges 
 was the first day of mountain, not the third. Larauza objects 
 here to the term " mountain," saying, — " II s'agit non d'une 
 
 f 
 
 Ascent. Mont Ce7iis. 
 
 217 
 
 montagne, mais d'un d^fild" When he reads that the Allo- 
 brogian chiefs were occupying toi>9 e{jKalpov^ roirov^ hC ^v 
 ehei Toh^ ^epl top \yvl^av Kar' dvdrfKrjv iroielaeai r^v 
 dva^oXriv, he translates it, " les postes qui dominaient les 
 lieux par lesquels il fallait qu'Annibal pass^t." In this he is 
 countenanced by others who, in fixing the dva^oX^ "AXirecov, 
 disclaim mountain. My friend Henry Long translates iroiecaOal 
 T^v dva^oXijv « to make a passage." M. Larauza also finds hi 
 theory of level ground to be strengthened by Sii^xee rd arevd 
 and hiT^vve r^? ^vax^opla^^. He forgets that the narrowest and 
 roughest defile may be at a great elevation : the col or pass is 
 often in a depressed part of a ridge, though there is higher 
 ground on either side of it. In the present case the arevd of 
 the Polybian description are not on the flat level plain of a 
 river : the very contrast with the plain which they had quitted, 
 em rydp, &c. shows that they were now in mountain instead of 
 plain ; and we read that the army, after pervading the arevd, 
 continued its progi'ess down a precipitous mountain. The 
 Allobroges, seeing with what difficulty the horses and baggage- 
 cattle of the Carthaginians were unwinding themselves in a 
 long line, were emboldened to close in with the line of march 
 {i^dirreaOaL rrj^ iropela^), and to fall upon them at many 
 points : and the effect of the attack shows the character of the 
 scene. Polybius says, that the loss sustained was not so much 
 from human conflict as from the hostility of nature: the 
 assaidt on the line produced a general shock, sending over the 
 precipices beasts with their burthens, and men also, amidst 
 the confusion caused by the rushing of woimded and affrighted 
 animals. 
 
 This tale is not weU fitted to the pass above Aiguebelle. 
 According to Polybius, the occupation of the pass was gained 
 in the absence of the enemy, who had withdrawn to" their 
 town. That success was achieved in the night ; and at Aigue- 
 belle the morning would have found the army in free meadow 
 
 i 
 
Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part V. 
 
 218 
 
 ground. M. de Saussure observes, § 1191, that, if M. Abauzit 
 was right in thinking that Hannibal went up the Arc, his 
 battle with the iUlobroges was probably between AiguebeUe 
 and St. Jean de Maurienne. He says, § 1187 : " AiguebeUe 
 « est un joli bcurg, situe au milieu d'un terre-plein assez 
 " ^tendu." § 1191 : "La partie inferieure de la vaUee de TArc, 
 " jusqu'^ AiguebeUe, est large et a peu pres droite. Presqu' 
 " en sortant d' AiguebeUe, on rencontre un grand rocher qui 
 « remplit a peu pr^s toute la largeur de la vallee. Au-del^ 
 « de ce rocher, on descend dans une jolie petite plaine de 
 « forme ovale, que Ton traverse suivant sa longueur ; et au 
 " bout de cette plaine, a une demi-Ueue d' AiguebeUe, le 
 « chemin est de nouveau serre entre montagne et la riviere, au 
 « point qu'on a ete oblige de le soutenir avec un mur." We 
 must remember also the marked incident of Hannibal and 
 his select body coming to the rescue with the troops who had 
 in the night occupied the posts of advantage. He made that 
 downward rush €? hirepHloyv, to put an end to the struggle : 
 and the combat into which he came down was itself carried 
 on at a great (devation ; for the damage which ensued was 
 mainly from pr(icipice on the edge of which it was carried on. 
 Even when th(i enemy had been destroyed or dispersed, we 
 read of the difficulty with which the army was extricated 
 from the embarrassments of the passage. In M. Larauza's 
 scene of action, Hannibal would have charged into a meadow 
 on the banks oj; the Arc, the " jolie petite plaine." 
 
 Polybius writes that, after the crash of arms on the moun- 
 tain, Hannibal overcame the perplexities and dangers of the 
 descent, and ])roceeded to the occupation of the enemy's 
 town : the army there rested for the whole of the next day. 
 Nature then be-came propitious to the advance of the invaders. 
 They could not have enjoyed that aajiokeia in the vaUey of 
 the Arc. De Saussure, having mentioned the second gorge, 
 proceeds thus : " A cet et^anglemeut succede une seconde 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Ascent Mont Cenis. 
 
 219 
 
 " plaine, aprte laquelle la vaU^e se resserre pour la troisieme 
 " fois : mais U seroit trop long de detaiUer les nombreux de- 
 " files que Ton passe dans cette route, et de noter combien 
 *' de fois les etranglemens de la vallee, et les sinuosites de 
 " TArc forcent k passer d'une rive a Tautre." M. Larauza pro- 
 poses to comprehend into the scene of the engagement the 
 second defile mentioned by De Saussure, saying : ♦' Nous ne 
 " verrions aucun inconvenient a y comprendre la seconde 
 " gorge que Ton traverse a une demi-lieue plus loin, et qui 
 " offre a peu pr^s les memes caracteres que la pr^cedente." 
 Now there is an inconvenience : not that it is difficult to 
 imagine a fight continued into the second plain or into the 
 third ; but that such fact is not conformable with the history 
 which we are interpreting. Polybius speaks of one mountain 
 pass, and gives us to understand that Hannibal could hardly 
 have forced it if it had been duly defended ; that the enemy 
 lost the opportunity ; that the consciousness of having done 
 so disheartened them: but the visible struggle which the 
 Carthaginians had to make against local embarrassments en- 
 couraged the enemy at last to assault the long line lateraUy, 
 as it unwound itself from the pass. Hannibal was then pro- 
 voked to sweep down from his own reserved position, and 
 extirpate human hostility : from that moment he met no 
 molestation for many days. If the route had been along the 
 Arc, the hostile leaders, when morning showed them to have 
 lost the advantage of the first ^tranglement, would have done 
 their best to make use of the second, or the third, or the 
 fourth. The route to Chambery offered them no such re- 
 sources : resistance had ceased from the Mont du Chat. 
 
 The Nine Bays. 
 M. Larauza in his computation of time produces confusion 
 by a wrong use of the numeral adjective, third, fourth, fifth, 
 «^c. I have in a previous chapter of this Part assigned to 
 
 i 
 
Poli/hius interpreted.. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 220 
 
 each of tlie fifte«3ii days of mountain its employment. At 
 present we are considering the first nine of them. The first 
 day of Alps was the day on which Hannibal, gaining his 
 success at the Pass, pushed on to the enemy's town beyond, 
 and occupied it. The second day he remained encamped 
 there. He marched on from the town on the third day of 
 Alps. On the fourth day of that renewed march, being the 
 sixth of Alps, he fell in with a party of natives, with their 
 symbols of peacci, supplies, and hostages. The natives having 
 accompanied the march for two days, made their treacherous 
 attack, which was on the eighth day, and Hannibal reached 
 the summit on the ninth day. 
 
 M. Larauza commits the following errors, not without an 
 object. In p. 103, he calls the day during which the army 
 was rested at the Allobrogian town, "le quatrieme depuis son 
 entree dans les .Mpes." According to Polybius, it was their 
 second day of Alps. Then he says, " Le jour suivant, le 
 " cinquieme depuis son entree dans les Alpes, il leve le camp, 
 « et se porte en avant." This was obviously his third day, 
 not the fifth 01: Alps. Then he says, p. 104 : " H marche 
 Mranquille pendant trois jours; mais au quatrieme (le 
 " huitieme depuis son entree dans les Alpes) il se vit expose 
 « aux grands dangers."— €t9 KLvhvvov<i iraper^iveTo fi€ya\ov<;. 
 
 This*" is a deceptive statement : the fourth day from the 
 
 town is not the eighth day of Alps, but the sixth : and the 
 
 deception is not only by calling it the eighth, but by with- 
 
 holdinc. the facts belonging to it in the enumeration, and 
 
 substituting, as the fact peculiar to it, the occurrence of 
 
 danger. The writer does not give the events of the day, but 
 
 shifts his ground ; and in fact quotes only an observation of 
 
 the historian ^^ hich is introductory to the incidents which are 
 
 coming, and insinuates the misconstruction of Polybius on 
 
 KLvhvvov^, which has since been handled in a bolder way by 
 
 Mr. Ellis. The day wliich Polybius designates as TeTapraZo?, 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Ascent Mont Cenis. 
 
 221 
 
 is the day of the conference and treaty, the supplies and the 
 hostages ; and, as Larauza makes this his eighth of Alps, he 
 really leaves out of his reckoning the two in which 'the 
 natives foUowed the march before the assault was made ; for 
 on the ninth day of Alps, which foUowed the eighth, Hannibal 
 was on the summit. 
 
 The object of such perverse interpretation can only have 
 been to cure one error by another. M. Larauza having unduly 
 brought two days into the ascent of Alps which did not 
 belong to it, omits, by way of compensation, two days which 
 did belong to it. 
 
 It is further obvious, that a misrepresentation, such as I 
 desire to expose, is likely to escape detection, when the ex- 
 pounder is hashing up his criticisms on the texts of Polybius 
 and Livy together at the same time ; and still more, if he 
 is promoting confusion, by introducing his own ideas of local 
 identity as if they belonged to one or other of the original 
 texts : as in p 107 of M. Larauza : " Le huitieme jour, c'e^'st-^- 
 " dire le quatrieme depuis le depart de St. Jean-de-Maurienne 
 " I'armee se sera trouvde," &c. Here he gives account of the 
 two days, which he has already excluded from his computa- 
 tion. JSF.B.— Dr. Ukert accepts Larauza's results : but has the 
 discretion not to exhibit the reasonings on which they are 
 founded. 
 
 The Assault and the XevKoirerpov. 
 
 M. Larauza suggests a rival \evK6ir€Tpov within a reason- 
 able distance from his summit, and fairly claims attention. 
 As he travelled along the road, which is on the right bank of 
 the Arc to Termignon, he descried, in coming towards Lansle- 
 bourg, a certain amount of gypsum rock on the brow of the 
 mountain upon the opposite side of the river. Thereupon he 
 imagined certain operations of Hannibal, connected with this 
 piece of gypsum, as the XevKoirerpov of the history. 
 
 The hypothesis is set forth in these words, p. 115 :— ." I 
 
222 
 
 Polyhiits interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 i( 
 
 <( 
 
 u 
 
 " est impossible de n'gtre pas frapp^ de I'ideutit^ des Ueux, 
 " lorsqu'aprfes avoir pass^ Braman et Termignon, Ton arrive 
 " au defile que I'on traverse k trois quarts d'heure de marche 
 " de ce dernier village, une demi-lieue en avant de Lans- 
 "le-bourg. L.!S divers d^ails de locaUt^s, fournis par 
 " rhistorren, se trouvent rassembles de manifere k ne kisser 
 aucun doute. La vallee se resserrant en cet endroit y forme 
 '• une gorge ^tioite et profonde : le chemin se trouve bord(5 
 " sur la droite par le precipice, au fond duquel coule le tor- 
 " rent de I'Arc : sur la gaucbe, par d'dnormes rocliers nuds 
 et arides, soavent escarp(5s et roides, d'oi les Barbares 
 pouvaient ^eraser les Cartbaginois obliges de passer im- 
 « mediatement au-dessous. A droite de la route, et de I'autre 
 " c6te de I'Arc, se voit le XevKhirerpov, que j'entendis encore 
 " appeler, par les habitans du pays, le rocher blanc, ou le plan 
 "' de roche blanche, quoique son veritable nom soit le rocher 
 " du plan de la Barmette. 
 
 " C'est un rocher de gypse, paraissant d'une blancheur 
 " dclatante dans toute sa partie supMeure entiferement nue et 
 " d^couverte, tandis qu'au dessous, il est convert de sapms, 
 « et presente, depuis le milieu jusqu'a sa base, sur un plan 
 " l^akement incline, une espfece de talus qui se prolonge 
 " julqu'^ Thermignon, et oi Ton fait venir du bled, du 
 " sei^'le et de I'avoine. II est probable qu'Annibal remonta 
 " cette petite plaine pour venir se porter sur le rocher blanc, 
 « qni la termine et la surmonte. La partie superieure de ce 
 " rocher offre un plateau assez 6tendu. Des gens du pays 
 " me dirent que Napoleon y avait fait parser un chemm 
 " practicable pour I'artiUerie. Annibal auroit done pu se 
 « porter la avee une partie de son corps d'arm(5e, le reste 
 '" s'etendant si Ton veut, soit sur le glacis qui se troiive en 
 " dessous, protege par les bois de sapins qui couvrent cette 
 « partie de la montagne, soit encore sur la petite plame qui 
 " descend dn c6t6 de Termignon. On voit que cYtait la 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Ascent. Mont Cenis. 
 
 223 
 
 tc 
 
 (t 
 
 pour lui une position forte et s^re, de laquelle il pouvait 
 prot^ger la marche de son armee, et atteindre facHement, k 
 coups de fleches et de pierres, les Barbares qui se montraient 
 '* sur les hauteurs oi^iposeesJ^-^Ifistoire Critique, pp. 115, 116. 
 The portrait here drawn is quite intelligible : but I perceive 
 in it no coincidence with the story of Polybius, and nothing 
 that is probable in itself. M. Larauza conceives the army in 
 two parts, moving by paraUel courses up the two sides of the 
 deep ravine which contains the river Arc : one part, having 
 the elephants and beasts of burden and cavalry, pursues the 
 present route along the precipice above the right bank, and 
 they are oppressed by rocks rolled down and stones thrown 
 from heights above them : the other corps d'armee marches 
 along the mountain side upon the left bank with Hannibal ; 
 and having reached the top of a white rock they fire across 
 the river upon the assailants over the heads of their suffering 
 comrades. To this transmission of arrows and pebbles the 
 comment ascribes the safety of the army, and to this only : 
 for the description given shows the enemy to have been safe 
 against all other aggression. 
 
 Now, if we suppose in the archers and slingers of the Car- 
 thaginian army a precision of practice approaching to that of 
 modern artillery, still their efficiency would not be great after 
 darkness set in : while the enemy would continue to work 
 their prepared instruments of destruction upon the armament 
 passing under them with far less prevention by the loss of 
 daylight : they could still push over their fragments of rock. 
 In this theory of the combat, aU personal conflict is excluded; 
 and the pressure of the barbarian mass on the rear, as told by 
 Polybius, is wholly forgotten. 
 
 M, Larauza does not suggest any crossing of the river by 
 the combatants during the engagement ; nor does he say that 
 the two corps d'armee, which he separates, I presume, at Ter- 
 mignon, could meet again tiU they got beyond Lanslebourg, 
 
224 
 
 ^olyhius intetY'^etcd. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 He does not appear to have examined the ground on the left 
 bank of the river ; nor say, whether it is practicable to pass 
 quickly from one side of the Arc to the other : so that one di- 
 vision of the army could assist the other, save in the way which 
 he describes, by missiles. One is inclined to ask, would so 
 prudent a general have thus marched with columns so sepa- 
 rated by the river ? Does Polybius furnish a clue to such 
 tactics ? does he attribute the safety of the army solely to 
 weapons discharged from a distance ? I rather collect from 
 XiopU Tcbv tV'To)!;, i(f>€^pe{>ovTa, iin^opdv, and other expres- 
 sions, that they had come to close quarters with the enemy, 
 and that the continuity of their Une of march was broken, so 
 as to cause aa interval between the van and the rear of the 
 
 column. 
 
 I get no information concerning such a track on the left 
 bank of the .ire from friends who have crossed the Cenis, or 
 from any source besides the comment of M. Larauza. He 
 did not himself pursue it, nor does he give description that 
 shows it practicable : but he reports that he picked up a story 
 from some gens du pays, that the route which he imagines, 
 had given passage to modern artiUery :— his means of reference 
 might have induced him to search out the occasion when such 
 thing had or might have taken place. If that mountain brow 
 was^'ever chosen for the transit of French artillery to the Cenis 
 in preference to the usual track on the right bank of the Arc, 
 it ought to be the better line of the two : in which case 
 Napoleon, when this approach to Italy was the object of his 
 care, would have so established it. 
 
 M. Larau2a looked out for a piece of gypsum within a mo- 
 derate distance from the summit of the Cenis : and no one wiU 
 doubt that he saw one : the country abounds in them. But 
 while the existence of such white rock may not be denied, 
 his attempt to interpret through it the details of the Polybian 
 narrative, whether by obscure insinuations of modern events 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent. Little Mont Cenis. 
 
 225 
 
 or unexplained conjectures upon ancient ones, does not in- 
 cline one to believe that this plateau de gypse ever bore the 
 standard either of Hannibal or Napoleon. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Ascent to the Little Mont Cenis. Mr. Ellis and the Boch of 
 Baune. The Comhat. Evasion of the Text. Summaries, 
 How Mr. Ellis shortens the reckoning of time. Two days. 
 Two days more. His final argument for Baune, His 
 progress from the Battle to the Summit 
 
 Mr. Ellis's mountain march is, as we have seen, from Le 
 Cheylas on the Is^re, by Allevard and La Eochette, to the Arc 
 at Aiguebelle, and over the Little Mont Cenis to Avigliana. 
 The leading novelty by which his theory is distinguished is 
 this : that a certain white rock, which he has noticed in the 
 valley of the Arc, above St. Jean de Maurienne and below 
 St. Michel, called the rock of Baune, is the XevKoirerpov 
 of Polybius. It has generally been understood, that the 
 XevKoirerpov was at the foot of the final mountain steep, 
 where Hannibal was attacked by the natives on the day 
 before he reached the summit: the context is thought to 
 show, that the combat took place on the eighth day of ascent, 
 and that he gained the summit early on the ninth. Mr.' 
 Ellis maintains that the battle took place on the fourth day 
 of ascent ; and as he admits that the summit was reached on 
 the ninth day, he requires a march of five days from the 
 rock to the summit. His Alpine route is from Le Cheylas to 
 Avigliana (p. 89), given in detail p. 91. 
 
 Mr. Ellis seeks to avoid an error of M. Larauza, who 
 reckons two days into the mountain march before he arrives 
 at mountain. Mr. Ellis, on the contrary, seems to be two days 
 
 VOL. I. g 
 
226 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 11 
 
 in mountains, before lie allows mountain marcli to begin. 
 Striking from the Isere into the mountains at an earlier point 
 than Larauza, he gives a greater length to his Alpine march. 
 I have no knowledge of the scene of his combat with the 
 barbarians at t]ie White Eock, beyond his own statement and 
 his own engraved plan. I therefore take his rock of Baune 
 to be white, and his plan of the ground about it to be correct : 
 I will first shortly notice his explanation of the character and 
 circumstances of the engagement, as told in the history. It 
 will then be necessary to explore his contrivances for sub- 
 verting the generally received chronology of the march, 
 requiring five clays, instead of a fraction of one, between the 
 XevKOTrerpov and the summit. 
 
 The Combat. 
 
 Having related the first onset with missiles by the barbarians 
 posted in the ravine, Mr. Ellis says (Treatise, p. 45) : " No 
 " danger was now to be apprehended on the rear : the heavy 
 " infantry ther€t held the Gauls in check, and Hannibal was 
 *' enabled to devote his personal efforts to the safety of the 
 *' van. For this purpose it must have been necessary to gain 
 " possession ol' the heights above the slopes, where the 
 " Carthaginians had suffered so severely from rocks and stones. 
 *' One half of the Carthaginian army, that is to say, about 
 " 20,000 men, were led on by Hannibal in person against the 
 " Gauls on the mountains, and succeeded either in driving 
 " them back, or in raanceuvring so as to make them abandon 
 " their posts. The march through the ravine was performed 
 *' during the night, which may have been about to fall when 
 " Hannibal took up his position on the heights. He probably 
 " thought that during the night he could draw his army off 
 " better from the CJauls in the rear. During all the night he 
 *' remained in position, separated from the rest of the army, 
 " as it defiled through the ravine." 
 
 CHAP. IV.] AsceiU. Little Mont Gems. 227 
 
 Mr. Ellis appears to think that, the danger in the rear 
 having ceased, Hannibal and half the army went forward to 
 protect the van. My impression is, that, the danger to the 
 van havmg been removed or checked, Hannibal and half the 
 army stayed back, to prevent a renewal of it through rein- 
 forcement coming to the enemy from the rear. Mr. EllFs thinks 
 that the protection which the word ict>eSpevovra imports was 
 given by remaining in position on the heights through the 
 night. I conceive that the word signifies the support'given 
 by a force in reserve; and such is the meaning of ^eBpe^ovrcov 
 m the preceding sentence, where the arrangement of the 
 column of march is explained. Mr. Ellis gives his opinion 
 (p. 46) thus:-- The most remarkable circumstance the 
 " narrative of Polybius contains, a circumstance which gives 
 " an important clue by which the scene of this contest may 
 " be found, is the fact of Hannibal's having posted 20,000 
 " men on the heights away from the rest of his army, and for 
 " the sake of ensuring its safety. This circumstance at once 
 " suggests the existence of practicable ground, above the 
 ^' slopes on one side of the road, by no means usually to be 
 '' found m the Alps." It seems to me that the circumstances 
 which give Mr. Ellis his clue are only to be found in his own 
 engraved plan of the engagement, where HannibaFs 20 000 
 men are seen posted on the heights, and above then/ six 
 substantial bodies of the enemy commanding their position 
 from stm loftier heights. The plan is drawn in much detail • 
 but Polybms is not to be recognised either in the plan or the 
 Treatise. The idea of vvKTepevaa, Trepl \evK67rerpov is ex- 
 eluded from both. The rock of Baune appears, stretching, 
 north from the Arc for nearly a mile : in the plain, lower 
 down the Arc, is the track along which the elephants, cavalry 
 and baggage seem about to enter the fatal defile which runs' 
 Irom west to east below the end of the rock. It must be two 
 miles further to the north, where Mr. Ellis's 20,000 men are 
 
 <i2 
 
228 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 drawn up on the heights, and the enemy above them. If this 
 plan is to be ]'egarded, it results that Hannibal, instead of 
 passing the night Trepl XevKonerpovy marched away from it 
 two miles and more, in time to pass the night somewhere else. 
 Nevertheless Mr. Ellis thinks (p. 41) that the rock was 
 noticed as a natural monument of the battle fought around it : 
 that Hannibal ]:emained encamped near the rock during the 
 fourth night, and arrived on the summit of the pass on the 
 ninth morning. 
 
 Evasion of the Text of Polyhius, 
 
 Mr. Ellis announces in his Preface, that he " conducts the 
 " investigation on the principle of trying the claims of every 
 " pass by the te;xt of the narrative of Polybius." His Intro- 
 duction, which follows the two pages of Preface, begins with 
 supporting the same principle in detail. But it ends with 
 disclosing the design of differing from his model on the funda- 
 mental matter of the chronology of the march, by making a 
 new division of the greater part of it, changing the most im- 
 portant terminus, and disabling the reader from applying the 
 text of the historian. 
 
 Polybius, in <3. 39 of 3d book, divides the whole march into 
 five sections, giving the termini of each : he states the fourth 
 to be from the passage of the Khone €0)9 7rpo9 rrjv dva^o\r)u 
 Tftjv "AXTrecov ; and the fifth, what remains, the passage of the 
 Alps to the plain of the Po. Accordingly, in the narrative, 
 Hannibal coming to the mountains, rip^aTo Trj<} 7rpo9 rav 
 %.\7r€t9 dva^6X//j<;. Mr. Ellis, in his Introduction, begins with 
 correctly repeating the division of Polybius into the five stages, 
 saying (p. 4) : " They terminate, respectively, at the passage of 
 " the Ebro ; at Emporium ; at the passage of the Rhone ; at 
 " the foot of the first Alpine ascent ; and at the commencement 
 " of the plains of Italy." He gives its importance to the 
 terminus which separates the fourth and fifth sections of the 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent, Little Mont Cenis. 
 
 229 
 
 march, by adding,—" The last two of these stages, in which 
 " the passage of the Alps is included, are all with which this 
 " book is immediately concerned." In a discussion of dis- 
 tances which follows, he speaks of the dvafioXrj as the " ascent 
 of Alps" — " the commencement of the ascent of the moun- 
 tains." He says (p. 5) : " The ascent of the Alps on the way 
 " to Italy means the place where the route first became 
 " mountainous, the point where the army was first obliged to 
 " ascend the mountains." He insists on this, so far as to say 
 that, though a different interpretation might be possible, it is 
 scarcely probable that any other meaning can be attached to 
 the expression of Polybius, t^v dvafioXrjv tcjv "AXirecov rrjv et? 
 ^IraXiav. 
 
 The reader is then informed, that the narrative will be given 
 in full from the passage of the Pthone to the arrival in the 
 plains of Italy, with the exception of three chapters and part 
 of a fourth. And I think that most readers would now expect 
 to find that the dva^oXrj of Polybius is to be recognised 
 throughout by Mr. Ellis. But it is quite otherwise. We soon 
 find (p. 6) that Mr. Ellis sets up a terminus of his own, in 
 preference to the dva^oXrj of the history. He makes that 
 very important point of the march to be, not the dva^oXrj 
 Tcov "AXttccov, but a town within the Alps, — the town to which 
 the enemy retreated in the night from their custody of the 
 evKalpot TOTTot, and which Hannibal occupied after his suc- 
 cessful conflict on the mountain.* The variation must be a 
 studied, not an accidental variation. If it were without conse- 
 quences, it would not be worth noticing. It suits Mr. Ellis's 
 special theory to fix his terminus two days more forward than 
 that of Polybius, which he has approved before. We shall see 
 presently that he drops two days out of the reckoning, and 
 
 * If we read on to p. 91, we shall learn the very town, "now a 
 place of importance, and whose ancient name is traced in the 
 modern one." 
 
230 
 
 Polyhius interjnrfed. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 afterwards dispenses with two more. He is meditating ta 
 construct an argviment in which that change will be of im- 
 portance. Not that Mr. Ellis writes in avowed correction of 
 Polybius : he h ardly informs the reader that he is making an 
 alteration. Bnx. he does make it ; the cause being, that his 
 respect for the historian is superseded by his own theory of 
 the Eock of Baime, and by a fancy on the Polybian style 
 invented for aiding it. The variation itself is to make " a 
 certain town " uhe terminus at the first Alps instead of the 
 dvafioXtf : and the object of the change is to produce a five 
 days' march instead of one of a few hours between the 
 "KevKoireTpov and the sunmait. 
 
 These conseciuences of Mr. Ellis's injurious meddling with 
 the text— viz. the curtailment of four days in the earlier 
 Alpine march~I will presently explain. I have fairly given 
 the substance of his Introduction to some extent : the rest of 
 the matter, wliich concerns Mr. Ellis's substituted arrange- 
 ment, with his translation and summaries exhibited in capital 
 letters, as they occur, are too copious for me to transcribe. 
 I can only hope that the reader may be provided with the 
 
 Treatise itself. 
 
 Mr. Ellis fi]rst says that there is a peculiarity in the style 
 of Polybius : that, before entering into the details of an event, 
 he gives a short statement or summary of the occurrences, and 
 then narrates the circumstances at length : that the short 
 summary senses as an argument to the succeeding and more 
 detailed account : that in the portion of the history * which 
 we are dealing with, there are seven summaries, which he 
 shall distingidsh by printing them in capital letters. He 
 notifies the change which he makes in dividing the subject, 
 thus : " The lirst division will consist of the march from the 
 
 * The portion which Mr. ElHs translates begins after crossing 
 the Rhone, an<l, omitting some parts, ends with the assault on the 
 Taurini. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent. Little Mont Cenis. 
 
 231 
 
 a 
 
 It 
 
 " passage of the Rhone to the island : the second, the march 
 from the island to a certain defile and town at tlie com- 
 mencement of the Alps : the third, the march from the town 
 " to the neighbourhood of a certain XevKoireTpov oxvpov, or 
 " 'strong white rock,' where the army encountered great 
 " danger from an attack of the Alpine Gauls : the fourth, the 
 " march from this rock to the summit of the pass : the fifth, 
 *' the circumstances which took place while the army re- 
 " mained on the summit : the sixth, the descent from the 
 " summit of the Alps to the commencement of the plains of 
 " Italy : and the seventh (all of which will not be given), 
 " the march from the foot of the Alps to the country of the 
 " Insubrians." — Pp. 6, 7. 
 
 Having thus exhibited a division of his own in his own 
 terms, Mr. Ellis says : " These form the seven parts, into 
 which the narrative seems to be divided." As there is no 
 doubt how the narrative has been divided by Polybius, we 
 need not be diverted from it by the division that seems good 
 to Mr. Ellis ; unless it is proposed in preference to that of the 
 historian. As to the summaries, he does appeal to the his- 
 torian. He says : " The correctness of the supposition, that 
 " this mode of narrative was adopted by Polybius, will be 
 " best seen by an inspection of the historian's own words." 
 I have inspected the historian's own words, together with Mr. 
 Ellis's translation of them, and have observed those which he 
 puts in capital letters as summaries, and the succeeding words 
 which he calls the more detailed accounts. I perceive two 
 summaries marked between the passage of the Rhone and the 
 Alps in c. 49 and 50 : those for the ascent and summit in 
 c. 52 and 53 : two for the descent in c. 54 and 56. 
 
 Let any reasonable man give attention to the first of these, 
 which Mr. Ellis takes from c. 49 of the 3d book. I ask, how 
 do the first words give a summary of events, explained and 
 detailed by the rest of the chapter ? It seems to me, that wliat 
 
232 
 
 Folyhius ititeiyreted. 
 
 [PAKT V. 
 
 is called Summaiy, brings Hannibal to the island : in the rest, 
 we learn what he did after he got there. The first words of 
 the Summary state the march to the island ; they tell us 
 what it is like, and how it is formed. The words which 
 follow, 7rpo9 r]v cK^LKOfievo^, &c., give facts which occurred in 
 his progress through the island, as he approached the Alps. 
 Besides the display of capital letters to give importance to his 
 summaries, Mr. EUis would impress upon us that the other 
 facts are incidental, episodical, subordinate (pp. 22, 38, 39). 
 The island is to him only the scene of an episode, because he 
 intends to back cut of it : he illustrates the episodical character 
 by a very inaccurate statement, and which would not support 
 his fancies, if it were true. He says (p. 23) : " Before pro- 
 *' ceeding to relate the transactions at the island, Poly bins 
 " arrests the mai'ch of the army at the confluence of the Is^re 
 " with the Ehone, measuring the distance up to that point." 
 Polybius does nothing of the kind. Hannibal's distances have 
 not been measu;red since he left Spain ; and Polybius never 
 measures the march up to the confluence at all. If we desire 
 to measure it foi ourselves, we must first refer to c. 39, when 
 Hannibal was still in Spain : we there read among the five 
 distances of the whole march to Italy, " 1,400 stadia from the 
 passage of the lihone to the beginning of Alps." There is no 
 mention of the distance, as Mr. Ellis alleges, before proceed- 
 ing to relate the transactions at the island. After they have 
 been related, we shall read in the next chapter, that, having 
 in ten days advanced 800 stadia along the river, he began the 
 ascent. If we deduct this 800 from the 1,400, we recognise 
 that it must have been 600 from the Btd^aaL^; to the island. 
 The statement that Polybius, before relating the transactions 
 at the island, ar]?ests the march at the confluence and measures 
 the distance up to that point, is a fiction. 
 
 Those who will read Polybius's narrative of the march from 
 the passage of i:he Khone to the arrival in the plain, will see 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent. Little Mont Cenis. 
 
 233 
 
 as straightforward a tale of events as is found in any other 
 history. Mr. Ellis bids us to expect that more than the 
 explanatory particulars which occur in all narration will 
 strike us as peculiar to this historian. But oa examining the 
 portions marked with Mr. Ellis's capital letters, together with 
 the proximate sentences, we find no propriety in the designa- 
 tion "Summary;" and sometimes a striking unfitness. A 
 careful reading of his Introduction, annulling the promise of 
 his Preface, which was " to try all by the narrative of Poly- 
 bius," suggests no other object in the new division of matter 
 made by this explainer of Polybius, than to disfigure Polybius 
 and explain him in his disfigured state. The invention of 
 Summaries is chiefly subservient to the perversion of dates. 
 
 I am surprised that so marked and decided an interference 
 with the text should not have been distinctly avowed by its 
 author : and that it should be noticed only at the end of his 
 introductory chapter, the tenor of which is contradicted by it. 
 Though Polybius is thus slighted, his terms are nevertheless 
 used in the titles of Mr. Ellis's chapters : as,—" to the com- 
 mencement of the ascent of Alps ; " and " from the commence- 
 ment of the ascent of Alps." We do not there read " to the 
 town ; " and " from the town." And, in the discussion where 
 the town has first to be mentioned, it is only insinuated, that 
 it looked down upon the Carthaginian encampment ; — which 
 is in order to give it an early position in the Alps. For my 
 own part, I think it is to be inferred from the context of the 
 narrative, that the town was quite beyond the evKalpot toitol ; 
 and that, when the enemy had repaired to it for the night, 
 they were no longer in sight of the posts they had quitted : 
 also, that we must conceive the town to have been beyond 
 the scene of the conflict which ensued the next day. There 
 is no fair pretence for setting up the town to usurp the 
 character of terminus between the fourth and fifth sections 
 of the Polybian march. 
 
234 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 Mr. Ellis does not speak out as impeaching the Polybian 
 march, till he says (p. 32) : " The ten days' march from the 
 "junction of the Rhone and Isere, must be taken as terminating, 
 " not at the point where Hannibal left the Iske (Mr. Ellis's 
 " irorafiof;), but at the town of the Allobroges, which he cap- 
 " tured after pa^ssing through the defile at the commencement 
 " of the Alpin(i ascent." He proves this, by saying, " The 
 fifteen days of Alps are clearli/ reckoned from the town." I 
 say, on the other hand, that Polybius calls the terminus 
 ava^oXri ; and, when Mr. Ellis calls it " the town," it makes 
 two days' difference in a reckoning on which his peculiar 
 theory depends : and further, that, to support that theory, he 
 finds it necessary to reject two more days, without a pretence 
 that any fair ciitic will justify. All for the Rock of Baune. 
 
 This discord from Polybius which Mr. Ellis has invented 
 is so pleasing to him, that he introduces " the town," when 
 there is no need to mention it. In p. 54, he quits the summit 
 with these words : " On the eleventh day after leaving the 
 town, the Carthaginians began their descent into Italy." 
 
 In p. 64, he brings the town prominently forward in a 
 journal which he presents of the whole march from the con- 
 fluence of the Rhone and Isere to the plains of Italy ; stating 
 it thus, in two parts : I. The ten days' march to tJie town 
 of the Allobroges, including the halt at that place. II. The 
 fifteen days' march across the Alps, /rom the totvn of the 
 Allobroges to the commencement of the plains of Italy. 
 
 Before I say more on the shallowness of this Summary 
 system, let me, notice, as allied with it, the dangerous frame 
 on which the Treatise is constructed. In the cha}>ters where 
 Mr. Ellis discjusses the narrative from the passage of the 
 Rhone to the plain of Italy, he lays down, from time to time, 
 some condition with which a theory pretending to be based 
 on Polybius ought to conform : the first is in p. 28 : the last 
 in p. 63 : they are ten in number, and are put together at 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent. Little Mont Ce/iis. 
 
 235 
 
 the end of the fifth chapter, following the journal ; which is 
 framed according to IVIr. Ellis's improvements on the text, or, 
 as he expresses it, "elicited from Polybius." Having supplied 
 all these conditions, and many minor ones, he points out, in 
 chapter vi, that " there are four passes in which there is some 
 pri7nd facie probability : " and that " the examination which 
 " leads to the rejection of three out of the four will not be 
 " long." Accordingly he disposes of them in four pages : chiefly 
 for want of a view, for remoteness from the plain, and for the 
 want of Taurini : and tells us in p. 73, " The Mont Cenis 
 remains alone with likelihood in its favour." 
 
 The rest of the work, except what is given to Livy, is 
 mostly devoted to examine whether the characteristics of 
 the Cenis Pass are in accordance with the conditions derived 
 from the narrative by Mr. Ellis. It might be expected that 
 the conditions would fit them pretty well, having been made 
 to order. I will mention the first and the last. 
 
 The first is this : " The commencement of the Ascent of 
 " Alps must be at a distance of about 100 Roman miles from 
 " the junction of the Rhone and Isere, reckoned along the 
 " left bank of the latter river." — Treatise, p. 28. 
 
 The last is this : " The plains into which the road over 
 the pass enters, when it emerges on the side of Italy, must 
 anciently have been inhabited by the Taurini." — P. 63. 
 
 But I must not omit the fourth, which has brought the 
 Rock of Baune into so much favour with him who discovered 
 it. It is this : " The White Rock is nearly half-way, in point 
 " of time, between the town of the Allobroges and the summit 
 " of the pass." — P. 66. Mr. Ellis's town is Allward ; but we 
 do not learn that name till chapter vii. pp. 91, 93. Mr. Ellis 
 speaks of its present importance, and of its preserving, in its 
 own name, that of Allobroges : he says it is six miles beyond 
 Le Cheylas.* 
 
 * It is right to say that some have approved of these conditions. 
 
 t( 
 
 (( 
 
236 
 
 Poll/hi as interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 It is now to be shown, by what series of contrivances 
 Mr. Ellis makes the Kock of Baune to be the XevKoirerpov of 
 Polybius. I will then attend him to the summit. His fifth 
 Summary, which he calls ** Circumstances which took place 
 while the arm}' remained on the summit," will belong to 
 another head of my subject. 
 
 Two First Days of Alps removed hy Mr. Ellis, 
 
 In the first chapter of this fifth part, I have allotted to each 
 of the fifteen days which Polybius ascribes to the Alpine 
 march, the worli which belonged to it : and I believe such 
 distribution of employment to be correct. When Hannibal 
 is said to reach the summit on the ninth day, it means the 
 ninth of the fifteen : this is required by the context of the 
 narrative. I impute, that Mr. Ellis has thrown the chronology, 
 and thereby the geography of the march, into confusion, by 
 setting up a reckoning of his own against that of Polybius. 
 
 We reckon tlie fifteen days of Alps, by beginning with the 
 day of stormin^5 the defile and forcing the passage along the 
 edge of the preiiipices, and afterwards occupying the enemy's 
 town. Hannibal stayed an entire day encamped at the town : 
 this was his secjond day of Alps. He resumed his march on 
 the third day of Alps. On the fourth day of that renewed 
 march, he met a body of natives, and held conference with 
 them. That fourth day of the renewed march was the sixth 
 day of Alps. After the conference, the natives attended the 
 march for twc* days before they made attack. The attack 
 therefore was c-n the eighth day of Alps. 
 
 Mr. Ellis reckons the fifteen days of Alps, by beginning 
 with the march from the town, and so omits the two first 
 
 In Mr. Ball's " Guide to the Western Alps," p. 54, they are com- 
 mended as giving Mr. Ellis's arguments in a condensed form, and 
 the author expresses his obligations for them to a Fellow of St. John's, 
 Cambridge, whc is also a member of the Alpine Club. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent Little Mont Cenis. 
 
 237 
 
 days of Alps. He makes the fourth day of that resumed 
 march to be the fourth day of Alps : and prepares to make 
 the very same day the day of the attack, which he will try 
 to do, by omitting the two days for which the natives attended 
 the army after the conference and before the attack. 
 
 We both profess to reach the summit on the ninth day. 
 Our ninth day is the day following that of the assault, wliich 
 was the eighth. Mr. Ellis's ninth day is the fifth day after 
 that of the assault. Beginning his reckoning on marching 
 forward from the town, he cuts out the day on which the 
 army had fought its way over the mountain, and captured 
 the town, and the day on which they remained encamped at 
 the town. Mr. Ellis knows that TerapTalo^i imports the fourth 
 day of the renewed march, and therefore was the sixth day 
 of Alps : yet he merges those two first days of Alps into the 
 previous march of ten days along the river. The excuse is, 
 that Mr. Ellis cannot think Hannibal would have been so 
 long in marching 100 miles. In so getting rid of these two 
 days,* Mr. Ellis does not pretend to follow the history : on 
 the contrary, he says (p. 32) : " The march of ten days ought 
 to terminate where the march of fifteen days begins." It must 
 have occurred to him, that after those ten days Hannibal 
 rip^aro rrj^i irpo^ Ta<; "Xkiretf; ava^oXrj^. Nevertheless, Mr. 
 Ellis says, " It must be taken as terminating at the town of 
 " the Allobroges : from this town the march of fifteen days 
 " is clearly reckoned." So, as the two first days of Alps are 
 found inconvenient to the Baune theory, he throws them 
 away as being already reckoned in the ten. 
 
 Mr. Ellis corrects the chronology of Polybius thus (p. 33) : 
 " It would be on the morning of the eighth day after leaving 
 
 * Some have suggested, that the first day of Alps should be 
 deeuied the previous day, in the night of which Hannibal with a 
 select body occupied posts in the absence of the enemy. In tliat 
 case, Mr. ElHs has omitted one day more than I charge him with. 
 
238 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent, Little Mont Cenis. 
 
 239 
 
 (( 
 
 "the confluence of tlie Klione and Iske, that Hannibal 
 " encamped before the heights occupied by the Allobroges : 
 " on the same night he seized the abandoned heights : on the 
 " ninth the defile was passed, and the town captured : on the 
 " tenth the Carthaginians remained in the neighbourhood of 
 " the town." Tlius Mr. Ellis ekes out his ten days of irapa 
 TTorafiov with forcing the heights of Alps, and enjoying a 
 well-earned repose in the Alps for the whole of the next day. 
 
 Mr. Ellis is well aware of his variance from Polybius— he 
 says (p. 33) : " Polybius estimates the length and distance of 
 
 a passage of tlie Alps, from the point where Hannibal left 
 " the Isere (the Trorafiov of Mr. Ellis) ; so that it might be 
 " 7iatural to expect that the fifteen days occupied in that 
 " passage woukl be reckoned from the same point." How- 
 ever, Mr. Ellis linds something still more natural : he pro- 
 ceeds-—" But from the rest of the narrative, it seems plam 
 " that the fifteen days' march is reckoned from the town, the 
 " capture of which makes a natural break in the history." 
 Now, whether or not the critic be more natural than the 
 historian, the text has in express terms made the break, 
 where Hannibal, having left the river, rjp^aTo t^9 Trpo? ra<; 
 ''AXTret? dva^d\v<; ; and this accords with the division made 
 in c. 30, between the fourth and fifth sections of the entire 
 
 march. 
 
 Having ratified his doctrine by his three assertions,—!, 
 that it is clear ; 2, that it is plain ; 3, that it is natural,— Mr. 
 Ellis reposes at- last on this additional circumstance, that it 
 is of no consequence ; as the space from his river to his town 
 is so trifling. He says (p. 33) : "This town no doubt was near 
 " to the Iske, and thus only a short distance removed * from 
 " the point where the march along the river terminated." 
 Proximity would be a poor ground of argument, if it were 
 true : our question here is on time, rather than space. See 
 
 * Mr. Ellis says six miles, p. 91. 
 
 what things were to be done : they stormed the mountain : 
 tliey achieved their victory after a severe encounter above 
 the precipices, and then occupied the enemy's town on the 
 other side. It required a day to perform this work : what 
 matters the distance? It was mountain work, not river work: 
 Alps, not iTTLTreBa : and after this Hannibal rested for two 
 nights at the Alpine town. If these remarks are just, the 
 fourth day from the town cannot also be the fourth of Alps. 
 It was the sixth. 
 
 Two more Days cut out hj Mr. Ellis's reckoning, 
 Mr. Ellis proceeds to dismiss two more days of Polybius, 
 in order to accommodate the Rock of Baune. We have seen 
 how he converts the fourth day from the town into the fourth 
 day of Alps : but he almost surprises us by announcing that 
 this same Terapralo^; represents the day of the attack near 
 the \evic6ireTpov. He says (p. 35) : " The attack took place 
 " near a certain strong white rock, and was made on the 
 " fourth day's march from the town." Again (p. 37) : " This 
 " day was the fourth : and the treacherous attack was the 
 "great danger which Polybius particularly mentions as 
 " having occurred on that day." 
 
 Now, the statement of Polybius is this : " Hannibal, 
 " having occupied the town and encamped, and remained there 
 " for one day, again marched on, and for some days following 
 " led the army through without interruption. Being already 
 " in the fourth day, he came again into great dangers." It is 
 then told how the natives, dwelling near the pass, meditating 
 treachery, met him, bearing crowns and symbols of peaca 
 They make plausible representations, furnish supplies of 
 cattle, and deliver hostages. Hannibal's policy is, not to 
 show his distrust of them : but he takes measures of precau- 
 tion, altering his order of march. The natives accordingly 
 attend the march of the army for two days ; and then make 
 
' r 
 
 240 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part V 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent. Little Mont Cents. 
 
 241 
 
 their attack, when passing through a defile. As that fourth 
 day from the town was the sixth day of Alps, the day of 
 the attack was tlie eighth. 
 
 But Mr. Ellis, having turned the beginning of Alps into 
 the town, and the sixth day into the fourth, has only to 
 dismiss two other days, and to let his fourth day last till the 
 battle is fought. He feels encouraged to this by the words 
 of the history — rjBr] Be rerapTato^; cov, av6c<i eh KtvSvvovf; 
 irapeyevero fiejdXovi. His translation is " encountered dan- 
 gers;" so he thinks that the bloody work has begun: he 
 exclaims (p. 39) : — " What then was this great danger ? 
 " According to tlie view we have taken, it was the treacherous 
 " attack in the neighbourhood of the rock. According to the 
 " general view, it was the meeting with the deputation of 
 " Gauls, bearing boughs and crowns. 'No great danger could 
 " be said to result to Hannibal from such an encounter, or 
 " such weapons." 
 
 Had Mr. Ellis so read Poly bins as not to know that two 
 days intervened between the danger that the history points 
 out as belonging to the insidious designs of the natives, 
 shown on the fourth day from the town, and the explosion 
 of their schemes in the ravine ? He insinuates (Treatise, 
 p. 36) that these two days were days that preceded that 
 fourth day. I will not do him the injustice to suppose that 
 he thinks so. If he does, I recommend him to read again the 
 passage in Polybius, or his own translation. 
 
 The evident object is to shorten the march to the Xevfco- 
 irerpov, because he wants to swell the time which came after 
 it to the summit. The contrivance on which Mr. Ellis most 
 relies is the danger on the fourth day. He admits no idea 
 of danger short of the murderous assault, wliich was two 
 days later. In short, lie does not recognise that a man can 
 be in danger of being killed till he is killed. So, as soon as 
 the word Ktvhvvo^ appears in the text, he deems the conflict 
 
 to have begun, and disregards the additional days which he 
 knows will elapse before the first blow is struck. By such 
 means the Treatise of Mr. Ellis professes to bring out the 
 real riieaiiing of the narrative, with clearness, simply, and 
 without confusion ; and to show that the interpretation usually 
 received is lax, strained, and tvithout foundation. — Pp. 40, 41. 
 Having thus condemned our construction of the text, Mr. 
 Ellis gives his own opinion :— " The only satisfactory view 
 " that can be taken of the Greek narrative is, that Hannibal 
 " was attacked near ' the strong white rock,' on the fourth 
 " day of his march from the town of the Allobroges." He 
 presently clenches his argument, by showing that Hannibal 
 passed that night in camp, and took five days more to reach 
 the summit. "As therefore Hannibal remained encamped'* 
 " near the rock during the fourth night, and as he arrived at 
 " the summit of the pass on the ninth morning, the rock 
 " must be situated nearly half-way between the town and 
 '' the summit of the pass ; nearly half-way, that is to say, in 
 *' point of time, for, in point of distance, the respective diffi- 
 " culties of the way, above and below the rock, must be 
 " taken into account. Another condition for the determina- 
 " tion of Hannibars route is thus o])tained !" 
 
 Mr. Ellis, in his zeal for applying Kivhvvov^i to produce the 
 battle in his third sumftiary, appeals for illustration to the 
 use of KLvhvvoL^ in his second summary. He says this : — 
 Polybius does not merely say that Hannibal had on the 
 fourth day to encounter great dangers, but that he had 
 " again, on the fourth day, to encounter great dangers. To 
 "what previous event does ihi^ ' again' refer? Clearly to 
 "the similar part of what has been given as the second 
 " summary, where it is stated that Hannibal found himself 
 in a situation of the greatest danger. This danger, we 
 know, befell him, in consequence of the attack made upon 
 
 *We believe that he was under arms. 
 VOL. I. R 
 
 a 
 
 <i 
 
 t( 
 
 (( 
 
 :JI 
 
 
242 
 
 Polyhms interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 " him at the commencement of the ascent of Alps." This is 
 quite a mistake. No attack had been made. The situation 
 of danger in which he found himself is explained by Polybius 
 to be in the clianging character of the country, by which the 
 cavalry lost its terrors ; in the departure of the allied force, 
 and in the en(jmy's occupation of the requisite pass. Han- 
 nibal was then outside the Alps. Danger threatened in the 
 circumstances related ; and he prepared to counteract it by 
 stratagem. The day of danger to which Mr. Ellis prema- 
 turely assigns the assault near the rock, and tlie day of 
 danger to which he appeals in the plain of Dauphine, were 
 both exempt ft-om actual conflict — one as much as the other. 
 
 Final Argument for Baune. 
 
 In my first criticism, written at Nice, I dwelt at some 
 length on these things, not without hope that Mr. Ellis might 
 acknowledge tliat the fifteen days occupied in the passage of 
 the Alps should be reckoned from the dva^oXrj, or beginning 
 of Alps. I showed him that rerapralo^; was not the fourth 
 of Alps ; was to be reckoned from the town, and that it could 
 not be the day of the battle. In his defence (Journ. of Phil. 
 No. vi. 317), he puts his blunder on evvaram into a new 
 shape, as folio >vs : — 
 
 " After the halt at the town, the first period mentioned is 
 " one of four days {TerapTalo^). At the termination of this 
 " period Hannibal fell into great peril. (The battle of the 
 " Eock, according to my view ; a conference with some Gauls, 
 
 according to Mr. Law's view.) The point from which this 
 
 reTapTato^i is reckoned is not stated." 
 
 " The next date mentioned by Polybius gives a period of 
 '' nine days (ivparalo^). At the end of this time Hannibal 
 " gained the crest of the Alps. Nothing is said with refer- 
 " ence to the point from which this evvaralo^; is reckoned." 
 
 tc 
 
 (( 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent. Little Mont Ce^iis. 
 
 243 
 
 It is not safe to read these two sentences without a careful 
 eye upon Polybius himself. "The first period" and "the 
 next period " are terms of Mr. Ellis ; but the periods are quite 
 independent of one another. He proceeds : — 
 
 " I see here but two suppositions to adopt. The term of 
 " nine days must be reckoned either from the beginning or 
 " end of the four days. The latter supposition, the most 
 " obvious, is inadmissible : the passage of the Alps could not 
 " then be effected in fifteen days. As the term of nine days 
 " must thus be reckoned from the same point as the term of 
 " four days, we have only to determine from what point 
 " rerapraio^ is reckoned. On this the nine days, and, as may 
 " easily be perceived on the perusal of Polybius, the fifteen 
 " days also will depend. But TeTapralo^; is plainly reckoned 
 " from the town." Canib. Journ. of Philol. ii. 317. 
 
 Never was a bolder specimen of the petitio principii. Our 
 assent is begged to two miserable errors, without an attempt 
 to substantiate them : — 1. " The term of nine days must be 
 reckoned either from the beginning or end of the term of 
 the four days." 2. "It must be reckoned from the same 
 •'point as the term of four days." Each proposition is 
 unfounded, and backed only by the favourite word must 
 Each numeral is, in truth, to be explained by its context. 
 The reckoning of evvaralo^ has no relation to the reckoning 
 of T€TapTaLo^. The fifteen days stated by Polybius as the 
 sum of the mountain march, comprehend the whole of that 
 march, beginning with the dva^oXr/ : and the ninth day, on 
 which the summit was reached, is the ninth of the fifteen. 
 It is not necessary that every numeral used during the moun- 
 tain narrative should import some fraction of the fifteen. 
 The word TerapTalo^ has no relation to the fifteen : it has its 
 own special context, which explains it as the fourth from the 
 town; the point from whence he made a new start, avOi^ 
 wpfia ; and therefore it would be the sixth of the fifteen. So 
 
 r2 
 
 ft 
 
 f{ 
 
 ! 
 
 M 
 
 » t 
 
244 
 
 Polyhius interpi^eted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 in the descent;, the word rpLrato^; is a reckoning from the 
 broken way, and expresses no fraction of the fifteen. But 
 ivvaTULos is a part of the fifteen : the summit was attained 
 on the ninth day of the effort to reach it, which effort began 
 at the ava^oXv. If common sense, exercised upon the mean- 
 ing of words, did not interpret ivvaTa2o<;, we might appeal to 
 the translation of such ideas by Livy : nono die in jugum 
 Alpiuni perventum est— quinto decinio die Alpibus superatis. 
 In the argument just considered, we have a fair specimen, 
 not a solitary one, of a system of logic, worthy to be allied 
 with the system of Summaries. When it is desired to esta- 
 blish anything very startling, you are given the option of 
 some other extravagance, possibly more intense ; and when 
 you decline that, you are held bound to the first. Here, 
 wishing the ninth day not to be reckoned from the dvafioXrj 
 "AXTrecDv, but from the town, according to what I consider 
 Mr. Ellis's perversion of Polybius, he lays it down, that it 
 must be reckoned from the beginning of the four days, which 
 were from the town, or from the end of those four days. He 
 attempts no proof of such necessity, and proceeds to assert 
 that the latter alternative is the most obvious, but inadmis- 
 sible : whereupon he adopts the other. Both alternatives 
 are inadmissible : and the difference in value between them 
 is but this— that Mr. Ellis adopts one, and nobody adopts the 
 otlier. 
 
 If any should be misled by rerapralo^; being called the 
 first period, and evvaralo^i the second period, and should fail 
 to detect the fallacy of the dogma, that the term of nine days 
 must be reckoned either from the beginning or end of the four 
 days, it may be; useful to point out in plain words why both 
 propositions are to be rejected as equally rotten ; and that we 
 are not the better for being allowed the option. 
 
 The four days are conceded to begin with renewing the 
 march on leaving tlie to^^'n ; and, if you reckon the term of 
 
 H 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent Little Mont Cciiis. 
 
 21:5 
 
 nine days from the beginning of the four days, the four 
 become included in the nine, and the whole gives a reckonimr 
 only from leaving the town {av0L<i copfjua). Thus the two 
 first days of the Alpine route are omitted. 
 
 If you reckon the term of nine days from the end of the 
 four days, you have a total of thirteen days, which is too 
 much for reaching the summit, and too little for finishing the 
 Alps. 
 
 In my adversary on these topics much is original, not only 
 in his views, but in his style of combat, and I hardly know 
 how to denominate it. In my first criticism on his treatment 
 of rerapraco^;, 1 objected (p. 22) to his not reckoning the two 
 first days of Alps, which preceded those four days. I charged 
 him with knowing the word TerapTalo^ to import the fourth 
 day from the town, and not the fourth day of Alps : and I 
 charged him (p. 24) with misrepresenting that day to be the 
 very day of the assault near the Eock. I called upon him to 
 meet that question. What is his answer? He does not 
 surrender the fatal error of Terapralo^ intending the fourth 
 day of Alps, or the day of the battle, or of its being five days 
 short of the summit. But he is delivered of this proposition 
 — " rerapTato^ is plainly reckoned from the town." He pro- 
 duces this as a truth of his own ; and, as if I were a hesi- 
 tating convert to it, adds, " I wonder Mr. Law did not perceive 
 the consequences of tJds admission'* If Mr. Ellis should 
 truly state the consequences of Terapraco^ importing the 
 fourth day of renewed march from the town, he would state 
 them to be, that it denotes the sixth day of the Alpine march, 
 the very day of the conference with the natives, and two days 
 before the assault in the ravine. That assault was on the 
 eighth day of Alps, and the next morning saw Hannibal reach 
 the summit. 
 
 ! 
 
 I II 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 i t\ 
 
 <l 
 
 ^ 
 
h 
 
 246 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 Mr. miiss Procp^ess from the XevKoirerpov to the Summit. 
 
 Let us now attend this critic to the end of his nine days. 
 After the batthi of Baune, fought on the fourth day of Alps, 
 he makes Hannibal encamp for the night near the Eock, and 
 then saunter on leisurely towards the summit. As he has 
 here to fill up a, period of five days with what in truth only 
 occupied a few hours, he has thought it expedient to make 
 two additional summaries for that interval between the XevKo- 
 irerpov and th(} summit. I will give them as they appear 
 with their details in Mr. Ellis's translation :— 
 
 Part of Chapter 53, showing Fifth and Sixth Summaries, <S^c. 
 Hannibal having on the following day, when the 
 
 ENEMY HAD RETIEED, REJOINED HIS CAVALRY AND BAGGAGE- 
 ANIMALS, LED ON HIS ARMY TO THE HIGHEST SUMMITS OF THE 
 
 Alps, without meeting again with any considerable body 
 OF THE Barbarians, although parts of his army were 
 
 harassed by THEM AT VARIOUS PLACES ON THE ROAD.* For 
 
 they, watching their opportunity, assaulted and carried off the 
 baggage animals, sometimes from the rear, and sometimes from 
 the van of the line of march. Upon these occasions, the ele- 
 phants were of very great service : for the barbarians were 
 80 much alarmcid at the extraordinary appearance of these 
 animals, that tliey were deterred from attacking any part of 
 the line of march where the elephants were to be found. 
 
 On THE NINTH DAY HaNNIBAL ARRIVED AT THE SUMMIT OF 
 THE MOUNTAINS ; AND, ENCAMPING THERE, REMAINED TWO 
 DAYS, AS HE WISHED TO GIVE SOME REPOSE TO THOSE TROOPS 
 WHO HAD ALREADY ARRIVED SAFELY, AND TO WAIT FOR THOSE 
 
 WHO HAD FALLEN BEHIND. During this period many of the 
 
 * The idea of " various places on the road " is not in Polybius, 
 though it is in Mr. Ellis's translation. 
 
 / 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent. LittU Mont Cenis. 
 
 247 
 
 horses which had broken loose in their fright, and many of 
 the baggage-animals which had got rid of their burdens, 
 unexpectedly joined them in the camp, having followed appa- 
 rently the tracks of the army. 
 
 As in our theory it is believed that the summit was reached 
 on the morrow of the conflict at the XevKoirerpoy, Mr. Ellis, 
 being at war against that notion, offers this criticism (Treatise, 
 p, 48) : — « It is necessary to notice an erroneous interpretation 
 '' of a passage in Polybius, from which it has been concluded, 
 " that the battle of the rock took place on the day before 
 " Hannibal reached the summit of the Alps. The Greek 
 " narrative runs thus : rfj B' iiravptov, tmv iroXefilcov X^P^^' 
 " 6ivT(0V, avvdyfra^ toI^ linrevaL Koi rol^ viro^v^lois, irporiye 
 '* 7rpo9 Ta9 u7rep/3oXa9 ra? aveoraTO) rwv "AkTrecov. In this 
 " passage it has been supposed that the words tjj B" inavpiov 
 " are connected with irporjye : and that Hannibal consequently 
 " gained the summit of the pass on the day after he fought 
 " the battle. Yet this supposition is unfounded : for all that 
 " the Greek implies as having occurred on the morrow, is the 
 *' junction of the two divisions of the army." 
 
 Mr. EUis has tried to make his English translation liable to 
 such a criticism, by annexing " the following day " to the 
 participle ; not beginning the sentence, as Polybius does, with 
 T^ S' iiravptov. But he is quite mistaken as to the Greek 
 narrative. Swa-v/ra? does not monopolise the note of time. 
 TTJ 8' eiravpLov belongs to the verb, irporjye ; a word which 
 tells what Hannibal did on the morrow, after he had reunited 
 the parts of his force. In the same way, that term in the 
 44th chapter belonged to e^aireaTeCke : and will, in the next 
 coming chapter, 54th, belong to ivTjpxero, Mr. Ellis, however, 
 finds his grammatical perception strengthened by the reasons 
 which have been so effective on other occasions ; namely, that 
 his own construction is most natural and clear. He would 
 have done better not to meddle with rfj S' iiravpLov ; but to 
 
 il 
 
 J 
 
 a 
 
 'm 
 
 ti 
 
248 
 
 Polyhias interpreted. 
 
 [part V, 
 
 have explained what are the places on his map at which he 
 supposes Hannibal to have halted between St. Julien and 
 Oranges de Deivieux* 
 
 Mr. Ellis malces one very true observation :— " The portion 
 " of Polybius's narrative relating to the march from the neigh- 
 ^_ hourhood of the Eock to the summit of tlie Pass, is very 
 short, and presents nothing of much consequence." It was 
 ingenious in Mr. E. out of so little matter to fabricate two 
 summaries. This Mr. Ellis has done. He must have observed 
 that the two together and the space between them are rather 
 bare of incident : so he adds to his English version " various 
 places on the road," not being in the original, and swells the 
 description with many things that had not occurred to 
 Polybius. We read in p. 48 of the Treatise :_ 
 
 " Most probably they were merely the inhabitants of the 
 "^^ several districts tlirough which the army successively passed, 
 who seized any favourable opportunity of plundering that 
 occurred, without offering any organized resistance to the 
 _^ Carthagimans. It is by no means natural to suppose that 
 .jravp^ov IS the same day as that indicated subsequently in 
 the word e.vaTu«„; for the latter day seems clearly to be 
 ^^ spoken of by Polybius as later than the former. Neither 
 would any sufficient time be left, if this view were adopted, 
 for the series cf repeated attaehs, and in different localities, 
 which are reem-ded to have been made between the neic^h- 
 bourliood of the Eock and the summit of the Pass The 
 I' predatoiy attacks which the Carthaginians suffered were in 
 all probability made by the inhabitants of the several districts 
 through which they passed; and the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of the summits of the Alpine passes wa^ not inhabited 
 m the time of I'olybius." 
 
 The last proposition is true : and therefore the several 
 
 * PI-c«« >-n Mr. Ellis's map; one on the Arc, the other on the 
 Little Con..., as the Durotineum of Pentingor's chart. 
 
 t( 
 
 n 
 
 n 
 
 tt 
 
 « 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Ascent. Little Mont Cenis. 
 
 249 
 
 inhabited districts are a mistake. Mr. Ellis, being the Inventor, 
 as well as the recorder of the five days' march, has very 
 naturally imagined tracts of countries through which it might 
 be performed, and populations worthy to have contested the 
 progress of the invaders. Alas ! the several successive in- 
 habited districts are of his own creation : " the various places 
 on the road" are only found in his translation : the plunderers 
 of the history were stragglers from the assailant mass of 
 yesterday : the different recorded localities were the van, the 
 middle, and the rear of a long column of march : and the 
 series of repeated attacks which the Carthaginians suffered 
 from the inhabitants, each district sending forth its predatory 
 population, may be reduced, on a study of the history, to the 
 occasional theft of a knapsack at one end of the column, or of 
 a donkey at the other, during a few hours of struggle to the 
 summit. 
 
 The words of the historian, unadorned by his inter- 
 preter, teach us this : that Hannibal having, in his wisdom, 
 stayed back about the Wliite Eock, till the advance had got 
 clear of the defile, pushed on before daybreak for the summit, 
 having reunited the different parts of his force, and the enemy 
 being dispersed ; and that, with only the annoyance of partial 
 plunderers at different points in the column, he reached the 
 summit on the ninth day. The few incidents which are ex- 
 pressed do, in fact, belong to and wind up the tale of the 
 engagement : the dispersion of the enemy is the dispersion of 
 those who attacked in the region of the XevKOTrerpov : the 
 reunion is the reunion of those who under that attack had 
 become separated. These things, and the partial aggressions 
 and pilferings, repressed by the terror of the elephants, all 
 are incidents found in the one sentence, which, beginning 
 T^ 8' iiravpcov, is applied expressly to the morrow of the as- 
 sault : we then read, 'EvvaTalo<; Be BLavvaa<; et? Ta<; virep^oka^s, 
 avTOV KaT€(TTpaT07riBeva€ koI Bvo r)/jLepa<; irpoaep^eLve. 
 
 ! 
 
 11 
 
 if 
 
 ii 
 
 Xi 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 250 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part v. 
 
 N.B.— If any should be surprised at the amount of con- 
 fusion which \^'e have been trying to unravel, I would refer 
 to Mr. Ellis's own explanation for the cause of it. In ac- 
 counting for the common opinion against his doctrine, that 
 TeTapTalo<: represents the day of the attack, he says : " The 
 " difference of the two views arises from this cause : that, 
 « while we have taken Polybius's narrative in this place to 
 " consist, first c»f a summary statement of the events of four 
 " days, and then of an explanation and a detaHed account of 
 " those events ; yet it has, on the other hand, been generally 
 " supposed, that the whole is one continuous narrative ; or, 
 " at all events, that no part of the details of the transactions' 
 '' with the Alpine Gauls refers to the three days preceding 
 " the fourth day indicated by rerapralo^r Treatise, p. 35. 
 The statement is a fair one. The question of credit Hes 
 between Polybius Megalopolitanus, grave historian, on the one 
 side, and an inventor of Simimaries, on the other. 
 
 I 
 
 THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL 
 
 PAET VI. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN MARCH. SUMMIT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Hannibal encamps on the Summit for Two Days. He calls Ms 
 Troops together^ and addresses them. Evidence of Italy : 
 miscalled vieio. The Text considered. The folloiving day 
 he begins the descent. 
 
 Polybius says that [Haunibal reached the summit on the 
 ninth day : that he encamped there and remained two days, 
 in the purpose of giving rest to those who were safe, and of 
 allowing time for those who were missing to come up. 
 
 De Saussure, speaking of the Little St. Bernard, s. 2,229, 
 i&c, says : — " L'hospice, ou convent, est situe dans un vallon 
 " en berceau, dirige du Nord-Est au Sud-Ouest, large de 
 " trois a quatre cents toises dans le bas, partout verd, mais 
 sans arbres ni arbrisseaux. La moyenne entre deux observa- 
 tions du barometre m'a donn^ 1,125 toises pour son ^leva- 
 " tion au-dessus de la mer. Du c6t4 du Sud-Est, le vallon 
 " qui renferme I'Hospice est divise, suivant sa longueur, par 
 une arrete etroite qui se prolonge du cote du Nord, ^ 3 ou 
 " 400 toises au-dessous de THospice. Cette arrete produit 
 " un second vallon assez profond, parall^le h. celui ou est 
 " THospice. En partant de THospice pour descendre dans la 
 
 n 
 
 {( 
 
 it 
 
 I I 
 
 S 
 
 » i 
 
 I. 
 
252 
 
 Polyhias interpreted. 
 
 [part VI. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Summit. Evidence of Italy. 
 
 253 
 
 cc 
 
 cc 
 
 " vallee d'Aoste, on commence par monter nne peiite douce, 
 *' qui aboutit au plus haut point du vallon de I'Hospice, mais 
 " ce point n'est que de quelques toises plus eleve que 
 
 I'Hospice. II est signale, ou du moins il 1 etoit alors par 
 
 une belle coloime de marbre cipolin, veine en zigzag et 
 " tire sans doute des montagnes du voisinage. On voit 
 " ensuite, au-dessous de soi, sur la gauche, un petit lac ren- 
 " ferme dans un oharmant bassin de verdure." 
 
 In the Oxford Dissertation, p. 96, I read this : — " The plain 
 " is about two mi les and a half in length : it is, according to De 
 " Saussure, 1,125 toises above the level of the sea : it is well 
 " sheltered, and in the centre of it is a small lake." Brocke- 
 don's statement on the position of the lake I conceive to be 
 more accurate : he says (Passes, i. p. 7) : — " The lake of 
 " Vernai, or of the Little St. Bernard, does not occupy any 
 " part of the plain, but is situated far below it at its northern 
 " extremity, at the base of the mountains which form the 
 " north-west boundary of the Col." The extent of this plain 
 on the summit is well known, and defies the jealousy of 
 M. Larauza, who "lias ventured (p. 185) to pronounce it impos- 
 sible for Hannibal to have encamped there. If comparison 
 be necessary, I believe that it has the advantage of being 
 sounder ground than his plain of the Cenis. 
 
 We may concur in the common belief that Hannibal 
 remained two days on the summit, which must mean that, 
 having reached it early in the morning of the ninth day, he 
 passed two nights there, and commenced the descent on the 
 eleventh day. Sc>me might remark that, when he stayed two 
 nights at the captured town, the time was told by the words 
 ^lav iirefieivaf; rjfiepav; and that here we read Svo rjijuepa^; 
 Trpoaefjbeive. But in the two cases there was much difference 
 in the time for renting. In the first case there was but one 
 day of rest. Hannibal arrived at the town after a very severe 
 day's work to the whole army. The progress to it had been 
 
 over a very rough precipitous mountain, impeded by very 
 hard fighting : he could not fail to rest after it ; and if the 
 words p.iav rjfjiepav did not include remaining for the next 
 day, they would have no meaning at all. On the arrival at 
 the plain of the Little St. Bernard, there were almost two 
 days for resting. That portion of the army which had gone 
 forward, and for whose support Hannibal had stayed back 
 the night before, may have reached the summit at or soon 
 after daybreak; and he himself promptly followed them. . 
 This day, though it succeeded a night of labour, was itself a 
 day of repose, and must be counted one of the two, during 
 which the army is said to have stayed on the summit : no 
 one has contended that they stayed beyond the second night, 
 nor is it probable : never was time more precious : it is 
 easier to believe in a pause of two days and two nights, than 
 in one of three days and three nights. 
 
 The Evidence, miscalled the View, of Italy. 
 
 One who should come to the reading of this history, not 
 having already received any particular impression on the 
 incidents of the mountain march, would, I think, not under- 
 stand from it that the Carthaginian soldiers enjoyed a view 
 of Italy from the summit of the pass. But probably most 
 persons have read the story in their own or some other lan- 
 guage before they read it in the language of Polybius, and 
 may have received an impression that the invaders were 
 indulged with such a view. Coming afterwards to read 
 Polybius, they presume that his statement intends what they 
 have heard of before. 
 
 The incident on which this notion is built, is an address of 
 Hannibal to his soldiers, an incident which belonged to the 
 one day of entire rest ; for Polybius, having related that 
 incident and its effect, says, '' On the next day he began the 
 .descent." Many a critic has assumed, but not, I think, by 
 
 { i\ 
 
254 
 
 PolyUus interpreted. 
 
 [part VI. 
 
 CHAP. 1.] 
 
 Summit. Evidence of Italy. 
 
 255 
 
 instruction of Poljbius, that, when this address was delivered, 
 the expanse of Italy was visible to the assembled army, and 
 has fondly imagined the summit of his own theory to enjoy a 
 special advantage for exhibiting it. 
 
 The Text considered, 
 
 Now what is the statement ? Not that Hannibal in march 
 halted his disheart;ened men at an eminence to enjoy a distant 
 view in bad weather : but that, during the day of repose, he 
 assembled them, aud addressed them, having this resource or 
 argument, the evidence, the manifestation, the assurance of 
 Italy— T^v T^9 'iraX/a? ivdpyecav. This word, hapyeia, 
 though sometimes construed " view," has not in itself the 
 meaning of " view. '' Although the word is founded on a qua- 
 lity which concerns the sense of sight, namely brightness or 
 clearness, the pro])er force of it is clearness to the under- 
 standing. Such is the force of our own word " evidence," 
 though by derivation it is more decidedly connected with the 
 idea of sight. The certainty or distinctness which Ivdpr^^m 
 imports, may be a certainty obtained through ocular proof as 
 well as other proof; but the word in itself does not signify 
 "view." The other passages of Polybius in which the word 
 occurs are these : — 
 
 Lib. iii. c. xliv. 6, r) ri)^ Trapovala^ ivdpyeca toop iinaTrco- 
 fiheop : tlie clear fact of the presence of those who 
 invited them on. When Hannibal introduced the 
 Cisalpine chiefs on the morrow of the passage of 
 the Ehon(i, this was the first topic of encouragement 
 in his address to the soldiers. If ivdpyeca signified 
 " view," T/]<; 7rapov<Tia<; would be superfluous. 
 
 Lib. iii. c. iii. 3, irdyrayv Sk to prjOkv eTrLarjfirjvafiivayv ht^i 
 rvv ivdpyecav : all signifying their approbation of 
 what was spoken, because of its manifest truth. 
 
 Hannibal had desired them to look around, and 
 notice the favourable nature of the ground for an 
 engagement. The truth of what he said was to be 
 recognised by the eye : but ivdpyeia is not a view 
 of what he spoke, but the obvious truth of it. 
 Lib. iv. c. xvii. 2, toZ? \6yoL<; einicpv^^reaOaL Td<i tSv 
 Trpayfidrcov ivapyela^; : to obscure by words the 
 evidences of things done. 
 Lib. vi. c. XV. 8, hi wp viro rrjv 6y(nv ayerav rah TroXtVat? 
 viro Twv (TTpaTTjywv rj toop KaT€Lpya(rp,6V(op irpay- 
 /jidrcov ivapyela: through which (triumphs) the clear 
 evidence of deeds performed by their generals is 
 brought under the view of the citizens. The idea 
 of view is expressed in (y\fnv, not in evapyeM. 
 Lib. xvi. c. xxiii. 2, hia Tr]<; tcSv eiaayofiipcop ipapyeia^ 
 fiLfivrjo-Ko/jLevoc twv irpoyeyoporoav Kivhvv(OP : remem- 
 bering bygone dangers through the evidence of 
 things brought forward. This, too, is said in speak- 
 ing of triumphs. If Casaubon was right in con- 
 jecturing evapyeia^, instead of the previous reading 
 evepyeia<;, yet the idea represented is evidence, not 
 view; though visible objects were the means of 
 bringing former calamities to mind. 
 
 As the employment of the word epdpyeia does not require 
 us, indeed hardly permits us to render it by the term " view," 
 the context of the narrative seems also to require the word 
 " evidence." The history proceeds thus :— " For Italy has 
 " been so placed* under the mountains which I have before 
 " described, that, when both are contemplated together, the 
 " Alps bear the character of citadel to the whole of Italy." 
 The geographical character of the Alps as the barrier of 
 Italy is adduced, as furnishing the topic of comfort to the 
 
 * Literally, had lain, or had been placed. 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
256 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VI. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 desponding soldiers, the description being suggested by the 
 historian's own observation of the course of Alps towering 
 above the Italian plain. In this picture he rather has in 
 mind a view of the ramparts from the plain than a view 
 of the plain from the ramparts: the conception is that 
 the Alps have the character of citadel, and he portrays 
 them as the walls or defences of Italy, not expressing any 
 particular part of them, but speaking of the whole, which he 
 has described as ranging from the Sardinian sea to the 
 Adriatic. He invites you to understand this natural defence, 
 and to appreciate the fact of surmounting it : he, the first 
 perhaps from Ecme, who, in the pursuit of knowledge, had 
 completed the passage of the great bulwark, and contemplated, 
 as a soldier and a philosopher, its physical and military 
 importance. 
 
 This introduction enables us to sympathise in the consola- 
 tion which Hannibal administered to his men : they who had 
 toiled for months to master the acropolis of Saguntum, were 
 to be assured that they had now mastered the acropolis of 
 Italy. If, when he commanded their attendance, the expanse 
 of the Italian plain lay visibly before them, each man was 
 receiving through, his own senses the argument of comfort, 
 and the assuranccis of his leader were superfluous. As for a 
 specula, such as some have imagined for the scene of this 
 exhortation while they were in march, no such thing is offered 
 to us by the words of Polybius. The encouragement was 
 administered to r.hem in a scene surrounded with Alpine 
 heights : the important truth, that the citadel was gained, 
 that they had surmounted the source of one stream, and 
 attained the source of another, was to be impressed upon their 
 minds; but it was not offered to their eyes. This other 
 stream w^as the deiscending stream to Italy. N'othing can be 
 so fitted to recruit the spirit and temper of the exhausted 
 traveller, as* the sure knowledge of such a fact. To feel this. 
 
 Summit Evidence of Italy. 
 
 257 
 
 <t 
 
 u 
 
 it is not necessary to have crossed the Alps. Let him, who 
 has only walked from Llanrwst to Bangor, reflect how he has 
 w^atched the point where he should cease to have a river for 
 his opponent, and begin to have one for his companion : that 
 point is evidence of the success of his enterprise, and that his 
 labour is not in vain. 
 
 Observe then the words, which tell the substance of Hanni- 
 bal's address, in which he availed himself of this geographical 
 truth, applying it for encouragement and congratulation : 
 —"Wherefore, pointing towards the plain of the Po, and 
 " reminding them generally of the friendliness of the Gauls 
 who dwelt there, and at the same time suggesting to them 
 " the very situation of Ptonie herself, he succeeded to some 
 " extent in confirming the spirits of his men." 
 
 Their attention was called to three subjects: the great 
 Northern plain into wdiich they were about to descend ; the 
 favour of the inhabitants among whom they would arrive ; the 
 further object of their hopes, Eome. It will probably be 
 admitted, that tw^o of these subjects w^ere not represented as 
 objects of sight; and that we may translate v7rotJLiiiv^aK(Dv 
 " reminding," and vTro^eLKvvoiv " suggesting." Mr. Ellis says 
 nothmg on those words : but takes his stand on evheLKvv- 
 fievo^ Ta irepl rov Udhov ireSia ; saying : " This is of course 
 " the expression on which I relied to prove the fact of those 
 "plains being visible:'— Jowmal of Fhiloloffy, ii. 309. The 
 question then is— need this third topic of the address, the 
 plain of Po, have been at that time an object of vision, by 
 reason of the word ivSeiKvyfievo^ ? 
 
 If we regard the usual application of that word, there is 
 surely no such necessity. The plain of the Po had become 
 a familiar object of their desires, as well as the Gaulish alli- 
 ance, and the Eoman capital : and we find in his works six 
 other instances of evheUvvfiai besides this. In one of them, 
 it signifies to point out so as to induce ocular observation : iu 
 
 VOL. T. s 
 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 258 
 
 Polyhius interpreied. 
 
 [part VI. 
 
 one, the idea of sight is supplied by another word expressly 
 employed for the purpose : in the remaining four, it unequi- 
 vocally means to show to the understanding. 
 
 Lib. ii. c. iv. 3, r^? rvxv^y axrirep €7^6T'^?8e9 teal Tot<; 
 aXkoL^ avOpdiiroL^ iirl roov UeivoL^ avfi^aiv6vTa)p 
 €vB€LKvv/JLevr]<^ T7]V avTrj<; hvvafiiv : fortune, pur- 
 posely as it were, showing her power to the rest 
 of mankind, by the things which happen to those. 
 
 Lib. iv. c. xxviii. 4, irepl ^9 iv apxah iveBeL^afMeOa : 
 on which I have given explanation in the early 
 
 part of my work. 
 Lib. V. c. x\i. 7, irdvTa ravra fier dTTo^el^em ivBeiK- 
 vvfiivov KoX /jLaprvpcov : having pointed out all 
 these things by demonstration and witnesses. 
 Lib. xi. c. ix. 8, iveBeUvvvro toi/? K€Ka\\co7n<Tfievov<; : 
 
 they marked out those who were finely dressed. 
 Lib. xviii. c. vi. 2. ivaprym viro r^v o>/rtv ivh€Licvvfi€Vo<; : 
 
 pointing them out as clearly within view. 
 Lib. XXV. c. i V. 11, ^ovX6fi€voL<; ivBeUvvaOac roh 'Va>fialoi^, 
 OTL ^t avTOV hwaro^ iarl tov (^apvaKrjv dfivvaaOat 
 Kal KciTairoXefieLV : wishing to show the Eomans, 
 that ho is able of himself to repel and subdue Phar- 
 naces. 
 
 Such being tbe use of hheUvvfiai by Polybius, I think we 
 may be satisfied, that in the seiitence before us he did not 
 intend us to understand the exhibition of a thing actually 
 seen by the soldiers. If this had been meant, the words viro 
 T^v oftv might have been added, as in the passage here cited 
 from the 18th book, and that cited before from the 6th book. 
 We may render ivBeLKvvfievo^ " pointing out," or " pointing to," 
 without implying a vision of the object by the persons assem- 
 bled and addressed. Action probably accompanied the words: 
 the chief was encircled by his troops, seeing only those whom 
 
 '.'I 
 1/ 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Summits, ivhich claim a vieiv. 
 
 259 
 
 he addressed, they looking only on their leader who addressed 
 them : he enforced the topic of encouragement, pointing back 
 to the horrors of the ascent, and forward in direction of the 
 friendly stream which would guide them into the plain and 
 the country of their alHes. All this could be in a scene slnit 
 in with mountains and clouded with the dullest atmosphere. 
 The historical fact is, that he made the effort of consolation : 
 the consolation was, that they had gained the summit : for 
 this to be owned and felt, he indicated to them, but not 
 visibly to the sense, the subject plain. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 No iiracticahk Summit gives a View of Italy. It is claimed 
 for Monte Viso by St. Simon and the Anonymom of Cam- 
 bridge 1830: /br Balbotet, by Folard,wlio is followed by 
 Vaudoncourt and Bande de Lavalette: for the Cents, 
 by Larauza, the tvriter in ''Blackwood's Magazine" and 
 Mr. Ellis. 
 
 Suppose that the remarks which I have made are not 
 assented to, and that the arbiters of Greek should adjudge 
 evdpyeha to be "a view" in its most sensual import; an inquiry 
 of fact will be opened. But it would be a fact for present 
 inquiry: Polybius would not be responsible: we should claim 
 the right to suppose, that, in his own journey through the Alps, 
 he was not favoured with a transparent atmosphere, so conclu- 
 sive of fact, as to warrant him in rejecting a current anecdote. 
 He had no experience from which he could assert, that there 
 is no practicable summit which gives a view of Italy. 
 
 The probability of finding a view is differently estimated 
 by two classes of persons ; those who assume that Alpine 
 elevation must necessarily give to the eye the command of all 
 
 P 2 
 
!l 
 
 260 
 
 Polyhiiis inter^preted. 
 
 [part \x. 
 
 surrounding country, as from the Malvern hills, or the tower 
 of Lincoln Cathedral, and those who believe that from the 
 summit of every iUpine pass, properly so called, such enjoy- 
 ment is unattainable. By a pass of Alps one must understand 
 a way not incredible for the passage of an army : there may 
 be parts of the main ridge so narrow that the eye may almost 
 from the same spot command a Savoy valley and a Piemont 
 valley : such places are accessible to the natives, and may 
 occasionally be penetrated by an adventurous traveller : but 
 no part which is so depressed as to be useful for armies or 
 merchandise can furnish a prospect which is not broken by 
 some course of raountain dividing one tortuous valley from 
 another. I do not believe that at any period a large army has 
 come over the Alps by any course which is not now in the 
 limited list of great well-known passes. The result of the 
 enterprising peribrmances of the bolder tourists is, not to 
 show new practicable passes for large bodies of men, but to 
 prove their impossibility. 
 
 These comments are sustained by experience : if any lines 
 of passage practicable for an army could supply a summit 
 giving a view of the Italian plain, the discovery would have 
 been made manifest by some of the itinerant theorists who 
 have been seariihing for it during the last two centuries. 
 Though the discovery has not been made, instances may be 
 adverted to, in \^hich critics of the march have more or less 
 imposed upon themselves by giving locality to this supposed 
 incident. The passes which claim to be so distinguished are 
 not many. The Great St. Bernard confesses not to see the 
 plain of Italy. The Little St. Bernard and Mont Genevre 
 also show no pretension to it. Three passes only are to be 
 noticed, as put ibrward to assert the enjoyment of a view. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Summits, which claim a view. 
 
 View. Monte Viso. St. Simon. 
 
 201 
 
 Viso is the Carthaginian summit of the Marquis de St. 
 
 Simon, aide-de-camp to the Prince de Conti in the campaign 
 
 of 1644 ; and it is adopted by the anonymous of Cambridge, 
 
 who, in 1830, attacked Polybius and the Oxford Dissertation. 
 
 It has appeared that the tracks which those critics assert, one 
 
 drawn by Valence, the other by Grenoble, fall into one at 
 
 TallaKl on the Durance ; and that this comes to a beginning 
 
 of the Alps in the valley of the Ubaye. One would think that 
 
 any body of men, once touching the Durance, and on their 
 
 way up that river to Italy and Viso, would make their way, 
 
 not by ascending the river Ubaye. It is otherwise with these 
 
 two writers : each conducts Hannibal south-west to Barcelon- 
 
 nette. Now, supposing a man to have got to Barcelonnette, 
 
 his onward way to Italy would be by the Col dArgentiere, 
 
 and down the valley of the Stura to Coni. Instead of that, 
 
 they forward him from Barcelonnette to the Viso, and both 
 
 their schemes of movement are curious. The Marquis does 
 
 not quite know how he managed to get to Viso ; but he 
 
 declares the fact : the other, knowing as little or less, and not 
 
 going in person, has invented an impossible geography to 
 
 make the thing clear. 
 
 Barcelonnette is about 22 miles up the Ubaye : and beyond 
 this i^lace the Marquis goes "jusqu'au col d'Argentiere." 
 Then, instead of letting Hannibal go down into Italy, he makes 
 him to wander northwards upon heights of the main chain of 
 Alps, tiU he finds himself on the Viso. The perception which 
 the Marquis had of this interesting track is only to be told in 
 his own^ words, which are these : " Quoique je ne sache pas 
 " precisement quelle route Annibal s'est ouverte pour arriver 
 " a la sommite des Alpes, je ne le perds pas plus de vue qu'un 
 " chasseur qui, des hauteurs, laisse sa mente parcourir les 
 " routes et les fourr^es d'un bois a 1 entree duquel il I'a con- 
 
262 
 
 Folybius interpreUd. 
 
 [PAKT VI. 
 
 i 
 
 " duite : il ne la voit plus, mais il I'entend au loin, et la 
 " rejoint aussitot qu'elle quitte les fonds. II me retrouve de 
 " meme avec Aiuiibal sur le Monte Viso, sans m'inquieter de 
 " tons les d^touis oii la fraude des ses guides, son peu de 
 ** eonfiance en eux, et son manque de connaissance de I'in- 
 " t^^rieur des montagnes, ont du le faire errer pendant neuf 
 •' jours." Perhaps the Marquis was not so long about it : 
 but he did not accomplish his object. He had been as- 
 sured, that from the summit the plain of Piemont was to 
 be seen ; but lie was unlucky in his day : " On me Ta 
 " montr^ comme on fait a tons les voyageurs ; mais je suis 
 ** force a convenir que je n'ai pu la voir qu'en imagination." 
 He consoles himself with describing how far the Carthaginian 
 adventurer had been more fortunate : " Annibal, en arrivant 
 " aupres du Monte Viso, devient tout-a-coup un amateur 
 " ardent des moatagnes. II monta jusqu'a la sommite de ce 
 '' pic inaccessible}, pour jouir de la vue des plaines du Pie- 
 " mont, et pour les montrer a ses soldats. II s'el^ve pour 
 " cela jusqu'a uae hauteur que Ton croit etre de 2,500 toises, 
 " et par consequent superieure a celle de Mont Blanc." One 
 is inclined to ask, how much of his speech was heard by his 
 troops ? 
 
 View. Monte Viso. Camhridge Anonymous. 
 
 The Englishm an who has adopted Viso as the summit for a 
 view, finds a way to it for Hannibal not more happy than that 
 of the Marquis St. Simon. Having performed the first Alps 
 in the valley oi' the Ubaye, he writes thus, p. 64 : — " After 
 " encamping at the town for a day, the army proceeds by the 
 ** Chemin Koyal up the valley of the Ubaye, and for three 
 " days their march is pursued in safety. On the fourth, the 
 " mountaineers in token of peace come forward, and purchase 
 " the good- will of Hannibal with an abundant supply of cattle. 
 " They gain their object by persuading him to accept their 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 SmnmitSy which claim a view. 
 
 263 
 
 " guidance through the rest of the passage. He is conducted 
 " by them from the valley of the Ubaye up the deep gorges 
 " of the river Guil away from the right path. The Cartha- 
 " ginians follow their guides into the difficult and dangerous 
 " ravine of the Guil, which proves fatal to a great part of the 
 " army. In the morning irporjye irpo^ ra^ virep^oXa^ Ta<; 
 " dvcoTaTOD Twv "AXirecov, and early on the ninth day he reaches 
 '* the summit of the pass of Monte Viso, about which he en- 
 " camps and remains two days." Then comes the eulogy of the 
 View; and then, without notice of intermediate points, Turin. 
 
 Now the path into which this writer states the Carthaginians 
 to have been seduced by the natives has no existence. After 
 more than three days' marches up the valley of the Ubaye, he 
 carries them up the gorges of the Guil. There are no such 
 gorges : the Guil torrent rising far to the north-west of the 
 Col de Viso, flows south-west, making its course to Mont 
 Dauphin, and so into the Durance. The valley of the Ubaye 
 never approaches the course of the Guil, though perhaps the 
 ranges of mountain, which send contribuents to one, may in 
 an opposite direction remotely contribute to the other. To go 
 up a gorge of the Guil towards Monte Viso, is impossible. To 
 go from the valley of the Ubaye up the gorges of the Guil is 
 impossible. According to the best maps, the most fraudulent 
 guide could not take you to the Viso from the valley of the 
 Ubaye up any gorge of the Guil. 
 
 The effort of this commentator was, not to interpret Poly- 
 bius, but to interpret the Marquis de St. Simon. The attempt 
 was indiscreet : for the Marquis avowed that he could not 
 explain his own track : and yet he went in person, which the 
 Cambridge anonymous did not. 
 
 View from Balhotet Folard, 
 
 The Chevalier Folard, in his elucidations of Polybius, 
 invented this summit with its view. After coming over the 
 
204 
 
 Polyhiua interpreted. 
 
 [PA.RT VI. 
 
 it 
 
 il 
 
 t( 
 
 a 
 
 Mont Genevre to C^sanne, lie studies the scene for Hannibal's 
 engagement wilh the barbarian enemy : he finds it near the 
 ascent of the Col de Sestriere ; and calls it " le combat contre 
 les Allobroges des Alpes Cottiennes." He says, "II est 
 difficile de poiivoir bien determiner I'endroit on se passa 
 '* cette grande action entre Annibal et les Allobroges. La 
 connaissance que j'ai des lieux me feroit croire que ce general 
 fut attaque enti*e Sezanne et le mont de Sestrikes. Le rocher 
 " ou Polybe dit c^u' Annibal passa une nuit si triste, se trouve 
 " la comme fait expr^s, et existe encore." But the writer looks 
 beyond the Sestriere for Hannibal's summit : the march is 
 carried further forward along mountain tops, to make sure of 
 the best view. " H gagna enfin le col de la Fenetre qu'il avoit 
 " a sa gauche, par le haut des montagnes. C'est sur le plateau 
 " de cette montagne, ou est aujourd'hui le village de Barbottet, 
 qu'Annibal dut camper. C'est dans ce camp de Barbottet, 
 qu' Annibal fit remarquer a ses soldats toute la plaine du 
 " Piemont, jusqu'au pais des Insubriens. II n'y a que le seul 
 endroit au plus haut du col de la Fenetre d'ou Ton puisse 
 " decouvrir I'ltalie." Tom. iv. pp. 90, 91. 
 
 The translation of Polybius by Bom Vincent Tlmiller was 
 published in 1728 in six quarto volumes. The commentary of 
 Folard which belongs to it is to the text in bulk as about four 
 or five to one, the last volume excepted, which is without notes. 
 Certain reviewers had said:—" C'est dommage qu'on ne puisse 
 '' pas lire de suite Polybe, et qu il faille, pour ainsi dire, courir 
 " apres le texte, qui se perd a chaque moment dans un abinie 
 " de Notes et d(j Reflexions." These remarks are complained 
 of hi a preface to the fourth volume : but the criticism was 
 lenient, dealing only with material proportions. Other merits 
 niight have been questioned, beginning with the title-page, 
 where the annotations are recommended for the improvement 
 of general officiirs. If all are equivalent to those which con- 
 cern the evdpyeca of Hannibal, no subaltern could be the 
 better for them 
 
 << 
 
 (( 
 
 t< 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Smnmits, ivhich claim a view. 
 
 2e)5 
 
 
 View from Balhotet. VandoncoiLrt M. de Lavalctte. 
 
 Though Chevalier Folard, as I believe, stands alone for tlie 
 site of the first conflict with barbarians, and for the track in 
 which he places it, yet before he brings Hannibal over the 
 Genevre, he is joined by other commentators, who, in the desire 
 of a view, sanction the latter part of his labours with their 
 coDcurrence. Two, who have tracked Hannibal up the 
 Durance, and join the Chevalier at Brian^on to cross the 
 Genevi-e with him to Cesanne, having failed to discover a view 
 of their own, follow him to regale their eyes with the prospect 
 from Balbotet. These are General Vandoncourt, and M. Bande 
 de Lavalette. The general says (tom. i. p. 50): " Le neuvieme 
 "jour I'armee vint camper sur les hauteurs de I'Assiette:" 
 and (p. 53) : " M. de Folard est le seul qui a saisi le vrai point 
 " du passage d' Annibal. II remonta le col de Sestrieres et 
 " suivit la Crete des montagnes jusqu'au col de la Fenetre. 
 " C'est du plateau qui domine le village de Balbotet, et qui 
 *' est en face de I'embouchure de la vallee de Pragelas, 
 " qu'Annibal fit voir ii ses soldats les plaines du Piemont : 
 " c'est effectivement le seul endroit ou Ton puisse avoir une 
 " vue semblable : tous les autres sont masques." 
 
 M. de Lavalette, unable to dispense with a view, says : — 
 *' Si, au lieu de s'enfonger dans le vallee de la Doire au-dessous 
 " de Cezanne, le voyageur f ran chit a droite le col de Sestrieres, 
 *' il arrive bientot sur le plateau de Balbotet : et la les plaines 
 " du Po se devoilent a ses regards. II n'y a que ce point sur 
 " toutes les routes des Alpes, d'ou Ton puisse a une telle 
 " hauteur decouvrir et montrer I'ltalie." This writer is, as I 
 had occasion to show before, a conscientious critic : accord- 
 ingly, having subscribed to this exploit in favour of a view, 
 he is duly disturbed (p. 119) by the fact that Balbotet is no 
 summit : "c'est R," he says, " une veritable difficulte ;" how- 
 ever, as no other point in the Alps shows the plain so well, he 
 
266 
 
 Polybi'Us interpreted. 
 
 [part VI. 
 
 is content to have his view in a wrong place, rather than not 
 have it at all. 
 
 View from the Cenis. Larauza. 
 
 The ingenious Larauza, in his effort to establish a view, has 
 said enough to show that there is none. In criticising the 
 plateau of Balhotet, he says, p. 188: " Qu'est ce qu' 
 " Annibal serait alle faire au sommet de cette montagne?" 
 May we not ask the same question concerning his own 
 eminence '' au sommet du Cenis ?" He proceeded from Susa 
 by the new road before day-break; and walking through 
 Jaillon and St. Martin, was for some time in expectation of 
 a view which he had conceived from the study of Lady 
 Morgans "Italy :" but after a little discussion, he arrives at 
 this : " C'est done au sommet du Cenis, et pres du plateau 
 " ou campa Tarmee, qu'il faut chercher ce promontorium d'ou 
 " eUe vit les plaines qu'arrose le Po." Hereupon he quotes 
 from a work of 1764, by two Swedish gentlemen, saying : — 
 " Or, voici ce que dit Grosley qui, comme nous, fait passer 
 " par \k le general Carthaginois. L'espece de coupe que 
 " forme le plateau du Mont Cenis, est bordee de falaises tres 
 " elevees, et ainsi il n'occupe pas, au pied de la lettre, le 
 " sommet de la niontagne. C'est a mi-cote d'une de ces 
 " falaises, k la liauteur du Prieure, qu'on decouvre les plaines 
 " de Piemont, et c'est de 1^ qu Annibal put les montrer a son 
 
 " armee." 
 
 To this M. Larauza adds his own comment : — " II est 
 " probable que cette Falaise que Grosley ne designe pas 
 " autrement, est la montagne de Saint-Martin, qui se trouve 
 " en avant du ]}etit Mont Cenis, formant la partie superieure 
 " de la montagne de Jaillon, et situee comme elle dans la 
 " direction de la vaUee de Suse, c^ travers laquelle la vue 
 " debouche sur la plaine de Turin. Je le cotoyai a partir 
 " du petit hameau qui lui donne son nom, Tayant con- 
 
 IN 
 
 
 
 CHAP. ll.J 
 
 Summits, which claim a view. 
 
 207 
 
 " tinument sur ma gauche, et arriv(^ k la plaine du Mont 
 '* Cenis, au-del^ de I'auberge de la Grand-Croix, vers le* 
 " quatorzieme refuge, elle ne me paraissait plus que comme 
 " une colline tr^s pen 61ev^e au-dessus du sol. D'apres la 
 '' position de cette montagne, situee tout k fait en face de la 
 " vallee de Suse, et n'ayant devant elle aucune autre montagne 
 " qui intercepte la vue, je conjecturais qu'en montant au 
 " sommet on devait decouvrir la plaine ; ce qui me fut con- 
 " firme k plusieurs reprises par des gens du pays avec qui je 
 " faisais route, et qui m'affirmerent que du haut d'un rocher 
 " qu'ils appellent Corna Eossa, et qui se presente solitaire et 
 " detache a la partie superieure de la montagne de Saint 
 " Martin, on decouvre Turin et toute la plaine. En me 
 " montrant la gorge qui separe la cime de cette montagne de 
 " celle du petit Mont Cenis, ils me disaient que leurs anciens 
 " leur avaient raconte qu'un fameux general nomme Annibal 
 " etait passe par 1^ il y a bien long tems. Nous pouvons 
 " done supposer tres naturellement que ce fut la ce promon- 
 " torium d'ou ce grand capitaine montra Tltalie a son 
 
 *' armee." 
 
 We have here come to M. Larauza's own evidence touching 
 what he gathered from the gens du pays; and I will add what 
 appears from other writers concerning the Corna Ptossa. De 
 Saussure, telling the observations which he made from the 
 Koche Michel, says : " Au couchant du Eoche Michel, au 
 " dessus du village de la grande Croix, on voit un grand 
 " glacier, qui de la poste du Mont Cenis paroit le disputer 
 " en hauteur au rocher de la Praise,* vis a vis duquel il paroit 
 " situ^, mais je le crois moins eleve. De la Eoche Michel 
 " nous le voyons abaisse de 68 minutes au dessous de notre 
 " horizon : ce glacier se nomme Corne-Rousse." iii. c. 7, s. 
 1265. As this glacier was in view to De Saussure looking 
 
 * La Praise is south of the Eocher de la Eonche, m the same 
 chain, and east of the southern end of the lake. 
 
ii 
 
 268 
 
 PolyhiiLS interpreted. 
 
 [PAKT VI. 
 
 westward from the Eoche Michel, it is strange that M. Larauza 
 should have conceived it in the track of Hannibal : for he 
 carries that track straight from Lanslebourg to La Grande 
 Croix, and thence through La Ferri^re and Novalese, not by 
 the heights of Bard or St. Martin, p. 137. He can only 
 bring Hannibal, to such a spot by supposing a special ex- 
 cursion for the purpose. 
 
 There is further evidence on the Corna Rossa, and more 
 recent. They are mentioned by Brockedon, whose investiga- 
 tions of the region westward of the route over the Cenis will 
 be found in BlackwoocVs Magazine, of May 1836, p. 643. He 
 left the Yieille Poste on the Cenis, attended by his guide 
 Etienne, in the morning, not in the best weather ; and, cross- 
 ins the summit of the Little Mont Cenis, soon turned off to 
 the left. Leaving the Yal d'Ambin to the right, he went up 
 the valley of Savines, and came to the Lac Blanc. Here he 
 speaks of looking towards the Mont d'Ambin to the right, and 
 the mountain of Bard to the left ; and savs of the latter : 
 ^' Its summit can be attained by a difficult path, leading from 
 " the lower lake of the Mont Cenis, and, passing by the 
 " Eoches Eoug<3s, the spot where Larauza says the plains of 
 " Italy can be seen : an assertion laughed at by Etienne, who 
 " had been there a hundred times, he said, as chasseur and 
 " guide ; and who observed, that the plain could only be 
 " seen from the Eoches Eouges, when the Eoche Melon, an 
 " enormous mountain on the other side of the valley of 
 *' Novalese, was removed." He said that, by climbing to the 
 glaciers of the Mont du Bard, in clear weather, the plains of 
 Italy could be seen over the Combe of Susa, and that the 
 view was ver}' splendid ; but it required five hours' hard 
 labour to attain the spot : and was inaccessible after snow, or 
 in unfavourable weather. 
 
 Mr. Brockedon also reports his disappointment on a sub- 
 sequent journey in not visiting the Corna Eossa, as he 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Summits, ivhich claim a vieio. 
 
 269 
 
 intended. He says : " I looked out at five o'clock, and before 
 six every object was concealed in mist and cloud." He 
 proceeds : '' Whilst I was at breakfast, I obtained information 
 " from a respectable old guide, who had twice ascended 
 " to the Corna Eossa with botanists and engineers : he denied 
 " that the plains of Italy could be seen thence." The state of 
 the weather having impelled Mr. Brockedon direct to Susa, 
 he here speaks of a gentleman of his acquaintance, who had 
 been for fourteen years engaged upon a survey of the Alps, 
 especially of those which divide Piemout from Savoy ; these 
 duties had led him to the mountains above Bard : and he 
 said that from its glaciers the plain could be seen, but not 
 from the Corna Eossa, as the view from that is intercepted by 
 the Bois ISToir, the mountain which flanks the Eoche IVIelon. 
 Same work, Aug. 1836, p. 246. 
 
 Such is the information which offers itself on the Corna 
 Eossa. With M. Larauza, all geographical and optical diffi- 
 culties are surmounted to his satisfaction by the traditional 
 knowledge of the gens du pays whom he fell in with on his 
 way, and who pointed out the gorge between the mountain of 
 St. Martin and that of the Little Mont Cenis as the passage of 
 this famous general " il y a bien long tems : " — " Xous pourrons 
 " done supposer tres naturellement, que ce fut la ce promon- 
 " torium, d'ou ce grand capitaine montra I'ltalie a son armee." 
 " Ainsi " (says the amiable enthusiast) " tout se debrouille 
 " et s'eclaircit a mesure que nous avan9ons ! " 
 
 How susceptible of proof is he who is resolved to believe 1 
 What ! Hannibal and his army, after ascending from Lansle- 
 bourg, to find themselves in a gorge between the Petit Mont 
 Cenis and the Corna Eossa ! AVhat could bring him there ? 
 He could not collect his army on the Cornes Eousses in their 
 route from any one place to any other place : he gives them 
 a special expedition, utterly extra viam, made from their 
 encampment on the plateau of the Cenis, an expedition made 
 
I 
 
 270 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VI. 
 
 for the purpose of consolation, but which would have exacted 
 from them a day's walk more severe than any which they 
 performed betw(ien the Pyi'enees and the Po. The notion of 
 the general mutilating the short repose of the summit, even 
 by the trudge of haK a mile up the snowy steep, for the 
 doubtful satisfaction of a view, seems too frivolous to find 
 place in this controversy ; but, observe, a young man and an 
 enthusiast goes from Paris to the Cenis in the very purpose of 
 ratifying the fact of a view ; he finds himself on the plateau 
 in a season which was not the end of October : he has faith 
 in the gorges and the falaises : there is every stimulus, and no 
 impediment to the process of ratification, save only the diffi- 
 culty of the enterprise : and he abstains from the experiment. 
 Yet these very mountain steeps, when buried in snow, are to 
 be accepted as the holyday pastime of the African soldier, on 
 a day, his only day of rest, when drooping with toil and 
 privation ! 
 
 View from the Cenis. Anmiymous. 
 
 Since Larauza made his fruitless search on the Cenis for 
 the prospect which he desired, two of our countrymen have 
 discovered points of view which have respectively given 
 satisfaction to themselves. A writer in " Blackwood's Maga- 
 zine " of June 1845, gives us this information (p. 758) : — 
 " From the southern front of the summit of Mont Cenis, not 
 " only the plains of Piedmont are distinctly visible at the 
 " opening of the lower end of the valley of Susa, which lies 
 " at your feet, l)ut the Apennines beyond them can be seen. 
 To settle this important point, the author made a sketch of 
 both on the spot, on the 24th October, the very time of 
 " Hannibal's passage, which is still in his possession." 
 
 If this sketch has a virtue that can settle a point of so 
 much interest, the owner should not enjoy it alone ; in com- 
 passion to the literary world, let him, through Mr. Colnaghi, 
 
 u 
 
 ft 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Summits, ivhich claim a view. 
 
 271 
 
 give the public the benefit of his exertions, and allow the 
 eyes of others to indulge in the same plain and the same 
 Apennine which have charmed his own. No one will be 
 severe on the performance, seeing the disadvantages under 
 which it was executed. According to the writer, Hannibal, 
 when down at the airoppw^, was within the circle of perpetual 
 snow ; and, as the artist exercised his pencil on the anni- 
 versary in front of the summit, his fingers would be touched 
 with frost, and lose their usual freedom. The cherished land- 
 scape has probably adorned the wall of his drawing-room, 
 smiling under the title of ivapyeca, and having, as a pendant, 
 the still more curious XevKoirerpov. That, too, would be an 
 instructive novelty : for, amidst the variety of Cenisian dis- 
 covery, this critic alone has found that landmark of Polybius 
 on the summit of the Pass. 
 
 Mr. Ellis, in the " Journal of Philology," ii. 325, defends this 
 unknown writer, as well as himself, and designates my notice 
 of him as *' uncourteous." Now, I did not doubt that he 
 sketched what he saw; but I did doubt that he saw the 
 plain of Italy and the Apennine from the front of the summit 
 of the Cenis. If Mr. Ellis knows the spot, it is not through 
 the article in " Blackwood." But it was generous in him to 
 sympathise with one whose ideas are so opposite to his own. 
 Their geography can hardly be the same : one discovers the 
 XevKoirerpov on the summit of the Cenis ; the other, when 
 he reached the Cenis, had left his XevKoirerpov five days' 
 march behind. 
 
 View from the Cenis. Mr. Ellis. 
 
 Mr. Ellis's theory of a view, like his theory of a XevKo- 
 Trerpov, is contrived by taking great liberties with time and 
 space. From the Eock to the summit, commonly supposed 
 to occupy a few hours, he has allowed a march of five days. 
 His summit also is on a large scale. One expected an 
 
 W 
 
 r« 
 
\i- 
 
 272 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VI. 
 
 ct 
 
 ic 
 
 t< 
 
 encampment which should occupy the requisite extent of 
 ground about the Col of the Little Mont Cenis, and within 
 which the rest of a short two days, so much needed, might 
 be enjoyed. But Mr. Ellis finds his summit to be capable of 
 a second encamjDment, and contrives to occupy the one day of 
 pure rest in shifting the army more than seven miles further 
 on, besides other pursuits. 
 
 Among eighteen distances enumerated in his Treatise as 
 composing the laarch through the Alps, we read this in p. 91 : 
 " From Bramans to Col of Little Mont Cenis, 7f Eoman 
 miles. From Col to Grand Croix, 7 Eoman miles." In the 
 Treatise, summit sometimes means Col, sometimes Grand 
 Croix. Mr. Ellis says, p. 50 :— " On the morning of the ninth 
 " day Hannibal, at length gained the summit of the Pass. 
 Here he encamped, and remained during the greater part of 
 the ninth and. all the tenth day, waiting for stragglers who 
 had been left- behind, and giving repose to his men after 
 " the toils and dangers of the ascent." Here summit seems 
 to mean the Col. When he says, p. 54, '' On the eleventh 
 day the Carthaginians began their descent," Grand Croix is the 
 summit which they descend from. 
 
 Now certainly the notion of " encamping on the ninth day, 
 and remaining all the tenth for repose and to wait for strag- 
 glers," is not consistent with the army marching that very 
 day more than seven miles, besides making a lateral excursion 
 for a view. Mr. Ellis makes light of it ; only admitting that, 
 '' by this movement to obtain the prospect of Italy, the position 
 " of the Carthaginian encampment would be a little altered 
 " from w^hat it was on the ninth day." Indeed, after the 
 view he finds it not worth while to return towards the 
 Col : so, having retraced their steps through a depression in 
 the mountains, they turn round and walk on, in time to 
 make a new encampment around Grand Croix. This ad- 
 ditional encampment, told in p. 118, is not only omitted by 
 
 t( 
 
 (( 
 
 CHAP. IL] 
 
 Summits, vMcli claim a view. 
 
 273 
 
 Polybius, but does not appear in the journal or conditions of 
 Mr. Ellis. 
 
 Such is his repose on the summit. In interpreting the his- 
 tory, we all encroach upon the two days of summit, in making 
 a fraction of the ninth to be the first day : the tenth was the 
 only day of unbroken rest. But Mr. Ellis's invention deprives 
 the soldiers even of this : he converts that one day of rest into 
 a real day of work ; attributing to it the labour of disencamping, 
 a march of many miles in deep snow, some being rugged 
 untracked ascent after descent had begun ; and at last the 
 making a fresh encampment for the night. Was this relief 
 to the weary ? Did this help those who had lagged in the 
 ascent, to rejoin the quiescent mass ? 
 
 Though Mr. Ellis's arrangements are utterly irreconcileable 
 with Polybius, he has the merit of explaining whereabouts 
 his o\vn view is to be found : and I should expect that a tra- 
 veller might walk to the s^^ot on his instruction. He deals 
 with a few miles of descent as the Polybian summit, to the 
 part which overhangs the plain of St. Nicholas, guiding us 
 to the view thus : — " On leaving the plateau of the L. Mont 
 Cenis for La Grande Croix, the path turns sharply to the 
 right, and eventually passes over the hills, at a point where 
 there is a depression in the chain. Turning to the south, 
 along the crest of the heights, from this point, so as to 
 ascend out of the hollow through which the path runs, and 
 thus arrive upon the long summit of the ridge, the traveller 
 wdll gain a prospect of Italy in the course of some five 
 minutes. The view is better seen from the southernmost 
 extremity of these eminences, a walk of a few minutes 
 further. The part of the hilly range from whence this 
 prospect is gained, and which lies to the south of the de- 
 pression through which the path runs, forms a ridge about 
 half a mile in length, without any definite head rising above 
 the general level of its summit. It presents a very steep 
 VOL. I. T 
 
 III 
 
274 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VI. 
 
 " slope towards La Grande Croix, and terminates, as before 
 '' mentioned, above the plain of St. Mcholas, in a very lofty 
 " precipice. From the crest of this ridge it may be con- 
 " jectured that Hannibal ^ pointed out Italy to his army." 
 Treatise, p. 115. 
 
 Thus instructed, we try to realize what a capital view Mr. 
 Ellis must have had, and how much Hannibal would have 
 lost if he had not wandered to it. Taking these indicia of 
 distance as affecting Mr. Ellis himself on a walking tour in 
 summer, this ascent of the ridge would not be serious— ascent 
 out of the hollow — some five minutes — a few minutes further 
 — ridge of about half a mile. The labour here depicted would 
 not be distressing to him, although it . would require the 
 unpleasing change from descent to ascent : indeed the whole 
 half mile of ridge might not be wanted for a tourist, though 
 it would for an army : but in either case, whatever the distance 
 may be, it would have to be retraced from the ridge to the 
 point of depression, where the track emerged into the route 
 for La Grande Croix. But we are not estimating the excursive 
 energies of a tourist, but a superfluous effort exacted from an 
 exhausted army, and said to have been imposed for their 
 comfort, on the one day when all was rest and repose. The 
 severity of the snow is told by Polybius : the length of the 
 little walk is told by Mr. Ellis : the pleasure of the extra 
 viam we must imagine for ourselves. 
 
 And now, what was the display of Italy that rewarded the 
 soldiers when they got to it ? Mr. Ellis is the relator as an 
 eye-witness : and we would readily receive his testimony on 
 its merits, if he had plainly given it. He tells us what the 
 Carthaginians would have seen ; saying, — " The country seen 
 " would be the district to the east of the Po, and the south 
 " of the Tanaro, where the cities of Alba and Acqui are 
 " situated. This part of the plains is intersected by several 
 ranges of hills — one of which may be discerned from the 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Summits, ivJiich claim a view. 
 
 275 
 
 iC 
 
 ft 
 
 tt 
 
 " point of view on the Mont Cenis, even after the hazes, so 
 *' prevalent in the plains of the Po during a great part of the 
 day, especially in summer, have effaced the prospect of the 
 flat country. In the extreme distance the chain of the 
 Apennines closes the view, and would have offered to Han- 
 " nibalthe means of indicating the position of Eome." — P. 116. 
 So much for what the Carthaginians would have seen. But 
 we would rather know how much Mr. Ellis did see. On this 
 the particulars are scanty: he says, — "It is indeed only a 
 very small portion of Italy that is descried." This is his 
 fact : a fact which does not require him to have seen one 
 acre of what Hannibal referred to in his address, the plain of 
 the Po. But further Mr. Ellis gives us to understand, that it 
 was such a poor view, that the men would not have found 
 out that there was one, if Hannibal had not told them, and 
 himself helped their eyes to it ; and that, if it had been per- 
 ceptible of itself, he would not have taken the trouble to make 
 a speech about it : accordingly it is suggested that the action 
 intimated by ivSeiKVVfievo^, was a natural gesture, necessary 
 for making a man to see something ; for that, if he could 
 have seen it of himself, Hannibal need not have helped him. 
 These are his words : " The existence of any extensive prospect 
 " does not seem to be required by the narrative. In fact, if 
 " we suppose the action, intimated by the word ivBeifcuvfjLevo^, 
 " to have been a natural, and not merely an oratorical gesture, 
 " we should be led to imagine that only a small part of the 
 " plains was visible : for to any very large expanse it would 
 " have been superfluous to direct attention. Besides, any 
 " prospect of Italy, however limited, would have been suf- 
 " ficient for Hannibal's purpose. It would have proved to 
 " the Carthaginians, by visible demonstration, that their ex- 
 " trication from the Alps was at hand, that the mountains 
 " were about to terminate, and that the plains of Italy were 
 " almost gained." — P. 116. 
 
 T 2 
 
 !'l 
 
276 
 
 Poljhiiis interpreted. 
 
 [PAHT VI. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Summits, tvMch clai/n a view. 
 
 211 
 
 Here at last it is admitted, that Hannibars object in 
 addressing his troops was, to demonstrate to them that their 
 extrication from the Alps was at hand. Poly bins says, that 
 this was done by words during the second day in camp. Mr. 
 Ellis does not give that opportunity, and holds the general's 
 oratory so cheap, that no demonstration short of a view would 
 effect the obje(;t : so on the one day of repose he first makes 
 them all march many miles down hill : and considering this 
 not to be demonstration enough, he turns them up hill again, 
 to make them quite comfortable on the subject. I apprehend 
 that Hannibal made his demonstration at the time, and place, 
 and in the manner stated by Polybius : Mr. Ellis's method, if 
 it had opened to them a view of the plain which he shows it 
 did not, would still have been superfluous, after their senses 
 had taught it them by some miles of descent. If anything 
 could then ha\'e unsettled their faith, it would be the senseless 
 interruption of that descent, and carrying them up to an 
 eminence foreign from their route. 
 
 By this process the demonstration would have been im- 
 perilled : if Hannibal had inflicted this toil extraordinary, 
 and given nothing better in return than the dubious ]3rospect 
 of Mr. Ellis, each sufferer, whether private or field-officer, 
 would have stigmatised, not perhaps without an oath, the 
 folly of the proceeding. But common sense was not so pre- 
 carious an attiibute of the Carthaginian leader, that he should 
 impose a task, which would have quenched, not enlivened, 
 the nascent hope of emancipation. 
 
 In the narrtn,tive thus shaped, we do not recognise the value 
 of Mr. Ellis's improvement, when, correcting the divisions of 
 march made by Polybius, he gives this name to his fifth 
 summary, " The circumstances which took place while the 
 army remained on the summit of the pass." (Treatise, p. 7. 
 Introduction.) The circumstances ought at least to be 
 according to Polybius ; and Mr. Ellis has said, in his own 
 
 abstract of events, p. 50,—" Hannibal at length gained the 
 " summit of the pass : here he remained during the greater 
 " part of the ninth and all ilie tenth day ; waiting for stragglers 
 " who had been left behind, and giving some repose to his 
 *' men after the toils and dangers of the ascent." But when 
 Mr. Ellis's circumstances are detailed, they make his contra- 
 diction of the historian most glaring. Polybius does make 
 Hannibal encamp on the summit on the ninth, and remain 
 all the tenth, and says that the stragglers did come up. Mr. 
 Ellis does not. He encamps on the ninth, but waits no part 
 of the tenth : allows no time for those who were left behind : 
 pities " the languor of inaction," and gives no repose to the 
 men. 
 
 I 
 
 If 
 
THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 PART vn. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN MARCH, DESCENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Descent from the Little St. Bernard. The disaster ofe th first 
 day requires ^particular examination of circuynstances told. 
 The same phenoinena still occur in the ravine heloiv La 
 Tuile. Arguments on the Descent from the Cenis. Larauza. 
 Writer in '' Blackivood's Magazine;' June, 1845. Mr. Ellis. 
 
 By the recent snow, which concealed the uTegnlarities of 
 the surface of the ground, and by the greater steepness of the 
 Alps on the Italian side, there were dangers attending the 
 progress in descent, which had not belonged to the ascent. 
 The great peril was, when they came to a part of the track 
 where the path lay along a steep mountain-side, but had then 
 been quite broken away for nearly a stadium and a half, so 
 that they could proceed upon it no further, and must have 
 had to turn back. Hannibal made an attempt to conduct the 
 army so as to get round the impracticable part of the track, 
 meaning to regain it where it was sound again. The attempt 
 was unsuccessful ; and it became necessary to encamp, and to 
 set to work at once for making the usual path passable : and 
 this was accomplished. The account of this calamity is 
 aiven in detail, and affords the hope that we may be able to 
 
280 
 
 Polyhius intcriyixtcd. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 identify the scene of obstruction : for the description shows 
 a local charact(?r, likely to be permanent, and still capable of 
 recognition. Let us, then, with this view, examine the early 
 descent from tlie Little St. Bernard, that we may be able to 
 compare its characteristics with the incidents described in the 
 narrative. 
 
 Descent frmi the Little St. Bemcircl 
 
 Tlie descent from the summit plain of this mountain is in 
 a direction to the north-east. After about three miles or 
 more of descent, the road crosses a torrent, which flows from 
 left to right, being derived from many mountain streams, the 
 largest that which has come from the little lake which was 
 mentioned as below the summit. This torrent, after you have 
 crossed it, receives one which lias accompanied your descent 
 on the right hand, and presently falls into a larger stream, 
 which has come from the glacier of the Euitor. This river I 
 take to be rightly called the Baltea, throughout its course to 
 Pre St. Didier : there it falls into the Doire, which is thence 
 called Doria Baltea. The stream from the Little St. Bernard, 
 which you crossed at a place called Pont Serrant, was running 
 in a very deep hollow. Passing then over a small plain, with 
 the ground swelling on your left hand towards the Cramont 
 range, you come to the village of La Tuile, which seems to 
 stand on both sides of the Baltea. At La Tuile the great 
 steepness of the descent ends, and cultivation and pine 
 forests soon begin. Not far onwards you come to the spot 
 where the march of the Carthaginians, there carried along the 
 mountain-side on the left bank, was arrested by failure of the 
 path ; and this ^voxxU compel those who had advanced so far 
 to retrace their steps for some way, before they could turn 
 down to the torrent along which Polybius intends that they 
 liad the hope to proceed. 
 
 CHAP. I.] Descent. L. St. Bernard. Cents. L. Cenis. 281 
 
 Below the part where the path was broken away, the river 
 runs in a deep narrow chasm, mountain rising on either side. 
 The present road onward from La Tuile was made about 
 eighty years ago : it never rises to the mountain-side on the 
 left bank, but proceeds close along the river till it crosses the 
 stream by a bridge, and is then carried up high along a rocky 
 brow on the right bank, as related by De Saussure, who 
 travelled it in 1792. At the time of General Melville's visit 
 in 1775, the old track was still in use, keeping the left bank, 
 and not crossing the Baltea. That old path was to the last 
 liable to be broken away and destroyed by massive volumes 
 of snow sweeping down from the heights. Now, as before, the 
 avalanches are, in some years, arrested at the bottom of the 
 ravine, and the snow sometimes remains there through a 
 whole season, covering the bed of the torrent. 
 
 The tale as told of the labours of repair seems to indicate 
 such a path : and one would say that, for the passage of the 
 Carthaginian armament, not only was reparation required, 
 but some improvement on what the path had been before. 
 A road in such a place may be made by cutting a continued 
 notch in the mountain side: the horizontal cutting gives 
 a floor : the perpendicular cutting gives a wall.* If you 
 make a path a yard wide, and then increase it to two yards, 
 the laljour of the second yard will greatly exceed that of the 
 first, from the much greater height of the wall, and quantity 
 of materials to be removed : and, if you further enlarge it 
 to a width of three yards, the third yard will claim far more 
 labour than the second. Accordingly we read that a horse- 
 
 * The method stated by Mr. Ellis is not of this rude kind : he 
 supposes that the natural slope was not broken into ; but that the 
 Carthaginians built up terraces outside of it from below ; and he 
 says that this is still the mode of construction in the Alps : he saw 
 fragments of an old terrace-wall near Xovalese, " such as Hannibal 
 must have ralsctl" Treatise, pp. 5G and 121. 
 
282 
 
 Polyhim iiiterp'eted. 
 
 [PAltT VII. 
 
 path was soon accomplished : but much labour was required 
 to make it capable of an elephant. If indeed in ihe 218 
 B.C. the mountain-path in question had received no parti- 
 cular injury to make it worse than usual, some improvement 
 of it might stiU have been required for the passage of these 
 extraordinary visitors. It was an exigency never known 
 before on these mountains. 
 
 Those who wijre already in the mountain-side path, must 
 have returned to the sloping plain where it began, and where 
 presently the recampment was made. From this ground the 
 men and beasts were sent at first upon the masses of snow 
 which lay choking up the ravine itself. Here was the accu- 
 mulation of solid snow which had survived from the pre- 
 vious season, now covered with snow lately faUen. Hannibal 
 hoped that by this course the army might be able to get 
 forward for the short distance to which the injury of the 
 regular path extended. This hope failed in the way which 
 Polybius explains. The Oxford Dissertation (p. 112) finds 
 a difficulty in understanding what were the perplexities 
 caused by the old snow, saying,—" It does not appear quite 
 " certain to which of the roads the difficulties occasioned by 
 " the new snow falling upon the old are to be referred : " 
 and it is suggested as possible, that Hannibal may have 
 endeavoured to turn the ravine altogether, by some road 
 which runs at the back of the rocks on the right bank, and 
 after crossing a chain of mountains, faUs into a lower part 
 of the valley of Aosta, opposite to Morges, below Pr^ St. 
 Didier. Nothin:^ in the history corresponds with such a 
 notion : and I can see no difficulty in the text which should 
 provoke it. The accustomed track is represented as imprac- 
 ticable ; it was broken away, and there could be no width 
 to tread upon : hence it was impassable. The calamitous 
 detaHs are given in explanation of the failure to circumvent 
 that broken part. After stating the great injury which the 
 
 CHAP. 1.] Descent L. Si. Berminl Cenis. L. Genis. 283 
 
 road had received, Polybius says that Hannibal attempted 
 - to go round the bad places ; " evidently limiting the contem- 
 plated deviation to the necessity of it; that is, that they 
 should avoid the stadium and a half to which extent the 
 path was destroyed, and get into it again as soon as they 
 could where it was not destroyed. The only detour which 
 suits these ideas and makes the incidents intelligible, would 
 be by the bottom of the ravine : and here only would be the 
 peculiar phenomenon which the narrative exhibits ; the under 
 floor of old snow, with its fatal slipperiness for the light^^ 
 weight, and its tenacity for the heavier. Half an hour of 
 experiment or less must have proved the hopelessness of the 
 
 resource. 
 
 It is now more than 70 years since a new cornice road was 
 made oti the opposite side of the chasm. But it is interesting 
 \jo know that he to whom we owe the development of truth 
 on the subject of our inquiry, crossed this mountain a few 
 years earlier, and liimself trod in the footsteps of Hannibal 
 on that perilous mountain side. M. Pe Luc (p. 200), having 
 before him the notes of General Melville, writes thus :— 
 " Apr^s que le General Melville eut pass6 le village de la 
 " Tuile, son guide lui dit : A present nous approchons d'un 
 " endroit tr^ mauvais, qui nous donne beaucoup de peine 
 " pour le reparer toutes les ann^es, parcequ'il est emporte au 
 '' printemps par des avalanches de neige. — Lorsque le General 
 " Melville traversa cette montagne en 1775, le chemin etoit 
 " fait de troncs de sapin places deux k deux, suivant leur 
 " longueur, et applanis k la surface pour que le pied put 
 " reposer de plat. Ce fut sur ces troncs d'arbre que le 
 " general, son domestique et ses mulcts furent obliges de 
 " passer. Dans cet endroit le chemin suivoit avec une peute 
 " douce le cote escarpe d'une montagne, compose de rochers 
 " desunis et pouvant s'ebouler facilement." 
 
 Not long after this journey of Gen. Melville, the new road 
 
281 
 
 Pulyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part vit. 
 
 (I 
 
 it 
 
 was made by the? Sardinian Government. De Saussure went 
 over these Alps on 8tli August, 1792, and states tliat, having 
 passed the village La Tuile, he presently crossed to the other 
 side of the torrent, which he also calls by the name La Tuile. 
 A dix minutes de la Tuile, on passe ce torrent, et on vien4| 
 cotoyer le pied d'une montagne dont les conches coupees h 
 " pie sont d'une belle calcaire grenue, souveut recouverte de 
 "mica. Le chemin est bon et assez large, mais sur une 
 " corniche tres elevc^e au-dessus de la Tuile. On voit la, sous 
 " ses pieds, des a.mas de neige qui se sont conserves depuis 
 "Thiver, et qui forment des ponts sur ce torrent." iv. 
 
 S. tjfCiO^, 
 
 M. De Luc (p. 201) quotes M. Eoche, author of " Notices 
 historiques sur les Centrons," who visited this spot about two 
 years before De Saussure, and reports that the snow of the 
 previous season \vas lying in mass, coming nearly up to the 
 level of the road, M. De Luc adds in his 2d edition that a 
 friend of his own, passing this mountain in May 1822, saw 
 this ravine almost filled up with snow, to a depth, as he 
 estimated, of sixty feet, the torrent running beneath it. 
 
 Mr. Brockedon was on the same spot at the end of August, 
 1826; and found a large mass of snow in the ravine. 
 Alluding to the incident of the baggage cattle becoming 
 wedged in, he gives his own ideas thus :—'' The water had 
 " submelted the snow, and, as the feet found no support, the 
 " beasts could not extricate themselves." Passes of Alps, i. ii. 
 
 The authors of the Oxford Dissertation, after a second study 
 
 of these scenes, make the following statement, p. 100 : '• After 
 
 " La Tuile, the modern road crosses from the left to the right 
 " bank of the ri\ er, and recrosses it about three miles lower 
 '' down. The old road remained constantly on the left bank, 
 " and was obliged to l)e abandoned in consequence of the 
 " numerous avalanches, which always fall from a pointed rock 
 '' that ovcrhan-s it, and wliich in the winter frequently carried 
 
 (( 
 
 (( 
 
 u 
 
 « 
 
 CHAP. I.] Descent L. St. Bernard. Cenis. L. Cenis. 285 
 
 " it away. It is very remarkable, that that part of the old 
 " road which was most exposed to these accidents is about 
 " 300 yards in length, a distance agreeing almost exactly with 
 " the stadium and a half of Polybius ; and it appears that, 
 " from the very nature of the ground, it must always have 
 *' been so exposed : for it is situated at the bend of the river, 
 and immediately under one of the highest points of the 
 Cramont and that chain of mountains which forms the 
 " south-east side of the Alice Blanche. Prom this point the 
 ground slopes rapidly down to the river in a concave or 
 funnel-shaped direction, the mouth of the funnel ending at 
 " the river, so that an avalanche from the top would be 
 " necessarily confined within the limits of the bend, and 
 " within the space of 300 yards. It appears, from the reports 
 " of the inhabitants, that this passage is peculiarly subject to 
 *' avalanches : and it happens also that, owing to the narrow- 
 " ness of the bed of the river in this spot, and the precipitous 
 " nature of the rocks on both sides of it, the snow which is 
 " brought down in this manner from the Cramont, and which 
 " falls in immense masses into it, remains sometimes un- 
 " melted during the whole of the summer, and forms a natural 
 "bridge over the torrent for a considerable distance. Our 
 " guide told us that this had happened in 1816, at which 
 " time the snow formed a complete bridge over the river. 
 " The snow remained unmelted also in 1823. I took great 
 " pains to ascertain whether the snow ever remained un- 
 " melted the whole year round in any other part of the road, 
 " and I was assured that such an event never took place ; 
 " nor would it occur in this spot, were it not entirely sheltered 
 " from the sun by the extreme narrowness of the ravine and 
 " the great height of the mountains on both sides.'' 
 
 In these reports of safe witnesses we have plain evidence 
 on which to declare the conformity of this " mauvais pas " with 
 the " mauvais pas " of Polybius. The frequent visitation of it 
 
1.1 
 
 286 
 
 Polyhius inter]jreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 by avalanches is proved as a fact. It is proved that tliey 
 continue to sweep smooth that mountain side ; and that the 
 masses of snow deposited below often remain unmelted 
 through the following season, as had the snow which he 
 describes. In c^xhibiting this phenomenon as it offered itself 
 in the progress of Hannibal, Polybius speaks of it as proper 
 and extraordinary; importing, that the place was from natural 
 causes liable to the incident, and that this had now befallen it 
 in an unusual degree. And the evidence of our own times, 
 which has been adduced, strikingly shows how the avalanche, 
 annihilating any artificial track in its downward rush, is 
 received into the chasm beneath, and often perseveres to 
 occupy it in defiance of a summer's warmth. These proofs of 
 identity receive satisfactory confirmation, when we see that 
 the distance of the spot from the edge of the plain of the 
 Little St. Bernard corresponds with the distance that is to be 
 inferred from the narrative ; and that the extent which Poly- 
 bius ascribes to the dilapidation of the road agrees with the 
 usual scope of the mischief as known at this day. It may 
 well be believed that, after a total disuse of the track for 
 70 years, that mountain side is now worn so smooth as not to 
 suggest that it can ever have afforded a path at all. 
 
 Descent from the Mont Cenis. Larauza. 
 
 M. Larauza cites with some approbation a notion of Le- 
 tronne, which is this : that the old snow may not have been 
 much older than the new snow ; that snow usually begins 
 to fall at the end of September ; that on this occasion it was 
 probably earlier ; and that we may presume the slippery 
 under-surface to have been six weeks old when Hannibal 
 passed, which v^as about the 26th October, and to have 
 acquired a consistency ; inasmuch as the early snow of 
 autumn is the m-ost ready to freeze. His conclusion is this : 
 
 CHART.] Descent L.St. Bernard, Cenis. L.Cenis. 287 
 
 " Lorsque cette neige dej^ ancienne eut et^ recouverte par 
 " de la neige toute recente, ainsi que le dit Polybe, les Car- 
 " thaginois purent la prendre pour de la vieille neige, restee 
 "la depuis I'annee pr^cedente." — Journal des Savans, Dec. 
 1819. Larauza, however, difiident of the value of this con- 
 jecture, finds for liimseK another excuse in the difficulty of 
 identifying the place. He thinks that, even if the Cartha- 
 ginians were right in their belief of the last winter's snow, 
 we cannot reasonably expect evidence for discovering the 
 place of it now : he says that, according to Polybius, " c'^tait 
 " un ph^nomene accidentel, singulier, extraordinaire, et non 
 " pas propre de ces montagnes : ce n'etait pas un fait habituel 
 "et caract^ristique du lieu." Now the words of Polybius 
 are, to yap av/ju^alvov iBt>ov rjv kul irapriXKay^evov : peculiar 
 to the place, and now to an unusual degree : Wlov fully 
 imports that which M. Larauza says it does not — " caracter- 
 istique et propre : " it does not mean " accidentel " or " singulier : " 
 and 'TraprjWayfiivov means " more than usual," an idea very 
 different from "accidentel." It is reasonable then to inquire 
 whether such incident of a place is confirmed by experience 
 in the probable part of any suggested route. Experience 
 does not testify masses of superannuated snow choking up the 
 trough of a defile and bridging it from one side to the other, 
 ■ in the descent from the Cenis. Experience does testify this 
 phenomenon in the descent from the Little St. Bernard. 
 
 M. Larauza (p. 140) supposes that Hannibal, having in 
 his descent reached the plain of S. Mcolas, followed the 
 old route, now abandoned, which attended the left bank of 
 the Cenise by La Eerriere and La Novalese : he himself 
 went up, as we have seen, by the present post-road formed 
 by Napoleon, through Bard, Molaret, and S. Martin: the 
 old line he did not explore. The higher part of it between 
 that plain and La Eerriere is liable to the visitation of violent 
 avalanches ; so much so that, more than a century ago, a 
 
288 
 
 Pulf/hi us interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 covered way was constructed by the Sardinian government 
 for the safety oJ: travellers on the right bank of the stream, 
 built with solid masonry, and reaching for some distance 
 along the steep mountain side. When this was made, it 
 superseded the i)rior track, which had been on the left bank. 
 De Saussure, who was there in 1780, says, after passing the 
 plain of S. Nicolas and before coming to La Femere, — " On 
 " laisse k droitej une grande gallerie, couverte d\me forte 
 " et solide voAte : cette gallerie a environ 300 pieds de 
 *' longueur sur 15 de largeur: on I'a construite pour servir 
 " de passage aux voyageurs, lorsque le chemin comble par 
 "les avalanches devient impraticable." iii. s. 1250. The 
 same account is given by Alb. Beaumont : and Mr. Brockedon 
 describes the luins of that once useful work, which was 
 blown up on the completion of the new road by Napoleon. 
 
 M. Larauza, fancying that these facts tend to identify the 
 Carthagmian track, exclaims : " Les avalanches, si communes 
 " et si considerables en cet endroit, cette longue voute con- 
 "struite pour ea garantir, n'expliquent-elles pas cet eboule- 
 "ment de terres qui avait interrompu le passage?" The 
 answer is, that this covered w^ay is very good evidence of 
 the frequency and violence of avalanches ; but that it is no 
 evidence of the fact which distinguishes the subject of our 
 inquiry. Any spot of ground may be subject to avalanches, 
 if the shape of the ground above it is such as to conduct 
 volumes of snow towards it. But a place the most subject 
 to be so visited, need not be subject to an endurance of the 
 snow throughout the year : this will depend upon aspect and 
 exposure to the sun's influence. The "voute" makes us believe 
 in the avalanche against which it was to give protection : 
 it does not make us believe, that the snowy masses continued 
 to defy the ordinary action of a summer's w^armth. 
 
 One who confidently asserts, in the descent from the Cenis 
 or any other pass, the scene of so great calamity to the Car- 
 
 4 
 
 t 
 
 CHAP. I.] Descent. L. St. Bernard. Cenis. L. Cenis. 289 
 
 thaginian army, is not entitled to be silent on such a topic as 
 this. Although the mass of snow which Hannibal found in 
 the chasm was not a thing of regular occurrence, still it was 
 likely to be repeated : the same promoting causes would 
 tend to the same result. A hollow funnel-shaped slope in 
 the mountain-side, which confined within particular limits 
 the downward rush of a great mass of snow in one year, 
 would operate in the same way if an unusual rush should 
 come in another year ; and the deep chasm below, screening 
 the mass from melting influences, would have the same pre- 
 serving effect. Such disposing causes, existing in the per- 
 manent features of nature, together with the effects of those 
 causes, are things capable of evidence ; and in the route of 
 the Little St. Bernard that evidence has been supplied, 
 masses of the last year's snow, occupying the chasm and 
 concealing the torrent that drains beneath, are testified for 
 the years 1792, 1816, 1823, and 1826, by the distinguished 
 travellers to whom I have referred, w^hile such evidence is 
 utterly wanting between the plain of St. Nicholas and La 
 Novalese. The Swedish traveller, who favoured the hypo- 
 thesis of the Cenis, is silent upon such phenomena. Both 
 De Saussure and Albanis Beaumont seem to have travelled 
 by the old Novalese road, and would have noted such a 
 circumstance had they become acquainted with it. M. 
 Larauza himself, though eager and curious, did not explore 
 the ancient track, nor does he report any knowledge gained 
 on this subject : he listens to the tales of the gens du :pays as 
 he w^ent along the new road, and retails the nonsense which 
 they amused him with, about Hannibal cutting down trees 
 " pour combler la vallee." Those natives, if they could be 
 primed by a few conversations about old snow under new 
 snow, would soon establish the very spot on either road, and 
 explain it to the next comer. 
 
 Neither Letronne nor Larauza represent Hannibal trying to 
 
 VOL. I. u 
 
 fl 
 
290 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [PAKT VII. 
 
 circumvent the '' inauvais pas " by carrying man and beast 
 higher up the mountain; they saw, at least, that the old 
 snow was " an fond de la gorge." One invents for the Car- 
 thaginians a l)lunder on the age of the snow, and the other 
 fails in his tianslation of the history ; but there is nothing 
 extraordinary in these casualties of criticism. Our English 
 critics are more adventurous. 
 
 Descent from the Cents. Writer in " Blackwood,"' June, 1845. 
 This writer has already been referred to, as having dis- 
 covered the XevKOirerpov on the summit of the Cenis, and 
 sketched the "View of Italy" from the southern front of 
 the summit. On the '' mauvais pas " which embarrassed the 
 descent he thus expresses himself, p. 758 :— " The steep and 
 " rocky declivity, by which the old road formerly descended 
 " to the vaU(7 of Susa, corresponds perfectly to the famous 
 " places mentioned both by Livy and Polybius, where the 
 *' path had l>een torn away by a recent avalanche. This 
 " place in M^ont Cenis is immediately below the summit of 
 " the pass, and may now be seen furrowed by a roaring 
 "torrent, amidst dark ledges of rock. The corresponding 
 *' chasm on the southern side of the Little St. Bernard is 
 " below the reach of avalanches." He then supplies this 
 version of the Polybian narrative : — " The way on every side 
 ** was utterly impassable, through an accident of a peculiar 
 " kind, which is peculiar to the Alps. The snows of the 
 " former years, having remained unmelted upon the mountains, 
 " were now covered over by that which had fallen in the 
 " present autumn, and, when the soldiers' feet went through 
 " the latter, they fell and slid down with great violence. 
 " This shows the place was within the circle of perpetual 
 " snow, whe]'eas that on the Little St. Bernard is much below 
 " it, and far beneath any avalanches." June, 1845. P. 758. 
 This is cot a happy edition of Polybius. The history. 
 
 CHAP. I.] Descent. L. St. Bernard, Cenis. L. Cenis. 291 
 
 speaking only of the way by which Hannibal tried to get 
 round the broken path, says of the snow, ravTrjv a^vvarov 
 7roLov(Tr)<i Ti}V iropeiav : the translator writes, " the way on 
 every side was impassable." In the history, the circumstance 
 noted as the cause was peculiar, iSioVy to the way which 
 Hannibal attempted : in the translation it is " peculiar to the 
 Alps." In the history, it is peculiar to the one particular 
 place, because of the fresh snow lying there upon the snow 
 of a former season; the translation changes a particular 
 thing into a general one, telling us, that the snows of the 
 former years had remained unmelted upon the mountains. 
 
 After all, one would expect that the sinister incident, if 
 applied to Alps generally, might belong to the Little St. 
 Bernard as a part of the Alps, especially as the elevation of 
 that mountain is 75 toises higher above the sea than that of 
 Mont Cenis. But the author has his contrivances for raising 
 one and depressing the other: on his "famous place by 
 " which the old road descended to Susa, and where the path 
 *' had been torn away by a recent avalanche," he reports that 
 it is " immediately below the summit of the pass," and 
 "within the circle of perpetual snow;" while our corre- 
 sponding chasm, the airoppo)^ at La Tuile, is pronounced to 
 be " much below that circle, and far beneath any avalanches." 
 It is indeed below that circle : his famous place also is and 
 was below it. But it is not a consequence of that position, 
 that it should be exempt from avalanches. Happy would 
 it be for the mountaineer, if he could reckon on such security ; 
 his cattle and his crops live not above the snow-line ; but he 
 has to witness and to deplore the destroying avalanche. 
 
 Descent from the Little Mont Cenis, Mr. Ellis. 
 
 We rejoin Mr. Ellis : who, as we may remember, having 
 (p. 50) brought Hannibal to the summit on the ninth day, 
 and encamped him there to remain th^ rest of that day and 
 
 u2 
 
■I 
 
 i 
 
 292 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 all the tenth, forgot his engagement, and turned tlie tenth into 
 a day of hard work instead of repose. We proceed through 
 two more summaries : and find Mr. Ellis performing the task 
 of exploring the old line of descent by the course of the 
 Cenise torrent through La Ferriere and La Novalese to Susa. 
 He describes the track on the left bank of that torrent, which 
 was abandoned a century ago, when a new mule-road with 
 protecting masonry was constructed on the right bank under 
 Emmanuel III. This, too, is now obsolete : the traveller to 
 Susa uses only the safer road, through Bard, Molaret, St. 
 3^Iartin and Jaillon, which diverges from the old one in the 
 plain of St. Nicholas, below La Grande Croix. In the old 
 track Mr. Ellis professes to have ascertained by inspection the 
 very scene of Hannibal's disaster, and to have found the 
 place where the path was broken away from the precipitous 
 mountain side?, on the north of the hollow that holds the 
 river about a mile below La Ferriere. 
 
 The calamity of the path, which all understand to have 
 been along a steep mountain-side, and the rupture of it which 
 arrested the march, present the same topics to all inquirers. 
 All must try to explain the attempt made to circumvent the 
 part which, for a stadium and a half, had become impassable ; 
 and to say where the snow^ of a former season was still 
 remaining; and to understand the causes wdiich prevented 
 the army froDi proceeding on the surface of it ; and whether 
 the attempt at circuit w^as made by first moving in one 
 direction or another from the point where those in advance 
 were brought to a standstill. All know too that, in this 
 inquiry, a qu(3stion has been made on change of climate. Mr. 
 Ellis gives a portrait or plan of the scene, to aid us in under- 
 standing the movements as he apprehends them. 
 
 The words which most claim explanation are, irpSyrov 
 eirefiaXeTo uepieXOeiv Ta<; BvaxcopLa<;. What was this ex- 
 perhnent ? How did they get to the place of it from where 
 
 CHAP. I.] Descent. L. St. Bernard. Cenis. L. Cenis, 203 
 
 the rupture of the path had arrested their progress? And, 
 when their experiment failed, how did they get from it to the 
 place of encampment ? for the encampment was made before 
 they set about the repairs. I have supposed, that they first 
 retreated to the open ground from which the mountain-side 
 path had begun ; and that they then tried to pass along the 
 trough of the torrent in which the old snow was found to lie ; 
 and that, failing in this, they turned back to the open rising 
 ground, made their encampment, and issued from thence to 
 the work of repair. 
 
 Mr. Ellis discusses the circumstances of the aTroppwf , when 
 he is explaining Polybius in order to deduce conditions of 
 congruity, and thus introduces us to the scene, p. 59 : " When- 
 " ever a man, descending a mountain where there is no track, 
 " finds his progress arrested by arriving at the edge of a range 
 " of precipices, he naturally creeps along their summit, till 
 " he finds a gully breaking through them from above, and 
 " affording him a tolerably safe passage down to their feet. 
 " A course of this nature would not improbably be that adopted 
 " by Hannibal : although it must, in his case, have been of 
 " an easier kind than is usual, as he would never have at- 
 " tempted to bring his w^hole army — men, animals, and baggage 
 *' — down by such a line as might be taken by an unen- 
 " cumbered traveller. When Hannibal's attempt to make a 
 " circuit was frustrated, and he found himself obliged to halt 
 " and repair the broken path, he is said to have encamped 
 " irepl Tr)v pa^f^v — back of a ridge — ' dorsum mentis.' " 
 
 Mr. Ellis discusses the same circumstance, when he is 
 accommodating his theory to his conditions from pp.119 to 128 
 of the Treatise. In order to give us his views relating to the 
 ruptured path, he seems to have placed himself on the right 
 bank of the Cenise, and taken a sketch which, being engraved, 
 offers an elevation of the whole mountain-side that was facing 
 him, and w^hich includes more than the extent of the stadium 
 
294 
 
 Poli/hius interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 and a half for which the usual path had become impracticable. 
 One would ejipect here to see the point where Mr. Ellis 
 supposes the progress to have been prohibited, and from 
 which those who were in advance would have had to turn 
 back. But the plan does not indicate the part where advance 
 became impossible, and retreat necessary, nor does it show 
 how they got to the scene of the disaster by which the 
 attempt at circuit failed : neither does it appear how they 
 proceeded from it to the place of encampment, after failure of 
 the attempt. If these positions had appeared in their rela- 
 tion to one another, the author's views would at least have 
 been intelligible. 
 
 A plan drawn for explaining the casualty of the airoppo)^ 
 ought to express these things, if it is expected to assist our 
 apprehension of the author's meaning : and the obvious ex- 
 cuse for Mr. illlis not marking them, is that he was undeter- 
 mined where i^o place them. But then why publish a portrait 
 without the necessary features ? There is the mountain side, 
 with a blue line carried down it to represent Mr. Ellis's 
 gully : there if? a zigzag line, meant to represent a track along 
 the mountain-side. Nothing helps to the position of the 
 important points: the arrest of the progress; the intended 
 circuit, and its calamities ; the place where they then made 
 encampment, from which the work of repair went to the 
 damaged road. All is important to illustrate his theory. 
 
 The author's want of conception on the scene he desired to 
 delineate for others, appears by his own statements. In p. 60, 
 he says : " Th e account naturally leads us to look immediately 
 *' above the l-roken path for an encampment partly extending 
 " over a Tidg(}-back." We may look for it ; but it is not to be 
 seen. Then, in p. 125, Mr. Ellis states it to be probable, that 
 the pa^t? of Polybius is about half a mile to the south of 
 the Cenise, A\here a rill of water runs in a hollow parallel to 
 the Cenise, with a ridge between them extending from west 
 
 CHAP. I.] Descent. L. St. Bernard. Cenis. L. Cenis. 295 
 
 to east. And when this has been put forth as the pa'xc^, a 
 third place, very distant from it, is suggested : *' The fields 
 " through which the Cenise flows between La Ferri^re and 
 " the commencement of the broken precipice would have 
 " afforded in themselves a considerable space of ground for the 
 *' encampment." Thus explicit and satisfactory is Mr. Ellis's 
 theory of the airoppct)^. He criticizes the historian (p. 59) for 
 using the article t?/v with pdxt'V the first time he employs the 
 word, and attributes the inadvertence to Polybius being per- 
 sonally acquainted with the country. On some things he is 
 satisfied with his own evidence, as when he says, p. 121 : 
 " The old road, still remaining, forcibly recalls the narrative 
 " of Polybius : it is in many places supported on terraces, such 
 *' as Hannibal must have raised along the mountain-side." 
 
 In the explanations of TrepieXOelv there is a characteristic 
 difference between the process conceived by Mr. Ellis, and 
 that which is understood by us. In his idea the circuit which 
 Hannibal contemplated was down a precipitous gully : wo 
 apprehend that it was along the declined channel of a stream. 
 His old snow stands high up and exposed on a mountain side, 
 facing south. Ours lies in a low bottom, shielded from the 
 sun throughout the year. This competition was not brought 
 to notice in his Treatise : nor did he disclose, that evidence 
 had ever been brought forward on the " mauvais pas " of the 
 Little St. Bernard. Mr. Ellis took pains to wield his own 
 deductions : but declined to measure them with the facts of a 
 rival theory. 
 
 That other hypothesis had been long before the world. 
 Mr. Ellis was aware of the evidence of General Melville, 
 reported by De Luc ; of the facts of De Saussure and others 
 to the same point, viz., the accumulation of the snow in the 
 bed of the torrent below La Tuile, which still from time to 
 time occurs ; and the pointed comments of the Oxford Disser- 
 tation. Nevertheless his Treatise did not contain a hint that 
 
296 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part vir. 
 
 the route of the Graian Alp had pretended to supply a site 
 for the calamity of the broken way. This silence was the 
 more remarkable, as he discussed the matter largely himself, 
 not forgetting; the old snow or the subject of the snow-line ; 
 and alluded to certain wTiters, as if they agreed with him : 
 to Gibbon and Arnold, and to Evelyn, mentioned in Arnold's 
 note M which refers to Evelyn. Yet the rival pretensions of 
 the broken vray, which had been so thoroughly asserted for 
 the route of the Little St. Bernard, are not alluded to in the 
 Treatise of 1854. 
 
 My criticism, written at Nice in 1855, caused that silence to 
 be broken : and in 1856 Mr. Ellis noticed me in the " Cam- 
 bridge Journal of Philology," vol. ii. 327. He reluctantly 
 admitted the fact, that the Baltea torrent is sometimes filled 
 up by the snow of a former winter. On this fact, verified by 
 so many eye-witnesses, his words are : " I am ready to acknow- 
 " ledge, that the circumstance which Mr. Law mentions has 
 " sometimes occurred.'* Then, instead of excusing himself in 
 his defence, for having shirked these facts, he blames me for 
 not dealing with the old snow more largely ; saying this : 
 ' That no x)ermanent snow is now found on the route of Mont 
 ' Cenis at the place where I have supposed Hannibal to 
 ' have met with it, is a circumstance easily explained by the 
 ' change of climate in the Alps, a fact supported by the 
 ' authority of Gibbon and Arnold, and proved by the 
 ' testimony of an eye-witness, that of Evelyn. Of these 
 witnesses Mr. Law takes no notice : there is not a word of 
 •* Gibbon and Evelyn, and but a slight remark (p. 59) about 
 ' Dr. Arnold." 
 
 If T had cared for their evidence, I could not have dealt 
 witli these witnesses at Nice. Mr. Ellis's Treatise had 
 accompanied me from England : not so the works of Gibbon 
 and Arnold and Evelyn. I directed the criticism only against 
 Mr. Ellis ; and I gave it to the printer immediately on my 
 
 a 
 
 u 
 
 i< 
 
 CHAP. I.] Descent. L. St. Bernard. Cenis. L. Cenis. 297 
 
 return to England in April, 1855. But let us see what 
 Mr. Ellis's witnesses have to say. 
 
 Mr. Evelyn reports the Simplon, one of the lowest passes, 
 as covered with snow in September, 1626 : to this fact, which 
 may happen in any year, he was an eye-witness. His 
 account (" Memoirs," i. p. 220) is this : " That there were on 
 " the summit a few huts and a chapel ; and population 
 " enough to bully his party on their spaniel killing a goat. 
 " He says that a multitude came and disarmed them, and 
 kept them prisoners till masse was ended : then came half a 
 score of grim Suisse, on which they were glad to make 
 payment and escape ; being told that their way onward had 
 " been covered with snow since the Creation." Such is the 
 philosophy of the snow-line : and yet my credulity does not 
 accept, even on the testimony of the eye-witness, that the 
 Simplon in 1626 was. with its chapel and congregation, on a 
 summit of perpetual snow. 
 
 Gibbon says, in Chapter ix., to which Mr. Ellis refers, 
 " Some ingenious writers have suspected that Europe was 
 " much colder formerly than it is at present." He admits that 
 two circumstances tend to confirm their theory : 1. That the 
 Ehine and the Danube were often frozen over and capable of 
 supporting enormous weights. 2. That the reindeer was a 
 native of the Hercynian forest ; which is said on the suppo- 
 sition that the reindeer was the " bos cervi figura " of 
 Csesar, "cujus a media fronte inter aures unum cornu existit." 
 Gibbon adds, "The modern improvements sufficiently ex- 
 " plain the causes of the diminution of the cold : -these 
 " immense woods have been gradually cleared, which inter- 
 " cepted from the earth the rays of the sun." Surely this 
 has no bearing on the Alpine snow-line. 
 
 Mr. Ellis appears surprised that I made but a slight 
 remark upon Dr. Arnold : and I am surprised that Mr. Ellis 
 alluded to him at all. My remark was this : " Though I 
 
 n 
 
298 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 CHAP. 11.] 
 
 Into the Plain and Insuhres. 
 
 299 
 
 " entertain the truest respect for Dr. Arnold, and a high 
 
 " admiration of his history of Hannibal's campaigns, yet in 
 
 " all that he has said of the invading march I find nothing to 
 
 " commend : on this point of the snow-line of Polybius, as 
 
 " on some otliers, I quite differ from him." Mr. Ellis was 
 
 then the special object of my criticism : he is not now ; and 
 
 I shall comment on Dr. Arnold with equal freedom. But 
 
 why should JVEr. Ellis pretend to care for the opinion of 
 
 Dr. Arnold ? They do not agree. Dr. Arnold says that the 
 
 old snow of Polybius was " no accidental patch." Mr. Ellis 
 
 says, that "it was clearly an isolated patch." Dr. Arnold 
 
 placed the airoppco^ of Polybius above the snow-line. Mr. 
 
 Ellis says that there is no reason for imadning it. Havino- 
 
 so brought their opinions into contrast, I may say this. 
 
 Thinking Dr. Arnold wrong on the snow-line, I must think 
 
 Mr. EUis right in differing from him. But in the application 
 
 of their opinions, I do not think Mr. EUis has the advantage. 
 
 Both resist our theory, in which the permanence of the old 
 
 snow is accounted for by its lying in a deep ravine, not 
 
 exposed to the sun: both disallow that argument. Dr. 
 
 Arnold has the better excuse : he disregarded it, being under 
 
 a delusion on the snow-line. Mr. Ellis has not that delusion 
 
 to palKate the blunder. His *' isolated patch" flourished 
 
 through a summer under exposure to a southern sun, not 
 
 having perpetual snow to protect it. 
 
 The question between our old snow which occupies the 
 trough in which a stream is used to run, and Mr. Ellis's old 
 snow which is an isolated patch half-way up a mountain, 
 is almost a question between horizontal and perpendicular ; 
 between level a,nd precipice. A rapid stream cannot be quite 
 a dead level : but it is opposed to precipice. Mr. Ellis does 
 not seem alive to the difference. His phenomenon displays 
 itself in an erect gully, where man and horse can acquire no 
 footing, and must roll down the mountain : ours lies in a 
 
 trough at the bottom of a defile with mountain on both sides ; 
 but it was so slippery and otherwise injurious, as to prohibit a 
 march. Mr. Ellis, in his defence,* instead of confessing his 
 own sins, imputes them to me, and gives vent to this sage excla- 
 mation : " How does this snow in the bed of the torrent help 
 " Mr. Law ! how could it possibly cause men to slip down the 
 " precipices at the foot of which it lies 1" I never sought the 
 aid of such nonsense. It is Mr. Ellis, and no other, who would 
 circumvent the " mauvais pas " by slipping down a precipice : 
 he it is, who conceiving his gully to be spoken of by Polybius 
 (whom he represents, Treatise, p. 59, as personally acquainted 
 with it), construes eimroXv Kareo^ep&p ovrcov rwv 'xcoplcov, 
 " for the declivity was one of excessive steepness." KaroDt^epv? 
 signifies "declined," not " precipitous : " and eirnrokv Karox^epr}^; 
 is not " excessively steep : " iirLTroXv signifies " mostly " — " for 
 the most part." There may be declivity in a line of railroad ; 
 not precipice : it may be Karaxfiepri^, but not KprjfjbvwZrj<;. Mr. 
 Ellis's notion is somewhat akin to that of Livy, for which he 
 is so roughly handled by Niebuhr ; namely, for turning the 
 three half-stades of length into three half-stades of height. 
 Lect ix. voL i. p. 173. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Hannibal, having completed the passage of the Alps in Fifteen 
 Days, came down boldly into the plain of the Po and the 
 nation of Insuhres. c. 56. 
 
 Karfipe eh — came down into. 
 
 Our opponents, unable to say that a man, entering Italy by 
 the route of Susa or of Pinerolo, would come down into the 
 
 * Cambridge Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology. Yol. ii. 
 p. 327. 
 
 \ 
 
300 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Into the Plain and Insuhrcs. 
 
 301 
 
 Insubres, struggle against the words of the history : and first 
 they pretend that Karfipe eh does not signify "came down 
 into:" they have discovered, that this expression does not 
 import the ariival at an object, but an inchoate movement in 
 the direction of it. 
 
 M. Larauza challenged the translation of M. De Luc, " entra 
 dans le pays du Insubres," calling it '' une traduction evidem- 
 ment fausse :" and he adds, ''Nous nous bornerons a remarquer 
 " que le Grec Jie dit nullement qu'Annibal entra dans le pays 
 " des Insubres, mais qu'il se dirigea vers ce pays, eh to twv 
 " 'laofi^pcov e6vo<;y One who could so translate, has verv 
 naturally the additional merit of making an imperfect quota- 
 tion. The term Karfipe eh is applied by Polybius both to the 
 plains and the Insubres. M. Larauza exhibits it as applied to 
 the Insubres only : he may have felt that it would be absurd 
 to assert that Hannibal, who in the previous sentence was said 
 to have reached the plains, "se dirigea vers les plaines :" so he 
 suppressed the plains in expounding the sentence. This was 
 not fair : he should also have contended, " que le Grec ne dit 
 nullement qu'Annibal entra dans les plaines : " but for this his 
 courage failed liim. 
 
 Other critics, since M. Larauza, have tried to misconstrue 
 this simple expression. In the work of 1830 on Hannibars 
 passage by " A Member of the University of Cambridge," the 
 author objects to the translation " descended into," and says 
 this (p. 77) : " The word Kajfipe must here, as it frequently 
 " does in Polybius, simply mean ' he marched ; ' and the entire 
 "passage must refer to the ulterior and eventful circum- 
 " stance of his bold movement into the plains of the Po, 
 " and his first encampment in front of the Eoman army in 
 " the territory of the Insubrians. Should there be any surprise 
 at the peculiarity of this arrangement of matter, the follow- 
 ing passage wiU show that in Polybius it is not unexampled. 
 " In the 35th chapter of the 3d book Hannibal is described as 
 
 « 
 
 « 
 
 f^B 
 
 " crossing the Ebro, and there parting with some of his troops 
 " — Tr)v he \oL7rrjV (npariav avoKa^wv rjye Sea rcov Ylvprjvaicov 
 " Xeyofieucov opayv cttI rrjv tov 'FoSavov Bid/3acnv. All the 
 " latter part of the sentence has reference, as in the instance 
 *' above, to an ulterior event." 
 
 This illustration is inadmissible, though we shall find it 
 adopted : Karalpco is never so used. The passage cited as ana- 
 logous occurs thus : Polybius, having explained Hannibal's 
 ]jroceedings after crossing the Ebro, having told how he dis- 
 charged a portion of the troops, and committed another 
 portion to the command of the general who was to remain in 
 that country, says of Hannibal : " Taking with him the rest 
 " of the army lightly equipped, he led them on through the 
 " Pyrenean mountains for the passage of the river called the 
 " Ehone.'* Now see the weakness of imagining an analogy 
 between 177^ in this place, and Karfipe in the other. In 
 these words of the 35th chapter the historian, having brought 
 Hannibal across the Ebro, exhibits the scope of a portion of 
 march about to be performed ; and the notice of the passage 
 of the Ehone is the notice of an ulterior event, which will 
 be long after that to which 7/76 hid is applied. 
 
 *'H7e hid tells an initial proceeding ; and for that reason it 
 is wholly unlike Karfipe eh. But the want of prudence in 
 this anonymous critic is equal to his want of discernment ; 
 he not only exhibits, as corresponding expressions, those 
 which have no correspondence, but he proves that they have 
 none, by adding these words : " For in the 40th chapter he 
 " is again crossing* the Pyrenees : and in the 41st he arrives 
 " at the passage of the Ehone — riKe ixerd Swd/jbecov eirl rr)v 
 " rov 'FoBavov hid^aaiv" Here his error exposes itself : it is 
 this expression 17/ce IttI, which is analogous to Karfipe eh, not 
 the words of the 35 th chapter. Each of those expressions 
 tells an accomplished fact; one bringing Hannibal to the 
 
 iv€)(eip€L rais 8t€K:/So\ats rOyv Uvprjvaiuiv opiov. 
 
302 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part vir. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Into the Plain and Insuhres, 
 
 303 
 
 i|fl 
 
 <c 
 
 ti 
 
 Ehone, the other bringing him to the plain and the 
 Insubres. 
 
 Another pa,tron of this false construing is Mr. Ellis. Not 
 that in his published translation he adopted " se dirigea vers " 
 from the French critic, or '' he marched to " from the anony- 
 mous of 1830 : he prudently rendered Karfjpe ek '' descended 
 into." But t\vro years afterwards, on defending himself in the 
 " Journal of Philology," ii. 329, he condescended deliberately 
 to adopt the error of his Cambridge predecessor, and borrowed 
 his false illustration, saying this : — " The words, fcarfjpe 
 Tokfirjpw^ €t? ra irepl tov IlaBbv Trehla teal to todp ^laofM^pcov 
 eOvoSf may be compared with 1776 8m rcov Uvprjvalmv 
 " XeyofMevcov optov eirl Tr)v tov 'FoBavov KaXovfJuivov irorafiov 
 " hid^aaiv, xxxv. 7. Yet Hannibal does not actually pass 
 " the Pyrenees or reach the Ehone till several chapters 
 " further on. Does any one believe that either of these 
 " events occurred twice ? " The answer to this wise question 
 is, No ; the transit of the Pyrenees occurred once, and is told 
 once. The reaching the Ehone occurred once, and is told 
 once : it is not told by the words rj^^e eiri of chapter 35, when 
 Hannibal had. crossed the Ebro, and it is told by the words 
 rJKe eirl of cha,pter 41. Mr. Ellis must be aware that KUTaipco 
 ek never meant to march or set out for a distant object, and 
 that it always imports " to come to," " to reach," " to arrive 
 at." An old lexicon of Budseus aptly quotes from the 5th 
 book of Polybius, Karfipe fxera tov ctoKov iravTos eU 
 KopcvOov, illustrating the effect of the words with " Hue ubi 
 delati portus intravimus." 
 
 TO. 7rej9l TOV IlaBov ireBla — the plain of the Po, 
 
 Some advo(5ates of a Taurine pass are persuaded that the 
 historical statement, that Hannibal came down into the plain 
 of the Po, accords with their theory, because the Turin of 
 Augustus is on the Po. If the town sacked bv Hannibal 
 
 f 
 
 could be traced to that site, which it is not, this expression 
 would not help to place it there. The meaning of tcl irepl 
 TOV TldBov irehla is too clear to be controverted. Every pass 
 into Italy from the Brenner to the Col di Tende, leads you to 
 the plain of the Po. The words signify, by the express defi- 
 nition of the historian, the great northern plain of Italy, 
 bounded by the Alps, the Apennine, and the Adriatic. When 
 we read that the potentates, Baa-iXio-Koc, wdio waited upon 
 Hannibal after his passage of the Ehone, had come i/c twv 
 irepl TOV YldBov ireBlcov, we recognise the large application of 
 the term. The ireBla, so often named by Polybius, comprised 
 not only Cisalpine Gaul, but a large portion of Liguria and of 
 the Venetian States, districts quite away from the stream of 
 the great river, w^hose course divided the plain and gave its de- 
 nomination. Senigaglia is said to be irapd tov 'ABplav iirl tm 
 irepaTi KelaOai twv irepl tov TldBov ireBlcov. Polyb. ii. 19, 13. 
 
 General St. Cyr Nugues limits the scope of this large term 
 to the very banks of the Po itself. Being an advocate for 
 the Mont Genevre, he gives as a reason for declining the line 
 of Susa., and seeking the Po at a higher point than Turin, the 
 purpose of recruiting his army *' sur les bords " before he 
 attacks that place. He says, p. 19 : " Prenons la carte, et 
 " suivons le cours du Po. Ce fleuve, sorti du Mont Viso, 
 " coule du midi au nord jusqu'a Turin. Nous lisons qu' 
 " Annibal fut oblige de faire reposer plusieurs jours son 
 " arm^e ; qu'il ne put eviter de prendre la capitale des Taurini. 
 " II est naturel de conclure de la qu'il descendit sur les bords 
 " du Po a quelque distance de Turin." 
 
 A still more curious conception of the plains is that of M. 
 le Comte de Eortia D'Urban, whose singular theory will be 
 noticed in Part X. He writes, p. 14 : " Apres avoir franchi 
 " le Tesin, Annibal fut entre dans les plaines du Po : c'est 
 ** encore la veritd" Many others, among them M. Larauza, 
 when they have occasion to express the idea of the Plain, 
 say "plaines qui bordent le Po ;" or, "plaines qu'an-ose 
 
304 
 
 Poll/hi us interpixted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 " le P6." For avoiding the risk of error in giving too narrow 
 a constructio]!, it is but to say simply plain, or plains of 
 the Po. 
 
 The Insuhrians — to twv ^laofju^pcov eOvo^^. 
 
 It is well that Poly bins has applied the word of arrival, 
 not only to the plain as the terminus of the march, but also 
 to that nation, of the plain, w^hose friendship and co-operation 
 welcomed th(3 approach of the invaders. He promised in 
 c. 36, that he would make known iroOev opixr^aa^ 'Av»/t^a<?, 
 Koi Tlva<i KOI irocrov^ BceXOoov tottov^;, eh irola fiepr) Karfjpe 
 Trj<i 'iraXta? : he now announces into what nation of Italy 
 Hannibal came dov*^n ; namely, among the Insubres. Unless 
 this statement is rejected as unmeaning, it results that he 
 came down the vaUey of the Doria ; for neither the people 
 of the Cenis nor of the Genevre can be reconciled with it. 
 
 Our adversaries, however, though not pretending to re- 
 concile Polylius with their own schemes, find a geographical 
 difficulty in ours. Polybius has said (lib. ii.) that, on the 
 first immigration of Gauls into Italy, nearly 200 years before 
 Hannibal, certain tribes called Lai and Lebecii, settled on 
 the Po in the parts above those which were occupied by the 
 Insubres. Accordingly it is objected, that a descent by the 
 valley of the Doria would have led into the former peoples, 
 and not into the Insubres, who were lower down the Po and 
 whose capital was Milan : and that, if we suppose him to 
 have come down into the Insubres, we are bound to intro- 
 duce him by the Simplon pass or the St. Gothard. 
 
 It is very true that, if we want to bring him down upon 
 Milan, we must suppose him to have crossed the Simplon or 
 the St. Gothird. But we do not desire to bring him down 
 upon Milan : we know not that he ever was at Milan. We 
 desire to find meaning in the words of Polybius : he it is, 
 who lias related that Hannibal came down into the nation 
 of Insubres. Those who profess to swear by Polybius, and 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Into the Plain and Insuhrci. 
 
 ^05 
 
 desert him at every step, are false disciples : an honest inter- 
 preter seeks, not to throw aside the author's words, but to 
 find sense in them. Was not the Insubrian the great leading 
 state among the Gauls, prominent in their resistance to Eoman 
 encroachment ? In the record of the first irruption, Polybius 
 says of them o fiiycarou e6vo<; yjv avrcov : and they survived 
 the extinction of all the rest. True it is that Milan was their 
 capital, founded long before the time of Hannibal ; and that 
 their proper original territory did not comprise the plain near 
 Ivrea, which received Hannibars first encampment. But who 
 can resist the probability, that minor tribes who had first 
 settled in that plain, and were probably still its occupants in 
 name, had become subordinate to their more powerful neigh- 
 bour ? Is it any stretch of imagination, to believe that Insu- 
 brian chieftains and an Insubrian force should be on the 
 banks of the Doria to welcome the approach of their illus- 
 trious ally ? Besides being in hostility to the Ponians, the 
 Insubres were themselves at war with their neighbours the 
 Taurini. Is it strange, that the historian, whose narrative 
 has contained no name of a people, besides Allobroges, during 
 the entire march from the Pyrenees, should now, on reaching 
 Italy, select, as fittest to be named, the great leading State of 
 the confederacy against Eome, by whom the Carthaginian 
 advent was so eagerly expected ? Polybius was not writing 
 in controversy: he had no thought of the track becoming 
 subject to dispute : he was not defining it, to avert the quib- 
 bles of future ages. In the plain assertion that Hannibal 
 came down into the plain and the nation of Insubres, he 
 states a broad fact of history, whose truth is intelligible save 
 to those who have a purpose in perverting it. If Polybius 
 had written that he came down into the Cisalpine Gauls, 
 this quibble could not have been made : but the chief geogra- 
 phical inference would have been the same ; namely, that he 
 came down the valley of Aosta. 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
306 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 CHAP. IL] 
 
 Into the Plain and Insuhres. 
 
 307 
 
 It is obvioui? that among tlie Gaulish adversaries of Eome, 
 in the second Punic war, there must have been political sub- 
 jection ; that Lai, Libui, and Lebecii, with other of the 
 original Gaulish tribes, had in the lapse of two centuries 
 become subordinate to a greater State, whose forces were free 
 to watch the coming of their expected deliverer, whether on 
 the banks of the Doria, the Po, or the Tesia, It is in unison 
 with all prior notices of the Insubres by Polybius in his 
 account of the preparations for war in Cisalpine Gaul, that 
 he should hav(3 them in mind as the prevailing power in the 
 region where Hannibal found the plain. 
 
 Which of these minor tribes deserved to be distinguished 
 as the ally of Hannibal? Surely at the time in question, 
 the Gaulish population of the district were serving under 
 the Insubrian banner. A very few years later, they were 
 serving imder that of Eome. But no exploits are celebrated 
 under their name. In the details of Eoman aggression, the 
 smaller tribes of the original settlers are not among the 
 recorded victims. The names of surrounding nations appear 
 in the annals of Eoman conquest ; triumphs are celebrated 
 over Ligurians ; over Cisalpine Salassians; Comensians; over 
 Insubrian Gauls. Lai, Libui, Lebecii, have no rank as enemies 
 of Eome. They belong to the history of Italy ; because they 
 made part of the tale of the great irruption. Names of no 
 importance are just mentioned by Polybius and Livy : they 
 find a place ia the catalogues of Pliny and Ptolemy, as now 
 in the maps of D'Anville or Walkenaer. But they are unseen 
 as actors in the affairs of nations : and the land in which 
 they settled became at last an integral part of Eoman posses- 
 sions, without record of their annihilation to tell that they 
 had been. 
 
 The supremacy of the Insubrians vindicates the Karjjpe 
 of Polybius ^vithout more. Whether the same small tribes 
 which squatted in that district two centuries before, were 
 
 still tenants of the ground where Hannibal encamped, and 
 put his men into hospital quarters among friends, while he 
 waited for them to become fit for service, is quite immaterial. 
 Their condition was restored before they were led to action ; 
 and it was restored on friendly ground. 
 
 Mr. Ellis does not reply to what I have said, but only to 
 what I have not said. In my first criticism written at Nice 
 I stood, as now, on the supremacy of the Insubres. But 
 it is a point which he has never noticed. He lays down 
 peremptorily the identity of the Insubres with the modern 
 Milanese, and trumpets upon it thus : " That the country of 
 " the Insubres corresponded to the modern Milanese is in 
 ''accordance with the opinion of all geographers, Mr. Law 
 " excepted. Polybius, in spite of Mr. Law's prohibition, 
 " obstinately persists in considering the Milanese as the Insu- 
 " brian country." 
 
 Mr. Ellis is aware that the Mediolanura of the Insubres 
 became the capital of Lombardy ; and he may believe that, 
 from before Hannibal to the late expulsion of Austrian 
 power, there has been the same territorial consolidation of 
 the dependencies. But it would be prudent to moderate 
 his notion of the immutability even of their confines. I will 
 not enter upon so large a field. I care not whether a place 
 of interesting association, Cremona, belonged to the Insubres : 
 a point on which there is diversity of opinion. As to what 
 Mr. Ellis says of our theory at the other end of his Milanese 
 frontier, that it supposes Hannibal to have turned back from 
 the Milanese to besiege Turin, and that the early settlements 
 of the Insubres reached to the Doria and the Oreo, I never 
 imagined any such thing; nor believe that Hannibal was 
 ever on the site of Turin ; or that it then existed. The 
 notion of turning back is a great mistake. The order of 
 events was this : Hannibal arrived among his friends on 
 the Doria, whom Polybius rightly calls 'IcrofM^pcov edvo^: 
 
 x2 
 
308 
 
 Polyhivs interjpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 among friends the army recovered its condition. This done, 
 they attacked the adjoining people, the Taurini, divided only 
 by the Oreo or the Po. Having chastised them, Hannibal 
 advanced against Scipio. 
 
 This crotchet on the Insubres must have received Mr. 
 Ellis's peculiar attention : he gives it out in his Introduction 
 as one of his Seven Summaries, but hardly makes up his 
 mind, whether it shall be a summary or not. In p. 60 he 
 says : " There is little doubt that the passage concerning the 
 " Insubrians, is one of Polybius's succinct accounts or sum- 
 " maries, and tliat it merely states the direction and end of 
 " a march, the details of which are afterwards to be given." 
 In the next page he says : " It is not necessary to take it 
 " for granted, tliat the passage relating to the Insubrians is 
 " a mere summary ;" and he tells us (p. 7) that he shall not 
 give us the whole of it. Thus the seventh Summary is left 
 'to take its chance : and, as the plains and the Insubres are 
 never mentioned again during the campaign, we cannot be 
 expected to recognise an Insubrian summary. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 On the Time errhployed in Descent. Many, and among them the 
 Oxford Dii'sertationy differ from De Lnc, who supports 
 Polyhius. Dr. Arnold on the Snow- line : his scruples on the 
 Salassi. 
 
 Or, Liddell on the Time, 
 
 Distinguished writers have blamed Polybius for his allotment 
 of time in telling the march through the mountains. Dr. 
 LiddeU writes thus : — " In seven days after Hannibal began 
 " the ascent, lie reached the summit. Polybius says nine 
 " fiii. 53, 9). But this must include the two days' halt at the 
 " top of the pass. For the descent occupied at least six days 
 
 CHAP, m.] Time in Descent. Snoio-line. Salassi. 
 
 309 
 
 " (compare iii. 55, 8, with 56, 1) ; and the whole passage took 
 '' fifteen dsijs (56, 3)." 
 
 I abide by Polybius : his ninth day of ascent is as clear as 
 words can make it. Hannibal was two nights on the summit, 
 one of them being the night following the morning on which 
 he gained it. This gave only one integral day of pure rest ; 
 and I hope it will be seen, that he marched again on the 
 eleventh day, and touched the plain on the fifteenth. The 
 eleventh, tweKth, and thirteenth days represent rpial in 
 c. 55, 8, and the fifteenth day represents rpiralo^ cltto KpTjfivcov 
 in c. 56, 1. See ante, part v. c. 1, for the employment of each 
 day. 
 
 Dr. Arnold on the Time. 
 
 Dr. Arnold thought that the descent could not be effected 
 in the time allowed by Polybius. He says, in a note to 
 p. 91 : — " I have little doubt as to Hannibars march up the 
 " Tarentaise ; but the val d' Aosta puzzles me. According to 
 " any ordinary rate of marching, an army could never get in 
 " three days from the Little St. Bernard to the plains of 
 " Ivrea." Now Polybius relates no such fact as the army 
 getting in three days from the Little St. Bernard to the plains 
 of Ivrea. Tpiralo^ signifies " on the third day " of the pro- 
 gress made on liberation of the elephants from the precipices, 
 and is applied to the arrival of the head of the column in the 
 plain. It is consistent with the narrative that, when this last 
 event took place, the tail of the column of march was 
 between Aosta and Verres. 
 
 Th^ Oxford Dissertation on the Time. 
 
 The arrangement of time which Polybius has expressed is 
 not only disputed by opponents, but has been embarrassed by 
 ourselves. De Luc arranged the five days of descent very 
 accurately according to the words of the history. Secojid 
 edition, 1825. 
 
310 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 A few extra«3ts will give his notion of this chronology, 
 pp. 212, 213 :— 
 
 *' Le 11® jour fut employ^ k descendre au village de la 
 Tuile, a tenter de passer sur la vieille neige qui couvroit le 
 torrent de la Tuile, et k commencer la rc^paration du chemin 
 ^boul^. Une partie de I'infanterie traversa ce mauvais pas le 
 meme jour. 
 
 " Le 12® jour la cavalerie et les betes de somme passkent 
 et se distribu^reiit dans les lieux qui leur offroient des patu- 
 rages et des fourrages ; les plus avanc^s durent arriver 
 jusqu*^ la ville d'Aoste. 
 
 " Le 13® jour au soir, le chemin degrade fut achev^ pour 
 les elephans qui arriv^rent a Pr^-Saint-Didier. Pendant le 
 meme temps T avant-garde de Tinfanterie et une partie arri- 
 v^rent k Nuz, qui est a huit milles d'Aoste. 
 
 " Le 14® jour cette avant-garde se trouva au village de 
 Montjoie et k "V'errex. 
 
 "Le 15® jour entre Saint-Martin et Ivr^e. — On est sorti 
 tout-^-fait des montagnes que Ton est encore k une lieue et 
 demi d'lvree." 
 
 Thus De Luc supports the fifteen of Polybius. The 0. D. 
 would have it eighteen. As we agree, that the descent was 
 commenced on the eleventh day of Alps : any ambiguity 
 must attach to the events of that and the four following days. 
 They assert that the descent could not, consistently with the 
 history itself, be made in those five days. The question, 
 then, between us is this : whether Hannibal reached the plain 
 on the fifth day of descent, which is in accordance with the 
 total fifteen ; or on the eighth, which is in contradiction of it. 
 
 The following view of the subject is given in the Oxford 
 Dissertation, second edition, 114-116: — "The descent pro- 
 " bably commenced on the eleventh day, one day for the 
 " passage of the cavalry makes twelve, and three for the 
 
 CHAP. III.] Time in Descent Snow-line. Salassi, 
 
 311 
 
 « 
 
 (( 
 
 " elephants fifteen : and this is the number of days which, 
 " according to Polybius, he employed in passing the Alps. 
 " Having performed the passage of the Alps in fifteen days, 
 " he descended boldly into the country of the Insubres, and 
 " the plains about the Po. This statement is, however, rather 
 " inconsistent with the account in the beginning of this very 
 '* same chapter, which says that, having assembled his army 
 " after the passage of that difficult piece of road, which had 
 " delayed him for four days, he descended, and reached the 
 " plains in three days' march from the broken ground, w^hich 
 " would give eighteen days instead of fifteen. I think that 
 there can be very little doubt that we must read eighteen 
 days instead of fifteen, and that the 150 miles are to be 
 " completed at the commencement of the plain, and at the 
 " spot where the army was encamped. Indeed, the enumera- 
 " tion he makes of the losses sustained by the army, and the 
 " recapitulation of the march, are not made till after the fact 
 " of their having reached the plains has been stated ; and 
 " there can be no doubt, upon his own showing, that eighteen 
 days must have elapsed before this event took place. It is 
 possible that he might have intended to leave out of the 
 account the three days employed in making the road for the 
 " elephants ; but I think it more probable that he meant, 
 " that in fifteen days the chief difficulties of the passage were 
 " overcome, and that he entered into a friendly country." 
 
 It seems to me that Polybius is here ill construed. As to 
 the notion of ending the fifteen days when the chief difficulties 
 were overcome, while the 150 miles expire many miles further 
 on, it seems quite inadmissible ; as is the other suggestion, 
 of omitting three days from the middle of the reckoning. 
 Such ideas are prohibited by the context : time and space 
 must begin together and end together. If it is true that upon 
 Polybius's own showing the passage occupied eighteen days, 
 it follows that he made an unhappy blunder in naming fifteen. 
 But the truth is that, in this criticism, the narrative has been 
 
 « 
 
 a 
 
 u 
 
312 
 
 Poli/hius interpreted. 
 
 [PAET VII. 
 
 1 
 
 misapprehendtd : Polybius does not say, as imputed, that 
 " the difficult piece of road delayed Hannibal for four days : " 
 his text does not warrant you to say, - One day for the passage 
 " of the cavalry makes twelve, and three for the elephants 
 '' fifteen ; " nei ther does it express, as my friends report, " He 
 « reached the plains in three days' march from the broken 
 " ground/' The cause of error is, that they accept every 
 notice of time as cumulative : they conceive that Hannibal, 
 having failed in his attempt to circumvent the place, encamped 
 and did no more on that first day ; that he made the road for 
 the cavalry on the next day ; that he constructed one for the 
 elephants in three days more, and that he brought the whole 
 army into the ]3lain in three days more. I propose to show, 
 that not one of these propositions is expressed by or justly 
 deducible from Polybius ; and that his notices of time, fairly 
 interpreted, are consistent with the fact that Hannibal touched 
 the plain on the fifth day of descent, being the fifteenth of Alps. 
 The Oxford Dissertation, p. 112, tells the story thus :— " In 
 " whatever wa}^ the attempt to turn the pass was made, the 
 *' troops were finaUy obliged to encamp at the entrance of it, 
 " and, in all probability, in the plain on which La Tuile 
 " itself is situated. The v.ext day was employed in making 
 " a road good enough for the passage of the cavalry, and 
 " three days m.ore in constructing one for the elephants." 
 This imports, that nothing more, besides encamping, was done 
 on that first da}^ after failing in the experiment upon the old 
 snow which covered the bed of the torrent, and that the 
 business of repair was only begun on the foUowing day. 
 The text of Polybius tells a different story : he says : " Where- 
 " fore, abandoning this hope, Hannibal made his camp near 
 " the edge of the mountain,* having cleared away the snow 
 " that lay there ; and then, turning out his force (r^ irXT^erj) 
 - reconstructed the path along the precipice with much 
 
 * Probably wliere the ground begins to sweU towards the 
 Cramout 
 
 CHAP. III.] Time in Descent. Srww-line. Salassi. 313 
 
 « painful toil ; and so in one day made good a passage fit 
 ** for horses and baggage-cattle. Wherefore, carrying these 
 *' through at once, and having pitched his camp about those 
 " parts which had as yet escaped the snow, he forwarded 
 '' them away to the pastures. He brought up the Numidians 
 *' in successive gangs to the building of the road ; and it was 
 " with difficulty, and after severe work, that he got the 
 " elephants through in three days." 
 
 Prom this narrative it appears to me, that the most vigo- 
 rous application of strength for clearing a passable track along 
 the damaged line on the mountain side, was made on the 
 same day which saw them leave the summit ; that the prompt 
 transit of man and horse, evident from evOiax; StayayMv, 
 confirms the activity which I am supposing ; namely, that so 
 much success must have attended the exertions of that first 
 day, that the pass would be ready for all but elephants the 
 next morning. This view of the subject accords with all 
 probability, as it does with the text. The difficulty which 
 seemed to defy the progress of the expedition, must have 
 offered itself to the head of the line of march within two or 
 three houi-s from the time when the army was put in motion, 
 which we may presume to have been, as on other occasions, 
 at daybreak— a/xa tw </)WTf. The plain of the summit is 
 about two miles in length : and the first movement of the 
 column is to be dated from near the brink of the descent. 
 From thence they would reach the place of obstruction in 
 about four miles. The attempt to proceed along the bottom, 
 where the new snow lay upon the snow of the previous 
 winter, and so to circumvent the stadium and a haK of 
 ruptured road along the mountain slope, was made by those 
 who first arrived in order of march. It was disastrous to 
 those who made it : but soon proved hopeless of success ; 
 and the known character of Hannibal for prompt decision 
 assures us, that he did not fail in that promptitude under 
 
314 
 
 Tolyhvm interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 circumstances which placed in immediate peril the existence 
 of his army. The narrative in terms exhibits instant action, 
 not idle postponement to another day. After describing the 
 attempt to get round, how it faded by the slipperiness of the 
 older surface when stepped upon through the soft fresh snow, 
 and how the weight of the cattle made them to break in and 
 become fixed, P'olybius says, not that Hannibal pitched his 
 camp and went to sleep, but that he pitched his camp and 
 then set to worli in earnest with all hands. 
 
 A smaU portion only of the army can have got down to 
 the scene of difficulties, when Hannibal commenced the effort 
 to vanquish them. If the text had spoken less plainly, one 
 would stm ask— why presume delay in such a crisis ? Every 
 man in the army had become accustomed to apply himself at a 
 moment's notice to the encountering, by all personal labour, of 
 rocks, livers, ra^^ines, and every natural obstacle. If the night 
 of this first day was not such as to prohibit aU operations, we 
 may be sure that relays of men were digging and clearing 
 throughout that night, and that not day only was devoted to 
 this vital struggle. As to the actual transit of the cavalry, 
 the words of the history best consist with the notion that they 
 went through esjly on the morning of the second day, the 
 labour which enabled them to do so having been applied on 
 the first day. The tenor of the narrative shows, that on that 
 second day Hannibal advanced his encampment to a part 
 which remained free from snow, below the scene of repara- 
 tion : and the next note of time is, that the elephants were 
 got through witli difficulty in three days of hard work and 
 suffering. But why three days m(yre^ The work done in 
 favour of the horse was work done in favour of the elephant. 
 It was a continuous process : e'f w/fo^o/^e^ and olKohoixia are 
 temis equally a])plying to all parts of it. The hardships 
 signified in KaKOTradrjaa^, and predicted of the three days, 
 belonged as much to the earlier labour which availed for thj 
 
 CHAP. III.] Time in Descent. 8now-line. Salassi. 315 
 
 horses as to the further exertions which were to liberate the 
 elephants. Hannibal did not, after making a narrow road for 
 the smaller animal, begin another road for the larger animal. 
 It was the same path made wider. The first day's work gave 
 a horse-path : the work of the second and third days gave 
 it width for an elephant. 
 
 I insist tlierefore that the terms fiia and rpccrl, introduced 
 as they are into this narrative of the descent, do not warrant 
 the addition of one and three to the day of starting, so as to 
 make five spent in vanquishing the obstruction. And I claim 
 of those, to whom the author's meaning may seem doubtfully 
 expressed, that they will lean to a construction that shaU 
 make him consistent with himself I certainly think, that you 
 best consult the context of the narrative, if you believe that 
 the labour which liberated the elephants, being the labour of 
 three days, was undergone on the eleventh, the twelfth, and 
 the thirteenth days of Alps. If the descent began on a 
 Monday, the Kprjfivol were vanquished on the Wednesday. 
 And now, to close the reckoning, it is to be shown that 
 Hannibal would touch the plain of Italy on the Friday. 
 
 The scheme of reckoning, to which I am taking objection, 
 after stretching the three days of reparation into five, gives 
 three days more for reaching the plain, so making altogether 
 eicrht : this is by virtue of the word rpiraio^, as if the word 
 signified " in three days :" but such is not the force of the 
 word : the expression of Polybius is, rpcralo^ a7r6 Kpvfivcov 
 ^^aro rayy i^L'^i^cov^m the third day from the precipices 
 Hannibal touched the plain. Those who require '' three days 
 more," exclude the day on which the repair was finished, and 
 on which the elephants passed away from the scene of 
 obstruction. But that day is to be reckoned as one of the 
 three : if I have quitted London on a Wednesday, I am 
 rp^ralo, a.r6 London, in my third day from I.)ndon, on the 
 Friday : and this is so, whether I began my journey at day- 
 
316 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 CHAP. III.] Time in Descent Snoio-line. Salassi. 
 
 317 
 
 break or in the afternoon. In the 52d chapter all under- 
 stand in rerapTato^ the fourth day of movement from the 
 town. If Polyhius had there filled up the expression as he 
 has the one before us, and had written T€TapTa2o<; ^tto 
 7roXeG)9, you would not have understood four days more 
 besides the day of quitting the town. Uefiwraco^ dirb 
 Ucacop imports the fifth day of navigation from Pis^. So 
 rpiram diro Kpr)fiva)v imports the third day of progress 
 from the "mauvais pas :'' the actual day of quitting it being 
 included in the reckoning. That day was the thirteenth day 
 of Alps : the ])rogress of the beasts would not be delayed for 
 one unnecessary moment, and the day which overcame the 
 fcprj/MPol must be deemed the first dirb fcprjfivayp, the day of 
 escape from them. 
 
 The first day from the precipice being thus the thirteenth 
 of Alps, it follows that Hannibal was TpcTaco<; dirb Kpvfivcov 
 on the fifteenth day : and our case is proved, though not 
 to the satisfaction of those, who say that this would have 
 required an impossible degree of speed. Let us then 
 inquire what it was that happened on that third day. What 
 means ^ylraro rcov iirnrkhoyv ? Are we to understand that 
 the whole army arrived into the plain on that day, elephants 
 and all, with the Numidians and whatever force had been left 
 for extricating them ? By no means. I do not conceive that 
 any one portion of the army, unless perhaps Hannibal and 
 his personal staff, was both at the place of precipice on the 
 first of those three days, and in the plain on the last. It may 
 be that he superintended in person the safe extrication of the 
 elephants : and he may have been among the first in the 
 plain. But the words of the history require neither. In the 
 narrative " Hannibal " and " the Carthaginians " are often 
 convertible terms : and the words here employed are correct 
 and intelligible, even if on that third day his head-quarters 
 were remaining at Aosta or Verres. They do not import that 
 
 the Carthaginians, as a mass, had occupied the plain ; nor do 
 they import any speed of movement measurable by a rate of 
 walking. No time is predicated for the duration of an act. 
 TpATa609 gives date to an event by its distance from a prior 
 event. We learn from it that the touching of the plain by 
 those who first touched it took place on the third day of 
 moving from the precipice by those who last left it. 
 
 The statement, of Hannibal collecting his force and coming 
 down, avvaOpoL<Ta<; ofiov iraaav ttjv BvvafiLV Kare^aive, seems 
 to have been looked upon, as aiding the notion of the army 
 making a given three days* march between the two termini. 
 To me they only convey the idea, that, from the moment 
 when the rescue of the elephants was secured, and the hesi- 
 tation which might be caused by the detention of the 
 extreme rear was removed, the progress as of an army was 
 again brought into full activity, and the continuity of the 
 column of march restored. ^vvaOpolaaf; certainly suggests 
 the idea of bringing bodies of men from various directions 
 into one central mass. It can mean no such thing here. A 
 centre supposes radii : the only radius here was the onward 
 line to Italy. It is not credible that the soldiers were 
 allowed to disperse themselves into the lateral valleys. 
 During the short time which intervened between the passage 
 of men and horses and that of the elephants, the cavalry and 
 a good portion of the army were moving forwards, into and 
 down the main avenue to the plain ; a sufficient force remain- 
 ing to conduct and protect the work on the moimtain. One 
 cannot believe that this numerous host stood still, all waiting 
 for the elephants. The richer part of the valley, about and 
 below Aosta, must have been greedily sought ; so that, when 
 the compulsory halt of the rear had ceased, and the advance 
 was again the advance of all, ass uggested by Sum^potW?, 
 &;c., the leading squadrons may have been as near to the 
 plain which they sought as to the summit which they had left. 
 
318 
 
 Polyhius interjpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 There is one critic who seems to think that the horses and 
 smaller beasts remained on the mountain, until the elephants 
 were released from their detention. The anonymons of Cam- 
 bridge (p. 17), in one of his efforts to correct others, undertakes 
 to interpret the words ravra fiev evOiox; Bcayaycbv Bia^rJKc 
 7rpo9 Taq vofias; ; and he conceives, not that the cavalry were 
 sent down by Hannibal to the valley, but that " he turned out 
 " the tired cattle to pasture, of course under cover of the 
 " entrenchments, where they would be as safe as by the walls 
 ** of a fortified city."* Hannibal had better care of his 
 horses than to send them to graze in the fresh mountain 
 snow, when a rich valley promised provender at a few miles' 
 distance. As to their shivering under the favour of Alpine 
 entrenchments, I doubt that the mountain regions witnessed 
 any entrenchiaents at alL 
 
 I believe I have rightly explained the proposition that 
 Hannibal on the third day from the precipice, touched the 
 plain. On the first of those three days there was no whole 
 army at or about the precipice : on the last of them there 
 was no whole army in the plain. Those who have been 
 startled with the extraordinary speed of a great army trans- 
 ferring itseK from the summit or from La Tuile into the 
 plain of Italy in three days, must be told that the words of 
 the history do not contain such an idea : they do not exhibit 
 26,000 men disgorged from the Alps ; they represent rather 
 those who wcjre at the head of the column stepping out of 
 mountain into plain. This event was the earnest of triumph 
 over the great barrier : and, when interpreters of Polybius, 
 after telling the day of the elephants* liberation, quote as a 
 thing not crijdible, that in three days more the armament 
 was encamped in the plain, they would report more truly, 
 if they said tliat on the third day of that liberation, Hannibal 
 
 • DissertatiDn by a member of the University of Cambridge. 
 1830. P. 17. 
 
 CHAP. III.] Time in Descent Snoiv-line. Salassi, 
 
 319 
 
 touched the plain, "kirrofiat imports the contact of the end 
 of a line with another body ; as when a rope hangs from a 
 beam ; so here, when the foremost point of a long thin line 
 of march, threading the way through mountains, first gains 
 the expanse of plain which is beyond. When at Newmarket 
 or Epsom the winner's nose is at the post, the word for that 
 crisis is airTOfiai, Hannibal won his race and defeated the 
 Alps, when his foremost banner waved in the Dorian plain. 
 
 This notice of time may be thought tedious and minute. 
 I have desired to show, that Polybius is free from the contra- 
 diction which is imputed to him : his words may not be 
 clearly apprehended on a first reading. But, after reasonable 
 attention, they cease to be obscure. To my mind they import 
 that the Carthaginian armament commenced the descent at 
 daybreak on the eleventh day of Alps, and met with an 
 obstruction that same morning ; one day's labour enabled all 
 but the elephants to proceed on their march ; three days' 
 labour, not three days more, was required before these could 
 move on with the force which had remained with them. On 
 the third day of their liberation, being the fifteenth day of 
 Alps, the invaders hailed the plain of Italy. 
 
 Dr. Arnold on the Snow-liiie, 
 
 The bold writer, who ventured to suggest the pass of 
 Hannibal to have been one by which you may pass from 
 the higher Arc into the Yale of Vin, could not have escaped 
 the necessity of committing the Carthaginians to tracts of 
 enduring ice and snow. But one was hardly prepared to find 
 that predicament engrafted on a more sober theory. If 
 Hannibal transgressed the snow-line, a fortiori the earlier 
 Gaulish invaders, who trod the Great St. Bernard, must have 
 done so. But, after studying the perils of the snowy regions 
 in the tales of modern adventurers, moving two, three, or four 
 
320 
 
 Pohjhias interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 together, with the complement of professional guides, one 
 listens with distrust to an invasion of these solitudes hy a 
 party of thirty thousand men with arms and accompaniments ; 
 and, when one of high attainments and respected authority 
 presses the fact for our acceptance, it claims grave attention. 
 
 In Dr. Arnold's " History of Eome," iii. c. 43, we read as 
 follows : — " Hannibal was on the summit of the Alps about 
 " the end of October : the first winter snows had already 
 " fallen ; but two hundred years before the Christian era, 
 " when all Germany was one vast forest, the climate of the 
 '' Alps was far colder than at present, and the snow lay on 
 " the passes all through the year." He says further in the 
 note : " It is clear, either that Hannibal passed by some 
 " much higher point than the present roads over the Little 
 " St. Bernard or Mont Cenis ; or else, as is highly probable, 
 " that the limit of perpetual snow reached to a much lower 
 " level in the Alps than it does at present. For the passage 
 " of the main (ihain is described as wholly within this limit ; 
 and the ' old snow ' which Polybius speaks of was no acci- 
 dental patch, such as will linger through the summer at a 
 very low IcvibI in crevices or sunless ravines ; but it was 
 " the general covering of the pass, which forbade all vegeta- 
 " tion, and reiaained alike in summer as in winter. How 
 " great a contrast to the blue lake, the green turf, the sheep 
 " and cattle fi'eely feeding on every side, tended by their 
 " shepherds, and the bright hues of the thousand flowers, 
 " which now dcjlight the summer traveller on the Col of the 
 "Littlest. Bernard!" 
 
 I believe th(3se notions to be erroneous. It seems to me, 
 that we need not desire any higher point than the present 
 track affords over this mountain, nor assume a change of 
 climate for reconciling that track with the history. I do not 
 understand that Polybius describes the passage of the main 
 chain, or any part of it, as within the limit of perpetual 
 
 ti 
 
 ti 
 
 u 
 
 CHAP. III.] Time in Descent. Snoxv-line. Salasd. 
 
 321 
 
 snow ; and I believe that the old snow spoken of was just 
 that which Dr. Arnold says it was not, " such as will linger 
 " through the summer at a very low level in crevices or 
 *' sunless ravines." 
 
 Let us examine the narrative, and consider whether 
 Polybius intended " that the passage of the main chain was 
 really within the limit of perpetual snow." Such an impres- 
 sion has been caused by these words of the historian : *' They 
 " (the elephants) had come to be in a wretched state from 
 " hunger ; for aU the highest tops of the Alps, and the parts 
 " reaching up to the heights, are utterly without trees and 
 " bare, because of the snow remaining continually, both 
 " summer and winter." This notice of the unproductiveness 
 of the high Alps is called for, in showing that the elephants 
 were in a miserable plight by want of food. Constant snow, 
 it is said, causes the higher Alps to be without trees and 
 naked — dSepSpa fcal yfriXd. These negative terms are not 
 sufficient to characterise the pure mass above the snow-line ; 
 and we look to context, to know with what degree of strict- 
 ness avv€x^<; iiTi^eveiv is to be received. If, in a philosophic 
 discussion of the temperature and measurement of mountains 
 by De Saussure or Forbes, we should find it laid down that 
 snow remains constantly on a particular summit, our thoughts 
 would advert to the snow-line. But Polybius was not so 
 employed : what he says of bareness and barrenness, and the 
 cause of it, is introduced only as accounting for the fact that 
 the elephants were in a very bad plight by the time when 
 they escaped from their detention. Those beasts might well 
 be out of condition, without being above the snow-line : the 
 last possible day on which any supply of provender can have 
 been obtained, was before that of the barbarian attack : if any 
 had been got then, still five days at least elapsed, in which 
 their stock of food received no reinforcement. 
 
 We may well believe that the Graian Alp in 218 B.C. pro- 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
322 
 
 Pohjhms inteiyreted. 
 
 [part vii. 
 
 duced no store for their supply. The same is true of that 
 mountain at this day, and, I should think, of all the rival 
 passes, though they too do not reach the snow-line, and some 
 are far milder than the Little St. Bernard. This fact is 
 quite consistent with the sheep and shepherds that delight 
 the eye of the summer traveller, the cow pasturing by the 
 waters of the blue lake, and the gentians and rhododendrons 
 known to smile on the margin of glaciers. In Hannibal's 
 time there were probably no residents between Bourg St. 
 Maurice and La Tuile, perhaps not higher than Pre St. Didier ; 
 and, if the elephants at La Tuile had to rely on provisions 
 grown in the country above that place, their lives were un- 
 questionably in danger. The cause imputed is climate: 
 passes of Alps, Grimsel, or Graian, have at no season a sure 
 vacation from snow : hence barrenness and bareness of surface ; 
 hence the risk of starvation to a large animal coming from a 
 milder region. Such cause and such effect the historian 
 imparts in the words under consideration. Knowing some- 
 thing of the Alps, and writing for those who knew nothing, 
 he meant to tell that the cold and snow, to which those 
 higher regions are always subject, prohibit a vegetation that 
 will meet an unusual demand for the support of animal life : 
 but he had no intention to describe the full incident of per- 
 petual snow, nor was the snow-line of the philosopher present 
 
 to his mind. 
 
 It seems to me, that every circumstance of the story wliich 
 Polybius tells, proves that the old snow was not " the general 
 covering of the Pass." It is only said to have been met with 
 in the attempt to circumvent the ruptured path, which was at 
 a level far b(3low that of the summit. We know that the fall 
 is much- steeper on the Pigment side than on the Savoy side. 
 If there was perpetual snow at this part of the descent, there 
 must have been perpetual snow for a considerable tract of the 
 ascent : if the diroppw^ was within the snow-line, the XevKo- 
 
 CHAP. III.] Time in Descent. Snow-line. Salccssi 
 
 323 
 
 irerpov can hardly have been out of it. And yet snow is not 
 commemorated in the ascent : the arrival of the army at the 
 summit, their encampment, and the waiting for stragglers to 
 come up, has all been told before ever the idea of snow is 
 introduced into the story : it is mentioned then, as a new 
 cause of gloom and dejection to the suffering soldiers : " Snow 
 " having by this time become collected about the tops of th(3 
 " mountains, for the setting of the Pleias was at hand." 
 
 Seeing that snow is only introduced at this period of the 
 narrative, as a proper incident of the season, first causing 
 alarm after they had reached the plain of the summit, one 
 can hardly suppose that the perils of the ascent had been 
 aggravated by struggles above the snow-line ; indeed, when 
 snow is first spoken of, it is only said to be collecting about 
 the mountain peaks, ire pi rov^ aKpov^. In the descent we 
 read of it as a special and grievous embarrassment : it is ])ut 
 in contrast with the perils of the ascent. The history says 
 that they hardly fell in with an enemy ; but that the loss 
 was nevertheless almost equal to that of the ascent, from 
 the bad ground and the snow which concealed the stepping- 
 place from view. He who wrote thus, cannot have conceived 
 any portion of the track of ascent to lie above the sno\\ - 
 line. 
 
 As to the actual summit, Dr. Liddell, as well as Dr. Arnold, 
 has apprehended perpetual snow. Having stated, i. 342, the 
 halt on the summit, he says : "It was now near the end of 
 " October. The last year's snow, frozen into ice, lay thick at 
 "' the top of the Pass." Dr. Arnold predicates perpetual snow, 
 not only of the summit, but of parts far below, that is, of the 
 mountain slope to which the ruptured path belonged. If 
 this were so, the whole Cai-thaginian armament must have 
 been for three days and nights above the snow-line, and a 
 portion of it, including the elephants, for a longer period : it 
 fairly raises the question, whether the old snow of Polybius 
 
 Y 2 
 
WHfrn. 
 
 ii 
 
 I). 
 
 324 
 
 Poli/hius interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 was an accidental patch or the general covering of the 
 
 pass. 
 
 Can there be; doubt on such a question ? Tlie phenomenon 
 of old snow under new snow is noted by Polybius, not in the 
 path of descent, not where they found the path to be broken 
 away, but onl}' in that place by which Hannibal tried to get 
 round the broken path. It is there that he gives a minute 
 description of incidents dangerous to men and cattle, caused 
 by the soft fresh snow melting under their tread, and having 
 beneath it the hard old snow. By these incidents the hope 
 was frustrated of circumventing that obstruction to the march, 
 the extent of Av^hich is defined. The phenomenon was purely 
 local ; and, wlien Hannibal was compelled to desist from his 
 experiment, ho encamped. This encamping was not impeded 
 by old snow under new snow : he cleared his ground without 
 difficulty, because that singular embarrassment did not in- 
 terfere with this proceeding, which only required the removal 
 of snow lately fallen. We observe also that on the next day, 
 when the road was sufficiently repaired for all but the 
 elephants, the camp was shifted to a part beyond the 300 
 yards of injury, which had escaped the snows altogether — 
 Trept Toiff; iKpevyovra^ TJSrj ttjv x^^^^ tottov;* Polybius 
 says that, straightway carrying those through, evdeco^; Sea- 
 yaywv (that is, all but the elephants), and encamping on 
 those places, Hannibal sent them away to the pastures : 
 he then set the Numidians, by relays, to the construction 
 of the road. 
 
 It seems that the account of this obstruction to the march, 
 so related in the history, did not reconcile Dr. Arnold to the 
 
 * The Oxford Dissertation gives this translation, p. 224 : " when 
 " these were immediately led down to the plains which were free 
 "from snow, and sent to pasture." The freedom from snow is 
 predicated by Polybius, not of the pastures, but of the scene of 
 encampment. 
 
 CHAP, ni.] Time in Descent. Snow-line. Salam. 
 
 325 
 
 it 
 
 ti 
 
 idea of a chasm holding the accumulated snow : and it is 
 true that, however strongly suggested, no Greek word is 
 employed, which represents the particular thing. But is 
 there any other explanation, consistent with the history ? 
 Dr. Arnold for himself gives this statement. Hist. iii. c. 43 : 
 " At last, they came to a place, where an avalanche had 
 " carried away the track altogether for about three hundred 
 yards, leaving the mountain side a mere wreck of scattered 
 rocks and snow. To go round was impossible : for the depth 
 ** of snow on the heights above rendered it hopeless to scale 
 " them. Nothing therefore was left but to repair the road." 
 
 According to this statement, no attempt to go round was 
 made ; and, if it had been made, it would have been by 
 scaling the heights above. Now Polybius relates that an 
 attempt was made : he gives a most particular description of 
 the attempt, with the causes of its failure : and it is quite 
 clear to me, that the attempt was made, not by the heights 
 above, wliicli would have been a change from bad to worse, but 
 by the hollow beneath. This was found impracticable, because 
 a thing had happened there, namely, the fresh snow with the 
 last year's snow under it, which was cBlov koI iraprfsXayfiivov ; 
 proper to the spot, and unusual in its degree. This circum- 
 stance is stated as the reason for desisting from the attempt : 
 it could not be IZlov, if all surrounding parts had been above 
 the snow-line ; it would then have been the permanent and 
 usual predicament of the mountain. The description, together 
 \nth the facts, is only intelligible, as of snow abiding in a 
 hollow chasm between mountains. The encampment of the 
 first day, the new encampment of the second day, and every 
 incident of the story is inconsistent with the notion that this 
 mountain was within the limit of perpetual snow ; and com- 
 pels us to see that the old snow of Polybius was precisely 
 that which lingers through the summer in a sunless ravine. 
 Such is the trough of the Baltea torrent at a short distance 
 
- 1 
 
 (( 
 
 326 PolyUus interpreted, [paut vil. 
 
 below La Tuile : and from time to time, in these our days, tlie 
 place continues to tell its own tale. 
 
 Br. Arnold on the Salassi. 
 
 The non-resistance of tliis people contributed to make Dr. 
 Arnold incredulous of the Little St. Bernard. He says, 
 p. 90 : " After the two days' rest the descent began. Hanni- 
 " bal experienced no more open hostility from the barbarians, 
 '' only some petty attempts here and there to plunder : a fact 
 
 strange in itself, but doubly so, if he was really descending 
 " the valley of the Doria Baltea, thiough the country of the 
 " Salassi, the most untameable robbers of all the Alpine bar- 
 *' barians." In the note M. we read : " The Salassians of that 
 " valley were such untameable robbers, that they once even 
 " plundered Citsar's baggage, and Augustus at last extirpated 
 " them by wholesale. And yet Hannibal on the Italian side 
 " of the main chain sustains little or no annoyance." Dr. 
 Arnold might safely have credited this freedom from annoy- 
 ance in the Val d'Aosta. Strabo, indeed, reports the plunder 
 of Ccesar's baggage by the Salassi. This people held out 
 bravely against the domination of Rome. Why should they 
 at any time have been unwilling witnesses of the advance of 
 an enemy to Rome? Some Gauls on the outer side, and 
 Inalpine nations whose country w^as invaded, had been 
 hostile to this strange force, having no sympathy with, and 
 not comprehending the object of the expedition. But in 
 the valley of the Doria Hannibal found himself in what 
 may be called the great Gaulish duct into Italy. Niebuhr, 
 speaking from a quotation of Cato by Pliny, classes the 
 Salassi among those who composed the great irruption of 
 Gauls through the Alps ; and supposes them to have re- 
 mained in those mountains and mountain valleys when others 
 advanced through the last barrier onward to the plain.* 
 
 ♦ Translation. Hare and Thirlwall, ii. 335. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] Passes between L. St. Bernard and Cenis. 
 
 327 
 
 Why should not the masters of that valley, though fierce 
 and given to plunder as mountaineers, have sympathised 
 with rather than counteracted the designs of their brethren 
 in the plain? Some plunder might be made by indivi- 
 duals ; but all probability is in favour of the Salassi being 
 as a nation friendly to the Carthaginian invasion. The 
 passage of Strabo that we are referred to, telling the last 
 struggle for independence made by their descendants against 
 the tyranny of Augustus, leads us to believe that they would 
 at any time be inclined to the Gaulish confederacies against 
 Eome, and, at the time we speak of, to that which was ripened 
 under the auspices of Hannibal. 
 
 CHAPTEB IV. 
 
 On Passes between Little St. Bernard and the Cents. 
 Brochedon. Albanis Beaumont. 
 
 Whe5T Dr. Arnold expressed his disbelief of the speed 
 ^\^hich he understood to belong to the descent as told by 
 Polybius, he was waiting to learn, whether by further ascend- 
 ing the Isere beyond Scez, there might not be found some 
 track through the chain of Alps, not quite so far northward 
 as that of the Little St. Bernard, and by which the march 
 would be shorter from the summit to the plain. In the same 
 note he proceeds to say : " I have often wished to examine 
 " the pass, which goes to the actual head of the Iske, by 
 " Mont Iseran, and descends by Usseglio,* not exactly on 
 " Turin, but nearly at Chivasso, where the Po, from running 
 
 * Usseglio here is a mistake : this place is on the Chiara above 
 Viu. 
 
328 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 i-fi 
 
 !!i(i 
 
 " N. and s., turns to run E. and w." This accords with what he 
 had said in July, 1830 : " The Little St. Bernard is not at the 
 '* source of the Isere, but some miles below it. If Cramer's 
 " statement fail anywhere, I have always imagined that it 
 " was here, and that the army might possibly have followed 
 *' the Isere higher up than he imagines, and descended into a 
 " valley which would take them more directly down upon 
 " Turin. The passes between the Little St. Bernard and Mont 
 " Cenis are almost the only points which I believe have not 
 •' been examined/' — Stanley fi Life, letter 18. 
 
 That note may have been written long before the history 
 to which it is appended. The curiosity expressed concerning 
 intermediate tracks was reasonable, especially in one who had 
 a distrust of the pretensions of the Little St. Bernard. That 
 curiosity would have been satisfied with information given in 
 Blackwood's Magazine of January, March, April, May, and 
 August, 1836, as " Extracts from the Journals of an Alpine 
 Traveller." That traveller was Mr. Brockedon, one who, as a 
 resolute and persevering explorer of Alpine tracks, had no 
 equal. I heard, of his death w^hen I was at Aix in 1854 : 
 and deeply did I, with many, deplore his loss : he was a man 
 as much respected for his talents and varied attainments, as 
 he was beloved for his amiable and friendly nature. I am 
 not aware that the instruction contained in those extracts is 
 to be found in any of the works published with his name. 
 Many passes <:)ver the main chain are there explained, 
 between the Lii;tle St. Bernard and the Mont Cenis : and that 
 which is particidarly pointed to by Dr. Arnold, as going by 
 the actual head of the Iske, receives an ample notice, such as, 
 if read, would have erased that pass, the Gal^se, from the list 
 of possibles, to Dr. Arnold's mind. 
 
 There are many passes into Pi^mont, both from the valley 
 of the Isere above Scez, and from the valley of the Arc above 
 Lanslebourg. From the former, there are the Col du Mont, 
 
 CHAP. IV.] Passes between L. St, Bernard and Cenis. 
 
 329 
 
 known to Mr. Brockedon, and the Col de Clou, both carrying 
 you into the Yal Grisanche, down which you come into the 
 Val d'Aosta at Livrogne : the summits of these two passes are 
 at about the level of the snow-line. Higher up the Is^re, 
 you may turn over the Col de Eeme, from whence the Val 
 Kemy takes you into the Yal d'Aosta at Yilleneuve. Pursuing 
 the Ts^re to his source, and ascending his glacier, you come to 
 a difficult and dangerous pass, by which you arrive at the 
 sources of the Oreo, whose courses will bring you by Courgne 
 to Chivasso. Tliis is called the Gal^se : Mr. Brockedon 
 knew it well : that glacier lay before him, when he turned 
 from La Yal to cross the Mont Isferan, which stands on the 
 Savoy side, having at its south-eastern base the early stream 
 of the Arc. . On the Pieniont side, he was more than once at 
 the same point near the source of the Oreo : on one occasion 
 he returned, and went north from Ponte, walking over the 
 Col de Eeale and the Fenetre de Cogne to Aosta : on another, 
 after surveying Mont Isferan and the surrounding peaks from 
 the crest of the ridge, he proceeded some way down the 
 glacier itself ; and returning, not quite to Ceresol, went over 
 the Mont de Nivolet and by the Yal Savaranche to Yilleneuve. 
 If the summit of that Is^re pass approaches, as we are told, 
 11,000 feet, and the details of difficulty deserve the credit 
 which I fully give to them, we may rest assured, that the 
 crags of the Gal^se would fatally arrest the progress of a 
 company of infantry, even with the amplest supplies, and the 
 fullest exemption from human hostility. No armament will 
 ever rest on that backbone of ice. 
 
 The passes of the main chain from the Arc above Lansle- 
 bourg I believe to be five : of these, the three more southern 
 courses, the Col du Lautaret (called by some L'Autaret), the 
 Col d'Arnas and the Col du Colarin, are mentioned in the 
 Extracts I have spoken of : one higher up I see in the maps 
 as Col d'Insea : and the highest of all, Col Girard, is sane- 
 
i 
 
 r 
 
 I' 
 
 330 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 tioned by tlie authority of Mr. Brockedon in " Selections 
 from the Diary of a Traveller in the Alps," given in Fraser's 
 Magazine for February, 1839. The most southerly of all 
 these, in his Journal of January, 1836, before mentioned, 
 Mr. Brockedon has given an account of as explorsd by 
 himself; the Col du Lautaret. For reaching this pass, as 
 well as that by the Col d'Arnas (which is far more difficult), 
 you turn from the valley of the Arc at Bessans, a place about 
 half-way between Lanslebourg and Bonreval, which is at the 
 foot of the ascent of Mont Iseran. These two passes send you 
 into one track on the Piemont side, near the sources of the 
 Chiara, which runs by Usseglio and Viu into the Stura above 
 Lanzo. The next track, by the Col du Colarin, also leaves the 
 Arc at Bessans, and carries you over to the source of one 
 chief contribueiit to the Stura, and down the valley of Ala 
 to Lanzo. Higher up the Arc, from Vellet according to 
 Eaymond's ma]3, a pass over the Col d'Insea takes you to 
 another source of the Stura, and down the Yal Forno to 
 Lanzo. And at the very glacier of the Arc there is a pass, 
 called by Mr. Erockedon Col Girard, which joins the one last 
 mentioned in that same valley at Gros Cavallo. 
 
 It must be by the Col du Lautaret, the easiest of all these, 
 that a well-known writer, M. Albanis Beaumont, has stated, 
 as his opinion, that the Carthaginians effected the invasion 
 of Italy. In his "Description des Alpes Grecques et Cot- 
 tiennes," iii. 632, giving account of diverging tracks in the 
 Arc valley, and having said, " une branche penetroit dans le 
 pays des Centrons," he proceeds thus : " L'autre se dirigeoit 
 " vers Lans-le-Bourg, Lans-le-Yillard, et Bessan ; la elle 
 " commen^oit a s'elever au-dessus de la chaine primitive des 
 " Alpes, qu'elle traversoit et venoit aboutir dans la valine de 
 " Viu en Piemont, et ensuite a Turin : cette voie, qui n'est 
 " gu^re connue maintenant que par les contrebandiers, m'a 
 " parue, lorsque je Vai parconru en 1782, avoir ^te cellc 
 
 ;i 
 
 CHAP. IV.] Passes hetioeen L. St. Bernard and Cenis. 
 
 331 
 
 it 
 
 {( 
 
 *' qu'avoit dii suivre Annibal pour pen^trer dans les plaines 
 " de Lorn bardie. La situation topographique de cette meme 
 " voie, sa direction, la distance du sommet de cette chaine de 
 " montagnes des vastes plaines de la Lombardie, un peu avant 
 " d'arriver a Eoche-Melon, semblent venir a I'appui de ma 
 supposition. Comme aucim historien n'a encore, a ma 
 connaissance, fait mention de ce passage, il servit a dcsirer 
 " que ceux qui s'occupent de ces sortes de recherches, visitas- 
 " sent cette partie des Alpes, ce qui ne sauroit que tourner a 
 " I'avantage de I'histoire, et jeter des nouvelles lumieres sur 
 " un sujet qui a occupe jusqu'a present plusieurs hommes de 
 *' lettres tres distingues." 
 
 As M. Beaumont thought it so desirable that some one 
 should help us to a knowledge of this pass, and regretted that 
 nobody had done so, we also may regret that he has said 
 nothing about it himself, beyond the fact that he traversed it. 
 He could not have taught us less if he had stayed at home. 
 The curious thing is, that he should have offered to us both 
 the propositions : 1, that he crossed the pass himself ; 2, that 
 he thought it to be the pass of Hannibal. It is not easy to 
 accept them both. 
 
 The detailed account which Mr. Brockedon gives of his 
 journey over the Lautaret is most interesting and amusing. 
 For the subject of our speculations, the Carthaginian march, 
 this pass would be about as improbable as that of the Galese : 
 perhaps not quite ; there is a story of its having once been 
 crossed by a patrol of French soldiers ; and we know for 
 certain that it has been traversed by a mule, which is a thing 
 that could hardly happen to the Galese. One who takes 
 interest in Alpine things, will be amply repaid for a careful 
 attention to those pages of Mr. Brockedon which I have 
 mentioned. It is the number for January, 1836, in which 
 you may study the exploit of Garinot, Trag, and the mule, 
 over the crevasse on the Lautaret : let any one tax his 
 
332 
 
 Polyhius interpreted. 
 
 [part VII. 
 
 imagination for bringing upon that scene 30,000 men and a 
 troop of elephants, and weigh well, how far this route may 
 pretend to an improved accordance with the postulates of 
 
 Polybius. 
 
 I have taker, this opportunity of pointing out the many 
 ways, practised by natives and open to pedestrians over the 
 great Alpine barrier, between the well-known passes of the 
 Little St. Bernard and the Mont Cenis : and what I have 
 adduced rests upon safe authority. These two ways have 
 supplied theories for our question: not so, any which are 
 between them. If Hannibal came up the Is^re to Bourg St. 
 Maurice, he took for his onward course that which alone is 
 known to history. The course over the Graian Alp is the 
 recorded line from the Po to the Is^re in the war against 
 Anthony : it was confirmed by the erection of a military way 
 under the empire : it is commemorated as a way to Lyons by 
 the geographer Strabo : and it is commended by the great 
 historian of thet Alps, De Saussure, as the easiest pass of all 
 through the chain of those mountains. From the Mediter- 
 ranean to the Adriatic there is no pass of Alps, where by so 
 short and practicable a mountain line you move from one 
 very fertile vaEley to another. 
 
 N.B. Though the Alps only are my proper subject, I hope 
 to be excused, if I shall add, in an appendix, a few comments 
 concerning the first movements made by Hannibal against 
 the Eomans, being the sequel of the great enterprise which 
 we commemorate. For these also are distorted with doubt : 
 and unhappily I am driven to differ from the best friends of 
 
 our cause. 
 
 Of the many works written for contesting the question of 
 the Alpine track, there are but two, in which the line that I 
 follow has bee^n maintained : the work of De Luc and the 
 Oxford Dissertation. In that question our agreement is 
 
 CHAP. IV.] Passes between Z. St. Bernard and Cents, 
 
 333 
 
 substantially unbroken. And yet, on the first conflict with a 
 Eoman army, Cramer differs from De Luc ; and I am com- 
 pelled to differ from both. Among the most celebrated men 
 of our times, there is but one, who has positively sanctioned 
 the Passage of Alps which is supported by us ; the renowned 
 Niebuhr. But in the early progress down the plain, I find 
 occasion to dissent from his statements. 
 
 Thus I shall be tempted to transgress my proper subject : 
 but it will be only so far as the Ticinus and the Trebia. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
)' 
 
 LONDON 
 It. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PUINTERS, 
 BREAD STRKKT HILT.. 
 
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 V. 1 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 0026055384 
 
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 THE LIBRARIES 
 
 «-***■ I 
 
THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 i 
 
 k 
 
THE ALPS 
 
 OF 
 
 HANNIBAL. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM JOHN LAW, M.A. 
 
 FORMERLY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH, 
 OXFORD. 
 
 11^ TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. 11. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1866. 
 
 [The Right of Tramlation and Reproduction is reserved,] 
 
6 4^// 
 
 ^•3. 
 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOLUME SECONJ). 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILL. 
 
 PAET VIII. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF THE ALPS IN EARLY TIMES. 
 
 PAOR 
 
 Chap. I.— Stmbo on the Alps. His allusion to Polybius and 
 Hannibal. Doubtful that he wrote the three words. 
 Improbable that the four Passes were named by Polybius. 
 Errors of M. Letronne i 
 
 * 
 
 Chap. II.— The Salassian hyperbasis of Strabo 13 
 
 Chap. III. — The Taurinian hyperbasis of Strabo, being also the 
 Medullian of Mr. Ellis.— On the MeduUi of the Dic- 
 tionary of Geography y 1856 16 
 
 Chap. IV. — Polybius knew no Taurinian hyperbasis. The Po 
 
 of Polybius 28 
 
 Chap. V.— The Po and the Doria of Strabo: Lib. IV. p. 
 
 203 35 
 
 Chap. VI.— The Po and Doria of Strabo : Lib. V. p. 217 . .. 44 
 
 Chap. VII. — Mr. Ellis on the early use of the Little Mont 
 
 Cenis. His appeal to Ammianus Marcellinus 52 
 
 
 J 58967 
 
II 
 
 ! 
 
 VI 
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAOK 
 
 Oha-p. VIII.— Mr. Ellis on the Little Mont Cenis. His appeal 
 
 to the Peutingerian Table 57 
 
 Chap. IX. — Mr. Ellis on the Mont Cenis. His appeal to 
 
 Cfesai '9 inarch from the Inner to the Outer Province ... 76 
 
 PAET IX. 
 
 INTERPRETATION OF LIVY. 
 
 Chap. I. — IniToduction. Passage of the Rhone. March to the 
 Island. Livy's hypothesis on the Pass. Usually interpreted 
 as the Genevre, latterly as the Cenis. Tenets of the Ceni- 
 sians on the Island and the Allobroges. Larauza. Ukert. 
 EUis 101 
 
 Chap. IT. — March from the Isere. The turn to the left, a fact 
 variously dealt with, by numerous translators. I believe 
 that the text wants no mending for telling the author's 
 
 meanmg 
 
 116 
 
 Chap. III. — The march continued. Tricastini. Vocontii. Tri- 
 corii. D'Anville and Letronne are both right in thinking 
 that Livy, in naming these peoples, intended an ascent by 
 Briangon to the Genevre. But each commits great mistake 
 in his mode of reaching that town 126 
 
 Chap. IV. — P'ruentia is the Durance. According to Mr. Whitaker 
 it is the jVrve. According to Mr. Tytler, it is the Dranse. 
 According to the three Cenisians, it is the Drac . . . .135 
 
 Chap. V. — The Durance being conclusive of the Genevre, identity 
 of tracks is disproved. Livy diverged from Polybius at the 
 Isere ; thence to the first Alps there is utter dissonance both 
 in incideris and topography. In the Alps Livy copies inci- 
 dents from Polybius: topography there is none. Ascent. 
 Summit, where Mr. Ellis attempts conciliation. Descent. 
 Livy's own argument will belong to the ulterior question of 
 preference 14^ 
 
 'Skis 
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAKT X. 
 
 T^VO I'KCULIAU TIIKORIES. 
 
 VIJ 
 
 I'ACi; 
 
 Chap. I. — 1. Theory of M. le Comte de Portia I)" Urban, whoso 
 
 route never tends to the Isere If) 7 
 
 Chap. II. — Of M. Replat. This work, having been controverted 
 by me in a pamphlet, written at Aix-les-Bains, in August, 
 1854, and republished in London in 1855, will be shortly 
 adverted to, but to give it again at length, would be 
 superfluous . . , i(J2 
 
 PART XI. 
 
 CONCILIATION FAILS. QUESTION OF PKKFEBENCE. 
 
 Chap. I. — We must select between the two historians. Their 
 general reputation. Polybius had better access to facts. 
 Livy's facts bear against his hypothesis. We learn from 
 him that the prevailing belief was in a descent by the valley 
 of Aosta ; and that an early writer of celebrity had named 
 tlie Pass of Crenio. He avoids to name Polybius . . . 
 
 107 
 
 Chap. II. — Livy founds his hypothesis on the w^ords of Cincius, 
 inferring that the Tauiini lay in the line of Hannibal's 
 march to the Cisalpine Gauls. The inference is unsound. 
 Salassi. Libui. Explanation by Gibbon. Version of Ukert. 
 Version of Ellis. On the notion of placing Turin in the 
 hue of march , \^i 
 
 <^'hap. III. — Xo writer prior to Livy favours his hypothesis. 
 We find some evidence in Sallust and Cornelius Kepos, tend- 
 ing in favour of the Little St. Bernard. Writers after Livy 
 give no light. Silius Italicus. Pliny. Appian. Ammianus 
 Marcellinus u^g 
 
m 
 
 I 
 
 Vlll 
 
 Cviitt'nt^, 
 
 PART XII. 
 
 CAUSK <JF DOUBT. CONCLUSION. 
 
 PAOK 
 
 Chap. I. — Doubt has eoiue tlirougli neglect of Polybiu.s. 
 D'Auville failed, in ignorance of Polybius. Gibbon tailed, 
 in deference to D'Anville. Niebuhr did not fail. Melville 
 had unveiled the Truth : and De Luc had proclaimed it, 
 addinu: fresh li<j;ht -11- 
 
 Chap. II. — Arnold recognised the Truth : and might have extin- 
 guished Doubt. Not giving to Pol ybius the credit of showing 
 him the Truth, he blamed him where he should have com- 
 mended him. Conclusion 220 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Narrative of Polybius translated 253 
 
 Narrative of Livy translated 277 
 
 Comments on doubts entertained concerning Hannibal's first con- 
 flict with the Romans in Italy. 
 
 1. The Encounter on the Po 299 
 
 2. The Battle of the Trebia 303 
 
 Tabula Peutingekiana To face paye 57 
 
 EKIIATA. 
 
 Page 17, line 25, for *• could" read "" could uot." 
 „ 138, „ 35, for "Dureiitius" read *' Drueotius." 
 „ 176, „ 15, for " of the summit" read "the summit." 
 ""11 . 6, for '' Walckeuuer " read '' Walckenaer." 
 
 THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 PAET VIII. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF THE ALPS IN EAELY TIMES. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 Straho on the Alps, His allusion to Polyhius and Hannibal, 
 Donltful that he wrote the three wards. Improbable that 
 the four Passes tuere named by Polybius, Errors of M, 
 Letronne, 
 
 Having done what I can to interpret Polybius, I find myself 
 called upon to touch some subjects which others have resorte'd 
 to in interpreting him. I postpone, therefore, for a while the 
 examination of Livy. 
 
 One would have desired that, for this interpretation, it 
 might not be necessary to explore the topography of Strabo, 
 to dissect the narrative of Caesar, to notice so late a writer 
 as Ammianus Marcellinus, or to contemplate that curiosity, 
 nearly contemporary with him, the Chart or Table of Peu- 
 tinger. But the task cannot be avoided : it is not enough to 
 answer argument : we must meet the influence of learned men, 
 attending them where they call us, though they may bring 
 into their service things which hardly belong to the subject. 
 On whatever topics our laborious and dexterous adversaries 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 B 
 
 I; I 
 
it 
 
 tt 
 
 2 Early Knowledge of the Alps. [part Vlii 
 
 have exhausted their efforts of invention, we must grapple 
 with them ; and some inquiry into the early knowledge of 
 the Eomans on Alpine passes may aid us in exposing the 
 errors of prevailing theories. 
 
 Straho on the Alps, 
 
 Many eommentators rely on Strabo, not as being himself 
 an authority on Hannibal, but as an interpreter of the views 
 of Polybius. M. Letronne says gravely, " La g^ographie de 
 Polybe 6toit la source unique o^ il puisoit ce qu'il rapporte 
 des Alpes." We may not find elsewhere a proposition quite 
 so rash as this ; but the learned Ukert, the zealous Larauza, 
 with other French and English critics, — in short, every theorist 
 who favours the Cenis, the Gen^vre, or the Yiso, — all rejoice 
 in the aid of Strabo as guiding them to the meaning of 
 Polybius. We, then, who repudiate their theories, are com- 
 pelled to investigate the worth of the evidence. 
 
 In his account of Gaul, in the fourth book, Strabo treats 
 the Alps as a distinct subject of inquiry. He notices tracks 
 by which they had been surmounted, and clearly recognises 
 some as leading into Gaul. In speaking of the first conquests 
 made by the Romans beyond the Alps, in a warfare of many 
 years alc-ng the coast, he indicates a maritime pass : in the 
 route which he describes from the Ehone, through Brian^on, 
 over the crest of Alps, to the boundary of the Cisalpine pro- 
 vince, hi designates the Gen^vre pass ; and he points out, 
 in the most explicit terms, the passes of the Great and Little 
 St. Bernard as two ways that lead to Lyons. In his notice of 
 th«» chain of Alps eastward, and the nations that belong to 
 them, his words do not identify any particular pass until he 
 lames the extreme Ocra, the pass of the Carnic Alps, which 
 led from Aquileia to Nauportus ; but he certainly apprehended 
 passages through the mountains into the Grisons and the 
 Tyrol. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Straho on the Alps. 
 
 3 
 
 His allusion to Polyhius. 
 
 Towards the end of the book there are allusions to Poly- 
 bius. Strabo refers to him on the elk, the gold in Noricum, 
 and the comparative magnitude of the Alps and the moun- 
 tains of Greece. We then read these words i—TeTrapa? 
 h" virep^da-ei^ ovofid^ei fjLovov Bed Acyvcov fxh, ttjv eyjiara 
 tS Tvpp7)VLKa) Trekdyer elra rrjv Bed Tavplvcjv, rjv 'Avvlffa^ 
 Bl7]X0€V eha t^i/ Bid ^aXacawV T€TdpTt]v Be Bed 'Paircbv' 
 dirdaa^ KprjfjLvcoBei^;, p. 209. " He names four passes only : 
 " that through the Ligyes, being the nearest to the Tyrrhenian 
 " Sea ; then that through the Taurini, which Hannibal went 
 "through; then that through the Salassi; and the fourth 
 " through the Eh^ti : aU precipitous." 
 
 This sentence has attracted notice : not, as it might have 
 done, for a question on the Ehsetian pass, but by the mention 
 of Hannibal. It is pressed by some as important, and 
 slighted by others as unimportant. The patron of a Taurine 
 pass is ready to adopt conclusively the three words ^v\vvi0a<s 
 Bl7]\6€v, as an interpretation of Polybius by one who was 
 sure to imderstand him. Now, I conceive that Strabo was 
 by no means sure to understand him ; and others who have 
 before them the details of Polybius himself on Hannibal's 
 march, claim the right of interpreting him for themselves : 
 they ought to be more capable of doing this rightly, inasmuch 
 as there is now ample knowledge of Alpine passes such as 
 no man in Strabo's time had attained, or had the means of 
 attaining. 
 
 Whatever may be deemed the value of the three words 
 touching the passage of Hannibal, it is not clear that Strabo 
 ever wrote them. There is a manuscript of high value, lately 
 examined by the learned Gustavus Kramer, Epitome Vati- 
 cana No. 482, in which the words rjv "Avvlffa^ Bi^Xdev do not 
 appear: he examined every letter of this manuscript; he 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Early Knowledge of the Alps. [part Vlli. 
 
 ranks it among those " quorum maxima est auctoritas," and 
 pronounces it " quantivis pretii." Praefat. pp. xliii. Ixxxix. 
 Further, if the three words are genuine, it is quite possible 
 that Strabo placed them after LaXaaacov, and that they have 
 been shifted into their present position after Tavplvcov. 
 Those, therefore, who have so greedily seized the three words 
 for identifying the track of Hannibal with a track through 
 Cottian Alps, are threatened with these casualties : — 1. That 
 the words have been shifted by some careless or officious 
 copier into a wrong place ; 2. That in Strabo's own edition 
 they had no place at all. I will not rest on either contin- 
 gency as dissuading from inquiry. If Strabo had expressed 
 his opinion on Polybius in the most unequivocal manner, we 
 are not bound by it when we find it unsound, on a deliberate 
 study of the original narrative. It is best, however, to face 
 all objections ; and to take the text as it stands in the printed 
 editions. One preliminary observation is requisite : that the 
 phrase Sea Tavpivcov does not imply that the mountain pass 
 was in the Taurini ; but that, in making your way to the 
 Cisalpine province in those Alps, you must go through the 
 Taurini : in the same manner Strabo calls the two more 
 northern passes vireplBdcrei^; hia ^aXacracov, because, to reach 
 them, it was necessary to travel through the Salassi. 
 
 The Oxford Dissertation insists that the words are Strabo's 
 own words : and by the logic of the sentence they are so. 
 Others have expressed the same idea, saying that the words 
 are a parenthetical comment or gloss of Strabo. Such remarks, 
 however, do not deprive the sentence of importance : as it 
 stands, it exliibits four passes as having been named by Poly- 
 bius ; and Strabo would hardly append to one of them the 
 notice of Hannibal, if he did not imagine Polybius to concur 
 upon the fact so introduced. He might himself be under the 
 impression en'oneously : he might, like others, assume the fact 
 for no better reason than that the first operation in Italy told 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Strabo 07i the Alps, 
 
 o 
 
 by Polybius was against the Taurini : still, if his words, taken 
 altogether, make it probable that he wrote under that im- 
 pression, they claim attention. The inquiries, to which such 
 a subject leads us, will be found also not uninteresting in 
 themselves. 
 
 Those who assent to the leading facts of Polybius's nan-a- 
 tive, and take pains in drawing a conclusion from them, may 
 be indifferent to a construction made by the later writer : they 
 will rely on tlie historian as his own interpreter. But, if any 
 are inclined to submit their judgments to tlie three words as 
 presented, let them advert to questions wliich fairly ofter 
 themselves. Is Strabo safely to be relied on, when he quotes 
 an earlier author ? For instance, is he justified, when, in his 
 fourth book, he appeals to Cresar's Commentaries, as giving 
 the same descriptions as himself of Aquitani, Celtai, and 
 Belgse? Is Hannibal's line through the mountains a subject 
 that interested him, so as to engage his attention, and produce 
 accuracy ? Was Polybius likely to speak of virepfidcreif; Bed 
 ^dkaaaoiv, or hid Tavplvcov, or of any virepjBacn^ at all ? 
 
 HannihaVs Route did not interest Btrabo. 
 
 If there was reason to suppose that Strabo would care for 
 the Alps of Hannibal, it would be more likely that he should 
 be accurate in the allusion to Polybius : if it did not interest 
 him, he might, without scrutiny, adopt an hypothesis which 
 was entertained by his contemporary Livy. There is not in 
 all Strabo's works an allusion to the Carthaginian march from 
 Spain to Italy, unless it be in those three words rjv \vvi^a<i 
 BiTJXdev. He had abundant opportunity of noticing the ex- 
 pedition in its earlier stages. He has been exhibiting the 
 geography of Yalentia, Catalonia, the Pyrenees, Outer Gaul, 
 and the regions of the Elione, the approaches to the Alps, and 
 portions of the Alps themselves. Nevertheless, the Cartha- 
 ginian invasion is nowhere alluded to by Strabo till it reaches 
 
6 Early Knowledge of the Alps. [part VTII. 
 
 the confines of Etruria, unless it be in those three words. He 
 describes particularly the route from Spain to this very pass, 
 the Mont Gene\re, but with no note of Hannibal. It was 
 his habit to illustrate geography by ascertained features of 
 history, as in the case of the Salassian valley ; and he often 
 alludes to the later operations of Hannibal in the regions 
 nearer to Eome. It seems, therefore, that if he had cared for 
 the question on the Pass, and himself studied the route of the 
 invaders, he would have annexed to his own description, 
 whether of 8, Taurinian or of p, Salassian hyperbasis, some 
 commemoration of the great exploit. Tliis is unquestion- 
 able : that, ii- the words rjv 'AvvC^a^ BtrjXeeVy wliich appear in 
 this list of four passes, should be shifted from one of those 
 passes and attached to another, there is not a thought in 
 Strabo's worlds that would be offended by the exchange. 
 
 Reasons against PolyUus having authorized those names 
 
 of Passes. 
 
 We do not find any of Strabo's nominations of passes in 
 the extant writings of Polybius. Ehaeti are not mentioned at 
 all. Salassi are not mentioned at all. Ligurians are called 
 AcyvaTcvoL, not Alyve^ ; and Taurini are not connected with a 
 pass. If Polybius had been prepared to speak of a Salassian, 
 a Taurinian, or a Ligurian pass, there were opportunities for 
 doing so in tliose parts of his works which survive to us. He 
 tells of the .early invasions of Northern Italy by the Gauls, 
 and of their irruption before the second Punic war: they 
 made their w ay through the valley of Aosta ; he might there- 
 fore have introduced them Sta ^dXaaacov. He details the 
 invasion of Hannibal, and might have introduced him Bia 
 2a\a(raQ)p : or, if he apprehended the invasion to be by the 
 pass which Strabo calls Bca Tavpivcov, he had every provoca- 
 tion to name it. But, on the contrary, he completes his 
 narrative of the passage through the Alps; he launches 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Straho on the Alps. 
 
 Hannibal into the plain and the nation of Insubres ; describes 
 his encampment; and, when the army is restored t^ /lealtli 
 and fit for service, relates how he turned his arms against the 
 Taurini, who were at war with his friends, the Insubres : 
 then only do we find a notice of that people. As to a pass 
 Sea Atyvcov, this also he had full opportunity to speak of. 
 Throughout his life the Eomans were working to bring their 
 schemes along the coast to maturity : he records their first 
 enterprise beyond the boundary of Italy, when the consul 
 Opimius invaded the country of the Oxybii, beyond Nice 
 and Antipolis. He marched Bta t&v Airevvivoiv opcov : not a 
 word of a pass Blu Aiyvoiv. 
 
 If these expressions were truly imputed to Polybius, we 
 might fairly expect to meet with them : his second book 
 exhibits a geographical description of Italy, the plains of 
 Italy, the great river of Italy, the seas of Italy, the mountains 
 of Italy; and, if he had recognised by those titles four en- 
 trances through the great barrier, he might have added such 
 information to the rest. There is not a word which gives 
 countenance to these names of passes; and the words of 
 Strabo, in which he seems to assume that those which he 
 recognised himself had been similarly recognised by Polybius, 
 are not to deter us from weighing the probabilities that this 
 historian ever designated those things as virep^aaet^; Blcl 
 ALyvcoVy Bca Tavplvojv, Bca ^aXaaacoVj Bia 'FaiTwv, 
 
 Though I find no reason to suppose that Polybius ever 
 gave expression to any one of these virep^daei^, I need not 
 dwell on the first and last of them : they are not involved in 
 our inquiry, like the other two. The routes through Salassi 
 and Taurini are closely concerned with our controversy, and 
 these I propose to consider more deliberately. I have against 
 me an ample list of critics, ending with Mr. Ellis, who have 
 professed obedience to the words of Strabo. But M. Letronne 
 has gone beyond the rest, by discussing the value of the 
 
1^ 
 
 fi Early Knowledge of ike Alps. [part VIII. 
 
 sentence ; and I wHl advert to his doctrines before I proceed 
 further. 
 
 Errors of M. Letronne, 
 
 This eminent man, the first assailant of De Luc, has thus 
 
 expressed himself : " Ce passage contient non seulement la 
 
 " pensee de P'olybe, mais jusqu'4 ses expressions '\ . . " dans 
 
 " tout ce qui precMe et ce qui suit, Strabon ne fait que rap- 
 
 " porter les o])inions et les propres paroles de Polybe -—que 
 
 - Strabon suit sans restriction pour tout ce qui concerne les 
 
 Alpes.^' Again : " La geographic de cet historien, ou plutot 
 
 ^'1 la partie de son histoire qui traite de la geographie, dtoit la 
 
 source unique ou il puisoit ce qu'il rapporte des Alpes • '^ 
 
 and further : - Touvrage de Polybe son unique guide." * ' 
 
 These propositions are one and all erroneous. Most of 
 
 what Strabo says concerning the Alps is drawn from events 
 
 which arose after the death of Polybius : he by no means 
 
 foUows him, and I doubt that in any instance he adopts his 
 
 expressions. The Alpine matters drawn from Polybius are few 
 
 and easily told : Strabo refers to him on the fact that the elk 
 
 IS found in the Alps; he refers to him on the superiority of 
 
 the Alps to the mountains of Greece and Thrace, addinc. the 
 
 sentence on the passes now under discussion; and he refers 
 
 to him on the Alpine lakes, naming and describing the three 
 
 large lakes of Italy,-Benacus, Yerbanus, Larius:-and the 
 
 rivers issumg from them. This is all. And, as Strabo 
 
 throughout his work is from time to time citing Polybius as 
 
 his authority for facts, we are not to presume that he has that 
 
 Z^T r. 'r "'' ^''"^^ ''' '^"^'^ '' -^ -arch 
 
 01 other things on the Alps that could have been derived 
 
 from Polybius, though not so alleged, we find very little and 
 
 may be the more surprised with M. Letronne's proposition 
 
 t^a^t^one followed the other ^^pour tout ce qui concerne leJ 
 
 * Journal des Savans. Janvier et Decembre, 1819. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Strabo on the Alps. 
 
 9 
 
 So far as the Alps had been connected with Eoman events, 
 they were likely to be noticed by Polybius. But the scope of 
 this connexion was very limited. The Eomans in his day 
 were just beginning to feel their way towards either ex- 
 tremity of the great chain that severed them from the rest of 
 Europe. The entke central range was unvisited by them. 
 The eastern Alps were approached in the unauthorised and 
 fruitless attempt of Cassius Longinus, in 171 B.C., and Strabo's 
 appeal to Polybius on the gold mines near Aquileia, and the 
 salt springs at Timavum, might lead to the conjecture that 
 the historian had himself made the land journey between 
 Italy and Greece. The first advance of the Eomans along the 
 Mediterranean coast took place while Polybius was an exile 
 in Italy ; the movement in aid of the Massilians against the 
 Oxybii and Deciata^, tribes in the neighbourhood of Frejus. 
 Strabo refers to him on the existence of those peoples. 
 Twenty-nine years elapsed before such an effort was re- 
 peated. 
 
 How small then at that period was the knowledge of Alps 
 arising out of Eoman transactions ! If we look to all prior 
 history of the great natural rampart, the only operations 
 which had been recorded were in the passage of Hercules ; 
 the irruptions of the Gauls; and the invasion of Hannibal. 
 On the passage of Hercules Strabo says nothing: on the 
 Gaulish invasions through the Alps nothing: on Han- 
 nibal's pass the three words which produce this discussion. 
 And never does he allude to Polybius as the historian of 
 Hannibal, unless you suppose him to do so in those three 
 words. 
 
 Strabo himself abounds in matter connected with the Alps, 
 especially with the outer side of them : but it is not derived 
 from Polybius. I believe that the only fact on the Transal- 
 pine cited on his authority is the fact of the Ehone having 
 two mouths. The Eomans in the time of Polybius had little 
 
10 
 
 Early Kyiowledge of the Alps. [part viil. 
 
 M 
 
 acquaintance with those regions : the agents of their intrigues 
 were hardly as yet moving in the interior of Gaul when he 
 made his journey through the Alps : their communication was 
 through Marseille by sea. They gained no footing in Gaul 
 till after his death. In his time, what they knew, he knew. 
 They may have heard of the lake of Geneva : but there is no 
 evidence that they had, or that he had. As to the other Swiss 
 lakes, there is strong reason to think that he did not know 
 them. When Strabo tells the peculiarities of the Ehone and 
 its great lake, and names the nations bordering on the Rhine 
 and its great lake, he makes no reference to Polybius. He 
 rather shews that Polybius had never mentioned these things : 
 for he does saj that Polybius had spoken of Alpine lakes, and 
 that three wei-e large ones : he names them, and they are all 
 Italian. Polybius acknowledged the obscurity of those re- 
 gions. When he opens his narrative of the march from the 
 Pyrenees, he Jinnounces that he shall not attempt to express 
 names belonging to countries so unknown. Accordingly we 
 do not meet with the name of any town visited by the 
 invaders between Spain and Italy, and only of one people. 
 Names begin when mountains end. 
 
 Thus trifling in fact is the amount of Alpine matter that 
 Strabo did or could draw from Polybius. The history of 
 conquest brought geography along with it : Strabo's memo- 
 randa on the Alps were drawn from later events. His- notices 
 of southern Gaul are founded on the performances of Fulvius, 
 Sextius, Domitius, Fabius, Marius : and his details of the 
 passes are Eoman details. Before he came to write on the 
 passes, they had been traversed by Pompey, Csesar, D. Brutus, 
 Augustus, Tiberius, Drusus. Some exploits he had heard of: 
 not all. Every anecdote which he brings forward, excepting 
 in those three words, concerns some event which was after 
 the death of Polybius. In the route from Spain to the 
 Cottian pass ]ie names places and distances. But he stops 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Straho on the Alps. 
 
 11 
 
 u 
 
 much short of the plains; and introduces no anecdote or 
 historical matter whatever. 
 
 How then does M. Letronne trace Polybius throughout the 
 Alps of Strabo? How persuade himself that the mass of 
 Strabo's materials was derived from that early source? 
 Strabo's information came from Eoman intercourse with the 
 Alps, which in the days of Polybius had not begun. M. 
 Letronne has no facts for his hypothesis : and where there are 
 facts, he is not observant of them. Strabo, where he might 
 refer to Polybius, is not always inclined to follow him. Poly- 
 bius, ii. 14, says that the Alps begin near Marseille : Strabo, 
 iv. 201, 210, makes them to begin near Genoa or Vado. 
 Polybius, iii, 47, says that the fountains of the Ehone face 
 westward, and that the course of the river is to south-west : 
 Strabo, iv. 186, says that the first course of the Ehone is to 
 the north— /carapxa? irph apKTOV. Polybius, ii. 16, de- 
 scribing the Alpine course of the Po, says that the poets call 
 him Eridanus : and it is pleasing to recognise the " fluviorum 
 rex" on so ancient authority: Strabo, v. 215, denounces 
 Eridanus as the creature of fable, said to be near the Po, but 
 in truth having no existence. Polybius, ii, 14, exhibits the 
 Alps as the base of the Italian triangle : Strabo, v. 210, in 
 express opposition to him, declares that Italy is a figure 
 of four sides rather than of three — TerpdirXevpov fxdXXov 
 TO (T'xfjfia. 
 
 M. Letronne not only declares Strabo's matter to be all 
 Polybian, but insists that he expresses it in the very words of 
 that historian. It seems to me, that every part of the phrase 
 vTrep^ao-L^ Bia Tavpivo)v rjv \vviPa^ hrj\6€v, as well as the 
 whole taken together, is most unlikely to have been used by 
 Polybius, but probable in Strabo. First of all, vTrip^aac^; is 
 not a Polybian word : Strabo employs vTrep^alvco and vwep- 
 TL6rjfic to tell the passing over a mountain, and represents the 
 transcent or pass by virep^aai^ and virepdecL^: in the second 
 
I 
 
 i I 
 
 ^ 2 ^ctrly Knoiolcdge of the Alps. [part viii. 
 
 book, p. m, &c. he applies both terms to the same thing at the 
 interval of a f(}w sentences : 77 iirl rrjv 'TpKavlav OaXaTTav 
 inripe€aL<i—r) iirl rrjp KaaTriav V7rep^aa-L<i, Polybius never 
 so uses those words : his words are VTrepalpco, virep^dWo), 
 v7r€pl3oX7]. He uses virepOeaKi in the sense of postpone- 
 ment : virip^aaKi he did not use at all : we see it indeed 
 printed m lib. iv. 19, 6, meaning the conveyance of vessels 
 across an isthmus ; where probably it should be virep/SL/Saac^. 
 His descriptions of Alps, his notice of Gaulish invasions, and 
 his history of Hannibal, gave opportunities to use the word, if 
 it had been his word. Many compounds of /Bdai^ are found 
 in his works : ^p.^a<rc<;, ^K^aac^, a6fz/3a<Ti^, iirl^aai^, Bed- 
 ^ao-Ki, dvd/3aai^, Kard/Saac^: : never VTrep/Saai^. 
 
 Strabo uses both his words in the plural, for expressing 
 several distinct mountain passes, as when we speak of 
 several passes together, the Cenis, the Simplon, the Splugen. 
 Polybius never so speaks, as intending by a plural word dif- 
 ferent passes through the chain. He uses virep/SoXal for 
 mountain heights generally, and for the course of heights 
 which constitute a pass from one side of the chain to the" 
 other : thus one section of the march from Carthagena to the 
 plain of Italy is al twz/ %\7rea)y virep^oXaL The singular 
 vTrep^oXij represents the passage of, or act of crossing'' the 
 Alps, as in Trocyadfievo^ ttjv tcov "AXirecoy vwepfioXijv. So in 
 iii. 34, 6, and 47, 6. 
 
 Where, then, has M. Letronne found " les propres paroles de 
 " Polybe, que St rabon suit sans restriction pour tout ce que 
 " concerne les Alpes ? " Strabo is the rightful owner of ^irip^ 
 fiaai^ : and the three words which have brought the sentence 
 into notice, fjv \vv[^a^ Scrjxeev, have the same stamp of 
 authorship. Wten he speaks of the marshes and the draining 
 of them^by Scaurus, he says, St ^v 'Avvl^a^ x^^eTrdi? BiijXel 
 TrpoLwv eirl Tvpprjviav. In a similar way he refers to Han- 
 nibal, on mentiojiing the lake Trasymenus—ica(9' ^u al U 7^9 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 '5 
 
 
 # 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Straho^s Salassian Pass. 
 
 13 
 
 KeXriKTjf; ek rrjv Tvpprjvlav ifjL^oXal o-TpaTOTrkBoL^;^ ah Trep 
 
 Kal \vvipa<; ixP'n<^ob'^o^ v. 217. 
 
 When M. Letronne, reading Strabo, thought he was reading 
 Polybius, he had before him not only words and the com- 
 bination of words, but the general frame of the sentence bore 
 the style of the geographer. The method in which Strabo 
 names and enumerates the four passes is exactly the method in 
 which he has a few lines before enumerated four roads— tt^v 
 Bid TCOV Ke/iifMevcDV opcov fii'Xpt' ^avrovav Kal rrjf; ^A/covLTavla<;, 
 Kal TTjv eVl Tov 'FrjvoVf Kal rplrTjv rrjv eirl rov ^ilKeavov, ttjv 
 irpQf; ^eXXoaKohy Kal \/jb^tavot<;, rerdpTT) 3' earlv eirl rrjv 
 Nap^covtTiv Kal rrjv MaaaaXtooTLKrjv irapaXiav. These will 
 not be claimed as the " propres paroles de Polybe : " for tlie 
 work is attributed to Agrippa. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Salassian hyperhasis of Strabo. 
 
 We know that Strabo speaks of a Salassian pass : and our 
 question is, whether, as he is thought to allege, Polybius had 
 done the same. Strabo has used the term vTrep^acL^ Bid 
 ^aXa<TcrMv for himself, before he alludes to the passes known 
 to Polybius. He uses the expression, to mean at once two 
 distinct Passes of Alps : he says, p. 208, that " of the passes 
 " of Alps (rcbv virepOiarecov tcov e/c tPj^ 'iraXta*? eZ? t^v e^co 
 " KeXTCKrjv Kal Tr/v irpoadpKTiov) there is one through the 
 " Salassians leading to Lyons — t) Bed ^aXaaacov d'yovaa iirl 
 " AovyBovvov.'' By this transcent of Alps leading to Lyons, 
 he means both the Great St. Bernard and the Little St. Bernard: 
 for he goes on to say of it that '* it is twofold ; one practicable 
 
Jj 
 
 I 
 
 
 14 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Alps. [part viii. 
 
 " for a waggon from its greater length, through the Centrones ; 
 " the other steep and narrow but short, through the Psenine." 
 This explanation, that he means to include both passes, so 
 far corrects the expression as to prevent any ambiguity in his 
 meaning. But the expression is a bad one, and peculiar ; and 
 must be looked upon as his own. The road of ascent from 
 the plain is common to both passes as far as Aosta : but that 
 common approach is no viripdeai^; : the word imports tran- 
 scent. At Aosta the lines of ascent diverge : one is to leave 
 Mont Blanc and his dependencies away to the left ; the other 
 will leave them to the right. Such nomination of passes is 
 the nomination by Strabo. 
 
 While I d.3ny for Polybius both the supposed use of 
 vTrepffaa-i^; and the word itself, I have no doubt that he had 
 some information of a passage by the Great St. Bernard as 
 well as experience of the Little St. Bernard. The invasions 
 of the Gauls had given to these mountain regions an interest 
 and a celebrit}- which would engage his attention : his history 
 tells their earlier inroads, and the more recent irruption of 
 the Geesata3 ; who are likely to have come by the Great St. 
 Bernard, thoug'h he does not denote the pass by which they 
 came. Niebulir was fully satisfied that the barbarians issued 
 into the plain from the valley of Aosta : but does not pursue 
 an inquiry as to the point from which they came down. 
 Transl. Hare and Thirlwall, ii. 535. 
 
 In the Oxford Dissertation, p. 29, it is supposed that some 
 of those earlier invaders came up the Is^re and over the 
 Graian Alp : on the Gsesatae it is said, " Polybius informs us 
 " that they derived their name from their mercenary dispo- 
 " sition. He also clearly intimates that Hannibal followed 
 " the same route which this people had taken to cross the 
 Alps : "—and further, " Prom the description given of this 
 people by Polybius, their going to battle naked, their mer- 
 " cenary disposition, and extreme ferocity, it appears that they 
 
 iC 
 
 (C 
 
 « 
 
 i 
 
 i. 
 
 
 J 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Strabo' s Salassian Pass. 
 
 15 
 
 " were not Gauls but Germans, who had crossed the PJiine 
 " and settled near the Pthone." Now I do not perceive, that 
 Polybius identifies the track of the Gsesatse with that of 
 Hannibal. He rebukes the foolish writers who had painted 
 the Alps as utterly impracticable ; and charges them with 
 not knowing that the Celts of the Ehone had crossed the Alps 
 in great masses, not once or twice only, nor in former times 
 only, but recently, and had made head against the Eomans in 
 the plain of Italy. But he does not himself define the channel 
 of those invasions, nor identify Hamiibars track with it. 
 
 In the only passage where Polybius speaks of the Gtesatae, 
 ii. 22, he calls them tou? Kara ra? "AXTrei^ koI rby 'FoSavov 
 iroTa^iov KaroLKovvra^ Takdra^;, 'Trpoaa/yopevofjuivov^; Be Sui 
 TO fjbiaOov arpareveLV Taco-drov^; : adding, 97 yap \e^c<; avrrj 
 TovTo o"rjfialv€L KvpiQx;, Niebuhr, lect. iv. p. 150, objects to 
 that derivation, and ascribes the name to the weapon geesus, 
 javelin ; a weapon which we know to have been efficiently 
 used by the natives in the approach to the Great St. Bernard. 
 Caesar de Bell. GaU. iii. 4. But Polybius' notion agrees with 
 the habits of the people as mercenaries in war: and it is 
 sensibly observed by M. du Theil, " Contens de 1 etymologic 
 donnee par I'un des plus graves historiens de Tantiquite, nous 
 " ne rapporterons point ici toutes celles que d'autres ecrivains 
 " anciens, la plupart simples grammairiens et de beaucoup 
 " posterieurs k Polybe, ou de critiques modernes, donnant 
 " trop aux conjectures, ont pretendu y substituer." — Strab. ii. 
 feclaircissemens, p. 15. If, as suggested, the Gsesatse were 
 Germans who settled near the Pihone, that too does not aid 
 the q"- ,^ion : they need not have come on to the Isere: their 
 irruption might be made past the upper end of the lake. 
 Pushing on from thence, tliey would keep the direction of 
 the great river, which seemed to lead them to their object, the 
 Italy which they coveted. When that guide deserted them 
 by its reflex line at Martigny, they desisted not from their 
 
r 
 
 16 ^arhj Knowledge of the Alps, [part viii. 
 
 enterprise ; but still pressed onward to the south, and by a 
 short though difficult effort found the desired plains. 
 
 I fully believe, then, that earlier invasions were effected by 
 the Great St. Bernard : and, if they were, the fact could not 
 fail to reach Polybius. He would be aware of both passes 
 which gave descent into the Salassian valley. But I do not 
 believe that he had spoken of them as Strabo speaks of them, 
 and bracketed two such passes in one. He made himself the 
 ascent from the plain of Italy : but, when he gazed at the 
 distant wonders of that valley, a happiness that Strabo, per- 
 haps, never enjoyed, the giant pinnacles clothed with perpetual 
 snow rising in the centre of the scene, he did not designate 
 a route which sought the transalpine to the left hand, and a 
 route which sought the transalpine to the right hand, as one 
 vTrepOeai^i, one transcent of Alps. Mont Blanc stood before 
 him, to prohibit such abuse of language. 
 
 i|f 
 
 « i 
 
 \\ 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Taurinicci hyperlasis of Strabo, leing also the Medullian 
 of Mr. Ellis, — On the Medulli of the Dictionary of Geo- 
 grajphy, 1856. 
 
 No man can doubt that Strabo was informed on the Pass of 
 the Mont Gen^vre, on the ascent to it from the Ehone, and on 
 a portion of the descent on the Italian side : for, though his 
 sentences are imperfect, he names many important places with 
 some distances. Those, therefore, who try to show from his 
 writings his i:nowledge of the Mont Cenis, must understand 
 that he was acquainted with both those passes of Alps. 
 
 I conceive that, when he names a pass virep^aai^ hia 
 Tavpivcov, p. 209, he does not intend a mountain passage 
 
 CHAP. HI.] 
 
 Sf7Yfho\s Tanrinian F(fss. 
 
 17 
 
 occupied by that people, but which is to be approached 
 through them from the Ptoman possessions ; and it mav be 
 conceded that, if he could have purposed to speak of the 
 Cenis, he might have spoken of that also as a pass Sta 
 Tavplvcov. One who sought either of these passes may first 
 have advanced from the plain througli Taurine territory. 
 Thus Livy seems to mark the descent from the Gen^vre by 
 tlie same circumstance. He says of a body of Gauls, who 
 took that way from Marseilk into Italy, "Per Taurinos 
 saltusque invios Alpes transcend erunt," v. c. 34 : and must 
 have intended the same pass which Strabo describes, which 
 is reached by coming up the Durance to Brian^on. 
 
 Mr. Ellis, assuming that Strabo was acquainted with the 
 Mont Cenis, contends (Treatise 181) that, in designating a 
 pass Bca Tavptvoov, he intended the Cenis. Now, it is very 
 remarkable, that Strabo's notice of those regions should have 
 been so limited and partial as we see it to have been ; and 
 particularly that such a place as Segusio (Susa) should not be 
 mentioned in his works. It was not necessary for him to 
 mention it in speaking of the road which he describes over 
 the Genevre, for he describes it only as far as Ocelum ; nor 
 would it have been, had he continued it to the plain. But 
 his never naming the place seems conclusive that he was 
 ignorant of a route over Mont Cenis ; for in a descent from 
 that mountain, Susa could be avoided. If Strabo's knowledge 
 were not proved, as it specially is, from the Ehone to Ocelum, 
 we should pronounce him uninformed on the Genevre, as we 
 do on the Cenis. 
 
 It might have been expected that one who can discern the 
 Cenis pass in the works of Strabo, would have perceived 
 other things in that writer's topography of this region, which 
 he certainly is not seen to mention. He omits Susa, the 
 stronghold of Cottius ; and, I think, never mentions Turin, 
 nor the Po as running past tliat place ; nor other discernil)]o 
 
 VOL. II. c 
 
 I- 
 
18 
 
 Early Knmvledge of the A Ips. [part viii. 
 
 object, natural or artificial. Strabo points to no such things : 
 he knew of the route from Spain through Gaul to the 
 Gen^vre, and a little way beyond. He knew of the two 
 places, which he has named Scingomagus and Ocelum ; one 
 on the boundary line of Italy, one on the boundary line of 
 the Koman province. If he had known of the Cenis pass, he 
 might have na^med something in the way to it, or in the way 
 from it. But there is in his works no landmark which helps 
 to bring the C/cnis into a route from the Rhone to the Po. 
 Even in the line of the Gen^vre, where he does guide us 
 into Italy, he does not disclose an object in the whole tract 
 of country spread between that pass and the junction of rivers 
 near Chivasso, besides the two points which I have mentioned : 
 not Susa, nor the river on which it stands ; nor the Po, till it 
 is spoken of as if separating the Salassi and the Taurini. 
 Whether Strabo instructs you for coming into Italy in the 
 fourth book, or for going out of it in the fifth, he gives no 
 object between Ocelum, which is near Fenestrelles and the 
 Salassian Doria. 
 
 Though Sti-abo has said nothing which suggests to other 
 persons the mountain now so well known as the Cenis, Mr. 
 Ellis professes to have discovered a Cenis for him by means of 
 the Medulli, of whose districts Strabo has related some de- 
 finite particulars in p. 203, but not those which Mr. Ellis re- 
 presents him to have related. Mr. Ellis says, p. 132, " Strabo 
 *' speaks of a pass from the country of the Medulli into that 
 " of the Taurini : the pass seems clearly to be that of the 
 "Little Mont Cenis. The ascent begins at Bramans, from 
 "which place, to Susa the distance is nearly 200 stadia, the 
 **lake on the summit being about half way." Thus Mr. 
 Ellis's Celtic ascent is from the Medulli at Bramans,* and his 
 
 * This plactjs the Medulli in the Upper Maurienne. When Mr. 
 Ellis wants that place for others, he will shift them to the Lower 
 Maurienne. Were they in either ? 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Strabo s Taurinian Pass. 
 
 19 
 
 ItaHan descent is to the Taurini at Susa. Accordingly, in p. 180, 
 after urging that Julius C£esar was familiar with the Cenis 
 and the Arc valley, he says this :— " It may now therefore be 
 ** concluded with safety, that the pass of which Strabo speaks 
 " (lib. iv. c. 6) between the country of the Medulli and that of 
 " the Taurini, was that of the Little Mont Cenis. (For this, 
 " and not the Great Mont Cenis, is the line of road traced in 
 " the Peutingerian Table.) The distance also from Braman to 
 "Susa is, according to that table, 25 Eoman miles, or 200 
 " stadia. The most accurate half-way point would be where 
 " the road passed by the south-western corner of the lake on 
 " the plateau of the Mont Cenis. From this point, reckoning 
 " to Susa on the one side, and to Bramans on the other, we 
 "should have the two lengths of one hundred stadia each, 
 *' which are mentioned by Strabo." 
 
 I believe there is no foundation for any one of these pro- 
 positions. Mr. Ellis can hardly mean to say that Strabo ever 
 mentions either Bramans or Susa, or that Caesar ever mentions 
 them. But Mr. Ellis does say this, which is as little war- 
 ranted by fact. " The distance from Bramans to Susa, by the 
 " Little Mont Cenis, is given in the Peutingerian Table as 25 
 "Eoman miles, or exactly 200 stadia." Treat, p. 132. IsTothiiio- 
 whatever is said about Bramans in the table : nor does that 
 document show a line of 200 stadia between Medulli and 
 Taurini, or between Bramans and Susa. 
 
 If Mr. Ellis intends the Mellosedo of the table, which is 
 th(j Bramans of his own imagination, as being 25 miles from 
 Susa, he has by no means hit the truth ; for that distance is 
 marked in the table as more than double of 25 miles. ]\Ir. 
 Ellis has etymological resources with which he converts one 
 word into another, but they cannot defy the common pro- 
 cesses of arithmetic. The sum of the stages from Segusio to 
 Mellosedo is at the least dd miles by the Peutingerian Table 
 
 C2 
 
 
 t-j 
 
I 
 
 20 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Alps, [part viii. 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Straho's Taivrinian Pass. 
 
 21 
 
 itself* thougli 25 miles accommodates itself better to the 200 
 stadia of Mr. Ellis. 
 
 Though Mr Ellis declares his conclusion to be a safe one, 
 there is in it this infirmity among others ; that Strabo, in all 
 that he says on the MeduUi, does not speak of any pass or 
 road at all. ]\Ir. Ellis imagines a Medullian pass out of a few 
 sentences whi(3h import no pass, and do not even embrace the 
 idea of getting from one place to another. When Strabo 
 mentions the Medulli, he has been pointing out in a rough 
 manner the locality of many peoples ; enumerating Ligyes, 
 Salyes, Massiliots, the Volcae of ISTemausus, the Vocontii ex- 
 tending to the Allobroges. Then, as if following a direction 
 up the Is^re, he says this, p. 203 :— " After the Vocontii are 
 "the Iconii and Tricorii; and after them the Medulli, who 
 " hold the highest peaks : in fact, they say that the most 
 " direct height, of them is 100 stadia in ascent, and the same 
 " again in descent to the bounds of Italy. Up in the hollow 
 "places there stands a great lake, and two springs not far 
 " apart from each other ; from one of which the Druentia, a 
 " river in dee}) channels, flows in one direction, which dashes 
 " along into the Ehone, and the Doria in the contrary direc- 
 " tion, for it mixes with the Po, after bein^f carried throuoh 
 " the Salassi into Cisalpine Gaul : and from the other spring, 
 "on a much lower level, issues tlie Po himself, both full and 
 " rapid. In Ids progress he becomes greater and greater : for 
 "now being in the plain, he receives increase from many 
 "rivers, and is widened : and, as he pours on, has a distracted 
 "and less defined stream. He falls into the Adriatic Sea, 
 "having become the greatest river of Europe after the 
 " Danube. The jVIedulli are situated the farthest above the 
 " confluence of the Isere with the Ehone. 
 
 " On the other side of the mountain range spoken of, sloping 
 
 * See Mr. Ellis's engraving of this part of the Table. I shall 
 attempt one aliso. 
 
 
 "towards Italy, dwell the Taurini, a Ligurian people, and 
 '' other Ligurians : and of these is the land of Ideonnus, and 
 " that of Cottius. Beyond them and the Po are the Salassi ; 
 " and above these in the mountain heights, the Centrones and 
 " the Catoriges, and the Veragri, and the ISTantuatoe, and the 
 " Leman lake through which the Ehone is carried" &c. 
 
 This is all that concerns the Medulli, by the only writer 
 who speaks concerning them : and the matter is peculiar. On 
 the Iconii and Tricorii Strabo only says, that they are next to 
 the Vocontii. On the Medulli, whatever may have been his 
 notion on their propinquity or remoteness, much is definite 
 and circumstantial. On reading the words which have been 
 quoted, Mr. Ellis has conceived a Pass, which gives the 
 traveller 100 stadia of ascent and 100 stadia of descent. These 
 200 stadia he identifies with an imaginary 25 miles which he 
 invents for the Table of Peutinger, and calls it "a line of 
 road over the Little Mont Cenis." 
 
 I really do not perceive in the words of Strabo a symptom 
 of any travelling route whatever. No terms are used, such 
 as those with which he instructs the traveller from the Ehone 
 to Brian9on and the Genevre ; no 6869 ; no points of starting 
 or arriving ; no name of place. He mentions the Po at last 
 in a way that is very curious, and, taken with other circum- 
 stances, very instructive on his views. He seems to have 
 looked upon the Ligurian Taurini as being on one side of that 
 river, and the Salassi as being on the other : at any rate the 
 statement of Veragri and Centrones above them shows that 
 his view was directed towards Cisalpine Gaul. The matter 
 which follows, whether about nations on the Ehone or the 
 Eliine, is as destitute of any terms appropriate to a travelling 
 route as was the matter which has gone before. 
 
 There is one passage which Mr. Ellis* considers to be 
 decisive, as indicating a travelling road, \\hich is this : — 
 
 * Cambridge Journal of Philology, iii. 26 — 29. 
 
 if 
 
1 
 
 22 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Alps, [PART vill. 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Straho's Taurinian Pass, 
 
 23 
 
 Me3oi>\Xot, o'lTrep Ta<; vyjr7)\oTdTa<; €')(pv<TL fCopv(f)d<:' to yovv 
 opOLwrarov avrwv iz-^o? araSuov ifcarov e%€tv (f>acrlv rrjv 
 dm^aacv, KavOevhe irdXiv rrjv iirl tou9 opov<; tov? t^9 'iraXta? 
 Kard^aa-Lv, Mr. Ellis thinks that Strabo cannot have ima- 
 gined so prociigioHS an elevation above the level of the sea. 
 This may be: but he need not therefore have intended a 
 measurement of distance on a travelled way. It is indeed an 
 outrageous supposition that the loftiest peaks should have 
 been estimated 100 atadia in heiorht. But it is so alleged— 
 opOtcordrov v^jro^ : and nothing indicates a travelled way. 
 'ry{r7]\ordT7} Kopv(f>ri is the highest part of a mountain : but 
 no practised route can be near it : a traveller, to pass over a 
 mountain, never takes a straight line to the highest top : he 
 neitlier seeks opOiMraTov vslro^-, nor vylr7)\oTdTa^ Kopv(pd<i : 
 tliese are the very things which he avoids. Thoiigli tliat 
 reputation of height, as reported, was quite unworthy of 
 belief, D'Anville translates the passage truly, wlien he says, 
 "Strabou attribue h ces montagues 100 stades de hauteur 
 perpendiculaire." Notice de TAncienne Gaule, in v. Me- 
 dulli. 
 
 Mr Ellis insists also, Journal of Phil. iii. 38, on the words 
 dvdffaaiv and Kard^aaiv : and it is true that these two ideas 
 are necessary to a Pass : but the words may be used to express 
 tlie rise and fall of a mountain or range of mountains, with- 
 out the implication of any one going up or going down, and 
 without any thought of roads for enabling men to do so. The 
 terms are applicable to reputed space, the distance which it 
 would be to go up or to go down. Mr. Ellis brings forward, 
 from Pblybius, that Hannibal ivypxero t^? KaTa^daem, and 
 afterwards, that he lost nearly as many men as he had Kara 
 T7)v avd^acnv : he also adduces dp^nv dmjSdaem in Strabo's 
 route through Embrun and Brian9on. But the examples are 
 against him : in all those instances there is context which 
 prevents doubt. In those from Polybius, the entire su1)ject is 
 
 i 
 
 the march of an army : and in the route cited from Strabo, he 
 is instructing a traveller ; he describes a particular oSov from 
 one place, Sid another, fiixpf^ another: and each distance 
 which composes the total has its expressed termini. No one 
 doubts that the two words are well used in telling a fact of 
 progress over a mountain : but they may also be used when 
 no such fact is told ; and we must look to the context to see 
 whether it is told or not. At the end of the fourth book 
 Strabo compares the Alps with the Greek mountains, and 
 observes in what a short time any of the latter may be 
 climbed : we there find the expression dva^rivai SvvaroVj and 
 the word v'y^o^ : but there too his purpose is only to give an. 
 idea of height and the degree of height : a travelled pass i& 
 not implied. So height is the thing predicated of the /copvcpal 
 of the MeduUi : the ideas of up and down, ascent and de- 
 scent, are employed to enforce the greatness of their height. 
 
 The marvellous altitude is predicated of the highest tops 
 or peaks by Strabo. ^OpOccoraTov and v-^rfKordrov are not 
 descriptive of the tardy rise of an accustomed route over or 
 through a mountain ; nor need the expressed degree of height 
 tell the distance along a road. The Eoche Michel, and the 
 Eocher de la Eonche, w^ould be worthy to be called Kopvcpai : 
 the plateau of the Mont Cenis is no Kopv(f>r}. Mr. Ellis, in 
 verification of the direct altitudes of Strabo, finds the half- 
 way point or summit at the south-west corner of the lake, 
 and measures from it in either direction about 100 stadia. 
 Bramante, being at the foot of Little Mont Cenis, becomes 
 the base of his Medullian vylrof;: Susa the base of his 
 Taurinian v^fro<;. I apprehend that the Medulli had nothing 
 to do with Bramante, and the Taurini nothing to do with 
 Susa. Mr. Ellis's distortions of geography and errors in 
 distances do not acquire accuracy, because I have no lake to 
 take part in my argument. Nobody supposes that Strabo in 
 person made an inspection of the sources of the three rivers 
 
 I 
 
 w 
 
 \ 
 
2^ Ji^arly Knowledge of the Alps. [PAKT VIII. 
 
 and of a lake in the neighbourhood. And his memory may 
 have been in fault when, in reporting the information which 
 he gatliered, lie; brought a lake into the immediate vicinity of 
 two springs, as it certainly was in fault, if he derived the 
 the two rivers out of the same spring. 
 
 Never was a fancy so bare of support from context, as this 
 l^ass of Mr. Ellis. Strabo enumerates peoples of Provence, 
 Dauphine, Savoy, Piedmont : part of Switzerland too is in 
 the catalogue ; which, after pausing at the lake of Geneva, is 
 adjourned to the Ehine ; nor does it stop there ; and the one 
 thing suggested as indicating a route for travellers is a jmss 
 between Mcdulli and Taurini ; and that is, the Little Mont 
 Cenis. If cKarov was not a mistake for ZeKa, and the absurd 
 reputation of altitude had really reached the ears of Strabo, 
 still he introduced it only to give effect to v^lr7i\o^ira<; ko- 
 pv(f)d^. If he had himself visited Savoy, and achieved the 
 ascent of Mont Blanc, he might have transmitted to us a 
 reputation of tJiat mountain's height with terms such as he 
 employs on the Medullian range : but we should not reckon 
 Mont Blanc in his list of Passes, nor assume a travelling road 
 up the Mur de la Cote or down the Glacier de Brenva. 
 
 He, the one writer who gives account of the Medulli, states 
 particulars caL3ulated to identify generally their position ; 
 which seems to have been along that range of the opeivi 
 which is the main outer chain of the Western Alps ; and 
 would embrace those parts above the source of the Isere, 
 whence one might look westward upon ]Mont Iseran and the 
 vaUeys which (enclose it, and eastward to the Italian plain. 
 Mr. Ellis {Joum. of Philology, iii. 17) complains of this 
 " transportation of the :Medulli to Arctic regions "—that I 
 assign to them " an eccentric position," and that I " might 
 have interpreted v-^ifKoTdra^ Kopv<f>d<i more mercifully." I 
 am content with interpreting justly : I pretend not to draw 
 a ground plan rf the Medullian territory: but I collect from 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Sfraho's Taurinian Pass. 
 
 20 
 
 strabo, that it must have included those heights of Alps, 
 from which descend the supplies to the Stura and the Oreo, 
 themselves tributary to the Po, and which overlook the plains 
 where the Taurini were near to the Salassi and the Cisalpine 
 Gauls. 
 
 The Dictionary of Geography, 1856, on the Mcdulli. 
 
 Though no other critic besides Mr. Ellis has imputed to 
 Strabo a Medullian Pass, he has received some countenance 
 on the position of that people from a strong Cambridge 
 authority, Mr. G. Long, who also locates them in the Mau- 
 rienne. The following words appear from his pen in Dr. 
 Smith's Dictionary of Geography. 
 
 " Strabo's description of the position of this people is clear. 
 " iv. p. 203. After the Yocontii are the Siconii (Iconii) and 
 " Tricorii, and then the Medualli, who occupy the highest 
 
 summits (of the Alps) ; now they say that the highest part 
 
 of their country has an ascent of one hundred stadia, and 
 '' thence to the borders of Italy the descent is as much : and 
 " above, in certain hollows, there is a great lake and two 
 '' springs not far from one another, and from one of these 
 " flows the Druentius {Durance), a torrent stream which flows 
 " down to the Ehodanus ; and the Durias {Doria) runs in the 
 " opposite direction, for it joins the Padus {Po), flowing down 
 " through the country of the Salassi into Celtice south of the 
 " Alps. When Strabo says further (iv. p. 204) that the 
 " Medulli lie as near as may be {^idXiara) above the conflu- 
 " ence of the Isara and the Phone, he is not speaking of 
 " distance, but of direction or position ; for he adds, ' and 
 '' the other side of the mountain country above described, 
 " that part that slopes towards Italy, is occupied by the 
 " Taurini, a Ligurian people, and other Ligures.' The con- 
 " elusion is easy, that the Medulli were in the Maurienue, 
 
 (f 
 
 (( 
 
 fl 
 
 1: 
 
 \ \ 
 
 1 
 i)' 
 
 ;!. 
 
 }\\ 
 
26 
 
 Early Knoivledge of the Alps. [part Vlli. 
 
 " north and south of the town of St. Jean de Maurienne, and 
 " enclosed between the Tarentaise and Dauphine." 
 
 I confess it appears to me that this conclusion, instead of 
 being easy, will be found inadmissible ; especially as from 
 the passage that Mr. Long would quote, he omits a very im- 
 portant part., namely, the MeduUian origin of the Po. Strabo 
 not only states that there are two springs not far from one 
 another, and tliat the Durance and the Doria flow from one of 
 them, but that the Po himself flows from the other. This is 
 omitted from the translation: also what follows the part 
 quoted on the Taurini ;~" After them and the Po are the 
 "Salassi, and, above them, Centrones, Veragri, Nantuates, 
 " Leman Lake," &c. 
 
 In his translation, Mr. Long renders fjuer avrov^; MeBovWoi,, 
 " then the Medulli : " and under the word " Tricorii," in the 
 same work, he renders the words, " next to them the Medulli." 
 Would it not be safer to say, " after them the Medulli ? " for 
 though they s1:and next in the enumeration, their proximity 
 may have been, and I believe was, longo intervallo. 
 
 I would also observe, that the opOicoTarov vyjrof; of 
 vylrrjXoTaTaL Kvpv(f>ai is not very pointedly translated, " the 
 highest part of their country." Strabo had evidently heard 
 much that was remarkable on the district held by this people : 
 and his information was probably derived from the Italian 
 side of the Alps, not from the dwellers on the Arc or the Isere. 
 The prominent incidents of the original passage, as we read 
 it, are the towei.ing Kvpvi^al, the direct height of these Kvpv(f>ai^ 
 and the three sources of rivers, the Druentia, the Doria, and 
 the Po. 
 
 After describing the varied character of the Po, and his 
 course to the Adriatic, Strabo reverts to the Medulli with 
 these words— 'TTrep/cetvrat 8' ol MeBovWot fMoXcaTa r?}? 
 avfifio\rj<; Tov "laapof; tt/oo? tov 'PoSavov. The critic renders 
 fidXiara, " as near as may be ; " and observes that Strabo '* is 
 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Strabo' s Taurinian Pass. 
 
 27 
 
 not speaking of distance, but of direction or position." It 
 seems to me that he is speaking of distance, as well as of 
 direction and position : and that fjuaXtara belongs to virep ; 
 meaning, that the Medulli are farthest above and farthest 
 beyond the confluence of the Ehone and the Is^re. Strabo 
 says this, as if he felt it to be a long stretch from the Iconii 
 and Tricorii to the Medulli : and well he might, for he pour- 
 trays the mountains of the Medulli at a monstrous elevation, 
 overhanging the Taurini of Italy, saying, at the same time, 
 " beyond these and the Po, are the Salassi, and, above them, 
 " the Centrones, and Veragri, and Nantuates, and the Leman 
 " Lake, and the source of the Ehone." 
 
 While this shows distance in the Medulli, direction is also 
 intimated : but direction as well as distance is indicated from 
 the (TVfjL^oXr) ; and is to be understood as the direction up the 
 Is^re, not up the Arc. As to position, our apprehension of it 
 must be from the incidents and the entire description ; not 
 forgetting the hollow places, whence issued two Italian rivers 
 
 * 
 
 and one Celtic, nor the fall to Italy towards the Taurini,^ a 
 people commonly supposed to have reached to the Oreo, which 
 probably divided them from the Salassi and Gauls of the 
 plain. Seeing also the enumeration, which follows this sen- 
 tence, of peoples on the Ehone and the Ehine, and that all 
 these ideas spring out of his notice of the Medulli, we may at 
 least hesitate to conclude that this people was " in the valley 
 of the Arc, north and south of St. Jean de Maurienne." 
 
 In these passages of Strabo concerning rivers which have 
 their sources in the Medullian mountains, some propositions 
 are true, some erroneous — there is a difference of opinion as 
 to which are true and which not. The subject will arise 
 again presently, on considering the Po and the Doria of Strabo. 
 
 * See further on the Taurini, in the conunent on Livy. 
 
 /* 
 
 h 
 \ 1 
 
 
 L 
 
 
 li 
 
28 
 
 Early Knoivledge of the Alps. [PART VIII. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Polyhius knew no Taimnian hyperbasis. The Po of Polyhius. 
 
 Looking at the period when Polyhius wrote, one sees no 
 reason that he should have heard of a Pass through those 
 middle Alps, which Livy and Strabo alluded to in later times, 
 one with the term Taurinos saltus, the other by vTrep^aai^ 
 Sta Tavpivcov : and the feebleness of the light which those 
 later writers tlirow on the Italian descent from those moun- 
 tains, makes it probable that still less light had shone upon 
 Polyhius, who was fully 150 years earlier. 
 
 Turin was founded by Augustus : and there are now three 
 ready ways of going over the Alps from that place : one which, 
 crossing the plain to Pinerolo, finds the valley of the Clusone, 
 and goes ovei' the Col de Sestriere before it brings you to 
 Cesanne, and the Mont Genevre : * one which goes up through 
 Susa to Cesanne and the Mont Genevre : and a third, which, 
 being the same to Susa, strikes northward from thence over the 
 Mont Cenis. The first was probably opened by Pompey ; and 
 was used by Caesar sixteen years afterwards : the second was 
 established b}^ Augustus, who made it his approach to the 
 same summit, when he was laying the foundations of his new 
 city Augusta Taurinorum : the third, according to Mr. Ellis, 
 is first named as crossed by Pepin in 755. See the Treatise, 
 p. 159. 
 
 Why must Polyhius, who preceded Pompey by a century, 
 
 have been acquainted with any pass through these Alps ? He 
 
 was an enterprising traveller : but this region was not inviting : 
 
 in matters of art and antiquity it had not the attraction which 
 
 * Sec Brockedon's Passes of the Alps, i. p. 15. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] Knoivledfje of Polyhius — His Po. 
 
 29 
 
 belonged to other parts of Italy, not the same interest from 
 Greek connection. Strabo, v. 218, says of the Ligurians of 
 the Appennine, that they lived in villages, and that their 
 country possessed nothing worthy for him to relate. It is 
 assumed always, that Polyhius must have been at Turin : 
 more probably there was no Turin for him to write about, or 
 for Hannibal to have gone to. The object of Polyhius was to 
 investigate the Carthaginian course through the Alps : he may 
 or may not have deviated to the scene of such collateral ex- 
 ploit. But if he did so, and as far as what became the site of 
 Turin, he would not, by so doing, acquire a knowledge of any 
 Alpine pass. The Taurini are believed to ha,ve reached under 
 the Alps to the Oreo, or the Doria : and wherever their best 
 town might be in B.C. 218, there is no necessity that a vestige 
 of it should long remain. All critics seem to assume a local 
 identity of the Taurine town sacked by Hannibal with Turin : 
 the Oxford Dissertation speaks of " the capture of Turin by 
 Hannibal." Dr. Liddell states the dispute to be on what route 
 Polyhius intended from Grenohle to Turin. Why must the 
 rough people, who then occupied the foot of the mountain 
 range, have had their chief place at tlie confluence of rivers 
 where Augustus chose to found that city two centuries after- 
 wards ? Is there any earlier trace of it ? Strabo explains to 
 us in detail the Augusta Salassorum : he gives no hint of 
 Augusta Taurinorum : he had never heard of it, nor had any 
 acquaintance with it. If we look for aid to Polyhius himself, 
 his instruction on the Taurini is only this ; irpcx; rrj irapcopeca 
 KaroLnovvre^; — just in front of the mountain side. The town 
 which was sacked by Hannibal may well have been north of 
 Turin : and it is for those who talk of that town as existing 
 in his time, to give a reason for it. Who can say that the 
 unhappy place continued to be a town at all after the plunder 
 and massacre of its inhabitants by the Carthaginian soldiery ! 
 It is indeed called /BapvTaTT] ttoX^? of the nation who owned 
 
 
30 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Alps. [PART VIII. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] Knouiedge of Poli/hius — His Po. 
 
 :u 
 
 it: but we may even doubt that the title of TroXt? was 
 deserved. Strabo notices the earlier historian, tov<; irvpyov; 
 Kokovvra iroXet,^. iii. 63. 
 
 Let us, ho^vever, assume that Polybius, in his inquiring 
 journey, found, himself in that part of the plain where the city 
 of Turin now stands : would that add to his knowledge of 
 passes? Wh8,t would be the provocation for him, or any 
 writer of his day, to record a Taurine pass ? When we talk 
 of a pass of Alps as known or unknown, we mean to recognize 
 a great chann'-l for armies or merchandise, not the existence 
 of mountain tracks for native inhabitants. These must always 
 be presumed in any part of the chain : but they would not be 
 commemorated in a short historical catalogue. In the days 
 of Polybius, a Taurine pass had no historical importance, no 
 claim to Eoman acquaintance : no Roman force had ever 
 threatened it : nor need we accept it as the course of early 
 invasions. Livy's fable of Bellovesus is exploded by Niebuhr, 
 with its politi(ial improbabilities and chronological errors : — 
 " a fabrication without the slightest historical ground."* A 
 man interpreting the narrative of Polybius must not presume 
 his acquaintance with a Taurine pass. When he can prove 
 that his narrative itself imports such a pass, then and not 
 before, he may say that Polybius was aware of its existence. 
 
 It is possible that the great authority to which I have 
 just referred might here be cited against me, as intimating an 
 early Roman a(;quaintance with those Cottian Alps. Although 
 we know that Niebuhr did not suppose Hannibal to have 
 crossed the Mont Gen^vre, there is a sentence in his latter 
 lectures, edited by Dr. Schmitz, which seems to assume that 
 the Romans ha,d knowledge of that pass as early as the inva- 
 sion of Hannibal:— '* Hannibal now marched further up the 
 " Rhone, and Scipio returned to his ships, though he might have 
 " been of real service to his country, if he had taken his road 
 * Traasl. Hare and Thirlwall, third ed. ii. 516. 
 
 N 
 
 " towards Briangon and Susa : for he would thus have been 
 " enabled to attack the rear of the Carthaginians, while the 
 " Gauls might have stopped the vanguard by an abattis." * 
 These are strange propositions : but, while one is surprised 
 that they should have been uttered, I cannot doubt the ac- 
 curacy of the report : the world is under great obligation to 
 Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, for the courageous act of publishing 
 his most interesting and well-written volumes. He fairly 
 points out the necessary causes of their imperfection, and 
 admits that some variation from the original was inevitable : 
 but the original himself is also to be excused, if, under failing 
 health, and in the gigantic effort of wielding the details of all 
 authors, and all their interpreters, in extempore lectures, minor 
 faults, whether of fact or comment, might occasionally take 
 place : as, in the same lecture, we read of Hannibal reaching 
 the summit of the Alps in September. We must condemn 
 as untenable the notion of Scipio struggling over the Genevre 
 for the chance of worrying the tail of Hannibal's march, on 
 his entrance into Italy : it assumes the easy faculty of a 
 transit which the Romans never attempted till near a century 
 and a half after the time in question. Let us, in this par- 
 ticular matter, rather commend the sound and interesting 
 remarks of Dr. Arnold on the policy of Scipio, in sending his 
 army forward to Spain, f 
 
 The Po of Polybms. 
 
 A discussion which concerns the knowledge that Polybius 
 and those of his day might have of an ascent of Alps from 
 the region in which Turin was afterwards placed, necessarily 
 draws us to notice what he has said of the great Italian river; 
 and to inquire, whether the higher parts of that celebrated 
 stream, as now recognised, were known to him as the Po. 
 Towards the north-west parts of the plain of Italy, certain 
 
 * Vol. i. Lect. 9, p. 169. f Hist, of Rome, iii. c. 43, p. 81. 
 
 I 
 
32 
 
 Early Knmvledge of the Alps. 
 
 [part VIII. 
 
 CHAP. IV.] Knowledge of Polyhms — His Po. 
 
 33 
 
 11 
 
 It;* 
 
 rivers, some flowing from the north, some from the west, and 
 some from thts south, come together and form one great stream, 
 the Po, wliieh then runs eastward, and is discharged into the 
 Adriatic gulpli. The name Po is by preference assigned to 
 one of the earlier contribuent streams, not perhaps the most 
 important : and there was a time when this dignity had not 
 been so awarded, nor recognised by the world. Pliny first 
 speaks of the Po as rising in Monte Viso. Ptolemy does not 
 follow him. 
 
 In the geographical instructions given by Polybius, he had 
 to rely much on what his own experience taught him ; espe- 
 cially on the Alps. The early Romans were little acquainted 
 with the western and south-western parts of the plain of 
 Italy, and h(i himself may not have had opportunity to 
 survey it. He felt that the places to be named as points of 
 contrast ought to be places known to those whom he was 
 instructing : and he had a fancy for inviting his readers to 
 imagine threci-sided figures by suggesting sides and angles. 
 Such is his iigure of the Allobrogian island. In Dauphin^ 
 there were ri^^ers for two sides, and mountain for the third. 
 Italy has two sides, sea : the third, Alps. For the Padan 
 plain, one side only is sea : and the terms by which he names 
 the two others, are Alps and Appennine. He sometimes found 
 it convenient to call the former the northern side, the latter 
 the southern. Accordingly commentators interpreting Polybius 
 with differing views, may each find means to justify them- 
 selves. 
 
 It is weU to note what he says himself on the course of the 
 Po. " The river Padus, famed by poets as Eridanus, has his 
 " fountains from the Alps, rather towards the apex of the 
 " figure abov(j mentioned : he is carried down to the plains, 
 " making his course as to the south (co? iirl fjLeo-Tjfi^plav) : 
 " aiTived in i^he level country, he bends his stream and is 
 " carried tlu'ough the plains towards the east, and discharges 
 
 " himself by two mouths into the Adriatic gulf. So bisecting 
 " the plain he leaves the larger portion of it towards the Alps 
 " and the Adriatic." ii. 16, 6. This does not describe the 
 Po of the present day, which, before the bend to the eastward, 
 has been rumiing to the north. 
 
 It is said in Cramer's Ancient Italy, i. 45, that the Po does 
 in fact run for a short way south, being the first direction 
 from his cradle in Monte Yiso. And another friend, H. L. 
 Long, p. 103, deems the Maira to be the Po of Polybius, 
 suggesting that we should read, not eVl fiecrt^ii^plav, but airo 
 fieaTjfi/Spla^. There is an unavailing refinement in such 
 contrivances : let us rather endeavour to understand what 
 Polybius has written, than pretend to write something for 
 him, or to deny his imperfections. We must take him to 
 mean what he says, when his words have no ambiguity in 
 themselves. Even if they were less clear, I know not why 
 we need presume that names of things were the same to him 
 as to those who came two or three hundred years after him. 
 That portion of the modern Po which Polybius did not recog- 
 nise by that name, is not the important fraction of the whole 
 line of stream. To all the deeper Po he accords the name : 
 he shows how this noble river divides the fertile plain of Italy 
 in its course from west to east ; by which we understand the 
 mutual approach of Hannibal and Scipio on the north side, 
 movements which he describes as on the side towards the 
 Alps, one having the river on his right hand, the other on 
 his left. 
 
 There is further identification of the region where he con- 
 ceived the source. He says, ii. 15, that in former days, when 
 the Gauls broke into Italy, and dispossessed the Tyrrhenians 
 of the plains of the Po, the first parts they seized, ra Trpcora 
 KoX Trepl Ttt? dvaTo\a<s tov TldBov Kelfieva, were occupied by 
 the Lai and Libicii — the first plains near the sources of the 
 Po — and that next to them were the Insubres, and further 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 Early Knovjledge of the Alps. [part vill. 
 
 CHAP, v.] Po and Doria of Straho, Lib. iv. 203. 
 
 35 
 
 down the Cenomani. If with Mebnhr we believe those in- 
 vading hordes to have poured themselves down the valley of 
 Aosta, the first plains that offered themselves were on the 
 Doria. These we must apprehend as belonging to the early 
 Po of Polybius. But there is enough without Niebuhr : 
 Polybius and others have placed those tribes, while they 
 lasted, next above the Insubres ; and, if those first plains 
 were upon th(3 early Po, what was that Po but the Orca or 
 the Doria? Those rivers had then been running m iirl 
 fiearj/jL^plav, When Polybius says, il 16, that the natives 
 called the Po, Bodeneus : this too is consistent with the rest : 
 the town Bodincomagus is named by Pliny, iii. 21, " ubi prin- 
 cipua altitude incipit ; " probably not far from Chivasso. 
 
 This vindication of the Po of Polybius, may be considered 
 by some as a confession of his errors. It is none : if the 
 Oreo or the Doria, neither of which he ever names, were to 
 his mind the great river, this was not error, unless it was 
 opposed to the received geography of his own time. Who 
 shall say that the innumerable streams which compose the 
 flood that pours into the Adriatic had then been classed by 
 geographers and travellers as we class them now? The 
 largest or most remote contribuent of a noble river does not 
 always bear the great name itself: and, while Eome .was 
 without progress in Western Italy, her geographers had not 
 pronounced at each confluence which was the worthier stream ; 
 many that might compete for being the predominant source, 
 were not under Eoman control : the one fact, that the memo- 
 rials of Hannibars route could even in the time of Augustus 
 be thrown into confusion, show^s how feeble in the interval 
 had been the connexion of Eome with the Alps. Strabo 
 relates their creeping progress along the Ligurian coast, the 
 avenue to Spain, the first line by which the Eomans burst 
 the mountain barrier of Italy : he says, iv. 203, " All that 
 " they did after a war of eighty years, was to compel the 
 
 f 
 
 " natives to leave them a space, a mile and a half in width, as 
 " an open way." In those eighty years Polybius passed from 
 the cradle to the grave : and two centuries more had nearly 
 elapsed, when Pliny declared the Po to rise in Vesulus. This 
 mountain was celebrated by Virgil : but not the Po as flowing 
 from it : and, if it shall appear that the geographer Strabo, 
 the contemporary of Virgil, never mentions the Po of Turin, 
 but derived his source from more northern mountains, Poly- 
 bius may be the more readily excused, that he did not record 
 the early fountain as reputed in the present day. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 The Po and tlie Doria of Strabo : Lib. iv. p. 203. 
 
 Strabo might have known much of the country that we 
 speak of, which Polybius was not likely to know: Strabo 
 lived after Pompey and Ceesar; Polybius was long before 
 them. Yet Strabo's knowledge is not to be assumed from 
 what it might have been : his information was partial and 
 precarious : it depended mostly upon the writings of others 
 which he met with ; and we must apprehend his conceptions 
 and the extent of them from his own writings. There is 
 sometimes negative evidence, in his showing no knowledge 
 where, if he had it, he was likely to employ it : as in not 
 continuing the line of descent from Ocelum to the Cisalpine 
 Gauls. At present, dealing with his apprehension of the Po, 
 we will first notice his affirmative statement concerning the 
 source of that river : for in one passage only does he ever 
 assert the source. 
 
 In lib. iv. 203, Strabo, describing the position of the Medulli, 
 as said before, tells of two springs not far apart, giving rise 
 
 d2 
 
 4, 
 
36 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Alps. [part viii. 
 
 one to the Doria and Druentia, the other to the Po. He 
 states, that from one of these springs the Druentia flows one 
 way to the Eh one, and the Doria the contrary way through 
 the Salassi to the Po, and that from the other spring flows 
 the Po himseli: I believe that Strabo has in no other place 
 spoken of the source of the Po : and I do not find that the 
 words, by which he here places it in the mountains of the 
 Medulli, are quoted by any modern writer : possibly because 
 they have not studied to construe the position which Strabo 
 assigns to th(3 region of the Medulli themselves. I have 
 ventured to notice the article *' Medulli " in Dr. Smith's Dic- 
 tionary by an author of some weight ; expressing my surprise 
 that in citing Strabo's passage on the sources of the rivers, he 
 had omitted the Po. He sets out Strabo's Trrjyal Bvo, and 
 tells you what flowed from one of them ; but does not say 
 what flowed horn the other ; which was avTo<; 6 YldBo^, 
 
 Neither in D^Anville, nor in those who have followed him, 
 is there an attcjmpt to deal with the Medullian origin of the 
 Po» The passage is often referred to in the excellent recent 
 work I have mientioned : but those words are always left out. 
 Under the titles, Doria, Druentia, Medulli, Alpes Cotti«, 
 Padus, the writings of Strabo are referred to : but his source 
 of the Po is never quoted. If it is supposed that the source 
 of Pliny must have been the source of Strabo, and even of 
 Polybius, I cannot acknowledge such necessity; nor do I 
 acknowledge that, on the position of the Medulli, Strabo is 
 rightly construed. 
 
 In the text of Strabo, as usually received, there is a state- 
 ment which ca,nnot be accepted ; viz. that the same spring 
 sends one rivei, the Druentia, to the Ehone, westward ; and 
 another, the Doria, to the Po, eastward. It is usual to con- 
 strue this the minor Doria; which does not remove the 
 difficulty, but increases it. Strabo gives a long account of the 
 Doria of the Salassi, minute and accurate, such as he could 
 
 I 
 
 CHAP, v.] Po and Dmia of Strabo, Lib. iv. 203. 37 
 
 only write with full intention, and knowledge of that subject : 
 yet we read at the same time, that the Medullian fountain 
 which sends out the Druentia to join the Ehone, sends out the 
 Doria to join the Po. We know this not to be true : and, 
 though we cannot account for the error, we may doubt those 
 who vindicate it as correct, and who profess to explain it. 
 
 They say that the Druentia, and the minor Doria of Pliny, 
 do flow from the same fountain, not among the Medulli, but 
 in the range of the Gen^vre. This is an ingenious conjecture. 
 But Strabo, I believe, knew no minor Doria : and, if he had, 
 this would be no sufficient answer. Do those rivers spring 
 from one fountain ? You must greatly strain the facts, before 
 you can venture on such an assertion. Neither springs from 
 Mont Genevre. It is true that the Druentia, flowinfj south- 
 ward under those Alps, and of course receiving augmentation 
 as he goes along, gets a little of it in passing the Mont 
 Genevre as he approaches Brian9on. The Doria minor, 
 running northward below the other side of the same ridge, 
 may also receive contributions as he skirts the same range. 
 But the former has run down the valley of Prez, coming from 
 more northern mountains above Neuvache, and has been rein- 
 forced on the left bank by greater torrents than that from the 
 Genevre. So the minor Doria springs far south from the 
 Col du Cramiol, and the Vallon de la Fiourniere, wdience it 
 pUns in a north-west direction till, having passed Cesanne, it 
 goes forward to Oulx, Susa, and Turin. These are the facts : 
 and as their irrj^ai are very many miles asunder, he must be 
 a bold man who talks of their springing from one fountain, 
 a s a solution of the strange idea of Druentia in Strabo's tale 
 o f the Salassi. 
 
 All who have noticed the passage, have seemed to think that 
 
 Strabo wrote under a particular mistake. D'Anville said first, 
 
 ** II faut regarder une m^prise dans laquelle il tombe a I'egard 
 
 de la Doria Eiparia, en disant qu'elle coule chez les Salassi, 
 
38 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Alps, 
 
 [part VIII. 
 
 I 
 
 1 1 
 
 " ce qui ne convient qu'^ la Doria Baltea." Mr. G. Long says 
 (in V. Druentia) " Strabo is mistaken about the Doria minor, 
 " for it is the other, which flows through the country of the 
 " Salassi. Two streams rise on Mont Gen^vre : one is the 
 " Durance, and the other is the Doria." Can it be assumed 
 that he was employed on the minor Doria, and that his mis- 
 take was in importing matter which could only apply to the 
 Salassian Doria ? I do not believe that Strabo ever meant to 
 speak of the minor Doria at all : and the question is, which 
 is the Doria of which he gives us that long and interesting 
 history ; more interesting, as Livy's book is lost, which con- 
 tained the same unhappy picture. 
 
 First a few words to show that Strabo probably knew of no 
 second Doria. One would conceive that those who assume him 
 to have known it, suppose that it was in his day a stream of 
 some known importance. No one would suspect that it is not to 
 be found in all his works, and is not alluded to by any ancient 
 writer before Pliny. He, coming ninety years after Strabo, 
 may have intended to recognise as a second Doria, the river 
 of Susa, though he gives it no locality. Enumerating the 
 rivers that fell into the Po on the left bank, he reports them 
 in this order : Sturam, Orgum, Durias duas, Sessitem, Ticinum. 
 If we come down ninety years further, we find Ptolemy men- 
 tioning only one Doria : and that is the Doria Baltea. Strabo 
 mentions it a second time, in the fifth book. In the Geog. Diet. 
 under ''Duria,' Mr. Bunbury says — "Strabo mentions only 
 one river of the name." I go further, and say that he men- 
 tions it twice ; and I believe that in both instances it is the 
 Doria of the Salassi. The Doria of the Salassi, and the 
 country through which it flows, is a subject on which Strabo 
 has dwelt with some pains, and given an intelligible picture of 
 it, except in r€!gard of the Druentia : and it may be well to 
 repeat the whcJe of it : and, though some have been quoted 
 before, I will begin at the beginning. 
 
 I 
 
 CHAP, v.] Po and Doria of Strabo ^ Lib, iv. 203. 39 
 
 Having said of the Vocontii that they reach to the Allo- 
 brages, his statement is read thus, p. 203 : — " After the 
 " Vocontii, are the Iconii and Tricorii ; and after them the 
 " Medulli, who hold the highest peaks : in fact, they say that 
 " the most direct height of them is 100 stadia in ascent, and 
 " the same again in descent to the bounds of Italy. Up in 
 " the hollow places there stands a great lake, and two springs 
 " not far apart from each other ; from one of which the 
 " Druentia, a river in deep channels, flows in one direction, 
 " which dashes along into the PJione ; and the Doria in the 
 " contrary direction, for it mixes with the Po after being 
 " carried through the Salassi into Cisalpine Gaul : and from 
 " the other spring, on a much lower level, issues the Po 
 " himself, both full and rapid. In his progress he becomes 
 " greater and greater ; for now, being in the plain, he receives 
 " increase from many rivers, and is widened ; and, as he 
 " pours on, has a distracted and less defined stream. He 
 " falls into the Adriatic Sea, having become the greatest 
 ** river of Europe after the Danube. 
 
 " The Medulli are situated the farthest above the confluence 
 " of the Isere with the Rhone. On the other side of the 
 " mountain range here spoken of, that which slopes towards 
 " Italy, dwell the Taurini, a Ligurian nation, and other 
 " Lisurians : and of these is the land called the land of 
 " Ideonnus, and that of Cottius. Beyond them and the Po 
 " are the Salassi ; and above these in the mountain heights 
 " the Centrones, and the Caturiges, and the Veragri, and 
 "the Nantuatae, and the Leman lake through which the 
 " Rhone is carried, and the source of that river. And 
 " not far from these are the sources of the Rhine, and 
 " the mountain Adulas, from which both the Rhine flows 
 " northward, and the Adua in the contrary direction, falling 
 " into the Larian lake, which is in front of Comum." (After 
 naming others, the Salassi are resumed)— 
 
I 
 
 40 Early Knowledge of the Alps. [part Vlil. 
 
 " The counter of the Salassi lies in a great measure in a 
 " deep valley, mountains enclosing the region on both sides : 
 " but some portion reaches up even towards the heights which 
 " overhang that region. To those who pass over the moun- 
 " tains from Italy the way is along the valley I speak of : it 
 " is then separated into two : one is carried through the 
 " Psenine as it is called, not practicable for carriages over the 
 " tops of tlie Alps ; the other, more w^estward, through the 
 *' Centrones. 
 
 " The Salassian country possesses gold mines, which the 
 " Salassians formerly held when they were a powerful people ; 
 '' as also they wqhq masters of the passes. The river Doria 
 " mostly promoted their mining, for the washing out of the 
 " gold ore : for which purpose parting off the water to make 
 ' sluices towards various places, they left the main channel 
 " empty. This was useful to them for the pursuit of gold, 
 " but grievous to the husbandmen of the plains below them, 
 " who were robbed of their watering ; this river being fitted 
 " for the irrigation of the district from the great fall of the 
 " stream. 
 
 " From this cause frequent wars arose between the tw^o 
 " peoples interested. When the Eomans got the mastery, 
 " the Salassians were driven both from their gold workinrvs 
 " and the country : but, still holding the mountains, th^y 
 
 exacted payment for the water from the contractors who 
 " farmed the mines ; and were always at variance with them, 
 " owing to the greediness of these publicans. Thus it came 
 " to pass that Eoman generals, who from time to time were 
 " commissioned to those parts, readily found excuse on which 
 " to make war. 
 
 " Down to very recent times the Salassi, sometimes warred 
 " upon by the Eomans, sometimes let alone, still had a 
 " strength, and were very injurious to those who passed over 
 " their mountains, according to their habits of plunder. They 
 
 t( 
 
 It 
 
 ft 
 
 *( 
 
 CHAP, v.] Po and Doria of Straho, Lib. iv. 203. 41 
 
 '' made Decimus Brutus, in his 'flight from Modena, pay a 
 " drachma for every man he had with him. Messala, winter- 
 " ing near them, had to pay down value for his w^ood, both 
 " for firing, and for elm to make javelins and weapons of 
 " exercise. These men once plundered Caesar's baggage : and 
 " they sent down fragments of precipices upon the legions, 
 " pretending to be employed in making roads and brid^anc^ 
 
 u 
 
 rivers. 
 
 " Afterwards, however, Augustus utterly subdued them, and 
 " sold them all as prize property — being brought down to 
 " Eporedia, a colony of the Eomans which they had planted 
 " there, meaning it to be a guard against the Salassi : but 
 " those who were posted there could do little to withstand 
 " them, until the nation w^as exterminated. There were 
 " reckoned of other persons 36,000, and of fighting men 8,000. 
 " Terentius Yarro, the general who had overthrown them, sold 
 " them all by auction, and Augustus Csesar sending 3,000 
 " Eomans founded the city Augusta on the spot where Varro 
 " had his camp. The whole neighbourhood is now peaceable 
 " to the very summits of the mountains.'* Strabo then pro- 
 ceeds to speak of the Helvetii, and Boii, &c. 
 
 Strabo was in the prime of life when the Salassian war 
 took place, and a brave people was exterminated : and, seeing 
 the ample and accurate information w^hich he had on the 
 history and geography of their river, and the valley through 
 which it flows, where is the provocation to suspect that he 
 meant to speak of the minor Doria, and called it Salassian 
 by mistake ? At least we are entitled to question this ex- 
 planation which appears to have satisfied the learned, and to 
 ask wdiy, in their discussions and quotations of these passages, 
 they have never bestowed an observation on avrb^ 6 Ud8o<;. 
 The term surely deserves attention, and I think it will be 
 found that the position of the Medulli claims further con- 
 sideration. 
 
 It is to be observed, that Strabo, after carrying the Po from 
 
42 
 
 Early Knowledge of the AliJS. [part VIII. 
 
 i > 
 
 the confluence of the Doria Baltea to the Adriatic, reverts to 
 the Medulli. He seems further to fix that people's position, 
 and the early course of the Po from their mountains, by 
 showing it to run between the Taurini and the Salassi, whose 
 direction, as if towards him as he speaks, is marked by their 
 having above them the Veragri and others, and the lake of 
 Geneva beyond. One cannot doubt that he means the Po to 
 receive the Doria at his left bank : but it may perhaps be 
 doubted from what direction Strabo supposed the Po himself 
 to have come to the confluence. If he speaks, as I think is 
 indisputable, of the Doria Baltea, the Po must have come 
 from the north-west out of the Medullian heights : and it 
 would be vain to expect a precise definition of the source. 
 We must ramble from Chivasso towards the glaciers of the 
 Tsere right and left, to imagine where Strabo himself would 
 conjectui-e it, if he had the opportunity of handling a modern 
 map. 
 
 It is certainly very remarkable, that D'Anville and so 
 many able men have been and still are thus silent on the Po. 
 They say not from what mountains Strabo derived that great 
 river. Their whole favour is bestowed on the identity of the 
 sources of the Druentia and the Doria : instead of rectifying 
 the former, they convert the latter into a thing which it is 
 not : striving only to mend that which wants no mending. 
 What Strabo says of the Doria is free from all ambiguity. 
 What he says of the Po shows clearly his impressions : and 
 perhaps not wrong impressions ; for ignorance of the nomen- 
 clature of future times is not error. But Strabo's source of 
 the Po is wholly excluded from the question, while the critics 
 relieve the error on Druentia by substituting another Doria. 
 By shifting his Doria from the valley of the Salassi to the 
 valley of Susa, they do not improve the sense of the passage. 
 The writer of the article " Padus " in the Geographical Dic- 
 tionarg, commonly very accurate, quotes no authority earlier 
 than I'liny, ^^'hen he states the Po to have its sources in 
 
 CHAP, v.] Po ami Doria of Strabo, Lib, iv. .203. 
 
 43 
 
 k 
 
 { 
 
 Mons Yesulus : he says afterwards — " The valley of the 
 " Padus, as well as the river itself, are well described by 
 " Poly bins, the earliest author in whom the Pom an name 
 " Padus is found, as w^ell as at a later period by Strabo and 
 " Pliny." Of the three descriptions, tw^o are not quoted : we 
 know how^ever that Polybius states the Po to run southward 
 till he makes the great bend to the east, and that Strabo 
 states him to rise from his own fountain in the heights of the 
 Medulli. 
 
 At present, I believe that the usual explanation of one of the 
 fountains flowing in two opposite directions, is not sound, but 
 only ingenious. With a rival ingenuity, Mr. Whitaker took 
 a point near Mont Blanc, as furnishing the double spring, to 
 feed the Phone on one side and the Po on the other. The 
 first source of the Doria is, we know, in the Col de la Seigne : 
 and Mr. Whitaker found, on the other side of the ridge, the 
 stream of the Arve in the Yal de Montjoie, and, carrying it 
 to the Phone at Geneva, demonstrates, as he says, from this 
 very passage of Strabo, that the Arve was actually denomi- 
 nated Druentia by the Romans.* 
 
 It may be, that a proprietor, cutting his barley near 
 Napoleon's obelisk on the Genevre, will in some map see 
 cause to flatter himself that his farm originates the Doire and 
 the Durance. Whatever may be that gentleman's excuse, 
 Strabo is not his authority. If any think proper to bestow 
 those fluvial titles on streams that trickle dow^n from either 
 side of the Genevre range, this will not guide us to the inter- 
 ^•retation of Strabo's text : it will not make the Durance to 
 rise in the Medullian Alps : it will not cancel his elaborate 
 account of the Salassian Doria ; nor import into his works 
 another Doria. 
 
 * See Whitaker's " Course of Hannibal Ascertained," i. 150. 
 N.B. — Before our inquiry is closed, the Druentia will incur fresh 
 casualties at the hands of the Cenisians. 
 
44 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Alps. [part viir. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Po and Doria of Straho — Lib. v. p. 217. 
 
 I HAVE further to show, that in the one other passage, lib. v. 
 217, where Strabo speaks of a river Doria, Jie there also 
 intends the Doria Baltea. 
 
 He is end(javouring to show by distances the way from 
 Ariminum on the Adriatic towards the limit of the Cisalpine 
 Province, where he had heard that it adjoined the domain of 
 Cottius. The usual reading of these sentences is as follows : — 
 Xtto Be n\aKevTLa<^ eh 'ApLfjuivov ardBtot, ')(^[\iot rpiaKoatoc, 
 virep he YiXaKevriat;, eirl fiev tov<; opov^ T779 Kottlov 7^9, 
 TLklvov ev TptaKovra ef p.L\ioi<; TroXt? kol 6^ct)vv/jL0<; 6 irapa- 
 ppecov 7roTa/jb6<; av/ji/BdWcov rw Uahwy kov KXaanhiov koI 
 Aep6(DV KoX %<ovLcrTaTeWa /xifcpov ev irapohcp. t] B' evOela eU 
 ^ilKeXov irapd tov Yldhov rov Aovplav iroTafjuov jSapaOpooBrjf;, 
 rj TToWrj TrXetou? Kal dWov<; €')(ovaa irorafioiK^ (wv kol top 
 ApovevTiav) /j',cXcci)p earl irepl e^iJKovra, evrevOev he ijBr] rd 
 "AXireta oprj koX t) KeXrt/c^. The text was so printed, I believe 
 till 1844, when Kramer admitted fcal before top Aovplap on 
 the suggestion of M. Du Theil* 
 
 The important blemish is that a word is wanting before 
 TOP Aovplap. I conceive the missing word to be eVt ; and 
 that the sentences must be taken to express the following 
 ideas: — "From Ariminum to Placentia it is 1,300 stadia. 
 " Above Placentia, as you travel to the confines of the 
 *' Cottian land, there is in 36 miles the town Ticinum, and 
 " river of the same name, flowing past it, and falling into the 
 
 * Casaubou is said to have been in favour of Kai, but it is not in 
 his text. 
 
 CHAP. VI.] Po and Doria of Straho, Lib. v. 217. 45 
 
 " Po. Clastidium, Derthona, and Aquae Statiell® are a little 
 " on one side of your route. The straight onward route for 
 " Ocelum is along the Po to the river Doria about sixty 
 " miles ; being full of hollows, and having for the most part 
 " many other rivers (among them the Druentia). After that 
 " are the Alpine mountains and Celtica." Strabo would have 
 carried you to Ocelum if he could : but, as I understand the 
 text, the description halts at the Doria, because he had 
 exhausted his information. The progress, so far as described, 
 is in three instalments : in order to reach the boundary of the 
 province, there ought to be one or two more. The first is 
 clearly expressed, to Placentia 1,300 stadia so the second, 
 to Ticinum 36 miles : the third is equally clear, to the Doria 
 60 miles. Beyond this, instruction is wanting: having 
 nothing more to tell you, he only says that, going forward, 
 you will have the Alps and Celtica. 
 
 Some think that words are lost between e^r)KovTa and 
 evTevOep: if so, they may have expressed the sp.ce from the 
 Doria to Ocelum.* But, if Strabo himself left the words as 
 they stand, it consists with that which I have already shown 
 reason to believe ; namely, that his researches did not enable 
 him to carry his particulars in the direction of Ocelum further 
 than the mouth of the Doria Baltea : so there he drops his 
 detail. It was before pointed out that, when he was showing 
 the way from the Alps near Brian9on eastward, he stopped 
 short at Ocelum ; as he does here at the Doria. Nowhere 
 does he notice anything which belongs to the space that inter- 
 venes between those points : and the just inference is, that he 
 had no knowledge nor information relating to it, from which 
 he could fill up the blank. See ante, c. 3. 
 
 The French translator, M. Du TheH, tom. ii. 134, wished to 
 improve the text, so as to account for the whole journey to 
 
 * Viz. : Up the Po to the site of Turin, and by Pinerolo and 
 Fenestrelles. 
 
46 Early Knowledge of the Alps. [part viii. 
 
 Ocelum : so h(3 translates, not without apology, eh "X2/c6\oz^, 
 "jiisqu'a Ocekim;" which is wrong. Moreover, before rov 
 Aovptayj where I would supply iiri, as the missing word, he 
 approves of /cal; which involves the matter in fresh diffi- 
 culties: for, though /cac is said to be found in two Paris 
 manuscripts, jet, when inserted between UdBov and rov 
 Aovplav, it produces the idea irapa rov Aovplav, and the 
 route is made along the Po and along the minor Doria. 
 " Le long du Po et Durias (Eiparia)." Now a route up this 
 river will never reach the terminus Ocelum ; for that place 
 belongs to another line of ascent, separated from this river by 
 a continuous ra nge of mountains. It is, as said in Dr. Smith's 
 Dictionary, in the valley of Fenestrelles, not in that of the 
 minor Doria. M. Du Tlieil himself, however, comforts us 
 with saying that their route will go *' jusqu'assez pres." 
 Strabon, il 135. Moreover, this remedy of minor Doria pro- 
 duces a fresh disease in the sentence : sixty miles is utterly 
 useless as a distance from Ticinum to Ocelum ; and their 
 way of mending the figures is by turning sixty into 160, for 
 which there is no authority of any sort. When this change 
 was thought of at Paris in 1809, M. Gossellin maintained the 
 sixty miles of Polybius ; that is, from Ticinum to the Doria 
 Baltea, and to be applied only to that portion of the route 
 along the Po. As to ApovevTiav, it might have been let alone 
 as inexplicable : but the translators were determined to cure 
 this also : so this too is deemed to be the minor Doria. Not 
 a happy solution ! Apovevriav stands as one of the " many 
 other rivers : " Doria is that with which the many others are 
 contrasted. 
 
 The minor I>oria is readily accepted by Mr. Ellis. Journal 
 of Philol vol. iii. 21. He finds it "clear from Strabo, 
 that Ocelum lay upon the banks of a river Dora." He 
 cites the passage with icai, not hinting that the word had 
 ever been absent : he assumes that I accept Kal with a course 
 
 CHAP. VI.] Po and Dm^ia of Straho, Lib. v. 217. 
 
 47 
 
 i 
 
 
 along such a river : he challenges " Mr. Law's interpretation, 
 " as he calls it, of irapa rov Aovplav," and sagely exclaims, 
 "How any road from Placentia to Ocelum could have run, 
 " either wholly or partially, along the banks of the Oreo or 
 " the Dora Baltea, is a matter utterly beyond my powers of 
 " conception." Now Mr. Ellis well knew that I did not inter- 
 pret irapa rov Aovplav in that way, or any way ; but that I 
 rejected the idea which the words contain, being the result 
 of sticking in kuL 
 
 Mr. Ellis listens without objection to the 100 miles which 
 the French translator adds to the 60 of Strabo : but is rather 
 at a loss in applying them. He wishes the distance to end at 
 his own Ocelum (Buttigliera), which is between Turin and 
 Eivoli ; and 160 is much too long for that : so he offers two 
 new plans, one for 160 and one for 60 ; and invents for each 
 a new terminus k quo, instead of the Ticinum of Strabo. He 
 says, '■' If reckoned from Placentia, 60 must be a mistake for 
 160." Now we cannot reckon from Placentia : the previous 
 instalment was from Placentia to Ticinum. Then he says, 
 " If reckoned from near the modern Casale, 60 would be 
 " nearly correct." But we cannot reckon from Casale : we 
 are construing Strabo ; and Casale is half-way between 
 Ticinum and Turin : and by no construction can you make 
 it a terminus of distance. 
 
 Mr. Ellis has this ready way of accounting for Druentia : — 
 "The Apovevrla of Strabo would be Dora Baltea." Being 
 one of those who cannot believe in Strabo's Doria of the 
 Salassi, he takes this opportunity of making him call it some- 
 thing else. Thinking that Strabo in the fourth book named the 
 Salassian Doria by mistake, he borrows for it now a name 
 from the other side of the Alps, Druentia : and the English 
 translator is not more discreet in calling it the "Doria 
 Eiparia," and speaking of " the ancient Druentia." This word 
 is a casualty that we are not called upon to account for. 
 
 .ik 
 
48 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Alps. 
 
 [part viit. 
 
 
 \\ 
 
 There is a convert to the errors of Kai and eKarov, who is 
 entitled to much respect, the learned Gustavus Kramer. In 
 his laborious studies, it has been a great object to provide a 
 text which msy not defy grammatical construction. Seeing 
 that a word must be found to precede t6v Aovplav, he has 
 hastily accepted Kal as an improvement ; which being im- 
 ported, Trapa rov Aovplav is the idea which results : but that 
 cannot mean the Doria Baltea, inasmuch as a traveller going 
 along that rivei' from the Po would be tending to Mont Blanc 
 instead of Ocelum. But, if you wish the words of Strabo to 
 carry you to Ocelum, or near it, his sixty miles must be more 
 than doubled. So the learned editor of 1844, evidently sus- 
 pecting the alteration of the French critic, prints it thus — 
 [iKUTov] e^rjKovra ; and says in a note, " e/carov addidi ex 
 "Du Theilii conjectura, qui, collatis itinerariis, hoc esse in- 
 " tervallum ost(3ndit." * Thus the two alterations of the text 
 and the false geography which places Uxeau in the valley of 
 the minor Doria, instead of the valley of Fenestrelles, are 
 acknowledged hj Kramer to rest on the conjecture of M. Du 
 Theil. I see that the English translator of Strabo adopts both 
 innovations, Kal and eKarov, without comment. Though he 
 admits Ocelum to be Ocello, Uxeau, in the Val Pragelas, he 
 is content, like M. Du Theil, with the hopeless chance of 
 finding it " asse^z pr^s " on the minor Doria. 
 
 In this question I feel myself called upon to regard the 
 passage as defective. Strabo does not reach Ocelum. The 
 notion that he does so rests on the words 17 S' evOela eU 
 *'S1k€\ov, which the French translator wrongly renders *' jusqu' 
 k Ocelum : " and he applies a distance to suit the purpose. But 
 Strabo's Doria, not Ocelum, is the terminus of that instalment 
 of distance. It is true that, in stating it, Strabo introduces 
 the idea that the route is a route for Ocelum. And so it is : 
 in the preceding distance, which gives only a stretch to the 
 
 * Ocelum is in no itinerary. 
 
 CHAP. VI.] Po and Doria of Strabo, Lib. v. 217. 49 
 
 Ticinus, he says the same thing in the words iirl fiev rov<; 
 opov^ Trj<; KoTTiov 7179. Those confines and Ocelum were to 
 him convertible terms ; as in p. 179, "Xl/ceXoi; to irepa^ rij^ 
 KoTTLov yrj<i. Thus, in each prescription of distance west- 
 ward, Placentia to Ticinum, and Ticinum to the Doria, he tells 
 you that he is tending to the Eoman confines : in one by the 
 term Cottian boundary, in the other by the term Ocelum. 
 But in neither instance does he bring you to the end of that 
 journey : neither at Ticinum, nor at the Doria. Each is an 
 instalment ; and only an instalment. The French translation 
 of the first expression, iirl fjuev toi>9 6pov<; rrj^ Kottcov 7^9, 
 " en tirant vers les confins de Cottius," would be a just trans- 
 lation of the equivalent term in the next allegation of distance : 
 Strabo, having paused to name those places not in the route, 
 resumes his track with 77 8' evOeia ek "afceXov : the proposi- 
 tion which begins with these words, brings you to the Doria 
 Baltea, not further. 
 
 Part of Strabo's Italy was founded on his own experience : 
 but for the greater part he depended on books : and on many 
 subjects wanted the benefit of the newest information. The 
 report of distances in this part of his work seems to indicate 
 memoranda taken from various sources : so different are the 
 modes of estimating them. After reporting that from Genoa 
 to Derthona it is 400 stades, and the same from Derthona to 
 Placentia, he says that it will be two days and nights from 
 Placentia to Eavenna : between Ariminum and Placentia he 
 gives the distance in stades ; from Placentia to Ticinum in 
 miles ; from Ticinum to the Doria in miles : and thence to 
 the terminus that he has in mind, the distance is not ex- 
 pressed at all. His particulars end at the mouth of the Doria 
 Baltea : ivrevOev refers to that point, not to Ocelum : from 
 the Doria he leaves the reader to deal with Celtica and the 
 Alps as best he can. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Alps. [part viii 
 
 CHAP. vi.J Po mid Doria of Straho, Lib. v. 217. 
 
 51 
 
 • I 
 
 These comments on the Po and Doria of Strabo have been 
 made in the belief that they confirm my views on the Po of 
 Polybius; so as to support the proposition that, when he 
 wrote, the Cottian or Western Alps were unexplored. I show, 
 therefore, that ei^en Strabo, in a much later day, and with his 
 better opportunities, was not primed in regard to the region 
 of Italy under those Alps, with the more recent additions to 
 Homan information. Polybius was not likely to hear of the 
 Po rising in Ye-sulus : and Strabo did not. My opponent, 
 Mr. Ellis, considers that even the earlier Polybius had made 
 greater progress, and therefore that Strabo must have done so 
 too. He meets my assertion, that Strabo's Doria was the Doria 
 Baltea, and my suggestion that the Orca might be his Po, by 
 saying (Journal of Phil. iii. 20) — " Strabo, who was acquainted 
 " with Polybius s writings, could hardly have held so absurd 
 " an opinion about the Po." 
 
 It is true that, if better knowledge of those streams had 
 been derivable from Polybius, Strabo had access to it. But 
 Polybius had not that knowledge. Mr. Ellis has not said a 
 word to show that he had : and, as far as we have the means 
 of judging, he had not. Whether it w^as absurd in these two 
 distinguished ^^Titers, between whom there was an interval 
 of 150 years, not to have apprehended as the Po, the stream 
 which, rising in Yesulus, now flows past Saluzzo and Turin, 
 is a matter on which men may think as they please. I have 
 ventured to point out, as fact, that they did not so apprehend 
 it. I impute to them conceptions on the Po, which do not 
 accord with our conceptions of it : and, though you say that 
 they were in error, I contend that their conceptions are con- 
 sistent with one another, and that thei^ consistency strengthens 
 me in my construction. The statement of one of these writers 
 is that the Po runs southward till he makes the great bend to 
 the east : the statement of the other is, that the Po and the 
 Salassian Doria had their sources in the same mountains not 
 
 
 I 
 
 M 
 
 •| 
 
 far from each other : and, as there is nothincr in the writings 
 of either, which indicates the Po to flow northward to the 
 great bend near Chivasso, I feel w^arranted in the views which 
 I impute to them. Whether or not it is your pleasure to 
 charge those views with error, I have their own authority for 
 saying that they entertained them, and I have a right to say 
 that those views were not absurd. 
 
 Mr. Ellis is an historian and a geographer. Let him show 
 at what period it began to be absurd, to attribute to the Po a 
 source other than from Monte Viso. I cannot see that it 
 would be absurd to do so now, if the world should fancy it. 
 Can any man be named before Pliny, who asserted that 
 source ? What is the moral necessity that his predecessors 
 had set him the example ? Did his successors always follow 
 the example ? If not, they must in the eyes of Mr. Ellis be 
 still more absurd. And yet there are names among them 
 who enjoy his particular respect. The text of Ptolemy re- 
 cords the avfjL^oXrj of the two rivers ; saying of the Po, ?; 
 KUTa T7)u Adpcov Xl/Luyrjv Ke^aXrj, and of the Doire, rj K€(f)a\i) 
 rj Kara rrjv Jlotvovap Xlfxvrjv. iii. 63. Appian, contemporary 
 with Ptolemy, conducts Hannibal over the Alps " near to the 
 " sources of the Phone and the Po, rivers which rise not far 
 " from each other." The author of Peutinger's chart carries 
 the Po from the Alps, in a course due west and east drawn 
 far above the latitude of Susa and Turin. 
 
 e2 
 
 V I 
 
52 
 
 Early Kaouiedge of tlu^ Jljys. [part vili. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Mr. Ellis on the early 7tse of the Little Mont Cenis. His 
 appeal to Ammicmus Marcelliniis. 
 
 One who has perceived evidence of the Cenis pass in the 
 works of Strabo, was likely to discern the same thing in 
 other ancient documents : and it may be interesting to show 
 how far the peniitration of this laborioiis theorist has reached 
 in developing the early notoriety of that route. 
 
 Mr. Ellis, p. 159, says that the Cenis " is mentioned by 
 " name for the first time wdiere it is said to have been crossed 
 " by Pepin in the year 755;" which is about half-way between 
 Hannibal's time and our own: 973 years after the Cartha- 
 ginian invasion, 1099 before Mr. Ellis's treatise, But, though 
 the name had not been used, he declares that the pass was 
 " known from the most remote historic times." The pass of 
 Pepin not proviiag much, an earlier period is offered to notice, 
 one which is only 779 years after Hannibal : and Mr. Ellis 
 shows that Secusia civitas was then under the Bishop of 
 Maurienne, who was subject to the Metropolitan see of 
 Vienne. Hence he assumes that there was a way of getting 
 from Italy to Maurienne; and thinks that the Cenis must 
 then have been in use for passing from the vaUey of Susa to 
 the Arc. It may have been so : and the Col de la Roue may 
 also have been in use for that purpose. But we are still far 
 away from Hannibal. 
 
 After citing, in support of these interesting facts, books 
 not in every-day use to the student of Hannibal's march, 
 Eredegar, Baronius, and Gregory of Tours, Mr. Ellis creeps 
 into higher antiquity, and produces a few startling proposi- 
 tions. They are stated in these words — p. 160. 
 
 CHAP. VII.] Mr. Ellis on Ammianus Marcellinus, 
 
 53 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
 " 1 . The pass of the Mont Cenis is alluded to by Am- 
 " mianus Marcellinus, a writer of the fourth century. 
 
 '' 2. The road over the Little Mont Cenis is laid down in 
 " the Peutingerian Table, and was therefore a Roman way. 
 
 " 3. The Mont Cenis was crossed by Julius Ca3sar, when 
 " on his way to intercept the Helvetii in Transalpine Gaul." 
 
 These three facts, though they would be of small import- 
 ance if they were true, yet as the ripened fruit of the medita- 
 tions of a severe thinker on the Hannibal question, they must 
 not be overlooked. 
 
 Appeal to Ammianus Marcellinus. 
 
 This writer, who flourished in the middle of the fourth 
 century, having mentioned the Cottian Alps as bounding 
 Gaul to the east, and having stated tliat Cottius, being con- 
 ciliated by Augustus, made new and more convenient roads 
 " medias inter alias Alpes vetustas," writes thus, as quoted by 
 Mr. Ellis in his Treatise, p. 161 :— 
 
 " In his Alpibus Cottiis, quarum initium h Segusione est 
 oppido, pra?celsum erigitur jugum, nulli fere sine discrimine 
 ^^ penetrabile. Est enim ^ GalHis venientibus prona humili- 
 " tate devexum, pendentium saxorum altrinsecus visu terribile, 
 II pr^sertim verno tempore : cum liquente gelu, nivibusque' 
 'I solutis flatu calidiore ventorum, per diruptas utrinque 
 '' angustias, et lacunas pruinarum congerie latebrosas, descen- 
 " dentes cunctantibus plantis homines et jumenta procidunt ' 
 " et carpenta : idque remedium ad arcendum exitium reper- 
 " turn est solum, quod pleraque vehicula vastis funibus illigata, 
 " pone cohibente virorum vel bourn nisu valido, vix gr^'essJ 
 " reptante paulo tutius devolvuntur. Et h^, ut diximus, 
 '^ anni verno contingunt. Hieme vero humus cristrata frigo- 
 " ribus, et tanquam levigata, ideoque labilis, incessum prsed- 
 pitantem impellit, et patulae valles per spatia plana glacie 
 perfidc^ vorant nonnunquam transeuntes. Ob qme locorum 
 
 « 
 
 i< 
 
 <{ 
 
 u 
 
 i< 
 
 S\ 
 
 
Jr 
 
 !f' 
 
 11' 
 
 If! 
 
 f 
 
 1 
 
 54 
 
 Early Krtmdedge of the A Ips. [part VIII. 
 
 <( 
 
 n 
 
 « 
 
 callidi, eminentes ligneos stilos per cautiora loca defigunt, 
 ut eorum series viatorem ducat innoxium : qui si nivibus 
 operti latuerint, montanis defluentibus rivis eversi, agresti- 
 bus prseviis difficile pervaduntur. 
 " A summitate autem hujus Italici clivi planities adusque 
 " stationem nomine Martis, per septem extenditur millia : et 
 " hinc alia celsitudo erectior, aegr^que superabilis, ad Matronae 
 '* porrigitur verticera, cujus vocabulum casus foeminse nobilis 
 " dedit. Unde declive quidem iter, sed expeditius adusque 
 " Castellum Virgantiam patet/' Lib. vi. c. 10. 
 
 Here the author seems to speak of Cottian Alps beginning 
 from Susa and leading to Brian9on. He describes at some 
 length the steepness and dangers offered by a "prsecelsum 
 jugum " to those who descend it coming from Gaul. Having 
 described those liorrors, he shortly notices the road which 
 from the top of this "jugum" is carried over the crest of 
 Alps to BrianQon. He says that from the summitas there is 
 a level, " planities," of about seven miles as far as the station 
 " Ad Martis ; " and after that, a steeper ascent, hardly to be 
 surmounted, up to the summit of Matrona ; and then the 
 descent to Brigantio. The four places named are very well 
 known places : and it might puzzle any man to guess, how 
 the "prsecelsum jugum" can be supposed to represent the 
 Mont Cenis or Little Mont Cenis. 
 
 Mr. Ellis admits. Treatise 161, that ''Ad Martis" is Oulx ; 
 that Matrone is the Mont Gen^vre; and that Virgantia is 
 Brian9on : and he verifies, within a small fraction of distance, 
 all that the author says of the " planities," making it last for 
 six miles to Oulx instead of seven : he tells us, that, from Susa 
 to the beginning- of the " planities," the river is in a defile ; 
 that the defile is formed on the north (i.e. on your right hand 
 in ascending) by a mountain mass. This is Mr. Ellis's own 
 evidence : neven^heless, he declares that the Mont Cenis is 
 the pass of which Ammiamis spoke. 
 
 f 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 CHAP. VII.] Mr. Ellis on Ammiamis Marcellinus. 
 
 55 
 
 I cannot pretend to understand Mr. Ellis's argument, if 
 there is one : the confusion of ideas seems to be all his own : 
 so he charges it upon the text which he interprets, magnifying 
 his own merit as interpreter. He considers that Ammianus 
 did not comprehend the accounts from which he compiled his 
 description, and put together confusedly the phenomena of 
 the " prsecelsum jugum," avalanches, &c. At the same time 
 he urges, that the truth and accuracy of his details prove the 
 trustworthiness of the authorities which he had consulted. 
 Thus, while Mr. Ellis abuses the history that he is quoting, 
 yet, with a clairvoyance peculiar to himself, he reads through 
 it the earlier books which the author had so ill-digested. 
 
 After approving the position given by Ammianus to the 
 " planities," and saying that the " summitas clivi " is therefore 
 at the end of the defile, about two miles above Exilles, Mr. 
 Ellis argues thus, p. 162, in favour of the Cenis : — "Yet this 
 ' summitas * is clearly not the summit of the ' pra^celsum 
 "jugum,' even if Ammianus supposed it to be so. For it is 
 merely a point in the valley of the Dora, and not the crest 
 of a pass at all." This he calls his '' argument on position : " 
 but we do not know that any one has alleged what he con- 
 tradicts. Ammianus does not call it the crest of a pass : on 
 the contrary, he says that, after the intervention of a 
 " planities," there is a further and steeper ascent before you 
 can reach the heights of the Genevre. 
 
 Having laid down that "summitas" is clearly not the 
 summit of the " prsecelsum jugum," Mr. Ellis undertakes to 
 find the meaning of "hujus Italici clivi." He instructs us 
 that " clivus " is a slope, and that " Italicus " is the reverse of 
 " Gallicus :" but he forgets the third word " hujus." He might 
 see, that "hujus clivi " imports a slope which has been men- 
 tioned before, and that it can be nothing but the " prgecelsum 
 jugum." Also, when he comes to " alia celsitudo erectior," he 
 will find the comparison to be with the " jugum : " no other 
 declivity has been mentioned. 
 
 ti 
 
 u 
 
 tt 
 
66 
 
 I 
 
 B! 
 
 s\ 
 
 .Early Knoiuledge of the Alps, [part vill. 
 
 Mr. Ellis prescribes, without aid from the author, that, in 
 order to compretend the " prgecelsum jugum," we must search 
 for a line of communication between the valley of the Arc 
 and the valley of the minor Doria. Begging this as a requi- 
 site, he names a few tracks, as capable of affording the 
 transit : he creates shadows, to have the merit of dispersing 
 them. Referring to his defile between Susa and the '' planities," 
 he says : " Over this mountain mass three passes exist, 
 " regarding the Great and Little Mont Cenis as one. These 
 "passes are, the Mont Cenis, the Col de Clair^e, and the 
 " Col d'Ambin. Yet the two last, of which the names are 
 "scarcely known, are merely difficult mountain tracks: 
 " no carpcntum * could ever have crossed either of these cols,'* — 
 Treatise, p. 163. 
 
 Thus Mr. Ellis, in his own way, sets up as competitors 
 things which he imagines to be more absurd than the Cenis, 
 and he would p]:ove the Cenis by negativing them. But in 
 truth they are not more absurd than the Cenis. Mr. Ellis 
 turns the scale against them by their inaptitude for a " carpen- 
 tum : " intimating that such a luxury might have been eujoyed 
 in the descent to ISTovalese. But we remember his own 
 description of this preferable road. It is in this descent that 
 he makes Hannibal to lose ten thousand men in six miles 
 without meeting a living enemy, p. 126. He exhibited it in 
 p. 120, as " only one foot wide, the traveller being transported 
 in a chaise a porteurs, they leaping from rock to rock, wliile 
 " he and his chair hung half in air over the precipice." Surely 
 he should have explained how his Cenisian pass, so unfavour- 
 ably portrayed in the eighteenth century, was adapted to a 
 barouche in the time of Ammianus. 
 
 Mr. Ellis clos(js his proof of the identity of the Cenis with 
 the " jugum " of Ammianus by quotations from two French 
 critics, who give the former a fearfully bad character from La 
 
 See the passage of Ammianus. 
 
 
PART OF 
 
 TABULA PEUTINCERIANA 
 
 EDIT SCHEYB 1753 
 
 RES. 
 
 ebs^"-* 
 
 't.irfttiiJs Citoqmr>hjrnl f-'.-tnh'^' l^ndiirtj 
 
 Lonjdjaw Sc Counbrvdpe/ • MaucrrvMocrv & C? 
 
 To cuxontparw ^' Tht Aips of Hannibal " r9f^l^ll. Pa^SS. 
 
CHAP, vill.] 3Ir. Ellis on Pcutingcr's Table. 
 
 57 
 
 \Pcu/t99. 
 
 Grande Croix downwards : and tendering his own evidence 
 on the requisites, " prona humilitas, pendentia saxa, nives 
 solutae " and " calidior flatus," complacently pronounces, " The 
 
 Mont Cenis was, in fact, the pass between Gaul and Italy, of 
 
 which Ammianus speaks." 
 
 « 
 
 it 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Mr. Ellis on the Little Mont Cenis, His appeal to 
 
 the Peutiiigerian Table. 
 
 Though Mr. Ellis looks upon the Cenis track as the most 
 ancient of practised Alpine Passes, and having flourished 
 before the time of Hannibal, he does not su^jf^rest it as amono- 
 the Ways first registered : it does not appear in the Itinerary 
 of Antoninus, nor in the Jerusalem Itinerary. The places 
 entered as stations in these documents are too capable of 
 proof to be transferred into the road over the Little Mont 
 Cenis. Mr. Ellis takes his stand on that queer old map 
 ascribed to the latter part of the fourth century after Christ, 
 called sometimes "Carte de Peutinger," sometimes "Table 
 Theodosienne," of which I have given a short account in my 
 first volume. 
 
 If a man should believe Portsmouth to be in Yorkshire 
 and Beverley to be in Hampshire, he would be warranted in 
 stating that belief to others : but one should be surprised if 
 he were to tell us that it was so laid down in the map of 
 England ; so we are surprised with this proposition : " The 
 '' road over the Little Mont Cenis is laid down in the Peutin- 
 " gerian Table." To appreciate the merits of the proposition, 
 it is expedient that the Table should be referred to : for it is a 
 thing quite sui generis : I have already given some account 
 of the document itself ; and a copy of the small portion of it 
 
 m\ 
 
 I 
 
58 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Alps. 
 
 [part VIII. 
 
 necessary for tlii3 occasion is offered by Mr. Ellis with his 
 Treatise, Let us then endeavour fairly to examine the pro- 
 cess, by which the zeal of a laborious theorist would turn 
 this document to account. 
 
 In the Chart of Peutinger there is marked distinctly a 
 chain of mountains, representing in a continuous course the 
 main barrier of the Alps. Three tracks are drawn over them, 
 marked respectively by the words " in summo Pennino ; " " in 
 Alpe Graia ; " '' in Alpe Cottia : " showing that the framer 
 of the Chart was acquainted with the Passes of the Great 
 St. Bernard, the Little St. Bernard, and the Mont Gen^vre. 
 None is more definitely pointed out than the last : a track is 
 drawn in a line from Turin,* through the same Stations 
 which are given in the Itineraries, to and over the mountain 
 chain: we there see ^Titten, " Brigantione," and "in Alpe 
 Cottia." On the French side the Chart has this peculiarity : 
 the two Itineraries had given a route from Briangon to Aries 
 on the Ehone ; and in one of them there is a branch route 
 from Gap, going through Luc and Die to Valence on the 
 Rhone. The Cha,rt has the same track to Aries without the 
 branch from Gap : but, on crossing the chain of moimtains to 
 BriauQon, it sends forward two more tracks : one, through 
 places marked Geminae and Gerainae to Luc (not touching 
 Embrun or Gap) and so on to Valence : the other through 
 Culabone to the Rhone at Vienne. This line is proposed as 
 the subject of inquiry. 
 
 Mr. EUis prepares his readers for receiving the argument 
 which he is about to administer by a broad assertion, and a 
 very bold one, such as may secure to him the privilege of 
 speaking of things by perverse instead of simple description. 
 At p. 167 of his Treatise, the subject is introduced thus : — 
 In the Peutingerian Table, four Roman roads across the 
 Alps will be found, three proceeding from Turin, and one 
 
 * Turin does not appear at all in Mr. Ellis's copy. 
 
 CHAP. VIII.] Mr. Ellis on Peutinger s Table. 
 
 59 
 
 n 
 
 li 
 
 I 
 
 " from Ivrea." The truth is, that there is one road proceeding 
 from Turin, not three : and, though the author adds that *' the 
 three are coincident for a certain distance," this does not 
 relieve the fallacy of " three Roman roads proceeding from 
 Turin." There is in the chart one road from Turin to the 
 chain of Alps at Mont Gen^vre, and beyond it there are three 
 in France, proceeding to the Rhone. The fallacy is carried 
 on through many pages, by calling the three tracks which are 
 in France, the Turin and Aries road, the Turin and Valence 
 road, the Turin and Vienne road. No man, looking at the 
 chart without inclination to mislead himself or others, can fail 
 to see that the Roman road proceeding from Turin to Brian9on 
 is one. 
 
 The only object which I see to be answered by stating three 
 roads to exist from Turin, which exist only in France, is 
 confusion. Intelligible terms are important to a proposition 
 which claims to be true. It is easy and simple to speak of a 
 track by its termini, the place where it begins, and the place 
 where it ends. Such is the line of 85 miles which we see in 
 the chart of Peutinger from Brian9on to Vienne : and, though 
 the distances which compose it may each be questioned, you 
 are understood when you so describe it. But Mr. Ellis pro- 
 duces, in p. 169 of the Treatise, this proposition : — " The 
 Peutingerian Table gives 85 Roman miles as the distance 
 from Vienne to the point where the Turin and Vienne road 
 falls into the Turin and Valence road." If there had been 
 a Turin and Valence road, and a Turin and Vienne road, dis- 
 tinct from one another, there might be a point where one 
 might fall into the other or cross the other : but, as there 
 are not such roads, there is no such point ; and you cannot 
 measure to it. 
 
 When I criticised these things in 1855, Mr. Ellis defended 
 himself in the Cambridge Jawimal of Philology ; and still 
 hoped to persuade us that the track which he had named the 
 
 (t 
 
 <( 
 
 u 
 
^ 
 
 n 
 
 ^^ 17a?% Knowledge of the Alps, [PABT VIII. 
 
 Turin and Vienne road is drawn over the Little Mont Cenis. 
 As to that which, is drawn to Luc, and which is intermediate 
 between the line to Aries and the line to Vienne, I have said 
 of it in my Criticism, p. 88—" I do not at all believe that 
 there was such a road to be recorded." Nevertheless, it 
 appeared to me, that D'Anville, who wrote in 1760, eighty 
 years before Forbes's excursion to Mont Pelvoux, must have 
 interpreted the line as a line through the Val Godemar, inas- 
 much it could not possibly represent anything else. I have 
 since seen D'An^dlle's map of 1739, which satisfies me that 
 this had been his mistake. But I had before read Forbes, 
 and seen Bourcet's map, and was convinced that such a line 
 of road for the Carthaginian force, could never have existed. 
 Mr. Ellis misunderstands or misrepresents me throughout this 
 subject in pp. 10 and 11 of the Camh, Journal of Phil. : and in 
 p. 12 speculates, in a note, on the Jerusalem Itinerary having 
 been miscopied in making the Table, whereby Davianum 
 might become G(3rain8e, and Cambonum Gemini ; " names 
 (as he says) not entirely without resemblance." 
 
 Without stopping to speculate on the value of such re- 
 semblances, I wiJJ say that the impossible track to Luc 
 does not deserve that new distances and new termini should 
 be invented for ii:s relief. We need not care how the artist 
 came so to delineate it: it is condemned, and merits no 
 further consideration. Let us examine the other line ; of 
 which Mr. Ellis says—" The road over the Little Mont Cenis 
 is laid down in the Peutingerian Table." 
 
 Many readers may probably never have had their attention 
 called to this curious document before, and Mr. Ellis has 
 very considerately had engraved for them what he thinks 
 the necessary po^rtion of it. I do the same from the last 
 edition of 1753. This comical old map does not affect 
 accuracy in its convergent or divergent lines, or in the 
 position of places as fitting the distances. It is the roughest 
 
 CHAl\ VIII.] Mr. Ellis on Pcutinger's Table. 
 
 61 
 
 I- 
 
 memorandum of geography, made on a principle of com- 
 pression, by which its tracks are nearly parallel, even when 
 they should be at right angles. The artist was obliged to 
 give twists or curves in each line of road, both for keeping 
 it distinct from other lines, and that he may have room to 
 write the names of stations and numbers of miles. The 
 object of presenting in one narrow strip of parchment nearly 
 all the roads of the known world, is supposed to have been 
 that it should be portable when rolled on a stick. 
 
 One hint will be useful to guide the reader ; he must, from 
 Turin, carry his eye to the summit of the Alps which divide 
 Italy from France ; and, if he shall there be induced to 
 hesitate about inclining more westward or eastward, let him 
 apprehend that he is coming very near to Brian9on, and that 
 Susa is akeady left 25 miles behind. He must be very 
 restive if he can back so far, and then turn complacently 
 over the Cenis. 
 
 Let us now inspect the Table itself, with a view to see 
 ^Ir. Ellis work out his problem of a Peutingerian Mont 
 Cenis. The track in question, part of what he names the 
 Turin and Vienne road, as apparent to the eye, has a be- 
 ginning, an end, and an expressed length. The beginning 
 is near a mountain pass, at which are the words, "Brigan- 
 " tione in Alpe Cottia." The end is Vigenna on the Ehone. 
 The length given is 85 miles, being the sum of the expressed 
 distances from place to place, seven places being marked be- 
 tween those termini. No other 85 miles is spoken of by Mr. 
 Ellis : and, when he undertakes to identify the intervening 
 places, he deals with all those named between Brigantione and 
 Vigenna, and no others. The question embraces three ingre- 
 dients ; terminus d quo ; terminus ad quern ; distance from 
 one to the other. 
 
 Mr. Ellis, not liking the visible termimts d quo, Briangon, 
 which appears as the beginning of his 85 Peutingerian miles, 
 
62 
 
 Early Kiwioledge of the Alps, [part viii. 
 
 t 
 
 CHAP. VIII.] Mr, Ellis on Peutbiger's Table. 
 
 63 
 
 names three more as rivals to it ; and arbitrarily throws open 
 the right of representing that initial terminus, to the competi- 
 tion of all Alps, French and Italian, which in the days of 
 Cottius had been subject to the influence of that chieftain : a 
 scope, which in one direction embraces his capital Susa, and 
 in the other com]3rises two points which, under the sham of 
 impartiality, are jiet up in order to be knocked down. We 
 are informed, Treatise, p, 169, that, " though the Cottian ter- 
 "ritory terminated at Embrun, the name of Cottian Alps, 
 •* applied to mountains, might be extended to Gap, and even 
 "beyond." Accordingly he invites for representing this 
 terminus or starting point, places as far as Susa eastward, 
 and to Gap or beyond westward. He says, p. 169: "There 
 *• are four roads, each of which may have a claim to be con- 
 " sidered as the Turin and Vienne road." The points ap- 
 proved by Mr. Ellis as possible to be the starting place or 
 terminus a quo, arii Susa, Brian9on, Gap, and Aspres, west of 
 Gap : others bein;^ excluded by the ingredient of 85 miles, 
 which, Mr. Ellis says, " is the distance from Vienne given by 
 the Peutingerian Table." 
 
 Seeing this, one expects that Mr. Ellis will decide according 
 to merits, by comparing the distances from these rival points 
 to the terminus ad quern, Vienne. But presently, after a 
 discussion on the Turin roads and their divergences, he finds 
 a difficulty on the distance, and says : " By the nearest of the 
 " four roads mentioned, the distance from Vienne to Aspres 
 " is more than 120 miles." Hereupon one expects that the 
 impossible candidates will be rejected. But Mr. Ellis has a 
 different resource ; he throws over the terminus ad quern, as 
 well as the terminus d quo. He makes a further reformation 
 by cancelling the stipulation on " 85 miles to Vienne given 
 by the Table." This is no longer a condition of the race. 
 Whether they shall ever reach that place seems to be optional. 
 Each is to close his career, wherever a run of 85 miles will 
 
 
 J 
 
 i 
 
 bring him into a certain other track by which he may even- 
 tually come to Vienne, in a roundabout way, by the Mont du 
 Chat, and St. Genix. This was not one of Mr. Ellis's three 
 roads from Turin. He called it before the Ivrea and Vienne 
 road : it proceeds from Alpis Graia, through Chambery, and 
 over the Chartreuse range. If any one of the four admitted 
 candidates can, by running 85 miles, cut into this track, at 
 any point of it however distant from Vienne, his line is to be 
 recognised as the line of the chart, called by Mr. Ellis the 
 Turin and Vienne road. Such are the improved conditions, 
 under w^hich Mr. Ellis himself, having, by his own permission, 
 started at Susa, arrives victorious at Maltaverne : and so de- 
 termined is he to make sure of 85 miles, that he has actually 
 done 115 : not to mention the supplemental distance that 
 wdll be before him, if he should exercise the option of visiting 
 the terminus ad quern. 
 
 As it may be doubted whether Mr. Ellis can have made so 
 curious an amendment to his conditions as I impute to him, 
 I will quote his own words, to show that this method of satis- 
 fying a required distance was his own. He says in p. 170 : 
 " The Turin and Vienne road, as it cannot reach Vienne, after 
 " a course of 85 miles, from the point where it leaves the 
 " Turin and Valence road, should thus, it may be expected, 
 " fall, at the termination of that length of way, into a road on 
 " the Table leading to Vienne. But this road into which it 
 " falls, must be the Ivrea and Vienne road, for there is no 
 " other. The question, therefore, which has now to be deter- 
 " mined, is this : which of the four roads, the route of the 
 " Croix Haute, the route of the valley of the Drac, the route 
 " of the Lautaret, or the route of the Mont Cenis, falls, at a 
 ** distance of about 85 miles from the point w^here it leaves 
 " the Turin and Valence road, into the Ivrea and Vienne 
 " road ? " 
 
 No one can pretend to answer this question, but he who 
 
 \ 
 
64 
 
 Early Knoidedge of the A Ips. [part vili. 
 
 asks it, for no ont else can understand it. Tlie Table shows 
 no means of passing from any one of Mr. Ellis's three Turin 
 roads into his Ivrea road : and, if I look for the means of 
 getting from one side of the Iske to the other, I find that the 
 only place at which there was a passage when the Table was 
 made, is excluded from the Table by Mr. Ellis himself : for he 
 has removed Grenoble to the river Arc. So that he never gets 
 so far as that place at all ; nor consequently to Vienne, which is 
 beyond it. If Mr. Ellis had left the two termini undisturbed, 
 and the 85 miles ]}y the Table as he found them, one might 
 not only have gone right to Grenoble, but right ahead to 
 Vienne, not bending right or left. As it is, he himself pulls 
 up when he likes, and has not even the curiosity to inquire 
 how much farther it would be to Vienne. By his description 
 of the solemnity, it is a steeplechase without a steeple. The 
 competitors are n(iver in sight of one another. To one the 
 race was in Pi^mont and Savoy : to the others in France. 
 
 See then how the affair comes off, as the phrase is ; and 
 how, in this novel sort of sweepstakes, Mr. Ellis's Little Cenis 
 acquits himself, and lays claim to the prize. Restive at first, 
 and having retreated from the Gen^vre to Susa, he starts and 
 gets to Stabatione, as he calls La Ferriere, in eight miles : 
 clears the Cenis ; ])ushes down the Arc, and is just beginning 
 the Isere : then, finding 85 miles, as he calls the Peutingerian 
 distance from Susa, to be exhausted, he pulls up. This mis- 
 take happens at Maltaverne, a place not in the 85 miles, but 
 in the present Cenis road ; though for the occasion he calls it 
 Mantala, which is on the other side of the Isere in the Graian 
 Alp route. At Maltaverne he sticks: he has solved his 
 problem to his own satisfaction, and declares Little Cenis to 
 be the winner. As to the rightful competitor, he was cer- 
 tainly entitled to Jbllow a direct course given by the chart 
 itself to Vienne over the Lautaret ; though it is omitted from 
 Mr. Ellis's " map of Roman roads deduced from the Peutin- 
 
 i 
 
 
 I 
 
 X 
 
 CHAP. VIII.] Mr. Ellis on Peuiinye/s Talk. 
 
 G5 
 
 gerian Table." Tlie jockey, ho^vever, when he has made good 
 progress, and sees Vienne not far ahead, finds himself pro- 
 hibited from reaching it, under Mr. Ellis's new regulations, 
 which encourage him to come the wrong way, and not to come 
 to Vienne at all. 
 
 If this case were brought before a certain tribunal of 
 common sense, which administers justice only 14 miles from 
 the scene of Mr. Ellis's literary labours, he -would be doomed 
 to hear : 1. that his horse v/as not qualified to start ; 2. that 
 he bolted and never recovered his ground ; 3. that he broke 
 down when many miles short of the winning post. But Mr. 
 Ellis appeals to etymology. There he reckons upon a verdict. 
 
 If there be a grave object in the discussion to which the 
 Treatise has here invited us, it must be to ascertain the line 
 of country through which the track to Vienne was meant to 
 be drawn in the Peutingerian table : for this purpose we 
 examine it, and consider the probabilities of each name, as it 
 stands in it. I will presently offer to the reader the places 
 seen in this track of the Table, consecutively in one column, 
 in the order as they stand in the document to be interpreted, 
 with the distances as stated between them : and I will in 
 another column give the modern sites as commonly ac- 
 quiesced in for the last hundred years, and in another those 
 now proposed by Mr. Ellis. 
 
 Mr. Ellis, Treatise p. 172, gives a form for the instruction 
 of his readers ; but it can only instruct those who have 
 already subscribed to his hypothesis whatever it is. It carries 
 them from Susa to Mantala. I would rather invite the reader 
 to think for himself and read for Inmself. But I will tran- 
 scribe Mr. Ellis's Table, which he offers as showing the 
 modern places which in his view correspond with those 
 named in Peutinger's. His third column is of little use : it 
 could only show that the intervals between places suggested 
 had a reasonable correspondence with the intervals between 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 F 
 
66 Early Knowledge of the Alps. [pakt viil. 
 
 places in the Table. The question is on the identity of 
 places ; and com^spondence of distance is but one sort of 
 evidence in aid oi it. I will add reasons for thinking that 
 this form may not answer the proper purpose, which is the 
 ascertaining of Truth. 
 
 Mr. Ellis's Talk— Treatise, p. 172. 
 
 
 i 
 
 Actual distances 
 
 Peutingerian 
 
 Ancient Stations. 
 
 Modem Places. 
 
 in 
 
 distances in 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 Roman miles. 
 
 Roman miles. 
 
 Segusio. 
 
 Snsa. 
 
 
 
 Stabatio. 
 
 La Ferriere. 
 
 8| 
 
 8 
 
 Durotincum. 
 
 Granges de Dervieux. 
 
 
 7 
 
 Mellosedum. 
 
 Bramans. 
 
 101 
 
 10 
 
 Catorissium. 
 
 Yillarodin. 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 Culabo. 
 
 Orelle. 
 
 121 
 
 12 
 
 Morginnum. 
 
 St. Jean de Maurienne. 
 
 14i 
 
 14 
 
 Turecionnum. 
 
 La Chapelle. 
 
 lih 
 
 14 
 
 Mantala. 
 
 Maltaverne. 
 
 16i 
 
 15 
 
 89* 
 
 85 
 
 This is not a si;atement of places as in the Table. Stabatio 
 is not the first station from Susa : it is the fourth. Three 
 stations are omitted between Segusio and Stabatio : namely, 
 Martis, Gadaone, and Brigantione. The distance from Segusio 
 to Stabatio is not 8 miles nor 8f ; but 38. Also the last of 
 the Ancient Stations is Yigenna ; Mantala belongs to another 
 route in the Peutingerian Table, where it is not Maltaverne. 
 In short, this is but a copy of Mr. Ellis's improvements. 
 
 I will now give the places and distances as they are really 
 marked in the original document : and, as Mr. Ellis begins 
 from Susa, I will also begin from Susa ; though it is nearly 
 30 miles earlier than the line which is in question. I will 
 
 
 I 
 
 CHAP, vrri.] Mr. Ellis on Feittinfjcr's Table. 
 
 67 
 
 enter the ancient stations accurately w^ith the distances, as 
 expressed in the Chart : giving in another column the modern 
 places, which D'Anville deemed to correspond with them ; 
 and in another, those which Mr. Ellis deems to correspond. 
 For the former I refer to D'Anville's dictionary called 
 " Notice de TAncienne Gaule : " for the latter to Mr. Ellis's 
 Treatise, pp. 172 — 176. 
 
 Tabula Beutingeriana, Carle de Peutinger. 
 
 Track from Susa to Briaii9on, and on to Vienne ; as marked 
 by Stations and distances in that ancient document. Together 
 with corresponding modern sites, as explained by D'Anville 
 a hundred years ago ; and as now explained by IVIr. Ellis. 
 
 Stations in the Chart, 
 
 with distances marked in 
 
 Roman miles. 
 
 Modern Sites according 
 to D'Anville. 
 
 Modern sites according 
 to Mr. Ellis. 
 
 From Segusio to 
 Martis . . . 
 Gadaone 
 Brigantione 
 
 xvii 
 viii 
 
 V 
 
 30 
 
 jFrom Brigantione to 
 
 1 Stabatione . . viii 
 
 Dnrotinco . . vii 
 
 Mellosecto . . x 
 
 Catorissium . v 
 
 Culabone . . xii 
 
 Morgiimo . . xiv 
 
 Turecionno . xiv 
 
 Vigenna . . xv 
 
 85 
 
 From Susa to 
 Oulx. 
 C(3sanne. 
 Briancon. 
 
 ]Vronestier. 
 
 A' i Hard d'Arencs. 
 
 Mizouin. 
 
 Bourg d'Oysans. 
 
 Grenoble. 
 
 Moirans. 
 
 Ornacien. 
 
 Vienne. 
 
 From Susa 
 
 [missing three sta- 
 
 tions) 
 
 to La Ferriere. 
 
 Granges de Dervieux. 
 
 Bramans. 
 
 Villarodin. 
 
 Orelle. 
 
 St. Jean de Maurienne. 
 
 La Chapelle. 
 
 Maltaverne. 
 
 f2 
 
08 
 
 EfA'-Jy Knoidedge of the Alp,^. [paiit viir. 
 
 > 
 
 I 
 
 Reasons given hy the two antiquaries for their views on the 
 
 modern sites, 
 
 MartiSy 17 m. 
 
 D'Anville treats this as the modern Oulx : Ad Martis 
 
 in the Itineraries. First station from Susa. 
 Mr. Ellis says nothing on the site. 
 
 Garlaone, 8 m. 
 
 J)'Anville, who observes the line of the Itineraries, 
 throngh Turin to the Alps, makes Gadaone to be 
 Cesanne at the foot of the M. Genevre. In the 
 Jerusalem Itinerary, it is Gesdaone. 
 
 IVIr. Ellis says nothing on the site. 
 
 Bri/jantione, 5 m. 
 
 D'Anville calls this Brian9on, which is beyond the 
 chain of mountains passed after ascending from 
 Cesanne. 
 Mr. Ellis says nothing on this site. 
 
 Stahatione, 8 m. 
 
 D'Anville, believing that the only road forward from 
 the Genevre is that which descends upon Erian^on, 
 and that the only road which there diverges from 
 the line down the Durance is that to Grenoble, 
 began to reckon the 85 miles given by the Chart to 
 Vienne, with the 8 entered from Brigantione to 
 Stabatione, which place he therefore apprehends as 
 Monestier. 
 Mr. Ellis calls this place La Eerriere, which is 8 m. 
 from Susa. 
 
 Dnrotinco, 7 m. 
 
 D'Anville thought Villard d'Ar^nes to be the probable 
 representative of this place. From Monestier you 
 reach it by passing over the Col du Lautaret. The 
 
 CHAP. VIII.] Mr. Ellis on Peutingers Table. 
 
 69 
 
 •\ 
 
 
 i 
 
 distance being about 12 miles, he- suggests that the 
 vii. ought to be xii. 
 Mr. Ellis supposes that Durotincum was Granges 
 de Dervieux, a place which he names as being on 
 the plateau of the Little Mont Cenis. He tells us, 
 that Durotincum is almost pure Celtic : dur being 
 water, tin a source, and euni a valley : so he is 
 satisfied with having the first of these represented 
 by Der, while vieux denotes antiquity. Treatise, 
 p. 172. 
 
 Mellosecto, 10 m. 
 
 This place in the earlier edition by Bertius was 
 written Mellosedo. D'Anville conjectured the site 
 to be near Mizouin on the Eomanche, the distance 
 being somewhere about 10 miles. 
 Mr. Ellis' site is Bramante or Bramans on the Arc, a 
 place to which you descend from the Little Mont 
 Cenis. He explains the Celtic origin of Mellosedo, 
 and converts it into the Latin Bramans thus : Maol, 
 bare — Lon, a meadow — Sead, seat. Afaol and Loji 
 are represented by the Latin Pratum ; and Sead by 
 rnansio. Accordingly Prati Mansio, alias Bra-mans, 
 has supplanted Mellosedum, as " an equivalent 
 term, identical in meaning." Tr. p. 174. 
 
 Catorissium, 5 m. 
 
 D'Anville suggested for this station Bourg d'Oysans, 
 supposed to have been the principal town of the 
 Uesni. 
 
 Mr. Ellis proposes a village on the Arc called Yilla- 
 rodin, which he conceives belonged to the Caturiges, 
 whom he locates on this occasion in the Upper 
 Maurienne. To account for the word being in the 
 genitive plural, as he says it is, he alludes to " Ad 
 
 ^ 
 
70 
 
 Early Knoivlcdije of the A Ips. 
 
 [part VIII 
 
 ti: 
 
 deam Vocontioriim ; " and suggests that the name 
 of the station may have been in full Dea Catoris- 
 sium, Teagh being Celtic for a house. 
 
 Ciildbone, 12 m. 
 
 D'Anville, like the rest ol' the world, considered this 
 name to represent (Irenul)le, Gratianopolis ; whose 
 earlier name was Cularo, here s])elt Culabo. He 
 says — " (;ularo conserve son nom primitif dans la 
 " Table Theodosienne ; ou il faut lire Cularone au 
 " lieu de Culabone." Pilot {Histoire dc GrenoUc) 
 says, — '' Le nom de Graisivaudan, mot forme de 
 " Gratiano vallis, fut d'abord donne a la vallue ou 
 " est situe Grenoble. On I'a depuis etendu a tout 
 " le pays formant le comte ou gouvernement de 
 " cette ville." D'Anville saw that 12 miles was 
 inadequate, as the distance from Catorissium ; and 
 supposed a station to be omitted. His conjecture 
 is confirmed by the WTiter called tlie geographer of 
 Eavenna, who, giving an additional station, writes 
 Cantouri&a-Fines-Curarone. I need not again refer 
 to the correspondence of Plancus and Cicero. Pilot 
 states the ancient Cularo to have risen to celebrity 
 under th(i Emperor Maximian ; and cites a Poman 
 inscription over one of the ancient gates in lionour 
 of Diocletian and Maximian, in which are the words 
 Muris Cnlaronensihus. 
 
 Mr. Ellis makes Orelle, a village on the Arc above 
 S. Michel, to represent the Culabo of Peutinger's 
 Table : and, though he well knew what D'Anville 
 had written on Culabo being the same as Cularo, 
 and had read Pilot's history, he did not in his 
 Treatise, see p. 175, allude to the circumstance, that 
 it had ever been thought to be Grenoble : while 
 
 CHAP. VIII.] Mr. Ellis 071 Peutingers Table. 
 
 71 
 
 ^ 
 
 perhaps no one before himself had suspected it of 
 being anything else. When he is challenged upon 
 it, his wdiole defence, besides etymology, is that 
 Grenoble had been Cularo, not Culabo : and he 
 says (Camh. Journal, v. iii. 15), " The identity of 
 " Culabo and Grenoble is obviously all but impos- 
 " sible." This seems to mean that there can be no 
 inaccuracy of distance, nor variety of spelling : he 
 might have observed that it is found in manuscripts 
 as Civaro, Cularo, Calaro, and Curaro, all of which 
 were mentioned by D'Anville. 
 
 Mr. Ellis's argument for his own Culabo, Orelle, was 
 more lively. Pilot, meaning to speak of the ancient 
 Grenoble, not thinking of Orelle, says — "Cularum 
 signifie proprement lieu recule, extremite." Mr. 
 Ellis was pleased with the idea " recule," as consist- 
 ing with Orelle, " ora, extremity or border : " and 
 imagined Ora to signify the last village of the 
 Caturiges on the Arc : and illustrates the idea with 
 " the Gaelic Culaobh, the back part of anything : the 
 " Piedmontese Culaton, estremita, parte deretana : 
 " the Italian Orlo : the Spanish Orilla : the Col de 
 " la Cula, a pass at the extremity of the valley of 
 " Barcelonnette :" to which is added, in his Defence, 
 " the Low Latin Culata, rei alicujus pars extrema." 
 Journ. iii. 15. 
 
 The principle on which Mr. Ellis cherishes such ex- 
 change of names is enunciated, p. 17-1, when he is 
 turning Mellosedum into Bramans. " When the 
 " Celtic language was dying out in the Alps, and a 
 " Latin or Komance dialect was taking its place, the 
 " old name fell into disuse, and was replaced by an 
 " equivalent term of Latin origin." Hence Mr. Ellis 
 conjectures, that there was once on the Arc a Celtic 
 
 '«..£<:« w-^ C*'rf'i:.rVs-*S:r-=;:i;i.'.T_r-^_^.<'d:_ »r.V::--r-— V 
 
72 
 
 Early Kiwvjledye of the Alps. 
 
 [l'Al{T VIII. 
 
 CHAP. viii.J Mr. Ellis on Paitingers Tabic. 
 
 73 
 
 village Culabo, which name fell into disuse, and 
 was rejplaced by the Latin Orelle (ora) : that upon 
 the former dying out about 1,400 years ago, the 
 latter came into use as an equivalent, to represent 
 " parte deretana." Now, on Mr. Ellis's part, there is 
 neither any proof of the early existence of Orelle, 
 nor of what the name had been, which died out 
 when Orelle began. Moreover, whether Cularo or 
 Culabo was to be replaced by Latin, the change 
 would not, on Mr. P]llis's principle, be required. 
 Cuius was Latin already. The last syllable, ro or 
 ho, would be neutral in the question. In the case 
 of Grenoble, on the contrary, we have evidence of 
 facts : evidence of the old name and evidence of the 
 name v.^liich superseded it. 
 Before Mr. Ellis defended himself in the Journal of 
 Phil iii. p. 15, he seems to have looked again at 
 D'Anville*s Cularo ; where he would learn that, at 
 the Council of Aquileia, a.d. 381, there was present 
 a Bishop of Gratianopolis ; which place therefore 
 had very lately changed its name from Cularo. 
 Hereupon Mr. Ellis makes this sagacious comment 
 — '' If, as Mr. Law seems to suppose, the Peutin- 
 " gerian Table dates from the time of Theodosius, 
 " Grenoble ought to appear rather under the name 
 " of Gratianopolis than under that of Cularo." Now 
 I am used to speak of that document as Carte de 
 Peutinger. Learned men have judged by internal 
 eviden(5e that it is of the period of Theodosius: 
 D'Anville always calls it " Table Theodosienne." But 
 it would be futile to contend that the old name of 
 the place was never used for any purpose after the 
 Bishop had assumed the new name, which would 
 attach to him on his consecration. Whether the 
 
 // 
 
 ! 
 
 parchment we speak of was prepared at lionie or 
 Constantinople, and whether the ailist was a school- 
 master or a quartermaster, such a thing would be 
 for a long time more likely to bear the old name 
 Cularo than the new name Gratianopolis. I thought 
 T had travelled through Conflans, till I found myself 
 in a diligence with the rector of Albert ville. Novel- 
 ties did not circulate in general application 1,500 
 years ago more rapidly than they do now. 
 
 Morginno, 14 m. 
 
 D'Anville points out Moirans, which is 14 miles from 
 
 Grenoble, and by the Chart in a direct line to Vienne. 
 
 Mr. Ellis names St. Jean de Maurienne : and, if Cula- 
 
 bone could be Orelle, this might be Moirans : not if 
 
 Culabone is Grenoble. 
 
 TurecionnOy 14 m. 
 
 D'Anville finds the modern Ornacien as best repre- 
 senting the place which intervenes between Moirans 
 and Vienne ; but doubts about the accuracy of dis- 
 tances, 14 and 15. 
 
 Mr. Ellis has no more etymological resources ; but 
 finds a place on the Arc called La Chapelle, 14 miles 
 below St. Jean de Maurienne, and marks it Ture- 
 cionnum. 
 
 Vigenna, 15 m. 
 
 D'Anville sought Vierme as the terminus, and found 
 it, as Dr. Smith's Dictionary finds it iiow\ See 
 Morginnum and Turecionnum. 
 Mr. EUis has now left the valley of the Arc ; and, as 
 the rrext station that pleases him after La Chapelle 
 is Maltaverne, he stops at Malta verne, and goes no 
 further. But to suit his last prescription, he calls 
 it Mantala : because Mantala belongs to a different 
 
74 
 
 Early Knmvledge of the Alps. [part viii. 
 
 line of march. It is on the other side of the Isere, 
 between Montmelian and Chambery, in our route 
 of Alpis Graia : (Mr. Ellis's Ivrea route.) It is 
 there, not only in the Peutingerian Table, but in 
 the Antoninc Itinerary. Mr. Ellis breaks down in 
 all his points. He provoked the whole inquiry, to 
 explain. 85 miles of what he called " the Turin and 
 Vienne, road." He keeps Turin out of his map. 
 He avoids Vienne as the termiims ; and takes pains 
 to do so. 
 
 We have herej seen two conflicting expositions of a Way 
 curiously delineated nearly 1,500 years ago. D'Anville be- 
 gins at the prescribed beginning, and ends at the prescribed 
 end : he points out some figures as erroneous, and stations as 
 probably omitted : so that 85 miles laid down as the total 
 distance is probably below the truth. As most of the names 
 expressed are not met with elsewhere, he conjectures the sites, 
 where materials are wanting for identifying them. And his 
 view has, I belie^^e, hitherto had the concurrence of the literary 
 world. Mr. Ellis admits this, saying that the track in the 
 Chart "has hitherto been considered to have passed over the 
 Col du Lautaret between Brian9on and Grenoble," p. 168 ; 
 and he probably stands alone in professing to doubt it. He 
 begins with invcmting three roads from Turin to the Ehone ; 
 an invention which only serves the purpose of verbal confu- 
 sion : he lays down three data for argument, termini, and 
 distance : and withdraws them one after the other : pretends 
 to search for a town on the Ehone, that he may talk of it as 
 accessible from the Cenis : but having chosen the wrong road, 
 and named all wrong places, exhausts the distance he was 
 pledged to, and lu'eaks down without reaching tlic town at all. 
 This casualty happens at ]\laltaverne : and he cannot get a 
 
 CHAP. VIII.] Mr. Ellis on Peutiiujers Tabic. 
 
 75 
 
 yard further. Etymology, his capricious friend, takes pains 
 to get stations for him : but even etymology shrinks from the 
 termini. If any there be who are blind to the honest good 
 sense which guides one of these antiquarians, let them admire 
 the grave eccentricity and comic etymology of the other : 
 let them admire, that a man should indulge himself with a 
 vision of the places on the Arc in Peutiiiger's Table. But, 
 if they are falling into the delusion themselves, let Brian^on, 
 Grenoble, and Vienne suffice, either separately or jointly, to 
 wake them out of it. It is said most mistakenly in Mr. 
 Ellis's defence {Journal, vol. iii. p. 15), that "the argument 
 " for D 'Anville's route rests almost entirely on the supposed 
 " identity of Grenoble with Culabo." That identity is indeed 
 enough of itself. But the justice of D 'Anville's stations, and 
 the impossibility of Mr. Ellis's stations, are the necessary 
 result of the one accepting Brian^on and Vienne as the 
 termini of those 85 miles, and the other defying his own 
 senses with Susa and Maltaverne ; in the vain hope of sup- 
 porting a x^roposition, which has no rival in print — "The 
 " road over the Little Mont Cenis is laid down in the 
 '' Peutingerian Table." 
 
 Two commentators, besides Mr. Ellis, have in the last few 
 years come forth in favour of the Cenis : but neither of them 
 has mistaken that mountain for the Pass of Ammianus, or 
 recognised the apparition of the Petit Cenis in the document 
 which perpetuates the name of Peutinger. They have enough 
 to answer for without grasping such fancies as these. The 
 ingenious Larauza, and the learned Ukert, proceed up the 
 Arc, innocent of the derivations of Bramans and Dervieux. 
 
•si 
 
 76 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Aljjs. [pakt viii. 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 Mr. Ellis mi Ccesar's Marcli. 
 
 77 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 Mr, Ellis on the Mont Cenis, His a^p^eal to Cmsar's march 
 from the Lmer to the Outer Province. 
 
 Mr. Ellis now carries back his proof of the antiquity of the 
 Cenis to within 160 years of Hannibal's invasion. He de- 
 clares that « the Mont Cenis was crossed by Julius C^sar 
 1^' when on his way to intercept the Helvetii in Transalpine 
 " Gaul." He cites the following well-known words :— 
 
 " Ipse in ItaHam magnis itineribus contendit, duasque ibi 
 " legiones conscri])it ; et tres quse circum AquHeiam hiema- 
 '' bant ex hibernis educit, et qua proximum iter in ulteriorem 
 " Galliam per Alpas erat, cum his quinque legionibus ire con- 
 " tendit. Ibi Ceiitrones et Graioceli et Caturiges, locis supe- 
 "rioribus occupaiis, itinere exercitum prohibere conantur. 
 " Compluribus his prceliis pulsis, ab Ocelo, quod est citerioris 
 " provincise extremum, in fines Yocontiorum ulterioris pro- 
 " vincige die septimo pervenit ; inde in Allobrogum fines, ab 
 " Allobrogibus in Segusianos exercitum ducit. Hi sunt extrc\ 
 " provinciam trans Ehodanum primi." 
 
 Where then did Caesar cross the Alps in this seven days' 
 march from the inner province to the outer province ? He 
 names the two termini ; Ocelum whence it began, and Yo- 
 contiorum fines into which it arrived. Also he names three 
 peoples as opposing his advance on the higher parts of the 
 pass. Much has been said already, both on Ocelum and the 
 Vocontii : and, if it has been said rightly, the pass can be no 
 other than the Mont Genevre. But I will notice each name 
 separately. 
 
 Ocelum and Scingomcigus, 
 
 The question of Caesar's track depends mainly upon iden- 
 tifying the beginning of it. Mr. Ellis expressly admits in his 
 defence, 1856 {Journ. of Phil vol. iii. pp. 18, 19), that, if Ocelum 
 were shown to be Uxeau, Csesar cannot have crossed the Mont 
 Cenis. Mr. Ellis may by this time be aware of the opinion of 
 Mr. Bunbury, given thus in Dr. Smith's Dictionary :—'' \n 
 '* Strabo's time Ocelum was the frontier town of the kingdom 
 " of Cottius, and it was from thence that a much frequented 
 " road led over the pass of the Mont Genevre by Scingomagus 
 " (Cesanne), Brigantium (Brian9on), and Ebrodunum (Em- 
 '' brun), to the territory of the Vocontii. D'Anville has 
 '' clearly shown that Ocelum was at Uxeau, a village in the 
 "valley of Fenestrelles, and not, as supposed by previous 
 " writers, at Oulx, in the valley of the Dora." But, as 
 Mr. Ellis is not bound by the decision of D'Anville, or of 
 Mr. Bunbury, I must combat the adverse arguments. 
 
 It will not be disputed that Ocelum citerioris provincise 
 extremum is the same place as ''QKeXov to Trepa? t^9 Kottcov 
 7^9 in the fourth book of Strabo, 179 ; which was the last place 
 in the route, so far as he details it, from the Rhone over the 
 Mont Genevre into Italy ; a place which Ciiesar only had 
 named before him. The other place which Strabo names 
 between the pass and Ocelum, Scingomagus, is not found 
 elsewhere, save in Pliny. D ' Anville first corrected the error 
 of supposing that the two names represented places, which 
 afterwards appeared under other names in the Itineraries, 
 belonging to the Imperial line constructed through Oulx and 
 Susa. He identified Ocelum as the place now called Ucello, 
 or Uxeau, near Fenestrelles. It is called Occello by the 
 geographer of Eavenna, and Uxellum in documents of 1064. 
 He also objected that Oulx, or Exilles, which others contended 
 for, were not to Trepa?, but in the heart of the Cottian 
 
78 Early Knowledge of the A tps. [part Vlii. 
 
 territories. And he fcjiind evidence of Scingomagns between 
 Cesanne and Ucello. 
 
 The route through Susa to Cusanne and the Genevre pass, 
 was improved for Eoman purposes after Augustus had con- 
 ciliated Cottius. This is the road of the Itineraries, which is 
 continued to Briangon, and the Ehone. Before that time 
 Eoman generals had obvious reasons for preferring a line 
 through Ocelum to Cesanne and the pass. In the days of 
 Pompey and Cc^esar, when the anti-Eoman confederacy was 
 strong in the moimtains, and Susa was the head-quarters of 
 the enemy ; when there was no beginning of the friendship 
 which led to an improved ascent to the Genevre, under the 
 superintendence of Cottius himself; a Eoman general, de- 
 siring to arrive speedily into the outer province, which he 
 could not reach without crossing the enemy^s country, would 
 at all events avoid the hostile capital, .id the line which 
 connected it with the pass. 
 
 The probabiliticis then are much against Mr. Ellis's notions, 
 that the Ocelum of Caesar and Strabo was jjlaced between 
 Turin and Susa ; and that Susa itself was the Scingomagus 
 of Strabo ; for it assumes 'that these places took new names 
 Ijefore they were entered in an Itinerary. If Ca?sar had 
 carried his five legions through that hostile capital, it would 
 have given matter for liis narrative : he would not have passed 
 through it unmolested. My belief is that Pompey, using the 
 Genevre pass sixteen years before, had established Ocelum 
 as a Eoman frontier post. Mr. Ellis* thinks " that Pompey 
 " crossed the Genevre, approaching it by the ordinary route 
 '' through Susa." I believe that not to have been an ordinary 
 route to the Eomans till long afterwards. When C^sar set 
 out from Ocelum on his expedition, bodies of the Cottian 
 confederates came to interrupt his progress from their head- 
 
 * Journ. of Philol. iii. 20. 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 Mr, Ellis on Cccsar's March, 
 
 '9 
 
 quarters, through Oulx, as well as from the district of the 
 Durance. 
 
 D'Anville contended, and, as I apprehend, successfully, 
 against M. de Valois, Cluvier, and others, that Uxeau was the 
 Ocelum of Coesar,* and opposed those who, equally with himself, 
 conceived Caesar's pass to be the Genevre, but who supposed 
 his line to it to have been that of the Itineraries : in that line 
 they conceived Ocelum to be represented by Exilles or Oulx, 
 places which are above Susa in the line recorded in those 
 registers. I conceive that no road from the Genevre to Susa 
 was made for Eoman use so early ; and that it certainly did 
 not exist so soon as Hannibal's time. For the time of Strabo 
 there is no evidence of any descending route but by Scingo- 
 magus and Ocelum, which may probably have been in use 
 at a period before the Eomans were acquainted with it. Mr. 
 Ellis has no occasion for it above Susa ; at which place he 
 pronounces Hannibal to have come down from the Cenis, and 
 Caesar to have turned up to the Cenis. He makes that place 
 to be the Scingomagus of Strabo, and Ocelum to have been 
 27 miles lower down the valley, now Avigliana, or Buttigliera. 
 He has noticed my comment as if he did not comprehend it, 
 and affects to concede, for the sake of argument, that Ceesar 
 quite avoided the Cottian territory. He could not have avoided 
 it : Ocelum bordered on the enemy's country, which stretched 
 up from thence and down the Durance. What I urged was, 
 that he would avoid Susa, the enemy's head-quarters, by going 
 the other way. I find no reply : nor is there an attempt to 
 twist the words of Strabo, who directs us from the Genevre to 
 Ocelum, into a signification of the Cenis. 
 
 Mr. Ellis uses this argument for the identity of Susa and 
 Scingomagus : that they are found with the same reputation 
 of distance from another place, Embrun. There are in the 
 
 * 
 
 Notice de I'ancienne Gaule, in v. Ocelum. 
 
?,^; 
 
 80 
 
 Earlij KnowJcihjc of the Aljjs. [paet viir. 
 
 Itineraries three routes ; which give severally the distance of 
 69, 70, and 71 miles, from Ebrodunum to Segiisio ; and Strabo 
 is construed to give 72 miles, that is 99 minus 27, from Ebro- 
 dunum to Scingomagus. This is no ground. If the figures 
 were precisely xhe same in all, it would not suggest identity, 
 unless the measurements were taken on one line of route. You 
 cannot assume this : it is the very point in question, — was 
 there always one and the same route of descent from the 
 Genevre ? or was there an older line of descent, superseded 
 by a later one ? I must limit myself to saying, that there is 
 nothing in Mr. Ellis's assertions or insinuations, which makes 
 me doubt that Strabo's route, which is only detailed as far as 
 Ocelum, belonged to a different line from that which is given 
 in the Itinerarii3s. 
 
 Another view, which has influenced some critics, is this — 
 Strabo calls Scjingomagus the beginning of Italy ; and the 
 Itinerary makes Segusio the beginning of Italy. Again, 
 Strabo makes Ocelum the boundary of the Province ; and the 
 Itinerary seems to make Ad Fines the boundary of the Pro- 
 vince. These similarities have suggested, that the two stations 
 represent the two places of Strabo. A mere fallacy ! The 
 four propositions may all be true. But what then ? If there 
 were the two lines of descent, each w^ould cross the Italian 
 })oundary at its own place, each would cross the Cottian 
 boundary at its own place. In Strabo's route the points of 
 crossing were Scingomagus and Ocelum: in the Imperial 
 route they might be Segusio and Ad Fines. This line super- 
 seded the other in importance, and of course Strabo's two 
 places do not appear in it. I fully believe the Eoman line 
 from Cesanne,* through Oulx and Susa to Turin, to be the 
 
 * Cesanne, in the valley below the Genevre, is the place where 
 the iniiierial road to Susa diverged from the old road to Ocelum. It 
 appears in the Je-rusalam Itinerary as Gesdaone, between Ad Martis 
 and Brigantione. In one edition of Peutinger's Chart it is Gadaone. 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 Mr. Ellis on Ccesar's March. 
 
 81 
 
 new line made after the submission of Cottius, and to be 
 recorded in the Itineraries. This, we may believe, was after 
 the time of Strabo, w^ho never mentions any one place which 
 belongs to that line. There are both lines at the present 
 moment. In Mr. Brockedon's Passes of the Alps, the ascent 
 to the Genevre which he selects for description, is that from 
 Pinerolo and Fenestrelle. 
 
 It is always to be presumed, without evidence to the con- 
 trary, that places bearing different names were different 
 places : but presumption grows into proof, when we find that 
 they were existing at the same time by different names. 
 Pliny, who speaks of Susa as Segusio, states a distance from 
 Eome to the western bounds of Italy, denoting the terminus 
 by " Alpes usque et Scingomagum vicum ; " which I consider 
 to confirm the reputation of an old boundary point, the Scin- 
 gomagus of Strabo, and to prohibit the identification of it 
 with Susa. I showed that the same writer, Pliny, knowing 
 both, calls them by different names. Mr. Ellis attempts no 
 proof in answer on this point itself: he evades it, and makes 
 an useless expenditure of erudition in doing so. Joiirn. of 
 Philol. iii. 21. 
 
 He informs us that Pliny referred to Artemidorus, who was 
 nearly 150 years before him, and he thinks it uncandid in me 
 not to have mentioned the fact. As the work of Artemidorus 
 is lost, he brings forward one Agathemerus, who came three 
 centuries later and reported his matter. And I am charged 
 with misconstruing the words of Agathemerus. Now I had 
 never heard of such a man in my life ; and when I learn 
 from Mr. Ellis what he said, I find that it agrees with my 
 own notions. 
 
 Mr. Ellis thus proposes, in Journ, of Philol iii. 21, to set 
 us right on the position of Scingomagus — "The words of 
 " Artemidorus, as preserved by Agathemerus (lib. i. c. 4) are : 
 '* airo 'VwfiT)^ iirl ra? 'AXTret? €0)9 ^Kiyyofidyov K(Ofir)<;, vttq 
 
 VOL. II. G 
 
82 
 
 Early Knowhdge of the Alps. [part viii. 
 
 " TaU "PCkTrecTLV ovat)^, ardha Bpvff. According to Mr. Law, 
 " this K(o/iir),v7r6 raWAXweaLv ovaa, stood almost on the summit 
 " of the Col de Sestrieres." This is a hasty misrepresentation. 
 I did not construe those words at all — I had never heard of 
 them^I was representing {Grit. p. 107) D'Anville's ideas on 
 the two routes, of ascent : and the word " above " which my 
 opponent renders " on the summit " means higher up in the 
 country towards the range of Alps.— I spoke of Oulx and 
 Exilles as above Susa-Ucello ahore Fenestrelle ; Scinguin above 
 the Col de Sestrieres ; meaning higher up the country, more 
 towards Cesanne— " Under the Alps '' means under the chain 
 of which the Genevre is part— the term is fairly applicable 
 to the position of Cesanne, which is at the foot of the 
 Genevre. 
 
 D'Anville's article upon Scingomagus is as follows: — 
 " Strabon fixe la position de ce lieu entre Brigantio et Ocelum. 
 " Pline place ce lieu, qu'il appelle Vicum, au pied des Alpes, 
 " et comme etant situe a Textremite de Tltalie en partant de 
 **Eome. J'ai ete dans I'opinion, que Scingomagus pouvoit 
 " etre Tune des portions de Sezanne, que la Doria partage en 
 " deux, en meme tems que Tautre convient au lieu nomme 
 "Gesdao; Gadao dans la Table Theodosienne. Ces deux 
 "quartiers de Sezanne m'ont et^ indiques comme bien 
 " distincts ei: separes, par une carte topographique et manu- 
 "scrite du pays. Mais actuellement, et sans m'^carter 
 "beaucoup de cette position, je decouvre dans une autre 
 " representation du local, et encore plus circonstanciee de la 
 "vallee de Sezanne, des vestiges de Scingomagus dans un 
 "lieu nomnjie Chamlat de Siguin, a I'entr^e du Col de 
 " Cestrieres, qui de la vallee de St^zanne conduit dans celle 
 " de Pra-gelas. La route directe, et la seule meme que la 
 " nature ait ouverte, pour se rendre de Brian9on a Uxeau et 
 " Fenestrelles, apres avoir passe le Mont Genevre, est par le 
 " col mentionne ci-dessus, et c'est pr^cis^ment au pied de ce 
 
 ■ - -.-TSf*-Mf-*.- 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 Mr. Ellis on Caesar's March. 
 
 83 
 
 " col que nous retrouvons Scingomagus, marqu^ par Strabon 
 "entre Brigantio et Ocelum. — II falloit faire attention, que 
 "Pline connoit Segusio pkr le nom qui lui est propre, et 
 " distinctement de Scingomagus." Whether Scingomagus is 
 better traced as close to Cesanne, or a little more towards the 
 Col de Sestrieres, its identity with Susa is equally disproved. 
 
 Mr. Ellis, evading, and diverting attention from the only 
 point between us, goes into numerous measurements of the 
 space between Eome and other places, not attempting to 
 meet the reasons which show Scingomagus and Susa to be 
 different places. He exercises his talents upon what he calls 
 " the useless absurdity of Mr. Law's theory of strides ; " I had 
 no such theory : I used the word stride, because Pliny, having 
 begun with stepping from the Ganges to the Euphrates, is 
 still stepping largely when he puts his foot on Scingomagus : 
 his next stride is "per Galliam ad Pyrenseos montes Iliiberim : " 
 and the next " ad Oceanum et Hispanise oram.'' He hits a 
 western extremity of Italy by one stride, a western end of 
 Xarbonese Gaul by another, and goes clean over Spain with 
 a third. The strides are magnificent : and Mr. Ellis's depre- 
 ciation of them does not tend to identify the Scingomagus of 
 Strabo with Susa, nor to prevent its identity with the Scin- 
 gomagus of Pliny. 
 
 If any one has imagined a theory here, it must be Mr. 
 Ellis himself ; who, for some reason not apparent, scrutinises 
 that list of large intervals, which he is pleased to call an 
 itinerary ; and argues upon the distances between Eome and 
 the Atlantic. See the long notes p. 22, Jow-n. of Phil. iii. 
 These estimates are utterly irrelevant, and with as little 
 benefit has the inquiry been adorned with the names of 
 Artemidorus and Agathemerus. All serves to divert attention 
 from that which is the only point raised ; whether Scingoma- 
 gus and Susa were two places or one. It is Pliny, who names 
 both, Segusio and Scingomagus, recognising them as distinct 
 
 g2 
 
84 
 
 Early Knowledge of the A Ips. [part vill. 
 
 places. He certainly lived late enough, to know the improve- 
 ments under Augustus, through which the ascent by Oceluni 
 was avoided : he would know the new route from Turin 
 through Susa to the Gen^vre, and would see that Ocelum 
 had no existence in it. This it is, which, whether Scingo- 
 magus was part of Cesanne, or somewhat removed from it, 
 contradicts Mr. Ellis's proposition, p. 188, " that it is quite 
 " evident that Segusio and Scingomagus were the same 
 " place." 
 
 Centrones, 
 
 This people (from the Graian Alp) with the Caturiges and 
 Garoceli are named as opposing Caesar's march, " locis superi- 
 oribus occupatis," and as beaten by him "compluribus proeliis." 
 Whatever distiicts the bodies of men had come from, by 
 whom his advaace over the pass was resisted, one would think 
 that his progress, " in fines Vocontiorum, inde in Allobrogum 
 fines," is consistent only with his having descended by Brian^on, 
 upon the line oi' the Durance, or more direct to Bourg d'Oysans. 
 If he had come down the Is^re, whether from the Little 
 St. Bernard or the Cenis, he would not have entered the 
 Vocontian territory in order to arrive among the AUobroges. 
 
 Mr. Ellis takes a different view. He says : " Csesar is his 
 " own historian, so that the character of his evidence is perfect. 
 " Yet he only alludes to two passes, the Mont Cenis, and the 
 " Great St. Bernard. He does not appear ever to have crossed 
 " the Mont Gen^vre. The Little Mont Cenis was thus, it is 
 " probable, the most ancient pass of the two which led 
 " through the country of the Taurini" ! ! "Of the three tribes 
 " who opposed Caesar s passage," Mr. Ellis says, '' two lived in 
 " the Maurienne, and one in the Tarentaise. Csesar must thus 
 " have crossed the Alps, either by the Mont Cenis, or the 
 " Little St. Bernard."—" The Centrones lived in the Taren- 
 " taise : the Caturiges in the Upper Maurienne : the Garoceli 
 ' in the Lower Maurienne," pp. 177-8. 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 Mr. Ellis on Ccesars March. 
 
 85 
 
 Now Caesar does not say that he marched through the 
 country of these three nations : but that bodies of them 
 fought against him, having taken post on the higher parts of 
 the pass. Mr. Ellis heeds the distinction to a certain extent. 
 He cannot carry the Cenis route through the Tarentaise ; so 
 he excuses the lands of the Centrones from being the scene 
 of these conflicts ; but not the lands of the other two nations. 
 He has to find a special excuse for the Centrones leaving 
 their homes, and making part of the force engaged : so he 
 conceives that Caesar, on his way into Italy, must have given 
 some cause of offence to that people. " This," he says, '* may 
 " account for their joining in the attack upon him on his 
 " return." As this political fact rests upon no authority 
 besides Mr. Ellis, I have nothing to remove me from the 
 belief, that the troops of any nation which belonged to the 
 Alpine confederacy organized against the tyrant republic, were 
 liable to be on service away from their homes in aid of the 
 general cause. We know that such combinations were made 
 against Kome. In the account of the AUobrogian insurrec- 
 tion given by Dion Cassius, and which was not long before 
 the time we speak of, Catugnatus, the general who invaded 
 the Province beyond the Ehone, is said to have under him 
 troops from various nations along the Isere. 
 
 It is by no means necessary, for satisfying Caesar's text, to 
 suppose that he marched through the countries of the three 
 nations whom he so names. I agree with Mr. Ellis that he 
 did not march through the Centrones. I think it very pos- 
 sible that he did march through the Garoceli, and highly 
 probable that he did through the Caturiges. At the same 
 time a contingent from each may liave opposed him at the 
 pass. 
 
 Caturiges. 
 
 This people is usually recognised near the Durance : the 
 station Caturiges appears between Ebrodunum and Vapincum 
 
86 
 
 Early Knowledge of the Alps. 
 
 [part VIII. 
 
 M7\ Ellis on Ccesars March. 
 
 87 
 
 in the Itineraries ; also in Peutinger's cliart we find Catori- 
 magus. This historical notice of them, as opposing Caesar, is 
 consistent with their position near the Durance, though we 
 may be unable to determine their length or breadth. Mr. 
 Ellis does not di spute that there were Caturiges in those parts, 
 and speaks of tliem as not far from the Vocontii : but he does 
 not recognise them as the opponents of Caesar. As he sends 
 Csesar over thci Cenis, he has to find Caturiges for him on 
 the Arc. 
 
 Accordingly :;he Caturiges of Mr. Ellis are in the Maurienne, 
 and he desires to have them in the upper part of that valley. 
 Now he intimated to us before, that that was occupied by the 
 Medulli: for he exhibited Bramante as their station on the 
 road over his Medullian pass, being at the foot of their 100 
 stades of ascent {ante, c. iii). However, for the argument on 
 Csesar, the Medulli are expected to be in the Lower Maurienne, 
 the Upper being wanted for the Caturiges. Indeed in p. 132 
 he declares, " I'he Medulli were the inhabitants of the Lower 
 Maurienne." 
 
 Mr. Ellis is used to appeal to two catalogues of names : the 
 list of Cottian states inscribed on the Arch of Susa, and the 
 list of " gentes Alpinse devictae," inscribed on the Tropseum 
 Alpium* mentioned by Pliny. The geographical merit of 
 such catalogues seems to be this : you find a people men- 
 tioned between two other peoples ; and, when you have made 
 a good guess on the position of the two outside ones, you 
 infer that of the intermediate one. These catalogues are 
 found as follo\N's ; quoted by Mr. Ellis. 
 
 The Arch has these names inscribed : Segovii, Segusini, 
 Belaci, Caturiges, Medulli, Tebavii, Adanates, and a few 
 more. See Treatise, p. 167. 
 
 The Trophy has forty-three names inscribed ; among which 
 
 * The remains of this work are to he seen at Turhia, above 
 Monaco. 
 
 1 
 
 m 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 are found, in this order, Salassi, Acitavones, Medulli, Uceni, 
 Caturiges, BrigianL See Treatise, p. 131. 
 
 Thus the Medulli appear on the Arch between Caturiges 
 and Tebavii : in the Trophy they are between Acitavones and 
 Uceni. The latter position is given to them by Mr. ElHs, 
 when he places them in the Lower Maurienne, p. 132. But 
 will the same mode of inference do for the Caturiges ? 
 
 What says the Trophy list here ? We read Uceni, Caturiges, 
 Brigiani. This sequence brings the Caturiges towards the 
 Durance in accordance with received opinion. The Trophy 
 would fail for the Caturiges. The Arch is more favourable to 
 Mr. Ellis : there he finds Belaci, Caturiges, Medulli. So, the 
 MeduUi having taken the Lower Maurienne, the Caturiges 
 take the Upper : and it only remains to find a place near 
 them for the Belaci. This is soon done : just go up straight 
 from Susa on the Gen^vre road : and, when you come to Oulx, 
 bear away for Bardoneche : you will come to a village, which 
 in Chaix's map is called Beaulard,and in Bourcet's mapBoulard. 
 This fact proves the identity of the Belaci of the Arch, 
 showing them not very remote from Mr. Ellis's Caturiges in 
 the Maurienne. He says, "The Belaci are placed in the 
 " valley of Bardoneche, where the village of Beaulard is 
 " supposed to preserve their name." Treatise, p. 167. 
 
 1 see that Mr. EUis seeks to strengthen his case for putting 
 the Caturiges out of the way of Csesar, by the evidence of 
 Strabo. It happens that the word Catoriges appears where 
 nobody can understand it, and for which it seems not to have 
 been intended. It occurs, when Strabo, having mentioned 
 the Salassi, says : " Beyond them in the mountain heights 
 " are the Centrones and the Catoriges and the Veragii and 
 " the Kantuatse and the Leman lake, &c." Lib. iv. 204. 
 
 One should not have expected, that this position of the 
 Caturiges, on the mountains above the Salassi, and between 
 the Centrones and Veragri, would be acceptable to Mr. Ellis, 
 
ss 
 
 Earlfj KriOLvledtje of the Alps. 
 
 [part VIII. 
 
 Mr. Ellin on Ccesar's March. 
 
 89 
 
 as in confirmation of their position in the Maurienne, either 
 Upper or Lower He appears, however, with singular facility 
 to be as well satisfied with finding them between Centrones 
 and Yeragri, as he was with finding them between Medulli 
 and Belaci: and as if he considered it to prove the same 
 thing. He asserts it thus—" The Caturiges, or Catoricres, 
 " who bordered on the Salassi, must have inhabited the 
 " Upper Maurienne." 
 
 Then follows the proof,—" The three other tribes bor- 
 " dering on th(j Salassi, the Veragri, the Nantuates, and 
 " the Centrones. occupied the Lower Vallais and Eastern 
 '' Savoy as far (inclusive) as the Tarentaise. The Caturiges 
 " would therefore be sought either in the Upper Vallais, or else 
 " in the Upper Maurienne, or the valley of Susa. But they 
 " could not have dwelt in the Upper Vallais, for they are 
 '* never mentioned among the people inhabiting tliat district, 
 " and were, besides, one of the Cottian tribes ; and the only 
 " parts of the C'ottian territory which touched the country 
 " of the Salassi were the Upper Maurienne and the valley of 
 " Susa. But the valley of Susa was inhabited by the Segusini : 
 " the Caturiges therefore should be sought in the Upper 
 " Maurienne." Treatise, p. 166. 
 
 Thus, without, offering an interpretation of the words of 
 the author, Mr. Ellis combats suggestions of his own : and, 
 for proving where the Caturiges were, shows where they were 
 not. He might at least quote his author accurately. Strabo 
 does not say tliat the Caturiges, Veragri, Nantuates, and 
 Centrones bordtired on the Salassi: {^irhp rcov ^aXaaacov 
 means « above the Salassi," and « beyond the Salassi ; " not, 
 '' bordering on them." If it had that meaning, the lake of 
 Geneva would border on them as well as the Veragri; for 
 virep T(ov I^aXacra&v is predicated of that also. When ap- 
 plied to the occupiers of the Little and the Great St. Bernard, 
 VTrep ^aXaaatav means " above "—when the words are applied 
 
 ^SSK[ 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 to the Nantuates and the lake, virep can only have the force 
 of " beyond " — meaning beyond the Salassi and the JSTorthern 
 
 Alps. 
 
 Wliatever pretension the word Catoriges in this passage 
 may have to be genuine, which I should doubt altogether, it 
 is somewhat surprising that one, who desires to have that 
 people recognised in the Maurienne, should rejoice in this 
 introduction of them so near to the Great St. Bernard. With 
 all the elasticity of his geography, Mr. Ellis, who is searching 
 for tribes to oppose C?esar, cannot wish the Caturiges to go 
 to the Salassi : so he makes the Salassi come to them ; and 
 we read in the next sentence, " The limit of tlie Salassi on 
 the South seems to have been the Stura or the Dora Susina:" 
 and further, p. 167, " The only parts of the Cottian territory 
 " which touched the country of the Salassi were the Upper 
 " Maurienne and the valley of Susa." These Salassian con- 
 tiguities were not alluded to, when Mr. Ellis denoted the 
 extremities of his Little Mont Cenis or Medullian pass as 
 Bramans and Susa.* 
 
 Garoceli. 
 
 Those who think that the proper district of this people 
 must liave been traversed in Caesar's line of march, ought to 
 determine the line of march first, and find them a position 
 afterwards : for it is only in this one sentence of Caesar that 
 they are ever described in ancient history. We must reason 
 from his authority : and the only auxiliary idea that suggests 
 itself is, that there may be a connexion between Garoceli and 
 Ocelum. Mr. Ellis of course would have them also in the 
 Maurienne, that they may be within call to defend the Cenis 
 against Caesar. But his Maurienne is full already with 
 Caturiges and Medulli : there is no room left for Garoceli or 
 any more. How then does he provide for them? He 
 
 * See ante this Part, c. iii. 
 
^^ Early Knowledge of iJie Alps, [part viii. 
 
 incorporates them with one of those occupants : not of course 
 with the Caturiges, for Caesar was opposed both by Garoceli 
 and Caturiges ; he identifies them with the Medulli, whom 
 Caesar does not name. 
 
 The Arch and the Trophy have already been brought into 
 play, for giving a position to those who are in their lists. 
 The same memorials are now referred to by Mr. Ellis for 
 placing a people; which is not in the lists : in the Jotirnal of 
 Phil. No. vii. 17, he performs his identification thus : " It is 
 " not difficult to see why the Garoceli should be identified 
 '' with the Medulli. We have, in Pliny and on the Arch of 
 " Susa, very complete lists of the Alpine tribes. In these 
 " lists the name of the Garoceli never appears. They would 
 " therefore probably be identical with another tribe, which we 
 " find must also be placed in the Garocellian country, the 
 " Lower Maurienne ; i. e. they must be identical with the 
 " Medulli." This argument as expressed is not potent, for 
 want of meaning in the word '' therefore : " it amounts to this 
 — "Garoceli must be Medulli, because Medulli must be 
 Garoceli." 
 
 But Mr. Ellis reminds us to look to Jiis first work for as- 
 sistance : and in p. 178 of the Treatise, we find the identity 
 thus enforced :— " The Garoceli appear to be identical with the 
 " Medulli, the city of St. Jean de Maurienne being mentioned 
 " in old documents as Sanctus Johannes Garocellius ; a fact 
 " which seems to fix the GaroceK in the Lower Maurienne, 
 " the country of the Medulli." Now the authority to which 
 Mr. Ellis refers, and which he quotes at length, does not treat 
 the Lower Maurienne as the country of the Medulli, but denies 
 it to be so. The words, as given by Mr. Ellis, are these :— 
 " Incolas (Mauriennse) quamvis nonnulli putent eos esse, quos 
 " Plinius ac Strabo Medullos appellaverunt, nos tamen in ea 
 " sententi^ sumus, ut esse credamus Ciesaris Lib. i. Belli 
 " Gallici Garocellos : eoque maijis huic sententia? adh^eremus, 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 M7\ Ellis on Ccesar's March. 
 
 91 
 
 *' quo in antiquis tabulis ac monumentis, S. Joannis Garo- 
 " cellii vocabulo appellari legimus civitatis primariai de 
 *' qua agimus Ecclesiam Cathedralem." Blaev. Theatrum 
 
 Sabandice. 
 
 Thus the authority to which Mr. Ellis appeals in favour of 
 the Medulli, informs us that, though some thought them to be 
 the occupants of the Maurienne, he, with others, thought it to 
 be inhabited by the Garoceli, and that the latter was the better 
 opinion. This shows a competition between two different 
 things, and does not forward their identity. The Oxford 
 Dissertation, p. 21, referred to Sanctus Johannes long ago, 
 quoting Theatr. Sahand. vol. ii. p. 19 : but there the sugges- 
 tion was that John of Maurienne had been spoken of as 
 Garocellius— not a word upon the Medulli. Perhaps Garo- 
 cellius had nothing national in its signification. Johannes 
 Garocellius might be Bishop of Maurienne, as John of Gaunt 
 was Duke of Lancaster, without the name attaching to the 
 district which was under his jurisdiction. 
 
 Mr. Ellis took his chance with the Garoceli, by placing 
 them in partnership with the Medulli in the Lower Mauri- 
 enne. That fails : and the Medulli themselves seem to hold 
 a questionable title to that territory, trusting only to the con- 
 tiguities of the Arch ; and among other discouragements to it 
 is this : that Mr. Ellis himself countenanced their holding the 
 Upper, by having described them as occupiers from Bramante 
 to the Cenis lake, when, with equal infelicity, he was exhibit- 
 ing the Taurini as holding the base of the descent at Susa. 
 
 As there is no satisfactory evidence on the position of the 
 Garoceli, the most reasonable clue to them seems to be in the 
 word Ocelum, which contributes so largely to form their name. 
 But they are not needed to complete the proof that Caesar's 
 pass was the Genevre. It is unimportant from whence the 
 battalions came, by whom he was resisted at the pass. 
 
92 
 
 Early Knoivledgc of the A Ips. [part viii. 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 Mr. Ellis on Ccesars Marcli. 
 
 93 
 
 % 
 
 ti 
 
 a 
 
 In Vocontiorum fines pervenit. 
 
 It only remains to be seen how Mr. Ellis, after his expla- 
 nation of the previous incidents which belong to Cesar's nar- 
 rative of the S(3ven days' march, introduces him into the 
 Vocontii. His constniction is that Caesar never entered among 
 them at all. H(i brings him towards the mouth of the Drac ; 
 and, without crossing that river into their territory, sends him 
 over the Isere into the Allobroges. Now, Mr. Ellis has ad- 
 mitted that, if I should prove my point on the site of Ocelum, 
 my conclusion against the Mont Cenis would be just. Journ. 
 of Phil iii. 19. Does he abide by that concession? 
 
 We do not agree in the construing of the words ; which are 
 these—" In fines Vocontiorum ulterioris provinci^e die septimo 
 pervenit : inde in AUobrogum fines : ab Allobrogibus in 
 Segusianos exercitum ducit." Being used to construe " in " 
 into, when followed by an accusative, I understand " in fines " 
 to mean " into the bounds : " and as Ciesar was a forward- 
 going man, I apprehend that, having got into Vocontian land, 
 he would go through till he got out again, which was into the 
 Allobroges. Mr. Ellis does not recognise these notions : he 
 says, Journ, of Phil iii. 25 : " The transit through the Vocontii 
 " is merely an assertion of Mr. Law's : the body of their 
 " country is not mentioned, but merely its ' fines : ' the expres- 
 " sion means no more than ' frontier : ' ' inde ' is equivalent 
 " to ' ab iisdem finibus.' " On this pretence, Mr. Ellis shirks 
 the word " in " altogether. He would bring Csesar opposite 
 to Grenoble, by cutting across the mountains from St. Jean de 
 Maurienne ; wouj.d just take a look at the Vocontii across the 
 Drac, and, without speaking to them, pass the Isere into the 
 Allobroges. Thisi fancy is not satisfactory : for, if the words 
 " in fines Vocontionim " do not carry Csesar into the Vocontii, 
 the words " in fines Allobrogum " will not carry him into the 
 AUobroges. 
 
 As Mr. Ellis can manage Caesar's geography so as to dis- 
 pense with the Vocontii in this line of march, he very 
 naturally charges me with blundering about them. He says 
 in his defence — " Mr. Law must consider the right bank of 
 " the Drac, where the road to Grenoble runs, to have been in 
 " the possession of that people. . . . Mr. Law contravenes the 
 " supposition that the south bank of the Isere must have been 
 " Vocontian. ... He has adopted the banishment of the Uceni 
 " from the Pays d'Oysans." Journ. of Phil iii. 25, 26, 14. 
 These statements have no foundation. I hold that, at a cer- 
 tain part, the Isere sei)arated the Vocontii from the Allobroges ; 
 and that the Drac, which in old times ran into the Isere above 
 Grenoble, separated the Vocontii from the Uceni ; and that 
 these, being the Iconii of Strabo, were above the Vocontii on 
 the Isere, and owned Bourg d' Oysans on the Eomanche. I 
 no more pretend to know their precise dimensions than I do 
 those of the Tricorii, whom I would suppose to be more south, 
 in deference to Livy. 
 
 Our difference then is substantially this : Mr. Ellis thinks 
 that the seven days' march was from Buttigliera on the minor 
 Doria (Jiis Ocelum), over the Little Cenis, and down the Arc 
 to St. Jean de Maurienne, whence it cut across the mountains 
 to the Col de la Coche, and across the Isere into the Allo- 
 broges, not crossing the Drac into the Vocontii : and that, as 
 he went by " proximum iter," this short cut proves his celerity. 
 Against this, I would further say that, if ever the five legions 
 had got into the line of a descending river, Csesar would not 
 have been tempted to quit this advantage by encountering new 
 Alps ; and, in whichever line the march was made, " complura 
 proelia" might diminish the celerity of it. My belief is un- 
 shaken, that Caesar, proceeding from Ocelum near Fenestrelles, 
 and crossing the Gen^vre, made his way to the territory of the 
 Vocontii, which was part of the " ulterior provincia : " that he 
 crossed the Isere from them into the Allobroges at Grenoble, 
 
 I 
 
9^ Early Knoivkdge of the Alps. [pakt viit. 
 
 which appears soon afterwards as the place of crossing by the 
 letters of Plancus to Cicero. 
 
 Such are the comments which I have thought right to make 
 on the three matters of discussion which Mr. Ellis has brouf^lit 
 forward, as auxiliary to his main point of contention, that 
 Hannibal crossed the Little Mont Cenis. He conceives that 
 this had been the accustomed pass in still earlier times ; and 
 relies on Romau practice for more recent times, to the writings 
 of Julius Caesar, to Ammianus Marcellinus, and to the chart 
 or Table of Peu.tinger. 
 
 Dates of Alpine Passes. 
 
 At the close of his Treatise, Mr. Ellis gives a short epitome 
 of the continuous use of the Cenis track as the favourite line 
 between Gaul and Italy. It appears in p. 180, as a note ; 
 and in the exposition which is made of Roman roads in the 
 lower valley ol* the Is^re, there are statements to which I 
 would call attention, in the purpose of giving a right seniority 
 to events. Among other things it is said : " When the route 
 " over the Chartreuse mountains was opened, the road of the 
 " Mont Cenis was, as appears from the Peutingerian Table, 
 " connected with that road, and the way by Grenoble and the 
 " Graisivaudan no longer formed the line of approach to 
 " Vienna" 
 
 I believe tha,t when the route over the Chartreuse moun- 
 tains was opened, there existed no Cenis road to be connected 
 with it. As to such a fact appearing from the Peutingerian 
 Table, I believ(3 that that document had no existence till 
 A.D. 393 ; whenjas the Passage of the Mont du Chat, the only 
 Roman road I ever heard of carried through those moun- 
 tains, appears in the Antonine Itinerary, which was fully two 
 hundred years earlier. As to finding the Cenis pass laid 
 down in any ancient Roman documents, you might as well 
 seek it in a map of Hindostan. 
 
 m 
 
 CHAP. IX.] Mr. Ellis on Ccesar's March. 95 
 
 The term " no longer," in the latter part of the sentence 
 quoted, implies that hefoi^e that route through the mountains 
 was opened, the way by Grenoble and the Graisivaudan had 
 given the line of approach to Vienne, If any one supposes 
 this, it is a great mistake. The two Itineraries, published by 
 Wesseling, give no road along the Graisivaudan ; and the 
 only document which draws a route through Grenoble is the 
 later one of a.d. 393, called the Table : that is carried straight 
 on from Grenoble to Vienne. Mr. Ellis has avoided to show 
 or mention this line, by making Orelle on the Arc to per- 
 sonate Grenoble, and not bringing out Vienne at all; and 
 this line is omitted from his own map, though he calls it a 
 " Map of Roman roads, deduced from the Itineraries and the 
 " Table." The only correct sentence in his history of roads, 
 in p. 180, is this : " No route up the Graisivaudan is given in 
 the Itineraries, or traced in the Peutingerian Table." What 
 is called the Gresivaudan is the valley above Grenoble. 
 
 The history of Roman Itinera through the Alps, if cor- 
 rectly attainable, would be an interesting branch of the 
 history of civilization. As in all disputed progress of human 
 art and usage, one looks for cause and consequence. It 
 appears probable to me, that the Peiiine and Graian passes 
 were in use at an earlier day than the Matrona, the Genevre ; 
 and the use of the Cenis, not being traced to Roman times, 
 seems to have been long posterior to that of the other three. 
 Some may presume that, as Susa was so accessible from 
 Turin, and as a great Iter in the direction to which the Cenis 
 leads, must have been desirable after the conquests of Csesar, 
 not only the Little St. Bernard and the Genevre would con- 
 tinue to be the accustomed passes for Roman use, but the 
 Cenis also would become so. 
 
 The evidence is against even that. There is no route over 
 the Cenis in the first extant Itinerary, nor in the second (that 
 of Jerusalem), which was in a much later day. And in the 
 
96 Early Kno)dedge of the Alps. [part viii. 
 
 far later document called from Peutinger, there is evidence 
 that, when a road was made to Grenoble, it was made, not 
 over the Cenis, but by a new branch from Brian9on, after 
 crossing the Gem'^vre. 
 
 Accordingly, wiien Mr. Ellis mutilates that document for 
 substituting one pass of Alps for another, he does not work 
 without an object ; and yet his success in that object would 
 not much have furthered his views on Hannibal, whose expe- 
 dition preceded the parchments of Peutinger by six hundred 
 years. He must be content with the earliest date (a.d. 755), 
 which he has found for the reputation of Mons Cenisius, 
 which he tells us (p. 160) is in the Continuation of the 
 Chronicle of Tredegar. 
 
 We believe that a Eoman way was never made over the 
 Cenis, from the mter want of evidence of its existence. Some 
 memorial would have perpetuated its fame. Susa alone, from its 
 position, might have occasioned some mention of such a track 
 in ancient history. If Caesar's seven days' march had been from 
 Buttigliera, through St. Jean de Maurienne, either to Aigue- 
 belle or to the Col de la Coche, some index to the exploit 
 would survive m history more pregnant with conclusions 
 than the spontaneous conjectures of Mr. Ellis. 
 
 The cause why the Eomans should abstain from appointing 
 the Cenis as a way for armies, when the Cottian obstruction 
 to their jurisdiction was removed, and why, on their acquisi- 
 tion of Susa, a new approach to the Genevre was preferred as 
 the object of public care, we may well conceive to have been 
 in the impracticable character of the former. It is of no 
 avail to refer to the admirable state of the fine route which 
 carries men over the Cenis at the present day. This is a 
 creation within our own memories— the establishment of a 
 line, not its improvement. The ascent from Susa, by Jaillon, 
 St. Martin, Molari?t, and Bard, established under Napoleon, 
 is not adducible against our argument. The incompetency of 
 
 CHIP. IX.] 
 
 Mr, Ellis oil Ccesars March, 
 
 97 
 
 the Cenis, of which we speak, is to be accounted for by the 
 character of the earlier ascent by the La Noval^se and La 
 Ferri^re, which was only superseded at the beginning of the 
 present century ; and T apprehend that that route has always 
 presented a more serious and appalling defiance than any 
 which the art of man has subdued for contriving the great 
 ways over the Alps ; and, while we speak of those difficulties, 
 the obstacle continues to the present moment. That route 
 only acquired a state which promised serious amelioration, 
 under Emmanuel III. during the last century. Nevertheless, 
 it was abandoned as hopeless by him who in the present 
 century constructed a new ascent in a different part of the 
 mass of mountains which tower behind the ancient Segusio. 
 The Cenis, notwithstanding its partial use from the time of 
 Charlemagne, cannot have been worthy to rank as a Roman 
 way till the time of Napoleon. 
 
 For confirming the inference that is to be drawn from the 
 silence of history, I think we may believe that, under the 
 emperors, the natural difficulties of the known ascent from 
 Susa were so great as to discourage the construction of a 
 great Eoman Way. Knowing how fearful those difficulties 
 continued to be to the end of our eighteenth century, we 
 must imagine what they must have been in the first century. 
 Mr. Ellis forgets this aspect of the subject in applying his 
 comment on facts. Speaking of the amount of imputed 
 difficulty in ancient times, he says: "This cannot be con- 
 " eluded of a pass which, however difficult, must rank, rela- 
 " tively to Alpine passes generally, among the easiest kno^vn, 
 " —a pass which may be shown to have been always a 
 " thoroughfare through the Alps ; and which is now, what it 
 " seems to have been for some centuries, the great highway 
 " from France to Italy." Treatise, p. 149. 
 
 It is a great mistake thus to speak of the Cenis which is 
 now together with the Cenis of past centuries. The eulocyy 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 EtArrly Knowledx/e of the Alps, [P^J^T Vlll. 
 
 as pronounced i-elatively to passes generally, is quite unde- 
 served ; and, when applied to remote times, unfounded. Mr. 
 Ellis omits to point out tlie change from worst to best, which 
 distinguishes th(3 Cenis of our own times. In all that is said 
 by him on the Cenis, the modern ascent from Susa is not 
 alluded to. The road of Napoleon the First over the Cenis 
 affords no sort of argument in favour of a Cenis of Hannibal, 
 more than the road of Napoleon the Third under the Cenis 
 will afford it hereafter. 
 
 The Great Highway of centuries which Mr. Ellis celebrates 
 did not exist for De Saussure in 1786. It did not exist for 
 Albanis Beaumont in 1793. Let aU praise be given to it in 
 the nineteenth century. But let not that which was in use 
 before and which carried you another way, profit by the re- 
 flection of its merits. Mr. Ellis himself has helped us to 
 know what weie the demerits of the Cenis which flourished 
 when he was born. Let the portrait be studied ; and then 
 let us picture to ourselves, what they must have been for 
 centuries before. Mr. Ellis has himself, as he thinks, con- 
 templated Hannibal's descent : and, in support of his ninth 
 condition, invites us to follow his steps. He uses these words 
 
 {Treatise, p. 119) :— 
 
 " A remarkable passage in a geographical work of the last 
 « century,* seems to indicate clearly the situation of this 
 " place, when Hannibal's path had been destroyed by a land- 
 " slip. The passage runs thus— From the Inn, called La 
 " Grande Croi>:, on account of the wooden cross, which stands 
 « by its side, and which forms the boundary between Savoy 
 " and Piedmont, the descent begins. On descending, there 
 " is found a place enclosed by the mountains, called La Plaine 
 " de S. Nicola : this plain being passed, there is a descent 
 " which, at one time, the stones and rocks rendered imprac- 
 " ticable to such a degree, that those who were accustomed to 
 
 * Busching's Geography of Italy. Venice, 1780. vol. i. p. 78. 
 
 ■ t.^ r ■ t- 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 Mr. Ellis on Ccesar's March, 
 
 99 
 
 t( 
 
 t( 
 
 " transport travellers in chairs, were obliged to descend by 
 " leaping from rock to rock, as it were down so many steps. 
 
 Upon this inevitable descent towards La Novalese, there 
 
 were three or four places, where the path, flanked by very 
 " lofty precipices, was exceedingly narrow, and the waters had 
 " broken away the ground to such an extent, that the chair, 
 " with the person carried in it, hung half in air, over the 
 " precipice. 
 
 " But under the reign of Emmanuel IIL (1730—1773), a 
 " new road was made, upon which there is no longer any 
 " danger ; nevertheless there is a distance of about sixteen 
 " miles where the traveller is obliged to be carried in a chair.' 
 Mr. Ellis adds — " This part of the old road is again referred 
 *' to in the same work. It is said, in the description of La 
 " Ferriere, that the path leading down to La Novalese was 
 " sometimes contracted by the precipices to a width of no 
 *' more than one foot." 
 
 No advocate of a Hannibalian Cenis has proposed for 
 scrutiny any descent but that by La Ferri^re. In exhibiting 
 this uninviting road 2,000 years after the march of Hannibal, 
 Mr. Ellis is labouring to prove that it was bad enough to suit 
 the story of Polybius. I apply his proofs to a different pur- 
 pose; to show that it was too bad to suit it. I have no 
 materials on which to pronounce how far the passage was 
 getting worse between Hannibal and our fifth century ; or 
 between the fifth century and the eighteenth. Mr. Ellis's 
 own efforts of description, general and particular, disprove it 
 as the scene recorded by Polybius : and the condemnation of 
 the route as incurable by Napoleon, concurs with all other 
 evidence, negative and affirmative, to show, that Hannibal 
 and his Italian friends were never near it. 
 
 Of the detached questions which have lately arisen to us, 
 the most interesting is the question, which was the pass of 
 Caesar, and I just receive (June, 1866) an important confirma- 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 Early Knowledge of tice A Ips. [part viil. 
 
 tion of the views which I have been advocating, when my 
 pen is hardly yet dry from the task of expressing them. In 
 the second volume of " The History of Julius Csesar," it is 
 said (p. 67) that, when he went for reinforcements to oppose 
 the Helvetii, he carried the legions /rom Aquileia to Ocelum 
 (Usseau) in 28 daySy and thence to Grenoble in 7 days. If I 
 had a shade of doubt on his crossing the Gen^vre, this would 
 relieve it. 
 
 THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 PAET IX. 
 
 INTERPEETATION OF LIVY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Introduction. Passage of the Rhone. March to the Island. 
 Livy's hypothesis on the Pass. Usually interpreted as the 
 Genevre, latterly as the Cenis. Discordance of the Cenisians 
 on the Island and the Allohvges. Larauza. Ukert. Ellis. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The writings of Livy on the history of his country are more 
 familiar to many than those of earlier date : and I need not 
 preface the examination of his testimony with urging his 
 claim to our respect. To know the rank which he holds 
 among the sages of history, let any man observe the mature 
 reflections of his greatest admirer and best eulogist. Niebuhr 
 closes a commemoration of Livy with these remarks : " He 
 "enricht the literature of his countrymen with a colossal 
 " masterwork, with which the Greeks have nothing of the 
 "kind to compare: nor can any modern people place a 
 " similar work by its side. Of all the losses that have 
 " befallen us in Roman literature, the greatest is that which 
 " has left his history imperfect." Transl. 
 
 wall, i. 4. 
 
 by Hare and Thirl- 
 
102 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 His hypothesis — Genevre — Ce7iis. 
 
 103 
 
 An inquiry into the route which Livy imputed to Hannibal 
 ought to be shorter than the inquiry into the route of Polybius; 
 for many reasoiis. Much that has been said abeady is ap- 
 plicable to both narratives, being explanatory of facts on 
 which there is no disagreement between them. The duration 
 of the march, and the season in which it was performed, are 
 the same in both. In explaining Livy, we have no measure- 
 ments to deal with : he does not mark the progress by dis- 
 tances : the only distance asserted in his narrative, is that of 
 Hanno's movement up the Rhone : and this is the same as in 
 Polybius. Livy himself has limited the scope of inquiry into 
 his meaning, by declaring that Hannibal did not come over 
 either the Great or the Little St. Bernard. 
 
 Our apprehension of the Pass, which Livy intended to 
 maintain, will depend upon our rightly interpreting the few 
 words which tell the progress of the army from the junction 
 of the Ehone and Is^re to the Alps : and almost exclusively 
 on this : for in the details of progress through the Alps, there 
 is hardly an indication of geography. The only further aid 
 for understanding his track is in some comments made after 
 the narrative of progress, and arising out of a discussion of 
 the amount of force which survived on arriving into the plain 
 of Italy. Livy there reasons controversially upon the way 
 by which Hannibal had come there, noticing the opinions 
 commonly held, on the subject, which were adverse to his own. 
 
 These things considered, one would not expect to find 
 great difficult}' in comprehending the route which Livy in- 
 tended to des(5ribe. But, as those who profess to be guided 
 by him, have themselves found the utmost difficulty, as is 
 apparent by the dissensions among themselves, their specula- 
 tions require to be sifted. 
 
 When we shall be satisfied as to what his opinion was, we 
 shall have to (sonsider whether it is essentially different from 
 that of Polybius : and, if it prove to be so, the grounds on 
 
 I 
 
 which he differed from him must be weighed, before we can 
 decide for ourselves, on which narrative we should rest our 
 belief. 
 
 The Passage of the Rhone, 
 
 Livy, while he had his own hypothesis on the Pass of Alps, 
 had nothing new to suggest concerning the Passage of the 
 Rhone, and did not intend to contradict preceding writers. 
 The country on the lower Rhone with the towns belonging to 
 it had, in his time, become familiar as an integral part of the 
 Roman dominions : and it might be expected that his account 
 of the Passage would contain some notices of locality. As 
 it contains none, we may infer that there was nothing new 
 which he desired to bring forward. 
 
 The place where the river was crossed by Hannibal was 
 indeed not likely to be a subject of dispute. The site of his 
 encampment on the Rhone had been viewed by Roman eyes, 
 and become known to the Roman government without uncer- 
 tainty. Nothing more of him was seen until he and Scipio 
 met in the plain of the Po. Those termini were not to be 
 mistaken. But of the track which he pursued from one to 
 the other there was no official evidence : it remained liable to 
 the speculations which Livy's history lays before us : and 
 this is the more intelligible, when we remember the long 
 continuing impotence of Rome against the Alps. The Car- 
 thaginian occupation of the mountains was no momentary 
 matter. Livy shows that for a long period Hannibal main- 
 tained his communications with Spain through the Alps. In 
 his account of the ill-fated expedition of Asdrubal, he says 
 this— " Cseterum Hasdrubali et sua et aliorum spe omnia 
 " celeriora atque expeditiora fuere : non enim receperunt 
 " modo Arverni eum, deincepsque, alise Gallicie atque Alpine 
 " gentes, sed etiam secutae sunt ad beUum : et quum per 
 " munita pleraque transitu fratris, quae antea invia fuerant. 
 
104 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 " ducebat, turn etiam duodecim annorum assuetudine perviis 
 " Alpibus factis, inter mitiora jam hominum transibat in- 
 " genia." 
 
 It might be tlioiight that sucli events would be so stamped 
 on the scenes w here they occurred, that those scenes would 
 become recognised and unquestioned. But, when Hannibal 
 was recalled frcm Italy, this channel of communication did 
 not pass into the control of his enemy : the Eomans were 
 still excluded from the Alps. Macedon, Carthage, Greece, 
 Spain, were brought to own the supremacy of the domineering 
 republic, while the Alps remained untrodden by the Koman 
 soldier. Histories of the march were published both in the 
 Greek and Latin languages ; of which one only, as far as we 
 know, had defined by name the pass of the Carthaginians. 
 It was long before there was official access to the countiy 
 which they had traversed. The Gaulish and Ligurian nations 
 of Italy still struggled for independence ; and postponed to a 
 late day the farailiarity of Eome with the Alps. Hence an 
 opening to doubt, and a temptation to the confounding of 
 fiction with truth : and thus was the route of Hannibal, two 
 centuries after i:he invasion, treated by the great historian of 
 Home, as a matter of argument and speculation. 
 
 From such cause of obscurity the Passage of the Ehone 
 was free. A Eoman consul saw the place three days after 
 the enemy had marched onwards to the Is^re : and up to this 
 point there is not found in Livy's narrative of the track any- 
 thing in contradiction of Polybius. He carries the march 
 from the Pyrenees through Elne and Eoussillon to the country 
 of the Volc3e, whose capital was Nimes. Before the passage 
 is forced, Hanno is sent 25 miles up the river, and crosses it : 
 and all the circumstances of the passage told by Livy are in 
 accordance witt: the earlier history. Hannibal marches up 
 the river on the day following that of the engagement of 
 cavalry, and re^,ches the Island in four days : Scipio arrives 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 His hypothesis — Genevre — Cenis, 
 
 105 
 
 at the deserted entrenchments on the third day after the 
 departure of the enemy. These conformities would not have 
 been found, if the two historians had imagined different 
 points for the passage of the Ehone. Further, as Li\7' had no 
 cause, like his predecessor, to avoid the nomination of places, 
 one would think that, if any well known town had been 
 signalised by the passage of the Carthaginian armament, and 
 question had been made on so interesting an incident, he 
 would not have left it unnoticed. It may then be fairly 
 inferred from his silence, that he had nothing to advance in 
 opposition to prior writers : and I am entitled to say that, if 
 I have shown the place of crossing intended by one historian, 
 I have shown the place recognised by the other. 
 
 Four days* march to the Island. 
 
 All interpreters of Livy, save the accola of the Eygues, 
 allow that he intended to describe the four days' march as up 
 the Ehone from the passage of that river as far as a district 
 called the Island. There is a difference of opinion on the 
 site which Livy gives to it ; also on the position of a people 
 called Allobroges ; but all understand that Hannibal found 
 that people in a state of discord ; that he interfered in favour 
 of the elder brother ; aided him in regaining the supremacy ; 
 and received substantial benefits in return. These are inci- 
 dents on which every interpreter must pause, before he traces 
 the further route into Italy. 
 
 When the progress is resumed, there is great difference of 
 opinion on the direction which Livy meant to assign to it, 
 among those who profess to rely on his story. And this is to 
 be remembered ; that he states Hannibars movement to the 
 Is^re, after crossing the Ehone, to have been induced only by 
 the desire to avoid present conflict with the Eoman army.* 
 
 * D'Anville (Tricorii) speaks as if both historians imputed this 
 to Hannibal : it is Livy only. 
 
 • 
 
106 
 
 Livy inteiyreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 He would thei^efore consider that, on the motive to that 
 deviation being removed by Scipio returning to his ships, 
 Hannibal became free to pursue the route which he had first 
 designed. We ^vill inquire now, not into the merits of Livy's 
 opinion, but which route did he intend to describe ? 
 
 What was Livy's hypothesis on the Pass. 
 
 Every disputant who denies the Graian Alps, whether his 
 pass be the Simplon, the Great St. Bernard, the Cenis, the 
 Genevre, or the Viso, and whatever circuit he may make to 
 reach it, seems to conceive his own hypothesis to be in 
 accordance with the text of Livy as well as with that of 
 Polybius. Accordingly in the early part of Livy's march 
 they question the points which we deemed most important in 
 Polybius : they deny the river to be the Ehone, and deprive 
 our island of its inhabitants, the Allobroges. The Isere is 
 found convenient for reaching the Cenis: neither river is 
 convenient for reaching the Genevre. I believe that none of 
 our adversaries, following one history, profess to disregard the 
 other. We, who deny the concurrence of the two, believe 
 Livy to be mistaken : but we must inquire into his meaning, 
 to justify our distrust of his conclusions. The adverse 
 theories which claim from us the most attentive consideration, 
 are those which favour the Mont Genevre and those which 
 favour the Mont Cenis. Other hypotheses may be noticed, 
 but not as requiring a detailed effort of opposition. 
 
 The writers ctf highest name, who favour the Mont Genevre, 
 have been, D'.inville, who interprets Livy, but does not 
 interpret Polybius, presuming that they must agree; and 
 Letronne, who interprets both, and struggles to reconcile 
 them. They 8.re both right upon Livy's pass : but each 
 commits great errors as to Livy's mode of arriving at it. 
 D'Anville would carry Hannibal up the Val Godemar, from 
 the head of which there is no escape at all for an army. He 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 His hypothesis — Gemvre — Cenis. 
 
 107 
 
 was in partial, but excusable ignorance of that part of a 
 country to which he devoted so much attention. Letronne 
 contradicts the text of Livy in his endeavour to reconcile it 
 with that of Polybius. We will hereafter examine the par- 
 ticular blemishes of these distinguished men, who judge 
 rightly on the pass which Livy intended, and on nothing 
 else. 
 
 The rival hypothesis of the Cenis I conceive to have no 
 pretension to be in accordance with either history. The 
 recent writers who have most strongly urged it, are M. 
 Larauza, Dr. XJkert, and Mr. Ellis. Larauza published his 
 clever book, Histoire Critique, in 1826. Dr. Ukert, in support 
 of the same route, wrote in 1832 : and Mr. Ellis, with some 
 variety of line, in 1854. Ukert, though somewhat differing 
 from Larauza on the Island and the Allobroges, follows him 
 through the mountains almost without interfering; as if 
 doubtfully approving the matter in which he seems to 
 acquiesce. Indeed in the whole march through the Alps to 
 the plain he is the obsequious attendant of the Erench critic, 
 transcribing his Itinerary, but not confirming his interpre- 
 tations with reasonings of his own. 
 
 The Insula and Allohroges of Larauza. 
 
 M. Larauza admits, that Livy intended the Island to be 
 north of Isere : but insists on the fact that the Allobroges 
 were south of Isere. On their position he says this — "Ou 
 " a-t-on vu dans ces historiens qu'a cette epoque les Allobroges 
 " habitassent Tllel Bien loin de le laisser entendre, ne 
 " disent-ils pas tout le contraire? Nulle part Polybe ne 
 " donne le nom d' Allobroges aux habitans de I'lle. Tite- 
 " Live est encore plus formel : il reconnait positivement, 
 " comme on I'a dejk pu voir, que les Allobroges habitaient 
 " pr^s de rile." P. 35. 
 
 The words of the history are these — " Quartis castris ad 
 
108 
 
 Livy interp7*eted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 His hypothesis— Genhvre — Cenis. 
 
 109 
 
 " Insulani pervenit : ibi Arar Ehodanusque amnes, diversi ex 
 " Alpibus deciiiTentes, agri aliquantiim amplexi, confluunt in 
 " unum: mediis campis Insulse nomen indituni : incolunt prope 
 " AUobroges, gens jam inde nulla Gallica gente opibus aut fama 
 " inferior." I object to the construction, though a common one, 
 that " incolunt prope" means " dwell near the Island." " In- 
 colunt" signifies "dwell in:" and we are to understand 
 "campos" or "insulam" as following that word— We pre- 
 sently read "incolentium ea loca Gallorum;" where the 
 accusative is expressed. If the required idea had been 
 "dwell" only, g^nd not "dwell in;" "colunt prope" would 
 have sufficed, as in chapter xxvi. where Livy says of the Volcse, 
 " colunt circa utramque ripam Ehodani." As "incolunt" means 
 " dwell in the Island," "prope" cannot mean "near the Island." 
 The nearness which it imports is nearness to the point at 
 which the story of Hannibal's progress has arrived, the point 
 which in the preceding sentence is intended by "ibi," and 
 which was reached by the four days' march. 
 
 Now no commentator has ever suggested a name other than 
 AUobroges for those who dwelt in the island : Livy does not 
 hint that Hannil^al was among that people before he reached 
 the Isere : and, when the army is put in motion again south 
 of Iske, they are left behind, and we never hear of them 
 again. If Livy's AUobroges were not beyond the Isere, where 
 were they ? 
 
 M. Larauza bestows the denomination AUobroges "aux 
 " diverses tribus Gauloises occupant du tems d'Annibal tout 
 " le pays qui s'etend depuis le Rhone au dessous de I'ls^re, 
 "jusqu*^ Tentree des Alpes et au dela." He first spreads 
 them along the Rhone from the Durance to the Isere ; and 
 then along the south of Isere towards the Alps. He imagines 
 that those who w ere just in the angle made by the rivers were 
 specially AUobroges; in fact, AUobroges and nothing else. 
 Thus, in his view, the march up the Rhone to the Island had 
 
 n 
 
 tl 
 
 brought Hannibal into AUobroges without crossing the Iske : 
 and the Tricastini succeed them, being along the Is^re. 
 Larauza says : — " Nous placerons avec Tite-Live dans ce 
 " meme pays, d'abord les Tricastini, k la suite de la nation 
 
 k laquelle il applique exclusivement le nom d' AUobroges, 
 " et qui se trouvait habiter alors le pays occupe par les 
 " Cavares du tems de Strabon, et par les Segalauni du tems 
 " de Ptolom^e." P. 84. 
 
 This notion, that the AUobroges had anciently been where 
 Strabo places the Cavari, is utterly without foundation. Strabo 
 speaks of Cavari and AUobroges as quite distinct : and he was 
 precisely contemporary with Livy. He used the term Cavari 
 as comprehending many peoples, who had names of their own, 
 and bordered on the Rhone from the Durance to the Is^re. 
 He says, p. 185, that from the Durance to the mouth of the 
 Is^re belonged to the Cavari : in the next page he says that 
 along those parts of the Rhone's bank the name Cavari pre- 
 vails, so that all the barbarian nations are so called, though, in 
 fact, no longer barbarians, but having for the most part as- 
 sumed the character of Romans, with the language and habits 
 of Hfe, and some of their civil rights. One must believe that 
 Tricastini and Segalauni were among the Cavari of Strabo. 
 Having placed the Cavari upon the Rhone from the Durance 
 to the Iske, he exhibits the AUobroges on the Rhone from 
 the Is^re to Lyons, stating the distances both by land and 
 by water. He does not say that the term AUobroges em- 
 braces more peoples than one : he states that Vienne was 
 formerly their metropoUs when it was only a viUage ; but 
 had now become a fine city. If it were true that AUobroges 
 were the predecessors of Cavari south of Iske, Hannibal must 
 have been in their country for six days before he reached the 
 Island : and yet Livy does not mention that people tiU after 
 Hannibal has reached the Island ; nor does he mention them 
 again after he has made his way out of the Island. 
 
 i 
 
110 
 
 Livy inter'preted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 His hypothesis — Gem i 're — Cen is. 
 
 Ill 
 
 }' 
 
 i 
 
 Notwithstanding his attempt to show by ancient authority 
 that in Hannibal's time the position of the Allobroges was in 
 fact south of th(3 Isere, M. Larauza is obliged to confess that 
 their civil war told by Livy was in the Island. As the words 
 " sedatis certaminibus Allobrogiim " are too plain to be per- 
 verted, he admits that those Allobroges were spoken of as the 
 combatants. But on the fact itself he differs from Livy, and 
 contends that the notion of Allobrogian discord was a mere 
 blunder on the part of the historian ; whose ignorance he 
 readily explains, by observing that he did not understand the 
 Celtic language :30 well as the savans of modern times. " Ne 
 " connaissant la signification de la plupart de ces mots Celtes 
 " (Tricastins, Voconces et Tricoriens), et n'ayant pas vu que 
 " le nom d'Allobroges ^tait une denomination gen^rale com- 
 prenant les di\'erses peuplades qui habitaient ce pays, il aura 
 conclu que les Allobroges se trouvaient seulement vers les 
 bords du Khdne, et que les Tricastins, les Voconces, et les 
 " Tricoriens ^tai.ent des peuples distincts des premiers, et 
 places apr^s eux ; tandis qu'au contraire il aurait pu voir 
 qu'en allant d(3S Allobroges chez les Tricastins, Annibal se 
 " trouvait toujours chez les Allobroges, et que c'^taient encore 
 " des Allobroges qu'il devait rencontrer a son passage dans 
 " les Alpes." 
 
 M. Larauza heads a chapter thus : — " Comment Tite-Live 
 " aura ete induii:; k placer pr^s de Tile la nation que Polybe 
 " place dans rile." In tenderness to the memory of Livy, 
 he invents for him an excuse, and a queer excuse it is : 
 namely, that the ejected elder brother, who claimed the 
 sovereignty of the nameless nation that dwelt in the Island, 
 had been driven out of it at the time when Hannibal came up 
 the Rhone, and was thereby a trespasser on the opposite bank 
 of the Isere among the Allobroges : that Livy mistook the 
 involuntary position of this chief for the position of his nation, 
 and so called them Allobroges. " Le roi d^poss^d^ lors de 
 
 tt 
 
 it 
 
 tt 
 
 it 
 
 tt 
 
 " I'arriv^e d'Annibal, pouvait se trouver en de^a du fleuve : 
 " voyant done 1^ le chef legitime de cette nation, I'historien 
 '' aura pu supposer qu'elle habitait cette partie de la Gaule, 
 '* et comme d'autre part il trouvait dans Polybe que I'armde 
 " Carthaginoise, k partir du Ehone, eut k traverser le terri- 
 " toire des Allobroges, il en aura conclu que ce fut cette 
 " nation, placee au-de^^ de I'lle, qui fit intervenir Annibal 
 " dans sa querelle, quoique Polybe dise le contraire:" P. 86. 
 
 TJie Insula and Allobroges of Ukert. 
 
 Dr. Ukert's notions upon the Allobroges have claimed our 
 attention before in discussing the dva/SoXrj of Polybius. We 
 now inquire what are his notions upon the Allobroges as 
 treated by Livy, and in their relation to Livy's Island : and 
 those notions are by no means clear. Unhappily not able 
 to study Dr. Ukert myself, I refer to the learned reviewer, 
 who, in the Philological Museicm of 1833, stated the opinions 
 of the Professor in English, as he considered them to be. 
 
 Dr. Thirlwall, expounding Ukert's views, says — "With 
 " respect to the position of the Island, Ukert admits it to be 
 " the tract which is bounded by the Rhone, the Isere, and the 
 '* intervening mountains, but on almost every other point he 
 is at variance with the partisans of General Melville. He 
 
 does not allow that any alteration is required in the text 
 " either of Polybius or Livy, where they describe the Island." 
 P. 680. 
 
 In p. 681 he continues his exposition : — " Tlie AUobriges, 
 " or Allobroges, appear to have been driven northward from 
 " their original seats, in which they were known to Apollo- 
 '' dorus as a most powerful nation (Steph. Byz. 'AWoySpirye?), 
 *' and in the time of Livy to have been confined to the country 
 " north of the Is^re. This state of things he has transferred 
 " to the time of Hannibal. His Allobroges inhabit the Island 
 " of the Barbarians of Polybius, which is south of his own 
 
 ft 
 
 if 
 
112 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 V.i^ 
 
 t< 
 
 li 
 
 (t 
 
 << 
 
 u 
 
 ti 
 
 it 
 
 u 
 
 ti 
 
 li 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 it 
 
 ti 
 
 ti 
 
 ti 
 
 a 
 a 
 it 
 it 
 it 
 a 
 it 
 it 
 it 
 a 
 a 
 i( 
 a 
 u 
 a 
 ti 
 
 Island: incolunt p'ope Alldbroges. Livy's Island ^ formed 
 by the Ehone and the Saone (Arar), is described in a manner 
 which will not apply to that of Polybius, even if the name 
 Arar is altenid to Isara. It is not a tract resembling the 
 Delta of the Nile, but only a considerable district {agri 
 aliquantum). But the kingdom about which the contest 
 decided by Hannibal has arisen, is that of the AUobroges : 
 they become lEannibal's friends and allies. It is not, how- 
 ever, said that he marches through their territory : after he 
 has composed their dissensions, he turns to the left through 
 the Tricastini, and meets with no obstacle till he reaches the 
 Druentia : a description which, except with regard to the 
 Druentia, agrees with that of Polybius, on the supposition 
 that Hannibal, did not cross the Isere, and that Polybius 
 took this river for the Ehone." 
 
 Further, in p. 682, it seems to be Dr. Ukert's opinion that 
 in the direction of the march, Ja\j coincides with Polybius, 
 when he makes Hannibal bend his course to the left towards 
 the Tricastini, and then skirt the borders of the Vocontii 
 toward the Tricorii. It is the same road as Bellovesus and 
 his Gauls had formerly taken. (Liv. v. 34.) The expression 
 ad Icevam must be understood with reference to the pre- 
 vious words, cum jam Alpes peteret, when Hannibal had 
 turned his front toward the Alps, the Tricastini and the 
 Isfere lay on his left. We have therefore only to measure 
 the 800 stadia along the Isere ; they will bring us to Mont- 
 meillan, and liere we enter the mountains. But, if this is 
 the road by >vhich Livy also leads us, how do we come to 
 the Durance I It is the mention of this river which has 
 subjected Liv;/- to the charge of ignorance and carelessness 
 from those who believed that he led Hannibal across the 
 Mont Gen^vre, and yet adopted a description from Polybius, 
 wliich is only applicable to a different part of the Alps." 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 His hypothesis — Gerievre — Cenis, 
 
 113 
 
 Ukert thinks (says the Peviewer), that this imputation is 
 unfounded, and that Livy's Druentia is not the Durance. 
 
 Ukert himself escapes the Durance by going over the Cenis. 
 But he does not succeed in making Livy do so. Livy leads 
 Hannibal to the Durance in order to take him over the 
 Genevre. I am more disposed to relieve him of the suspicion 
 under which he labours, of making the city of Lyons the island 
 of the AUobroges. When it is asked, " If Rhone and Arar 
 are two sides, what is the third side ? " there is no rational 
 answer. 
 
 I apprehend it to be true, that in most extant manuscripts 
 the rivers named are the Saone and the Ehone. The words 
 are these :— " Quartis castris ad Insulam perv^enit : ibi Arar 
 " Ehodanusque diversi ex Alpibus decurrentes, agri aliquantum 
 " amplexi, confluunt in unum." One manuscript, in Trinity 
 CoUege, Cambridge, has, not " ibi Arar," but " bisarar," which 
 is reasonably thought to be a mistake for " ibi Isara : " and 
 this aids the common notion that Isara must have been the 
 original reading. 
 
 It seems to me unimportant, whether Isara has the support 
 of one or two manuscripts, or of none. Let us even believe 
 that Livy's own pen wrote Arar, the Saone : his mind intended 
 the Isere. The definition in which the word occurs is non- 
 sense, if you accept the Saone ; sound and just, if you under- 
 stand the Iske : in the former case there is no chain of Alps 
 ranging between the two rivers ; in the latter, that feature is 
 distinctly evident. The fact related by Livy could not occur 
 at the confluence of the Ehone and Saone ; and could only 
 occur at the confluence of the Ehone and Isere. He says that 
 Hannibal came to the island in four days' march from the 
 place of crossing the Ehone. Four days could not have 
 brought the army to Lyons, even from Eoquemaure ; it is a 
 distance of 135 miles : and the Tarascon passage makes the 
 case more perverse ; for from that, as the place of crossing, 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
1J4 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 the distance is 165 miles. This wonderful feat we are by- 
 some asked to suppose tliat Livy intended to relate. Wliy 
 should he be (jharged with such credulity ? Or why should 
 he impose upon others, by so exaggerating the marching 
 powers of the Carthaginians ? If Livy took no heed of dis- 
 tances, it would still be difficult to suggest a purpose, military 
 or political, for which Hannibal should consume time and 
 strength in pushing up with continuous haste, away from the 
 Alps, into that corner of the Island at Lyons. If the object 
 were to watch Scipio, it was wiser to maintain himself for a 
 time on the Isere. 
 
 If the manuscripts had exhibited both rivers under strange 
 or equivocal names, the context of facts would compel us to 
 accept them as the Ehone and the Isere ; the first duty of 
 construction b(iing to make sense in our author. It is a 
 disease to care only for words, and not for ideas which words 
 are to represent. Dr. XJkert said, when discussing the Scaras 
 of Polybius, '' AVe dare not alter a name." And yet he him- 
 self was at the same time daring the greatest alteration, turn- 
 ing Ehone into Scaras, and Scaras into Ehone. Why are we 
 not to dare ? Are Greek and Latin manuscripts necessarily 
 exempt from em-or ? They are not : and, like other human 
 efforts, they claim correction. If all argument shows that 
 Livy had in ncdnd the Isere, it matters not which name his 
 pen described : and if the blunder was not his own, but has 
 arisen in the carelessness or wilfulness of transcribers, it is 
 still less worthy to disturb us. 
 
 Whatever Livy's own geography might be, I think that he 
 adopted the name Insula from Polybius : and meant to apply 
 it to the same thing. Dr. Ukert thinks that the description 
 of it denotes too small a surface of territory. This observation 
 would be an answer to Mr. Whitaker, who is satisfied witli 
 the hills behind Lyons ; and to Menetrier and Breval, who 
 substitute an old canal for a chain of Alps : but Livy's 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 His hypotliesis — Gen^vre — Cenis. 
 
 115 
 
 boundaries are rivers " diversi ex Alpibus decurrentes." " Ali- 
 quantum" is certainly a loose term, indicating a very indefinite 
 quantity. But " ager " imports an extensive district, according 
 to the use of the word by Livy : as "ager Vocontiorum," "ager 
 Insubrium," '' ager Gallicus : " so Caesar, " ager Helveticus." 
 " Aliquantum agri " indicates with the context a considerable 
 extent of country : for a range of Alps was spread between 
 the courses of two great rivers as the completing line of the 
 insular region. Dr. Ukert, when particularly insisting that 
 Livy was warranted in representing it a smaller space than 
 was said by Polybius, adds — "ibi Arar Ehodanusque, agri 
 aliquantum amplexi, confluunt in unum ; " omitting the words 
 which bespeak distance, "diversi ex Alpibus decurrentes." 
 ii. 591. But elsewhere he fully quotes the passage. 
 
 The Insula and Allohroges of Mr. Ellis. 
 
 In the Treatise, p. 133, we read this—" Livy calls the 
 " inhabitants of the island AUobroges. They were such in 
 " his time, but not in that of Hannibal ; as is perfectly clear 
 " from the narrative of Polybius. Livy indeed says at first, 
 " with respect to the island, that the AUobroges live near it. 
 " He should have said that they lived near it in the time of 
 " Hannibal. It was subsequent to that period that the island 
 " was comprised in the territory of the AUobroges, their name 
 " being probably applied in the course of time to all the tribes 
 " they absorbed in succession." In these words there are 
 three ideas, and a fair amount of error. 
 
 As to the first idea, " perfectly clear from Polybius," I had 
 ventured, in my Criticism, to think that the contrary was clear ; 
 on which Mr. Ellis imputed {Jmrnal of Phil ii. 316) that I sub- 
 stituted the expression " AUobroges " for " men of the island," 
 and that I so made the passages of the history absolute non- 
 seme. " Men of the Island " is the phrase of Mr. Ellis, not 
 of Polybius : I could not substitute anything for a term which 
 
 i2 
 
' I 
 
 116 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 1 
 
 is not in the history : it is not even in Mr. Ellis's translation 
 of the history. I hope, moreover, that, although Mr. Ellis 
 extols his own rash comment as a reductio ad absurdum, it 
 has appeared in these pages that the AUobroges were in fact 
 the inhabitants cf the island. See ante, Part IV. ch. ii. 
 
 The second idea, on " incolnnt prope," is borrowed from 
 Larauza, and has lately been under observation. 
 
 In the tliird idea, on the Allobroges having got within the 
 island in Livy's time, it is an error borrowed from Ukert. 
 But Mr. Ellis tri(;s to improve upon it. The Professor thought 
 that that people had been reduced and driven northward : 
 Mr. Ellis discovers that they had swallowed up the other 
 tribes. I believe there is no truth either in one notion or 
 the other. 
 
 CHAP. II.] March from Ishe — Turn to the Left. 
 
 117 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 March from the Tslre. The turn to the left, a fact variously 
 dealt with, hy UAnville, Whitaker, Letronne, Larauza, 
 Ukert, the Cambridge anonymous, Vaudoncourt, St. Simon, 
 St. Cyr Nugues, the Oxfcyrd Dissertation, Ellis. The text 
 wants no mending for telling the author's meaning. 
 
 LiVY, having rela.ted that Hannibal was appealed to to settle 
 some disputes on the government of the Allobroges, and that 
 he did so, and re(3eived substantial benefits in return, sets the 
 expedition in movement again with these words : " Sedatis 
 " certaminibus Allobrogum, quum jam Alpes peteret, non 
 *' recta regione iter instituit, sed ad Isevam in Tricastinos 
 " flexit : inde per extremam oram Vocontiorum agri tetendit 
 " in Tricorios, tiaud usquam impedita via priusquam ad 
 " Druentiam flumen pervenit." In these few words a march is 
 described with five indicia of the course pursued— -ad leevam, 
 
 (I 
 
 tt 
 
 ti 
 
 Tricastini, Vocontii, Tricorii, Druentia. After crossing this 
 river, the march is carried to the Alps : " Hannibal ab 
 " Druentia campestri maxime itinere cum bon^ pace ad 
 " Alpes incolentium ea loca Gallorum pervenit." 
 
 The first idea in this progress, which requires to be under- 
 stood, is a turn to the left towards the Tricastini ; and there 
 have been numerous contrivances for interpreting or cor- 
 recting the words of the historian. These shall be noticed, 
 with my own view of the meaning of the passage. 
 
 The turn to the left 
 
 D'Anville does not help us here ; for he misquotes the 
 author. He says under the word Tricastini : " On trouve le 
 nom des Tricastini dans la marche d'Annibal, qui ayant 
 passe le Eh6ne plus bas que ^.ans la position de ce peuple, 
 prit sur la gauche ; ' ad Isevam in Tricastinos ilexit.' " Again, 
 under the word Tricorii, he says : " On lit dans Tite-Live, 
 " qu'ayant pass6 le Eh6ne, Annibal prit sa route sur la gauche 
 ** par le pays des Tricastini." He forgot that the turn to the 
 left was made, not on crossing the Rhone, but in the resumed 
 march, after settling the disputes of the Allobroges. This was 
 an unhappy beginning of an erroneous line of march pub- 
 lished by this distinguished geographer in 1739. D'Anville 
 traced this march under another false impression, namely, 
 that both historians had told Hannibal's deviation to the Isere 
 as made for the purpose of avoiding present conflict. (See 
 Notice de la Oaule, in v. Tricorii) Polybius never hints at 
 such a thing. 
 
 Mr. Whitaker (vol. i. p. 126) understood from Livy's nar- 
 rative that, when Hannibal's march up the Rhone has brought 
 him to Lyons, he turned to the left; and he is much dis- 
 pleased that the historian just mistook his right hand for his 
 left, through " an indistinctness of geographical vision which 
 peqilexes his historical views." He says : " A turning to 
 
i 
 
 118 
 
 I 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 i 
 
 } 
 
 
 " the left should have been intimated when Hannibal marched 
 " up the Ehone, after crossing it ; then the observation would 
 " have been precisely just— now it is unjust and imper- 
 " tinent." 
 
 M. Letronne believed that Hannibal was intended to turn 
 to the left, after marching up the Iske to the Drac; not, 
 however, that he turned to his own left, but to the left of the 
 historian, as he sat in his study at Eome, with his face bent 
 towards the Alps ; " La ligne directe eut ete de traverser le 
 " Drac— mais il ne prit point la ligne directe ; il tourna sur 
 " sa gauche (par rapport a I'historien) ; ainsi il traversa ni 
 " ris^re ni le Drac ; il remonta ce torrent, que sa largeur 
 
 " dut lui faire prendre pour la meme riviere que Tls^re." 
 
 Journal des Savans, Janvier, 1819, p. 32. Now, if it was 
 Livy's practice so to speak of right and left, we must appre- 
 hend him by it. But nothing less than that practice can 
 vindicate the suspicion of anything so unreasonable. We 
 have the fancy of M. Letronne, but no practice of Livy. 
 M. Larauza says justly, that if Livy had meant " leevam " to 
 be his own left hand, and not that of Hannibal, he would 
 have so expressed local relation in other instances— that is, 
 in relation to himself ; so that " adversa ripa," which in c. xxxi. 
 means the opposite bank of the Ehone, should be construed 
 " opposite to the author," namely, on the right bank. So, in 
 c. xxvi, " citerior " and " ulterior ripa Ehodani," should be 
 understood in relation to Eome : but these terms are used in 
 relation to Hannibal before he has crossed the Ehone. 
 
 M. Larauza has his own plan : he supposes Hannibal in 
 position south of Is^re, with his back to the angle of the 
 rivers, and his face to the east; and he sends him up the 
 Is^re (p. 69) witli this explanation : " Annibal, se dirigeant 
 vers les Alpes, ne prend pas le droit chemin, c'est-a-dire 
 celui qui ^tait plus court pour aller des Gaules en Italic, et 
 *' qui passait par Valence, Die, Gap, etc., mais il se detourne 
 
 (( 
 
 It 
 
 CHAP. II.] March from Isere— Turn to the Left 119 
 
 " sur sa gauche." Thus M. Larauza contrives a position from 
 whence Hannibal might retrace the Ehone by his right, or 
 ascend the Is^re by his left ; and points out that he adopted 
 the latter course. He verifies " non recta regione," by saying 
 that the other course, by Valence and Die, is the shorter line ; 
 but he is mistaken in this matter of fact. If from the mouth 
 of the Isere you measure his Cenis route, and the other by 
 Valence and Die, the point at which the two will meet is 
 Susa ; and the shorter distance to that point is by the Cenis 
 track. Moreover, that is not the question : Livy did not by 
 " recta regione " mean a shorter line from the place of turning ; 
 such was not the contrast which he had in mind. 
 
 Dr. Ukert, who follows M. Larauza up the Isere and the 
 Arc to the Cenis, also takes a position with a view of turning 
 to the left ; but not in the same place. His plan is, to halt 
 the army beyond the Drome after the four days' march from 
 Tarascon ; and he says, p. 594 : '' Let us picture to ourselves, 
 " as has been shown, Hannibars army between the Drome and 
 " the Isere, facing the Alps and ready to decamp : he has two 
 " roads before him, one on the right hand going up the Drome 
 " into the mountains, the other on the left following the Isere : 
 " he chose the latter." Now why should we, without instruction 
 from the author, picture to ourselves the Carthaginian army 
 halting after crossing the Drome, and then turning their back 
 to the Ehone and their face to the Alps ? The march did not 
 end with the Drome : " Hannibal ad Insulam pervenit." Let 
 him do this : and what becomes of the exploit of the critic ? 
 He it is, not Hannibal, who, having before him the straight- 
 forward line " ad insulam," changes his front, faces to the right 
 for a moment, and then, under the name of turning to tlie 
 left, resumes the very line in which he was marching before. 
 
 The author who wrote in 1830 as a member of the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge, also interprets Livy. His geography 
 is only to be conveyed in his own words, p. 93 : " Hannibal 
 
120 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 i> 
 
 " is now supposed to be in the Island, the contest over, his 
 " army fronting the great chain of the Alps, and commencing 
 " their march : how then can he bend to the left * in Tricas- 
 "tinos'?" The passage of Strabo is then quoted, who says 
 nothing of Tricastini, but speaks of Cavares in p. 185 
 (referred to abov(0 : and the critic's inference is this : - The 
 " Tricastini therefore, according to the present passage of Livy, 
 " might be placed between the Komanche and Grenoble, and 
 "the difficulty would then be done away." Having thus 
 shifted the Trica^stini to the Eomanche, he becomes more 
 obscure by this explanation : " Hannibal, then, from the spot 
 " where he had decided the contest between the brothers, 
 " turns to the left, and marching through Moirans, crosses the 
 " Isere at Grenoble, into the northern limits of the Vocontii. 
 " He then enters the country of the Tricorii, his course along 
 " the Drac being quite unimpeded till his arrival at the 
 " Durance." 
 
 The military critics are as discordant as the rest on the 
 manoeuvre in question. General Vaudoncourt pronounces 
 that there must ha fault in the manuscripts ; that " ad l^vam'* 
 is a mistake for " ad dextram :" an opinion which he enforces 
 thus : " Cela est si clair, que je me dispenserai de m'etendre 
 davantage Ik-dessus." Tom. i. p. 56. 
 
 M. Le Marquis de St. Simon (La Guerre des Alpes, ou 
 Campagne de 174^1) makes Hannibal to retrace his steps from 
 Vienne down the Ehone as far as St. Paul-trois-chateaux 
 before he strikes off for the Alps. He seems to perform the 
 " ad l^evam" in this way :-~he had crossed the Is^re and taken 
 a sweep by St. MarceUin, which brought him from east to 
 west upon the Ehone at Vienne : so that his face being to 
 that river, "ad la3Yam" necessarily takes him down the river. 
 I am not aware that this critic states his conception of " recta 
 regione : " it ought to have been disclosed ; for «ad l^evam" is 
 contrasted with « recta regione," as an '< iter ad Alpes." As the 
 
 
 CHAP. II.] March from Ishe — Turn to the Left. 121 
 
 facts are arranged for making "ad laevam" to take Hannibal 
 down the Ehone, it might be thought that "recta regione" 
 would have carried him into the Atlantic. 
 
 General St. Cyr Nugues satisfies the " ad laevam" of Livy on 
 a different principle. Hannibal's army on the march to the 
 Isere had a centre, a right wing, and a left wing. He re- 
 treated from Scipio : but an army is supposed to retreat with 
 face to the enemy: so that the natural right hand is the 
 military left hand. Thus Hannibal, marching to the Island, 
 had always the Ehone on his right : consequently, when he 
 took the road to the Alps, he turned to his left. The general 
 is at least consistent with himself: " recta regio" finds its place 
 in the rear — "L'arm^e laisse derriere elle le chemin de 
 Grenoble, ' rectum iter.' " 
 
 Wickham and Cramer, in their chapter on Livy, p. 132, 
 fail to discern a meaning in the turn to the left, as a means 
 of arriving at the Mont Genevre from the north of the Isere. 
 They say : " It will surely not be by returning to the Tricas- 
 " tini ; that is, nearly to the very point from which they had 
 " set out from the very passage of the Ehone. Nor is it 
 " possible to conceive how the Tricastini, the people of St. 
 " Paul-trois-chateaux, could have been to the left of the 
 " Carthaginian army as it moved from the Isere. There is 
 " sufficient reason, therefore, for supposing the passage to be 
 corrupt ; and, if a conjecture might be allowed, in a diffi- 
 culty which seems scarcely to admit of a more reasonable 
 " explanation, we should be inclined to suppose that these 
 " words ' ad laevam in Tricastinos flexit' were in their wrong 
 " place, and ought to have formed part of the passage quoted 
 ** from the beginning of the same chapter. This passage 
 " might then stand thus — * Postero die profectus adversa ripa 
 " Ehodani, ad Isevam in Tricastinos flectit et mediterranea 
 " Gallioe petit.* This will at least enable us to obviate what 
 " is so repugnant to reason and common sense." 
 
 n 
 
 u 
 
 S\ 
 
 ti 
 
 I 
 
122 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 In this suggestion for improving a sentence, five words are 
 lifted into it from another sentence. The change damages 
 both: a hole is made in one, and not being mended, the 
 mutilation is uncomfortable. " Ad Isevam flectit " would be 
 much missed after "sed :" and "inde" loses its sense, when the 
 reference to Tiicastinos is lost. And what is the advantage 
 to the sentence which receives the words ? Livy does not 
 say, as my friends suppose, that Hannibal turned to St. Paul- 
 trois-chateaux, but into the Tricastini : and this he would do, 
 if, after marching a little way down the Ehone, he had turned 
 to the left at A^'alence, and proceeded by Aoste, which is the 
 Augusta Tricastinorum of Pliny. It is thus by no means 
 impossible to conceive how the Tricastini could be on the left 
 in marching down the Klione : it is far more difficult to 
 conceive them on the left in marching up the Ehone. The 
 proposed change, of applying "profectus ad Isevani flectit" to 
 the march up the river, is unhappy in itself: the words 
 import that Hetnnibal, being in march, turned to the left : so 
 that, if he had been marching up the Ehone, a turn to the 
 left would have carried him into the Ehone. 
 
 Mr. Ellis readily assents to the same transposition of words : 
 it particularly suits his theory, that the Tricastini should have 
 been visited before the transactions in the Island. He 
 sanctions the improvement; not as the emendation of a 
 corrupt text, hwi as the correction of a blundering historian : 
 he has been instructing as, that " Livy is careless, extravagant, 
 glaringly incorrect, loving the marvellous, aiming to produce 
 effect rather than secure accuracy and truth." Seeing an 
 obstacle in " ad Isevam," he says p. 130, " On examining his 
 " account, it will be necessary partly to undo what he has 
 " done." — And pp. 134-5, ''A single correction grounded on the 
 conclusion previously drawn from Livy's character, seems 
 to remove the difficulty." The correction is that of the 
 Oxford Dissertation, though provoked by a different cause : 
 
 <( 
 
 it 
 
 <t 
 
 tt 
 
 CHAP. II.] March from here — Turn to the Left. 
 
 123 
 
 and Mr. Ellis, having first visited the Tricastini, is at liberty, 
 after pacifying the Allobroges, to go at once into the Vocontii, 
 construing inde " from the confluence of the two rivers." 
 
 I differ from all these writers. It appears to me that tliere 
 is no difficulty to be solved ; that Livy's words are quite 
 intelligible ; that they are consistent with his theory and 
 need no alteration. If, like many of these interpreters, you 
 set the face of the Carthaginian army according to your 
 fancy, as you would fix a direction post, you can make the 
 left hand incline to any point of the compass. But the 
 position ought to be taken on the authority of the writer 
 who is to be construed : it should accord with the context of 
 the history. Livy said before, that Hannibars movement to 
 the Isere was not as his way to the Alps, but to get out of 
 the way of the enemy : that motive ceasing to operate, he is 
 on his way to the Alps. He begins by retracing his steps, 
 and as he is doing so, the first turn to the left is at Valence. 
 Hence a Roman road known to Livy turns to the Tricastini, 
 and, if you pursue it, you will come by Die, Luc, Gap, and 
 Embrun, to the Mont Genevre. 
 
 This is the turn which Livy conceives Hannibal to have 
 made, and the words " quum jam Alpes peteret " (when he 
 was now in march for the Alps), plainly show, that he con- 
 sidered Hannibal to have made some progress when he did 
 turn. " Peto " imports action, not speculation ; " quaere," not 
 " cupio," as, in a prior passage, *' mediterranea petit." At the 
 same time another idea is introduced in contrast, "non recta 
 regione, sed ad Isevani." Accordingly it has been inquired, 
 what route would have been " recta regione ? " It might be 
 enough to say that he did not go straight on, but turned to 
 the left. Or it may be said that Livy in " recta regie " adverts 
 to the regular route from the Lower Ehone up the Durance 
 to the Genevre as Hannibal's original object, having in mind 
 the bearing of such a course in his own day to that well- 
 
 i 
 
'i 
 
 '1 
 
 124 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [PAET IX. 
 
 known pass. His story is, that Hannibal deviated from that 
 course, and afterwards sought it again ; that he began a retro- 
 grade march, l3ut presently turned from the line by which he 
 had sought ti e Is^re, and made a cross cut which took him 
 into a more advanced part of the line originally intended. 
 
 I apprehend that many have faUed to estimate the expres- 
 sions, '< peto," - non rectior via," " recta regio." In the march 
 to the Isere w(5 read, " Mediterranea petit," and "non rectior 
 ad Alpes via ; '' in the resumed march we read, " quum jam 
 Alpes peteret," and "non recta regione." The historian 
 supposes Hannibal now to direct his march to the line of the 
 Durance, but by a route which was most convenient to him 
 after retiring from the Is^re. 
 
 It may possibly be objected that, if Livy assented to the 
 passage of th(j Ehone above Avignon, he could not con- 
 sider Hannibal to have come to it in the line which, in his 
 own time, became the great Roman Way from Nimes, for 
 that Way crossed the Ehone at Aries, and the Durance at 
 Cavaillon. But Livy's mind, impressed with the general 
 bearing of the Spanish track to the Cottian Alps, need not 
 have considered how much or how little of the new military 
 way had been anticipated by Hannibal, whose enterprise was 
 nearly 150 years before the Gen^vre was first forced by a 
 Eoman army under Pompey : indeed, we cannot tell that 
 Pompey's route from the Genevre to the Ehone tallied through- 
 out with the "iter in Hispanias" of the Itinerary. Even if 
 Livy had had a perfect knowledge of rivers and roads as 
 existing in his own time, which his great admirers do not 
 claim for him, he would not have studied a coincidence with 
 their minutiae in the plans of Hannibal. 
 
 The brief wa3^ in which he indicates the whole route pur- 
 sued from the Pyrenees to the Alps, and the brief way in 
 which he relates the progress from the Isere to the Durance, 
 show that he spoke from general impressions, not from par- 
 
 Ij 
 
 CHAP. II.] March from Idre — Tur7i to the Left. 
 
 125 
 
 ticular research on the tracks established in Provence and 
 Dauphine. He need not have cared to notice whether a 
 crossing of the Ehone above Avignon would be favourable or 
 not for a progress to the Cottian Alp, nor is it easy to pro- 
 nounce with confidence how that would have been in the 
 time of Hannibal. Bridges there were none at any part of 
 the stream; the place of crossing was chosen for its own 
 natural merits ; indeed, Livy does not notice the resolution 
 to deviate towards the Isere, till he has brought the arma- 
 ment safe over the Ehone, and it is plain to me that the first 
 thing which that historian did, in his search for the track, 
 was to acquire an impression on the pass. More will be said 
 on this hereafter. 
 
 A few words may be said now in support of the propo- 
 sition, that Livy viewed the Genevre Pass, or Cottian Alp, as 
 that which Hannibal had designed to reach, and that he 
 imagined a reason why the accomplishment of that design 
 should be for a time suspended. He writes consistently with 
 such an impression; there are statements in his narrative 
 which show Hannibal not to have intended the more southern 
 route by the Maritime Alps ; and there are statements which 
 show him not to have intended a more northern route by the 
 Isere. The one medium which is not absurd is the Genevre. 
 After telling the engagement of cavalry, Livy speaks of 
 Hannibal as undecided whether he should at once persevere 
 in his march for Italy, " utrum coeptum in Italiam intenderet 
 iter," or come into conflict with Scipio. " Coeptum iter " implies 
 that he was intending a particular route. This could not l)e 
 to the Maritime Alp, for when he is said to hesitate between 
 persisting in his course and risking an engagement, we must 
 understand him to hesitate between two different thiugs ; but if 
 that intended course was to the Maritime Alp, the two things 
 were not different : a march to the enemy and a march to the 
 Maritime were the same ; whether for one or the other, he 
 
 
 4 
 
 \i 
 
126 
 
 Livy interp-eted. 
 
 [PAKT IX. 
 
 must have moved southward from his camp on the Ehone 
 Equally clear is it that "cceptum iter" cannot denote a march 
 to the Iske, for Livy expressly says, that this was forced 
 upon Hannibal by circumstances, in the policy of avoiding 
 an engagement. The result is, that unless Livy supposed Han"- 
 nibal to have come without any plan at aU, he deemed his 
 premeditated course to be the intermediate one ; that which 
 would cany him to the pass of Alps afterwards known as 
 Cottian, the " rectior via " for one coming from Spain. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The march cmtinued. Tricastini. Voconin. Tricm-ii. B'An- 
 ville ami Letrmne are both right in thinking that Livy in 
 nammg these peoples, intended an ascent by Brian^n to the 
 Genkvre. But each commits great mistake on the mode of 
 reaching that toivn. 
 
 We must now consider the four geographical indicia by which 
 Livy marks the progress after turning to the left. The object 
 still is, to detf^mine the track which that historian intended 
 It was not over the Cenis, but over the Gen^vre, marching 
 by Die, Luc, Gap, Embrun, and Brianqon. Of those who 
 have written in favour of the Genevre, the two most eminent 
 men have adopted the most erroneous ways of reaching it ; 
 and those ways must be separately canvassed. 
 
 Tricastini. 
 We do not read of the Tricastini as taking part in the 
 events of history : they are named only in notices of geo- 
 graphy; by Livy, Pliny, and Ptolemy. Their territory was 
 clearly south of Isere, and below that of the Segalauni. In 
 a story told by livy, v. 34, about the inroad of a host of 
 
 CHAP. III.] The Three Nations — Tlie Druentia. 
 
 127 
 
 Gauls into Italy under one Bellovesus, in the reign of Tar- 
 quinius Prisons, he says that they arrived among the Tricastini, 
 and, while they were perplexed with the aspect of the Alps, 
 were called away to help the Phoceans, who had landed at 
 Marseille. The^e Gauls under Bellovesus having assisted the 
 strangers to gain a footing there^ " ipsi per Taurines saltusque 
 invios Alpes transcenderunt." 
 
 If this story has been exploded as fabulous, it may still be 
 taken as an aid to geography. The way of these Gauls to 
 Marseille would take them down the Ehone : and thence to 
 the Mont Genevre their way would be up the Durance : and 
 so they would at last come to the Taurini. From this short 
 tale, one would expect the Tricastini to be farther down the 
 Phone than the mouth of the Is^re : and this fact becomes 
 plainer by the passage of the 21st book now before us ; in 
 which Hannibal is said to turn into the Tricastini, when on 
 his way to the Druentia, after settling the disputes of the 
 Allobroges. 
 
 Pliny in his chapter on the province of Narbo, iii. 5, names 
 Augusta Tricastinorum among the Latin towns. When 
 Augustus acquired the supremacy, Augusta became the name 
 of many towns. Some appear to us called simply Augusta, 
 as Aoste on the Guiers in the north of Dauphind : some with 
 a national or other mark added, as Augusta Praetoria, or 
 Augusta Taurinorum, where the latter idea survives in Torino. 
 Two places claim to represent Augusta Tricastinorum, both 
 being in the region ascribed to that people: Aoste on the 
 Drome, which is in the Itineraries as Augustum and Mansio 
 Augusta ; and St. Paul-trois-chateaux, which is known near 
 the Ehone and the Lez. One who is going down the Ehone 
 would, by bending his steps to the left for either of these 
 places, turn into the Tricastini. But I think that the former 
 is to be accepted as the Augusta Tricastinorum in this inquiry, 
 because it lies in the route which accords with the progress 
 
128 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 CHAP, in.] Th4! Three Nations — The Drventia. 
 
 129 
 
 that Livy was describing, from the Tricastini to the Vocontii, 
 and eventually to the Druentia. In both Itineraries this line 
 of road is drawn from Valence through Aoste to Die, Dea 
 Vocontiorum : it is, in fact, the Eoman road to Luc, Gap, 
 Embrun, Jind Briangon. 
 
 There is another place, the Naeomagus of Ptolemy, by whose 
 latitude I-arauza would give the position of the Tricastini ; 
 saying, p. 76 : " Cette latitude nous montrant ce peuple sur les 
 bords de I'lsere." This " civitas" of the Tricastini is pleasing 
 to him, not because he can suggest its identity with any 
 place that he ever heard of, but because Ptolemy appends to 
 it a longitude and latitude, which he deems suitable to a 
 progress to the Mont Cenis, and which D'Anville calls " une 
 position fort Strange." 
 
 Larauza calls attention to Ptolemy, who, after placing the 
 AUobryges on the eastern " side of the Khone, having Vienna 
 *' as their civitas, places under them more to the west the 
 " Segalauni, whose civitas is Valentia : and more to the east 
 " the Tricastini, whose city is Naeomagus.'* Now, for appre- 
 ciating the value of Ptolemy's enumeration, we should con- 
 tinue the quotation, and this immediately follows : " Then, 
 " below tlie Segalauni, the Cavari ; and below them, the 
 " Salices : — But below the Tricasteni are the Mimeni, below 
 " whom are the Vocontii and their city Vasio." Now it is 
 not easy to suppose the Tricasteni east of the Segalauni along 
 the Is^re, especially with the Mimeni south of them, and the 
 Vocontii south of the Mimeni. 
 
 On referring to the map of Celtogalatia Narbonesia belong- 
 ing to this same folio edition of Ptolemy by Bertius (Europse 
 tabula terlia), I do not find all the innovations pourtrayed 
 which the text might lead us to expect. The great nation of 
 Vocontii is not banished from its position: it still extends 
 from the Durance to the Isere, as we collect from Cicero, 
 Caesar, and Strabo. The Mimeni, however, surprise us by 
 
 displaying themselves north of Isere : and the Tricasteni, 
 with their town Neomagus, appear to flourish at the western 
 part of the lake of Geneva. I think we may safely construe 
 Livy as introducing Hannibal into the Tricastini in the early 
 part of a march from the Isere down the Rhone. 
 
 Vocontii. 
 
 The Vocontii were a powerful people, who made head 
 against the Eomans on their first invasion of Gaul beyond 
 the Alps. We know from the best writers that their most 
 northern part touched the Is^re opposite to Grenoble. On 
 the east, they seemed to have been confined for some way by 
 the Drac, whose stream in early times sought the Isere above 
 Grenoble, dividing them from the Uceni. On the west, they 
 probably joined the Segalauni: Die was Dea Vocontiorum. 
 As to their southern and south-western frontier, whether the 
 99 miles of their ground, through which Strabo carries the 
 travelling road towards Embrun, be correct or not, one cannot 
 doubt that they owned a very extended frontier along the 
 Durance, and must have been in contiguity with other peoples 
 besides those mentioned. 
 
 Tricorii, 
 
 1 conceive the Drac to have flowed along the borders of the 
 Tricorii before it came to touch the Uceni (Iconii). The 
 general position of Iconii and Tricorii seems marked by Livy's 
 contemporary Strabo. After speaking of Cavari, as a deno- 
 mination of many peoples, who border the Rhone from the 
 Durance to the Isere, he says (p. 185) — '* Above the Cavari lie 
 the Vocontii ; and the Tricorii and Iconii." Again, in p. 203 — 
 " After the Vocontii are the Siconii and Tricorii." 
 
 Thus the Cavari of Strabo lay along the Rhone, having 
 behind or above them the Vocontii : and behind or above the 
 Vocontii lay the Tricorii aud Iconii : the Tricorii,_^as I appre- 
 
 VOL II. K 
 
1:^0 
 
 Livij interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 hend, more south towards the Durance ; the Iconii more north 
 towards the Iske. The Iconii are commonly identified with 
 the Uceni of Pliny. Some advocates of the Cenis, who alto- 
 gether disown the Durance of Livy, are driven to place his 
 Tricorii, as TveU as the Tricastini and Vocontii, along the 
 Is^re. D'An^nlle, though he would not acknowledge them 
 to be so far south as to include Vapincum (Gap), still places 
 their country wholly south of the Iconii or Uceni, though on 
 the right bank of the Drac. In his map of Gallia AnHqua, 
 the Uceni are to the north, with Bourg d'Oysans belonging 
 to them : and south of them are the Tricorii, but not reaching 
 to Gap or Embrun. He writes (under Iconii)—" Les Tricorii, 
 " selon la marche d'Annibal, doivent avoir occup^ les bords 
 " du Drac vers le haut de son cours." 
 
 In interpret;ing Livy, the position of the Tricorii becomes 
 important, because he brings the march through them to the 
 Druentia, and soon after into the Alps. We know that while 
 those who coaceive the march to be tending to the Cenis, 
 imagine all three nations along the Isere, those who believe 
 him to have ci-ossed the Gen^vre, approach this pass from the 
 Durance. I may now say of the two most eminent authors 
 among those who favour the Gen^vre, D'Anville and Letronne, 
 that they are right in their decision of the pass of Livy ; in 
 their methods of arriving at it they differ greatly from one 
 another, and are both grievously in error. D'Anville made 
 an unhappy guess for interpreting the text. Letronne con- 
 tradicts the text. 
 
 D'Anville. 
 
 The map of D'Anville, for illustrating the march of 
 Hannibal, wlii(3h I never saw till after Christmas, 1863, was 
 published in April, 1739. The line of march begins south of 
 St. Paul-trois-c bateaux ; is carried up the Ehone to the junc- 
 tion of the rivers ; and, without crossing the Is^re, is drawn 
 some way up the left bank : it then cuts away to the position 
 
 
 n 
 
 CHAP. III.] The Three Nations-^ TJie Druentia. 
 
 131 
 
 y 
 
 of Corps ; and soon strikes away from the Drac in a direct 
 line to Brian^on, as if by the Val Godemar : then over the 
 Gen^vre to Cdsanne, and over the Sestri^res to the Po above 
 Turin. From Turin it keeps the left bank of the Po till near 
 the Ticinus, then crosses the Po and comes to some point on 
 the Trebia : then to Placentia : thence to Parma and Mutina, 
 and crosses the Arno above Florence. 
 
 The peculiarities which belong to the visible tracing of this 
 line might have been in parts varied in the author's descrip- 
 tion of places that occur in his subsequent writings : he might 
 have discovered errors in that track during the twenty-one 
 years which had elapsed when he published his Dictionary 
 called Notice de VAncienne Gaule in 1760 : but we find no 
 contradiction or inconsistency ; the peculiarities are confirmed 
 as the fruit of his deliberations. JSTow the track evidently 
 shuns the angle formed by the Iske with the Drac, and there- 
 fore did not tend to the vale of Gr^sivaudan : and, when we 
 see it to reach Brian9on by a direct track from the nearest point 
 of the Drac to that place, we are sure that he imagined a route 
 up the Val Godemar, without any misgiving on the pervious- 
 ness of such a line. Under the word Geminse, he recognises 
 the route from Luc to the Gen^vre, which is drawn in the 
 Theodosian Table (as he always calls the Carte de Peutinger), 
 by noticing the two places which occur in it. "Je crois 
 "retrouver le nom de Geminse dans celui de Mens, et 
 " Gerainae * dans le nom de Jarain, que conserve un petit 
 " lieu du Val Godemar, sur la direction de la route qui rend 
 " vers Brian^on." He repeats this under the word Gerain^ ; 
 adding, " II est situe k la gauche du cours d'une riviere 
 nommee Severesse, qui tombe dans le Drac vis-^-vis de 
 Lesdiguieres. En avan9ant au-dela, pour arriver au Mont 
 
 * In the later edition of Tabula Peutingeriana (Vindobonse, 1753), 
 which D'Anville may not have seen in 1760, both places seem U> 
 be printed Geminas. 
 
 K 2 
 
 (I 
 
 <i 
 
132 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 it 
 
 " Gen^vre, la disposition du local exige que Ton se rende 
 " par le Val Louise k Brian^on." Thus, though the Val 
 Godemar is blockaded by the highest mountains between 
 Mont Blanc and the Mediterranean, prohibiting an advance 
 to Brian^on, yet it is quite evident that D'Anville, being 
 unacquainted with the group of Mont Pelvoux, did conceive 
 that line as tlie course of the Carthaginian march. He pro- 
 fesses to desire the shortest line from the mouth of the Is^re 
 to the Genevre ; and argues that Hannibal did not come so 
 far south as Gap, inasmuch as he would in that case have 
 touched the Caturiges, whom Livy does not mention. What 
 then ? Many things are not mentioned by Livy. Strabo has 
 given in much more detail the traveller's route up the 
 Durance, in which that people could not be avoided ; but 
 he does not miention them. 
 
 When D'Anville in his later work recognises the route 
 from the Drac up the Severaisse, as leading to Brian9on and 
 tlie Genevre, not saying a word to show it impracticable, he 
 is abiding by his map : and he had found this impossible 
 track, from Luc to the Cottian Alps, in the Theodosian Table 
 which he names ; accordingly he treats the names of the 
 places in it as he would search for stations in an Itinerary, 
 endeavouring to. find modem places which correspond with 
 them. I believed this to be the case before ever I saw 
 D'Anville's own map, from the entries in his Ancienne 
 Gaule, which show that he did not reject the line direct from 
 Luc to the Genevre as an impossible thing; but when it 
 appeared that he had himself delineated the same route from 
 Coi^s, it was plain that his mind had been deluded by an 
 error which took place 1300 years before. 
 
 I refer the reader to the articles in D'Anville's Notice de 
 
 r Ancienne ffa w/e— Tricastini— Tricorii— Geminte— Geraiiise 
 — Lucus — Vapincum, &c. 
 
 His map of 1739 is in a book at the British Museum, 
 
 CHAP. III.] The Three Nations — The Dnientia. 
 
 133 
 
 J 
 
 which was bought at the sale of M. Letronne's books after 
 his death, about 1847. The book contains Atlas de G^o- 
 gra;phie Ancienne pour servir d V intelligence des (Euvres de 
 M. Rollin. Paris, 1818. Among which is D'Anville's Carte 
 pour VexpMition d^Annihal — and there is also, bound up 
 with it, an early copy of this same map, having the date 
 Avril 1739. M. Letronne's answers to De Luc came out in 
 January and December 1819, which might be soon after he 
 acquired the atlas. 
 
 Letronne. 
 
 M. Letronne, a man of great distinction, has also main- 
 tained the Genevre as the pass of Hannibal. Unlike 
 D'Anville, he struggled to ascribe to both histories the 
 merit of giving the true track ; and persuaded himself that 
 there was consistency between them without altering a word 
 of either. He must have been intimate with all that 
 D'Anville had written ; and must have seen the great dif- 
 ference between himself and his distinguished predecessor : 
 but as they travelled to the same point, though by different 
 ways, he never mentions him. D'Anville is not noticed 
 either in January 1819, or in December 1819. Letronne 
 could not be silent on Polybius : he wrote under special 
 excitement. He had to contend with one who had just 
 challenged public attention with the new light of the Graian 
 Alp ; and he was driven to the effort of making Polybius his 
 witness, and could make no allusion to D'Anville, who rested 
 on Livy. 
 
 On Letronne fell the task of answering De Luc, whose 
 proofs were in Polybius : he had to make every sacrifice to 
 conciliation ; and his facility in doing it is marvellous. We 
 saw before, how he shifted the river from Khone to Tsh^e by 
 his translation of a Greek verb Tropevofjiat ; and how he then 
 made Hannibal transfer himself from Isere to Drac without 
 knowing it. So now, dealing with Livy, he avoids " recta 
 
I 
 
 il 
 
 134 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 regio" by not going forward up the vale of Gr^sivaudan ; and 
 satisfies " ad lasvam " by using the left hand of Livy instead 
 of that of Hannibal. 
 
 M. Letronne says (p. 32), that the words of Livy "pr^sentent 
 " deux difficultds, contre lesquels ont ^choues tons les critiques 
 " — La premiere consiste dans les mots, ad Icevam—lsi seconde 
 " difficulte tient en mot in Tricastinos : au tems de Tite-Live, 
 " et meme de I'expedition d'Annibal, les Tricastini pouvaient 
 " s'etre etendij.s davantage vers le nord, et dominer les 
 " Segalauni." Then he adduces an earlier history of Livy, 
 lib. V. c. 34, and assumes that he meant to conduct Bellovesus 
 and Hannibal by the same route, as each is said to touch the 
 Tricastini in Gaul and the Taurini in Italy. This tends to 
 show that Liv}' meant both their movements to have been 
 made over the Mont Genevre : but it does not help M. 
 Letronne to the position of the Tricastini. M. Letronne 
 works out his i deas thus :— " On reconnoit beaucoup de con- 
 *' sistance dans les idees de cet historien, relativement k la 
 position des Tricastini : et Ton ne peut ainsi douter que 
 leur territoirei, au moins dans son opinion, ne s'etendit 
 " jusque sur les bords de ces deux rivikes (I'lsere et le Drac). 
 " Yoila I'explication naturelle de ce passage de Tite-Live, qui 
 " est la principale cause de la diversite des opinions sur la 
 "route d'Annibal!" M. Letronne's identity of the two 
 tracks pursued at some centuries' interval is not promoted by 
 his quotation of* what concerns Bellovesus, for he happens to 
 omit the extra *' viam " to Marseille. 
 
 M. Letronne quite breaks down before he gets to Druentia 
 flumen. Thougli he rightly construes it to be the Durance, 
 the truth of that one proposition does not vindicate his ex- 
 position of Livy's route. Livy's notion was that Hannibal, 
 after bending to the left, passed through the three Gaulish 
 nations, and restched the Druentia without interruption of 
 the march, " nusquam impedita via ; " and that, after crossin<^ 
 
 tt 
 
 u 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Divergence from Polyhius. 
 
 135 
 
 that river, he still proceeded onward quietly through Gauls 
 for some distance more or less, before he reached the Alps : 
 he was then set at defiance by those whom Livy calls, not 
 Galli, but Montani. 
 
 M. Letronne comes to his Alps and fights the first battle at 
 St. Bonnet, which is far short of the Durance. At St. Bonnet 
 he expressly exhausts his distance, and encounters his Alps ; 
 " a Tentree du Departement des Hautes Alpes : alors I'armee 
 '* commenqa a gravir les Alpes — ^1^ commence la montee des 
 '* Alpes." M. Letronne submits the Carthaginian progress to 
 a great interruption by a severe mountain conflict and a 
 serious loss of men, horses, and cattle, long before they 
 approach the Durance. As an interpreter of Livy, he was 
 pledged to bring Hannibal to the Druentia " nusquam impedita 
 via," and then to give him a " campestre iter " to the Alps. 
 Livy marches from the passage of the Druentia to the first 
 Alps : M. Letronne marches from the first Alps to the Druentia. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Dncentia flumeti. The Durance — Rival pretensions of the 
 
 ArvCj the Dranse, aiid the Drac. 
 
 This is the last object named by Livy in narrating the march 
 to the Alps, with only the addition of " iter campestre " before 
 the Carthaginian force arrives at those mountains. It was to 
 be expected that there would be some difference of opinion 
 among his interpreters on the territorial boundaries of nations ; 
 but one would hardly have expected, that the river which 
 is said to have been reached after visiting the three spe- 
 cified peoples w^ould be called in question ; and that the 
 Druentia of Livy would not be accepted as the Druentia of 
 Strabo and Fliny, that is, as the Durance. This river is 
 
k 
 
 13G 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 always called Druentia : and no other river of Gaul is ever 
 called Druentia. 
 
 They who beHeve the Gen^vre to be the pass of Hannibal, 
 cannot be sceptical on the identity of the Druentia : but they 
 may misconstrue Livy in the way of getting to it. D'Anvilfe 
 imagined a way that is not possible. Letronne also, though 
 he shows a way to the Durance, contradicts the geography ''of 
 Livy's march. Other theories for interpreting livy have had 
 a Druentia invented for them. To Mr. Whitaker it was the 
 Arve : to Mr. Tytler it was the Dranse : to M. Larauza it 
 was the Drac ; which is adopted by the other Cenisians 
 Dr. Ukert and Mr. Ellis. Let us consider the merits of these.' 
 
 TAfi Arve, the Drmntia of Mr. Whitaker. 
 Those who hear of the Druentia of this writer, will expect 
 to be told how he got to it. Having brought Hannibal to 
 Lyons, Mr. Whitaker, in p. 137, thus describes the march to 
 Geneva :— " He went through the country of the Tricastini, 
 " from the grand angle of the Ehone at Lyons to the deep 
 " indent of it at St. Genis. He ranged along the limits of 
 " Vocontian dominions, from this indent to the Sier. He 
 " passed also through the region of the Trieorii, up to the 
 " town and lake of Geneva. He met with only one diffi- 
 "culty: this arose from a river, which Livy calls the 
 '•• Druentia ; which the critical world has therefore, with a 
 " simplicity of faith that is founded only on a delusive 
 " symphony of names, believed to be the Durance of Avignon, 
 " Embrun and Brian^on ; and which will appear demon- 
 " strably, from what I shaU allege, to be merely the Arve 
 " of Geneva." 
 
 The three peojjles of Livy are described by Mr. Whitaker 
 in the following manner (pp. 129 to 133) : 
 
 "The Tricastini owned the lands from the Guier at St. 
 " Genis and Pont Beauvoisin to Lyons. They inhabited from' 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Divergence from Poli/hius. 
 
 W 
 
 n 
 
 ft 
 
 " the Khone on the north, along the back of the Allobroges of 
 " Vienne and of the Segalauni of Valence, to St. Paul on the 
 " south — in a long and narrow portion of land." 
 
 " The Vocontii possessed the country from the Sier at 
 " Seyssel to the Guier at St. Genis and Pont Beauvoisin :— 
 *' they lay in a long narrow braid, stretching at the back of 
 " the Tricastini, having the Ehone for their boundary on tlie 
 " north, and their capital Vaison low to the south." 
 
 " The Trieorii possessed the region, probably, between the 
 " Arve of Geneva and the Sier at SeysseL They appear to 
 " have lain with their heads to the Rhone, at the back of the 
 
 Vocontii, extending in length towards Cavaillon and Orange 
 
 in the south. 
 
 " All lay, extending from these their respective possessions 
 *' on the north, in three long waves as it were, one behind the 
 " other, down the narrow length of Dauphiny." 
 
 Let any one take a map, and slice out Mr. Whitaker's three 
 waves, flowing one from Lyons and St. Genis to St. Paul, one 
 from Seyssel to Vaison, and one from Geneva to Cavaillon. 
 He will see, in the originality of the arrangements, a fair 
 sample of the author's power — of the boldness, and respect 
 for evidence, which distinguish his whole work. In per- 
 forming this exploit, Mr. Whitaker remarks, " D'Anville was 
 singularly puzzled and perplexed in settling these tribes." 
 D'Anville was, indeed, another sort of man — a sound and 
 honest inquirer. His aim w^as truth ; he could acknowledge 
 a difficulty, though he could not always master one. 
 
 The bold blunder of making the Arve the Druentius of 
 Strabo, which belongs to Mr. Whitaker alone, has an affinity 
 to the error of D'Anville, already noticed, in making his 
 Doria the minor Doria, which has obtained so much currency. 
 Both are founded on the same passage of that geographer. 
 In the fourth book, p. 203, Strabo names, among other things, 
 the Doria and the Druentius as rising from one spring in the 
 
 / 
 
' ^^JBtf^i 
 
 f 
 
 ? I 
 
 
 138 
 
 Livy mterpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 heights of Medulli ; the former running to join the Po, the 
 latter running the other way to join the Rhone. The erroneous 
 assertion of the identity of the sources was accepted as a fact 
 by D'Anville in 1760, and by AMiitaker in 1794 ; and it caused 
 to each his particular error. Strabo was not warranted in 
 asserting that identity. He knew whence the Doria came, 
 but blundered on the source of the Druentia. Recent occur- 
 rences of Roman warfare had made him to know well the 
 source of the Salassian Doria, but he had no means of knowing 
 the vast mountainous regions which lay spread from north to 
 south between the source of that river and the source of the 
 Druentia ; and he spoke rashly without evidence when he pro- 
 nounced one source for the two, if ever he did pronounce it. 
 
 Whitaker, assuming the proximity, and knowing that the 
 Doria flowed from the Col de la Seigne to Italy, made the 
 Druentia flow to Gaul from the other side of the same rido-e 
 and so identified it with the Arve. D'Anville had before 
 assumed a similar proximity on the two sides of a ridge ; 
 and, apprehending the source of the Durance to be in the 
 Mont Genevre, conceived Strabo's Doria to spring on the 
 other side of that mountain, and to be the river called Doria 
 Minor. Both writers blundered from the same cause; one 
 making the Doria to rise where it does not, the other making 
 the Druentia to rise where it does not. These two rivers^ 
 which Strabo alleges to spring in the same region, do not 
 spring in the same region ; and if you find the source of one, 
 it is no guide to the source of the other. The introduction of 
 the Druentia as a river whose source was near to those of the 
 Po and the Doria, is the blemish in Strabo's description of the 
 rivers ; and it is right to bring to view modern errors which 
 are founded upon his error. I hope that I succeeded in show- 
 ing, against D'Anville and his followers, that Strabo's Doria is 
 not the river of Susa ; and I think it will be acknowledged, 
 against Whitaker, that Strabo's Durentius is not the Arve! 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Divergence from Polyhius. 
 
 139 
 
 The Dranse, the Druentia of Mr. Toiler {Lord Woodhouselee). 
 
 It was the happy fortune of Mr. Whitaker to receive the 
 applause of a good-natured critic, who promptly composed 
 a pamphlet expressly in praise of his discoveries. It was 
 published in London, 1795, without a name, and called " A 
 " Critical Examination of Mr. Whitaker's Course of Hannibal 
 " over the Alps ascertained." The noble editor of Gibbon 
 and the authors of the Oxford Dissertation ascribe it to 
 Mr. Tytler (Lord Woodhouselee). 
 
 I may give a sample of the complaisance of the reviewer. 
 He says (p. 32), and I conceive not ironically : " From Lyons 
 " Hannibal passed through the country of the Tricastini to 
 " the deep indent of the Rhone at St. Genis. He ranged along 
 " the limits of the Vocontii and Tricorii, up to the Lake of 
 " Geneva, without interruption tiU he came to the river 
 " Druentia." Here, he says, " The river Druentia has, from a 
 " similarity of appellation, misled most of our authors. They 
 " have neglected the local descriptions, and childishly trusted 
 " to a delusive similarity of names." Reading this, one ex- 
 pected to find a commendation of Mr. Whitaker's Druentia, 
 the Arve ; but not so. As if it were necessary, for the 
 credit of a reviewer, to find some little error in the author 
 whom he patronises, Mr. Tytler repudiates the Arve, goes the 
 whole length of the lake, and still ascends the Rhone. At 
 last, forgetting the delusiveness of similarity, he discovers 
 Livy's Druentia in the Dranse, which falls into the Rhone 
 near Martigny. 
 
 The Drac, the Druentia of the Cenisians. 
 
 M. Larauza professes to identify the Druentia of Livy as 
 being the river now well known as the Drac. He is, I believe, 
 the inventor of this notion ; and he numbers among his dis- 
 ciples Dr. Ukert and Mr. Ellis. Arguing against Letronne, 
 
 \mi^ 
 
h 
 
 140 
 
 i 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [PAKT IX. 
 
 he objects that Livy's description does not agree with the cha- 
 racter of the Durance in the part of its course where Letronne 
 assumed Hannibal to have crossed it, namely, between Chorges 
 and Embrun. This argument against Letronne is made ^on 
 the assumption that Livy's local description must be accurate 
 appears from what all the French writers say, that no 
 part of the str(>am near to Embrun, whether above or below 
 that place, accords with the character given to it by Livy 
 Letronne himself admitted it, as an error on the part of the 
 lustorian :—" I] se livre en cet endroit a quelques exag(5ra- 
 '* tions, en faisant de la Durance une peinture qui ne convient 
 " qyx'k ce qu'est cette rivifere au-dessus de Cavaillon." 
 
 Larauza dwells on this point, and even thinks it expedient 
 to show that the breadth of stream, with the many channels 
 and the whirlpools of Livy, do not belong to the Durance 
 near Bnan9on-a superfluous effort, which rather indicates a 
 sense of weaknc^ss. He says (p. 55) : « Je I'ai vu et avant 
 " et apres Briaii9on : lorsqu'on va de cette ville au Mont 
 " Genevre, on la passe sur un petit pont d'une arche au 
 " sortir du village de la Vachette, situe au pied du Mont 
 " Genevre ; elle a peut-gtre la de dix a douze toises de large 
 " sur deux k trois pieds de profondeur. A Embrun (et ces 
 " d($tails je les tiens de gens ayant vu et connaissant bien le 
 " pays), elle est beaucoup plus large, quoiqu'encore tres peu 
 •■ profonde. Mais ni k la Vachette, ni k Brian90D, ni a 
 « Embrun, elle ne presente aucune des particularit^s que 
 " signale la description de Tite-Live. Depuis la Vachette et 
 " Bnan9on jusqu'k Embrun et au-delk, eUe est encaissee dans 
 " un lit regulier : son cours ne varie jamais et n'offre aucun 
 " de ces accidens dont parle I'historien latin— Ce n'est gu^re 
 " que vers Sisteron qu'elle commence k se presenter avec les 
 " caracteres qui lui doune Tite-Live, et qu'elle conserve a 
 " son embouchure." 
 
 We saw {ante, Part IV c. iv.) how M. Lamuza criticised the 
 
 I 
 
 CHA.P. IV.] 
 
 Divergence from Polyhius. 
 
 141 
 
 roughness of the Drac valley ; and the honest rebuke which 
 he got from M. Banded de Lavalette, reminding him of the 
 Lower Isere. When now, in his advance up the Isere, he at 
 last finds himself in plain, he exults for a short time in the 
 vale of Gresivaudan as " iter campestre." It does in itself 
 deserve that character. But M. Larauza takes credit for it as 
 " iter campestre ab Druentia," not allowing that a march to- 
 wards the Alps near the Durance could be '' ab Druentia." I 
 do not see that Livy, by the word " ab," need have intended 
 that the march, after crossing the river, was directed straiglit 
 away from it, quasi at right angles with its course ; but on 
 this notion is rested the claim of the Drac. Do we not read 
 in ch. xxxii. "ab ripa Rhodani movit" ? and yet the march in 
 that case was a march up the Ehone. In both instances the 
 preposition imports a progress from that part on a river where 
 it had just been crossed. 
 
 The objections which Larauza has taken against Letronne, 
 have no force to divert us from construing Druentia the 
 Durance. An exaggeration in the painting of this notorious 
 mountain stream does not disprove that Livy intended the 
 river which he names. His information on its features may 
 have been inaccurate in itself, or apprehended erroneously by 
 him : he may have heard of the Druentia as possessing the 
 features which he pourtrays, and have introduced them to 
 give effect to his story, not reflecting that one part of that 
 river's course might greatly differ from another. 
 
 And now what are the affirmative arguments of M. Larauza, 
 by which he construes Druentia to be the Drac ? He under- 
 takes to show, that the four landmarks of Livy suit his own 
 order of march ; but he rather shows that they do not : for 
 he misplaces them. Having spread the Tricastini along the 
 Isere nearly to the Drac, he says, " Apr^s eux viendront les 
 " Vocontii, occupant les vallees que parcourt le Drac jusqu'^ 
 " son embouchure : enfin apr^s les Vocontii nous placerons 
 
i^ll 
 
 142 T ■ ■ . 
 
 Livy interpreted. [part ^^ 
 
 " les Tricorii." Thus M. Larauza's Druentia running through 
 Vocontian valleys, has been left behind before Hannibal gete 
 mto the Tricorii. In Livy the sequence is Tricastini, Vocontii 
 Inconi, Druentia. 
 
 That the Dmc should be caUed Druentia, was a difficulty 
 worthy of M. Larauza's powers of solution : and he makes 
 Ins effort. After telling us (p. 90) that Druentia and Dracus 
 must have the same root, he writes thus :-" Quand on observe 
 _^ enfin que, du terns de Tite-Live, le dernier de ces deux 
 _^ fleuves n'avait pas encore de nom dans la g,5ographie. 
 ^^ puisqu on ne le trouve pas, m^me plus tard, dans Strabon, 
 ^^ m dans Ptolom.$e, ne con9oit on pas facilement comment 
 ^^ cet histonen, rencontrant ce fleuve decrit dans les m^moires 
 dapr^s lesquels il travaiUait, et designe sous un nom qu'il 
 •^ ne retrouvait dans aucun geographe ; voyant d'ailleurs le 
 _ rapport qu'il avait et par lui-m^me, et par son nom avec la 
 _^ Durance, nvi^re alors tr^s connue, aura pu prendre sur lui- 
 ^^ meme. tout en conservant la description de substituer k la 
 ^^ denomination mconnue celle de la Druentia qui est restee. 
 Si Ion vent que ce mot, par cela seul qu'il se trouve dans 
 ^ la narration de Tite-Live ait dd se trouver dans les m^moires 
 ^^ qu il consultait, ne pourrait-on pas alors voir ]k une seule et 
 _^ meme denomination appliquee k deux rivikes diff^rentes 
 ^^ et penser que les auteurs de ces m^moires reconnaissaient 
 ^^ deux Durances, comme depuis on a reconnu deux Doires 
 ^^ la Dona major ou Doria Baltea, et la Doria minor ou Doria 
 ^^ riparia ? Ou bien enfin ne pourrait-on pas encore supposer 
 ^ que la rivi^re en question se trouvait d<5crite seulement sans 
 etre nommee dans les anciens memoires, et que Tite-Live 
 ^_ dapres les analogies qu'elle avait avec la Durance, aura cru 
 ^ reconnaitre en die ce dernier fieuve dont il lui aura impose 
 le nom? Larauza, pp. 90, 91. 
 
 Thus, M. Larauza offers us the choice of three views of the 
 matter. 1. Livy had found the Drac mentioned under some 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 Divergence from Pohjhius, 
 
 143 
 
 name which he did not know, and thought it might be the 
 Durance which he did know. 2. There may have been two 
 Druentias, like two Dorias, and the Drac might be one of 
 them. 3. He found it without a name, and called it Druentia 
 from its likeness to the Durance. Two of these notions show 
 that Livy intended to speak of the Durance : as to the third, 
 on which Larauza says, " Peut-etre le Drac etait-il appel(^ 
 Druentia minor, ou Druentius?" p. 91, it is enough to say 
 that Pliny has named two Dorias, and has not named two 
 Druentias. Moreover, the notion of a Druentia minor is itself 
 unfortunate : Livy is not telling of a second-rate river : he 
 gives it distinction among the rivers of the Alps — " Druentia 
 " flumen : Alpinus amnis, long^ omnium Gallige fluminum 
 " diflicillimus transitu." It is not incredible, that Livy should 
 exaggerate the characteristics of a torrent river ; or that he 
 should be without safe information on a particular part of its 
 stream. But it is incredible, without better solutions than 
 those here imagined, that he should have introduced into this 
 portion of his story a river other than that which he names, 
 being a river well known, as he names it, to all his contem- 
 poraries, and which had become familiar in Eoman warfare, 
 as belonging to their great line of communication with Spain 
 through the Western Alps. 
 
 Dr. Ukert subscribing to the theory of the Cenis, accepts 
 the Drao. of Larauza, as being the Druentia of Livy; and 
 Mr. Ellis follows them, saying (p. 136), " The Drac and the 
 " Druentia of Livy have been concluded to be identical by 
 " M. Larauza— see Ukert's Oeogra;phie!' The French critic 
 has exhausted all his ingenuity on the matter, and, I hope 
 to have shown, without success. The others do not try to 
 strengthen his dogma by ideas of their own. If we can bring 
 ourselves to reject the Arv^e, the Dranse and the Drac^ and 
 admit the Durance to be the Druentia of Livy, it follows that 
 his pass is the Gen^vre. 
 
144 
 
 Livy interp)*eted. 
 
 [part tx. 
 
 CHAP, v.] 
 
 Last Attempts at Conciliation, 
 
 145 
 
 li ■ 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Durance being conclusive of Livifs intention, identity of the 
 tivo tracks is disproved. Livy diverged from Folyhius at 
 the Isere. From thence to the Durance utter dissonance both 
 in topography and incidents. Subsequent incidents are 
 largely copied from Polybius: topography there is none. 
 Ascent; Summit, with Mr. Ellis's exp>lanaiio7is ; Descent* 
 Livys argument will belong to the ultimate question. 
 
 Though we have not traced the progress told by Livy beyond 
 the crossing oi' the Durance, the fact of reaching the Durance 
 determines one essential point ; that Livy's track is not the 
 same as that of Polybius. That fact shows that to him the 
 pass of Hannibal was the Mont Gen^vre : for to that pass 
 only could the Durance lead. It cannot be requisite to give 
 further consideration to the Viso : and the pretensions of the 
 Cenis must be; withdrawn, if the Druentia be the Durance. 
 One who from the Lower Isere is tending to the Mont Cenis, 
 can never come upon the Durance at any part of its course : 
 and Livy's track, which did not touch the Durance, cannot 
 have been directed to the Cenis. 
 
 The track of Livy has diverged from that of Polybius at 
 the Is^re ; for, when it crosses the Durance, the Gen^vre is in- 
 dicated as the pass of his hypothesis. It was meant by him to 
 be reached, not by the approach which D'Anville conceived, nor 
 by the route contrived by Letronne, but through Valence, Die, 
 Luc, Gap, Embrun and Brianqon : and, when we say that the 
 notion of identity of the two tracks must be abandoned, it is 
 also to be remembered, that the opponents of our Graian 
 theory are pledged, as conciliators, to accommodate the tale 
 of Polybius to the landmarks of Livy, and the tale of Livy to 
 
 •ii-i 
 
 the landmarks of Polybius. Let us then lay all the materials 
 of accommodation concisely before the reader : for, unless the 
 two are ascertained to differ, the question of preference will 
 not arise. 
 
 It is necessary to make a complete comparison of Livy's 
 narrative with the other, from the mouth of Isere to the 
 plain. I speak not now of his own subsequent argument 
 growing out of speculations on the amount of the surviving 
 force. By narrative, I mean the tale of progress, which ends 
 with " inde ad planum descensum," " hoc modo in Italiam 
 perventum est," " quinto decimo die Alpibus superatis." 
 Livy's story may be briefly compared with the other in regard 
 to two subjects: topography and incidents. The question 
 throughout is on localities : but, if the routes intended are 
 identical, there will also be similarity in the facts stated to 
 have occurred : for the facts which did occur, occurred only 
 once. Accordingly the identity will appear most strongly, 
 if there is similarity both in topography and incidents : if 
 there is no similarity in either one or the other, it fails ; and 
 one story only can be true. 
 
 In treating this matter, it will be convenient to consider 
 the whole line of march from near the mouth of Isere in two 
 parts : 1. to the Alps ; 2. through the Alps. We shall find, 
 in the first, an utter incongruity between the two narratives, 
 both in respect to topography and incidents. In the latter 
 part, we find, on the part of Livy, great similarity in facts, 
 and no topography at all : Livy copies the facts of Polybius ; 
 but says nothing whereby we can say where they occurred, 
 
 To the Alps. 
 
 In the march from the Iske to the Druentia, there is an 
 absolute and irreconcilable dissonance between the two nar- 
 ratives, both in the geography and the incidents. In telling 
 of the country traversed, there is not one idea common to the 
 
 VOL. II. I, 
 
146 
 
 Livy inter'preted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 two histories. In Polybius the inarch from the point of the 
 Island to the raountain barrier is through the Allobroges : in 
 Livy it is throiigii tliree nations, of whom the Allobroges are 
 not one. In I'olybius it is along a river : in Livy it is not 
 along a river ; but it crosses a river after the march has been 
 carried through the three nations. In Polybius it is over 
 plain country, favourable to cavalry : in Livy it is mostly 
 mountainous, (mding with an " iter agreste " for a short way. 
 
 As to the facts belonging to this march, the incidents told 
 by Polybius aie these : that the friendly prince accompanied 
 the march with his force as an ally, the enemy hovering about 
 them : that this ally returned home, when the plain country 
 came to an end and the mountains were approached. These 
 things have no place in Livy : the only incidents of any kind 
 in his story of this march, are the turning to the left, and 
 the " tumultus " and 'Hrepidatio" in crossing a great river 
 after visiting three specified peoples : incidents which have no 
 parallels in Polybius. In Polybius this march has a specified 
 time and a specified distance : in Livy there is neither time 
 nor distance. 
 
 If any should contradict this by pointing to the Allobroges 
 as an incident belonging to both narratives, I would answer, 
 that in that feature there is the most affirmative disagreement. 
 In Polybius, Hannibal, after entering the Island and striking a 
 blow in favour of one of two litigants, continues his march 
 for ten days along the river to the Alps, during which he is 
 menaced by the Allobroges ; he then storms those first Alps 
 against the nisistance of the AlloT^roges, and occupies the 
 town of the Allobroges beyond those first Alps. According 
 to Livy, Hannibal marches to the Island, promptly settles the 
 disputes of the Allobroges by arbitration, having gone to- 
 wards them only in the purpose of a short delay, then turns 
 bis march away from them to the Alps, never seeing them 
 again ; but marching through three other nations, whom he 
 
 CHAP, v.] 
 
 Last Atteiyipts at Conciliation, 
 
 147 
 
 / 
 
 names, to the Druentia, and then to the Alps, where he is 
 obstructed by a people to whom he gives no name. 
 
 Through the Alps. 
 
 Advancing with Livy from the passage of the Amentia to 
 the first Alps, wherever that point should be, and proceeding 
 thence across the mountains to the plain, we have in his story 
 no aid to the geography of the line which he is dealing with. 
 He relates incidents similar to the incidents of Polybius : so 
 similar, that he must have had the Greek history before him. 
 He copies the events of that history in succession, occasion- 
 ally adding things not derived from it. Still there is nothing 
 that enables us to apply the incidents which he relates to the 
 identification of his route. Even those who see that Livy 
 meant Hannibal to cross the Mont Gen^vre, and therefore 
 think that Hannibal had done so, do not found this belief 
 upon anything which that historian says in telling the march 
 in the Alps. They read that Hannibal came to the Durance ; 
 and see that, if he did so, he was of necessity tending to the 
 Genevre. 
 
 A better use has been made of the narrative of Polybius. 
 He copied nature : and by his incidents we identify the 
 places where he describes them to have occurred. As we re- 
 cognised them by his account of the march to the Alps 
 through the Allobroges till Hannibal forced the mountain 
 boundary of the Island : so in the Alps his instructions 
 enabled us to trace the scenes of events and circumstances 
 which occurred at the foot of the main pass, and also the 
 place of the casualties in the descent. Livy, in the Alps, 
 though sometimes almost transcribing the facts of Polybius, 
 furnishes no memorial by which his greatest admirers have 
 been able to point out in the map the places where they may 
 be supposed to have taken place : he adds occasionally a new 
 feature, such as the vinegar, the combustion, and the pre- 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 cipice : but, from whatever sources he obtained his materials 
 for things done in the Alps, his followers have not professed 
 to recognise the scenes of action from the Druentia to the 
 plain of Italy. Even M. Letronne never gave the site of 
 
 It is expedient to speak separately of Livy's ascent, 
 summit, and descent. We shall see that, though the events 
 are the events of Poly bins, the geography is none. You only 
 know Livy's track in the Alps, by his track to the Alps. 
 
 The Ascent. 
 
 Here Livy's iiicidents are those which had already appeared 
 in the history of Polybius ; the halt in front of the first 
 mountain heights ; the report of the spies that the pass was 
 left unguarded in the night ; the lighting of the camp fires ; 
 the occupation of the pass by Hannibal with his light troops 
 in the night ; thic astonishment of the enemy in the morning ; 
 the assault upon the column in its embarrassments ; Hannibal 
 charging down upon them, and the results ; his occupation of 
 their town ; the supply of three days' provisions ; the march 
 unimpeded till they came among a new people; the con- 
 ference with these; their insidious designs; Hannibal's 
 caution ; his order of march, himself with the heavy infantry 
 in the rear ; the attack made in a narrow pass ; the pressure 
 from the rear ; his separation for the night from the cavalry 
 and baggage; the dispersion of the enemy; the summit 
 gained on the ninth day ; the encampment for two days ; the 
 beginning of snow ; the season of the setting of the Pleiades. 
 These are similarities, whereby the later history may be 
 looked upon as in effect a translation of the former. 
 
 Notwithstanding this almost unqualified similarity of the 
 incidents in the ascent, Livy's tale of them speaks nothing to 
 fix their sites. We only see that he adopted the incidents 
 themselves from another writer. In that other writer we do 
 
 CHAP, v.] 
 
 Last Attempts at Conciliation, 
 
 149 
 
 find aid to the localities : he had described them on an expe- 
 rience of the country where they had occurred. Accordingly 
 we who trust him are led to the first mountains by the Ehone 
 and the country along the Ehone : and that same writer, 
 having brought us to understand Hannibal's combat with the 
 Allobroges on reaching the Alps by a march up the Ehone, 
 shows us the scene of the second engagement by a visible 
 memorial eight days afterwards. No such marks of locality 
 are offered to us by the explainers of Livy's ascent to the 
 Mont Gen^vre. 
 
 The Summit. 
 
 One incident, which was discussed in vindicating Polybius 
 from the Mont Cenis, must again be noticed for the purpose 
 on which we are now engaged, of pointing out those things 
 which do, and those things which do not, constitute a dis- 
 crepancy between the two historians. It is related by Livy 
 that Hannibal when proceeding on his march in descent, halted 
 his troops upon a certain promontory, whence there was a 
 view far and wide over the expanse of the Italian plain, and 
 that he there made an address to them to revive their droop- 
 ing courage : and Mr. Ellis, now interpreting Livy, declares 
 this topic to be in the list of congruities between the two 
 historians. 
 
 Polybius records an address made by Hannibal to tlie 
 troops, on the day of pure rest when encamped on the 
 summit — that he administered consolation to his men, not 
 pending the most frightful day's work that belonged to their 
 whole five months' expedition, but during that one day of 
 undisturbed quietness * which they so much required, and 
 which also had the purpose of waiting for stragglers to come 
 
 * They only reached the summit early in the morning of the 
 first day. 
 
p: 
 
 150 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 up ; a purpose which was answered. Mr. Ellis ventures to 
 maintain that, in spite of this, the two stories coincide. He 
 was pledged to such an attempt, as is every critic, to whom 
 we of the Graian Alp are opposed. All but ourselves are 
 conciliators of t]ie histories, though not all make the effort. 
 
 Deeming the Mont Cenis to illustrate both the histories, 
 Mr. Ellis exhibits his powers of conciliation in the following 
 manner— he admits (p. 140), that '' at first sight there appears 
 a direct contradiction between the two authors." He recon- 
 ciles them by supposing, that this incident took place not at 
 the encampment on the plateau of the summit, but some- 
 where out of the road and west of La Grande Croix. He 
 makes it out by presuming both historians to mean what 
 neither has said ; namely, that Hannibal encamped on the 
 summit for one night; and shifted his camp a few miles 
 down for the sec ond ; also, that the imagined view was not to 
 be had in the track of the march ; so he made an excursion 
 for the enjoym(mt of it, in travelling from one point to the 
 other. The philosophy of the concHiation is this— Hannibal 
 made a speech : the three authors, Polybius, Livy, and EUis, 
 all assign the speech to the summit : therefore all must mean 
 the same thing. They all assign it to the summit, because 
 the whole seven miles are summit, from the Col of the Little 
 Mont Cenis ^own to La Grande Croix. Polybius introduces 
 the speech at the camp on the top ; Livy introduces it en 
 route, halting his troops to hear it : Ellis gives it somewhere 
 on one side, making an excursion for the purpose : therefore 
 all three had it on the summit, and all three teU the same 
 tale. 
 
 The argument is thus expressed by its author—" The de- 
 " scent from this pass into Italy is considered to begin from 
 " La Grande Croix, all the ground above, though varying con- 
 " siderably in level, being included in the plateaux which 
 " form the summit of the Mont Cenis. Hannibal therefore, 
 
 CHAP, v.] 
 
 Last Attempts at Conciliation. 
 
 151 
 
 " when on the promontory, or at La Grande Croix, would still 
 " be correctly spoken of by Polybius as being on the summit 
 " of the pass. Yet he might naturally be mentioned by 
 " another author, as having begun his descent, when on bis 
 " way from the plateau of the Little Mont Cenis to La Grande 
 
 " Croix." 
 
 I fear that Mr. Ellis's edition, which pretends to agree with 
 the tw^o others, is as palpably opposed to both, as they are to 
 one another : for it attributes to a day of rest a movement of 
 some miles for the whole armament, aggravated by a senseless 
 and laborious " extra viam." The text of both histories, though 
 differing as to the scene of Hannibal's address, require that 
 the time on the summit was a time of actual rest — avTov 
 KaTe<TTpaTOiTehev(Te, koX hvo rjixepafi irpoaifienfe, Livy's story 
 is, if possible, still plainer on the unqualified rest from labour : 
 Polybius interrupts it in some degree by the very fact of the 
 soldiers assembling to listen to their chief. Ko such incident 
 breaks the second day of Livy— "Biduum in jugo stativa 
 habita ; fessisque labore ac pugnando quies data militibus." 
 Livy relates, concerning the renewal of the march, on the 
 morning that followed the two days of rest, that, as it pro- 
 ceeded, " cum signis prima luce metis segniter agmen incederet " 
 — sluggish despair in every countenance, a halt was ordered : 
 the general addressed them to revive their courage, showing 
 the plains of the Po spreading wide beneath, and pointing to 
 Eome the citadel of Italy, which, if they made the effort, 
 would soon fall into their hands. The protracted calamities 
 of that day's march are then strongly painted, before we 
 read, "castra in jugo posita, segerrime ad id ipsum loco 
 purgato." 
 
 Mr. Ellis relieves what he justly calls " the direct contra- 
 diction apparent between the two authors," by giving from 
 himself a new version of Hannibal's proceedings discordant 
 from the narrative of either. Presently, conscious of his 
 
1^ 
 
 152 
 
 Livy intevpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 Last Attempts at Conciliation, 
 
 153 
 
 it 
 
 it 
 
 infirmity, he gently censures Livy, for not having done that 
 which he would without scruple have done himself ; namely, 
 thrown away one of the two days of summit : and, as if time 
 were the only obstacle to his improvements, he draws this 
 consolatory hypothesis : — " By these means he would have 
 " made his narrative of the events at the summit of the pass 
 quite consistent in itself, and completely in accordance, 
 though at first sight apparently at variance, with the 
 " account of the Greek historian." 
 
 An English tourist, full of fresh vigour, and in a season 
 not threatening a grave of snow, may bound rapidly from 
 one point of interest to another in regions which spread from 
 Bramante to Susa. Mr. Ellis seems to have as great personal 
 experience of the district of Mont Cenis as any but the late 
 Mr. Brockedoii and the Sardinian engineers: he with his 
 carpet-bag might pass a night at the Granges de Dervieux, 
 and after touching at the Lac Blanc or other point of interest, 
 and staying successively at La Poste and La Grande Croix, 
 might fairly write home that he had spent a few days on the 
 Mont Cenis. But the texts that we are studying and com- 
 paring are not to be explained by Punic wanderings over Mr. 
 Ellis's constructive summit. Hannibal had not time which 
 he could so trifle with : he desired remission of toil for the 
 shattered multitude : he sought rest to the weary : Mr. Ellis 
 gives none : his specula, if it deserve the name, may be 
 somewhat less offensive than the Balbotet of Folard ; but it 
 is not less peremptorily to be repudiated, as a vain conjecture, 
 and repugnant to authority. The episode of an excursion, as 
 he fondly calls it, is incredible either for a marching day or 
 for a resting day. Hannibal, always husbanding the strength 
 of his men, would not, in his terrible descent, purposely 
 deviate from :he line, incurring superfluous danger, and 
 courting an increase of labour, to prove the diminution of 
 it. Not a yard of that blind and bitter march gave security 
 
 CHAP, v.] 
 
 M 
 
 against the destruction of man and beast : and he did not, 
 in pursuit of evidence, devote them to fresh calamity over 
 ground still more unpractised and therefore still more 
 danijerous. Mr. Ellis, of all men, should not be insensible 
 to unnecessary risks : it is he who records a loss of 10,000 
 men in that descent without an enemy. 
 
 The Descent. 
 
 In the residue of Livy's march to the plain, he must still 
 have had the story of Poly bins in view ; but he does not try 
 much to adhere to it. He has a mauvais pas of his own in 
 the early descent ; and one of a very serious kind : four days 
 are spent in vanquishing it ; and three in resting after it. Still 
 there is nothing to suggest the locality. No one can tell us 
 where to find his precipice of 1,000 feet ; whereas we do 
 give site to the impediment described in the other history ; 
 we find a place where to this day the same peculiar causes 
 still produce the same effects. 
 
 As the identity of the two routes is at present our subject, 
 it is to be observed, that the obstructions given to the march 
 in the first day of descent are so differently related by the 
 two historians, that the stories can hardly be applied to the 
 same locality. The three half stades is in Polybius a measure 
 of length ; the same estimate with Livy is a measure of height. 
 Niebuhr is rather severe on Livy's precipice. We read this 
 in his ninth Lecture, i. 173 : — " Livy says, that the mountain 
 " formed a precipice of one thousand feet, and that the new 
 " road was built down that precipice. This is nonsense, as 
 " every one must see." 
 
 There appears also a difference between the two historians 
 in the estimate of climate, which does not aid the identity of 
 place. Livy seems to depict a climate too mild for the story 
 of Polybius, as Dr. Arnold depicts one too severe. They who 
 suggest that the Carthaginians of Polybius were for some 
 
 P 
 
154 
 
 Livy interpreted. 
 
 [part IX. 
 
 days above the snow-line, wiH probably think that the Cartha- 
 ginians of U^rJ were not. His story, like the other, has no 
 snow till it has reached the summit ; but further, when the 
 mauvais pas is come to in the descent, there is not only 
 vegetation enoa^h for twigs, stumps, and roots for them to 
 cHng to, but trees of vast size are at hand for combustion of 
 the precipice. 
 
 Livy's story of the vinegar is supposed by Niebuhr to have 
 been derived from Caelius Antipater ; but no reason appears 
 why, in the absence of authority, it should be fathered on 
 him. Caelius knew that the Carthaginians came over the 
 Little St. Bernard, and must have known that he was agreeing 
 with Polybius. Livy, who is sHent on Polybius, must have 
 been conscious; that he did not agree with him. 
 
 If we pretend to trace the Carthaginian track of Livy from 
 what he has written, we fail in the want of materials. We 
 know the pass which he intended by the line which he 
 draws from the Is^re to the Durance. As to the march in 
 the Alps, his events are chiefly taken from Polybius, but 
 with nothing of locality to aid us : and if we seek to know 
 by which of the two descents from the Gen^vre he conceived 
 Hannibal to have come down to the plain, there is nothing in 
 his narrative of progress that enables us to answer such a 
 question. We have had occasion to show the two routes 
 used by the Eomans in later times to descend to the Cisalpine 
 province. But; nothing shows that Livy had knowledge of 
 the distinction. His extant works are silent on Susa, which 
 is in one road, and on Ocelum, which is in the other ; as 
 much so as those of Polybius. 
 
 But after Livy's narrative of the march, concluding with 
 <' ad planum d(3scensum," he makes some comments on the 
 question of the pass, which arise out of a discussion into 
 which he had (jntered on the amount of force which survived 
 to the invaders after their arrival in the plain ; and when 
 
 CHAP, v.] 
 
 Last Attempts at Conciliation. 
 
 155 
 
 they were restored to condition for commencing warlike 
 operations. This argumentative matter will show the grounds 
 on which he had conceived the Cottian, and not the Penine 
 or Cremo, to be the pass of Hannibal ; and i< will be most 
 convenientJy treated when we deal with our final question ; 
 whether we shall accept that opinion of Livy in preference to 
 that which results from the study of Polybius. 
 
THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 PAET X. 
 
 TWO PECULIAR THEORIES. 
 
 i 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 Before I bring this inquiry to a close with a comparison of 
 the stories of Polybius and Livy, two peculiar theories should 
 be mentioned, which are not among those whose merits have 
 been discussed under the arrangement of tracks made above 
 in Part IV. 
 
 In one of them the Carthaginian army never bends its 
 course towards the Isere at all : Hannibal takes leave of the 
 Ehone as soon as he has crossed it, and makes his way direct 
 to the Gen^vre as by Nions and Serres. I will exhibit a few 
 samples of this scheme, for inviting attention to the originality 
 of the author. 
 
 I. Theory of M. le Comte de Fortia U Urban, 
 
 This respectable gentleman, author of "Antiquit^s et 
 Monuments du D^partement de Yaucluse," has disclosed his 
 views on our subject in a volume entitled " Dissertation sur 
 le Passage du Ehone et des Alpes par Annibal. Troisieme 
 4dition. Paris, 1821." He concurs in the usually recognised 
 place of crossing the Ehone : but he runs out of the course 
 almost as soon as he has crossed it. His track is from Orange 
 
 L 
 
158 
 
 Turn Pecidiar Theories. 
 
 [part X. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 M. le Comte de Fortia D* Urban. 
 
 159 
 
 (C 
 
 it 
 
 1 
 
 up the Eygues to Nions : then by Remusat and Rozans to 
 Serres, Gap. ilmbrun, &c. He is a sceptic sui generis : and his 
 notions are sc^ original, that the best way of exhibiting them 
 will be by quoting some of his own words. 
 
 From page 19, showing hoiv HannihaVs anxiety to avoid an 
 engagement caused him to move as dowly as possible. 
 " Mandajors place-t-il son tie apr^s le passage de Tls^re, 
 c'est-^-dire ;i cinquante six mille cinq cents loises, environ 
 six cents siades de distance. Mais peut-on v^ritablement 
 '' croire que Polibe a pretendu peindre la frayeur d'Annibal 
 " telle, qu'aussitot apr^s le passage tr^s p^nible d'un fleuve 
 '' aussi rapide, il ait fait une course forc^e avec une arm^e 
 ^'aussi nombreuse? On sait qu'il avait cinquante mille 
 " hommes d'infanterie, neuf mille de cavalerie, et trente sept 
 '' elephans. Clela n'est nullement vraisemblable ; et je crois 
 " que cela n'est pas vrai. C'est surtout au commencement de 
 " sa marche vers les Alpes, que craignant peut-etre encore 
 d'etre attaque par les Eomains, qu'il ne voulait pas com- 
 battre alors, il dut marcher avec beaucoup de precaution." 
 
 From page 21, showing that Hannibal did not begin to push 
 forward till after the retreat of Seipio. 
 " Le troisieme jour depuis le passage du fleuve, le second 
 depuis I'arrivee d'Annibal k Tile, Scipion vint a Roquemaure, 
 
 '' k I'endroit oil les Carthaginois avaient passe le fleuve, lorsque 
 ce general romain eut pris le parti de retourner dans la 
 Tirrhenie, croyant que les Barbares des Alpes leur oppose- 
 
 '' raient assez d'obstacles. Ce fut seulement le cinqui^me 
 jour, c'est-a-dire le lendemain du depart de Scipion, qu* 
 Annibal, prenant sa route de la mer vers I'orient, comme le 
 dit Polibe, et cette observation est tres-importante, traversa 
 Orange et les deux branches de TEygues, et tourna a droite, 
 apres avoir traverse la seconde branche, ainsi que le font 
 encore aujourd'hui ceux qui veulent aller d'Orange k Nions." 
 
 <( 
 
 a 
 
 tc 
 
 cc 
 
 <( 
 
 <( 
 
 « 
 
 <t 
 
 <( 
 
 <t 
 
 <( 
 
 u A 
 
 i( 
 
 It 
 
 Fr9m page 23, shmjoing in what manner Hannibal consumed 
 the four dags mentioned by Polybius, 
 
 " La phrase, \vvl^a^ Se irotrja-dfjLevo^ e^^9 eVl rerrapa^ 
 rj/jL€pa<; rrjv TTopelav, doit etre rendue mot a mot, 'Mais 
 Annibal ayant ordonn^ k son armee une marche de quatre 
 jours de suite.' En reflechissant sur ce passage et sur la 
 " situation d'Annibal, on sentira que ce general, qui s'c^tait 
 " fait rendre compte du local et qui avait un chef des Tauri- 
 " niens pour le guider, savait que son armee ne pouvait 
 " marcher de front le long de I'Eygues : il la partagea done en 
 " qiiatre portions, qui exigeaient quatre journees pour qu'elle 
 " fut deplacee toute enti^re. C'est ce qu'expriment les mots 
 '* ' pendant quatre jours de suite.' On comprend aisement 
 " que les premieres portions ^taient compos^es chacune de 
 " vingt-cinq mille hommes d'infanterie ; les deux demi^res 
 " de sa cavalerie et de ses elephans, comme I'a dit Polibe lui- 
 " meme un pen plus haut." 
 
 From page 29, showing further that Seipio marched away from. 
 Hannibalf not Hannibal from Sciyio. 
 
 " C'est a I'original qu'il faut s'en tenir, et Polibe, en 
 " enon9ant que Scipion s'etait retire le troisieme jour apr^s le 
 " passage du fleuve, et qu' Annibal avait ensuite continue sa 
 " route, a suffisamment exprime que le general carthaginois 
 " ne s'est ^loigne du Rhone qu'apres la retraite du general 
 " romain, et consequemment qu'il a pu I'attendre, ce qu'il est 
 " tr^s naturel de penser." 
 
 From page 40, showing the boundaries of the Island or Delta. 
 
 '* L'Eygues prend sa source dans le sein meme des Hautes- 
 " Alpes, comme on pent le voir dans la carte de Cassini, ou 
 " il est tres-bien decrit, et qui lui donne le nom d'Aigues, ou 
 " de la Vigne. II nait au-dessus de Saint- Andre-de-Rozans, 
 
160 
 
 Two Peculiar Theories. 
 
 [PAiJT X. 
 
 (!HAP. J. I 
 
 M. Ic Comic de Fortia D'lhhan. 
 
 IGl 
 
 ! 
 
 u 
 u 
 
 C( 
 
 it 
 u 
 if 
 u 
 <l 
 u 
 t( 
 n 
 l( 
 t< 
 tt 
 <( 
 it 
 It 
 tt 
 
 ou il se joiint k un autre torrent appele Lidane. II rec^oit, 
 au-dessus de Remiisat, une petite riviere aussi considerable 
 que lui, dont la source est au-dessus de ClialanQon, et qui 
 se nomme TOulle. Une autre petite riviere, connue sous le 
 nom de Legnuees, s'unit k lui a Curnier, un peu au-dessus 
 des Piles. Ces quatre torrens, reunis a beaucoup d'autres, 
 ferment une petite riviere pendant un cours que ses detours 
 peuvent faire (5 valuer k pr^s de trente lieues, jusqu'^ son 
 embouchure dans le Rhone. C'est environ a trois lieues au- 
 dessus de cette embouchure, qu'il est subdivise en deux 
 branches, <:lont Tune va se joindre a une petite riviere, 
 connue sous le nom de la Meyne, et tombe avec elle dans le 
 Rhone k plus de deux lieues de I'autre. II en r^sulte une 
 petite ile de deux lieues de base sur trois lieues de hauteur, 
 et plus exactement de six mille romains sur dix, qui occupe 
 environ quatre lieues carries d'un terrain tres-fertile en 
 bl4 ou se trouvent renfermdes les villes d'Orange et de 
 Caderousse," 
 
 From page 4(), showing how far the Delta of the critic resemUes 
 
 the Delta of the Nile. 
 
 " Mon ile, sui-tout dans la carte du comte Venaissin, faite par 
 " D'AnviUe en 1745, a la forme du Delta, sans en avoir 
 " r^tendue." 
 
 From page 4:7, showing that Livy did not flatly contradict 
 Poll/bins, through a feeling of reject for his memory. 
 
 "Tite-Live, au tems duquel ce Delta des Celtes dtait 
 " beaucoup inieux connu, a eu soin d' observer que cette ile 
 " ne renfermait qu'un territoire tres-borne. II a seulement 
 " manage Polibe, en ne le critiquant pas comme il aurait pu 
 *' le faire, et cette attention pour un historien aussi respectable 
 " ne pent que lui faire honneur, sans rien diminuer de la 
 " force de soei temoignage." 
 
 i 
 
 Extracts shmving the true causes of topographical accuracy 
 
 in military matters. 
 
 From page 16. 
 
 "Ce second historien (Tite-Live) ne lui-meme a Padoue 
 " dans la Ganle cisalpine, n'avait pas besoin de venir chercher 
 " les habitans du pays comme I'Arcadien Polibe." 
 
 From page 11. 
 
 " Trogue Ponipee, ne a Vaison, aurait leve tons nos doutes, 
 '* si nous avions conserve son histoire malheureusement 
 " perdue." 
 
 From pages 47, 8. 
 
 'Me crois avoir etudie la marche d'Annibal, autant que la 
 " connaissance parfaite des lieus permettait de le faire— J'etais 
 " proprietaire du Lampourdier, sur la Meyne, avant M. le 
 " general Chabran." 
 
 Thus we learn that the faculty of interpreting historical 
 notices of Celtic topography comes by birth and by property. 
 If Polybius had in his cradle breathed the air of Padua 
 instead of that of Megalopolis, and in his maturity had been 
 possessed of the estate of Lampourdier, he would not have so 
 failed in his account of the Island. He would have set be- 
 fore us a piece of ground surrounded by water, having two 
 leagues of Rhone for its base, three leagues of Eygues for 
 each side. 
 
 From page 31, shoiving the claim of the author to the grati- 
 tude of the literary ivorld. 
 
 " Les amateurs de I'antiquite me sauront gre d'avoir mis 
 " d'accord Polibe et Tite-Live autant qu'il etait possible. Ce 
 " que je dirai dans les articles suivans ache vera de lever tons 
 " les doutes qui peuvent rester dans Tesprit du lecteur meme 
 " le plus prevenu contre mon opinion." 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
162 
 
 Two Peculicw Tlieories. 
 
 [part X. 
 
 The author has indeed brought the two historians to a level, 
 and, as the amateurs here spoken of will probably agree with 
 him in deeming his commentary to furnish, as he announces, 
 " une explication entierement nouvelle," curiosity may tempt 
 them to proceed in the study of it. If they are startled by 
 the few samples which I have exhibited, their surprise will 
 not be diminished, when they come to learn that the last 
 section of the march defined by Polybius, 1200 stadia, was 
 from Brian9on to the Ticino. '' Polibe compte 1200 stades 
 "ou 150 milles Eomains du passage des Alpes aux plaines 
 "de ritalie, qui sont le long du P6, chez les Insubriens, 
 " comme le dit Polibe, c'est a dire de Brian9on a I'extremit^ 
 " de la Gaule que les Eomains appelaient Cisalpine, lorsqu 
 ''apres avoir fi'anchi le Tesin, Annibal fut entre dans les 
 "plaines du P6 c'est encore la verity"! 
 
 The author accounts for his own accuracy in this way, p. 14 
 " J'adopte la traduction de Dom Thuillier, qui est en general 
 " d'autant plus exacte, que ce savant benedictin a eu pour 
 ''guide la version latine de Casaubon." If the Count had 
 himself followed that guide, he would never have marched 
 up the Eygues : for Casaubon, telling the march, "along the 
 ''river to the Alps," translates Trora/x-oV Rhodanum : and, if 
 Hannibal's entry into the plain had, as the Count says, been 
 defeiTcd till h(3 crossed the Tesin, he would never have 
 entered it at all. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Theory of M. Replaf. 
 
 This commentator published a pamphlet of 87 pages in 
 1851, entitled 'Note sur le Passage d'AnnihsiV'—Chamhery. 
 Imprimerie, Baj^Jiet, Rve du Chateau, In the course of the 
 march lio pro])oses this question : — ''Par ce mot (XevKowerpov) 
 
 CHAP. 11.] 
 
 M. Replat. 
 
 163 
 
 "Polybe n'aurait il point indique le Mont-Blanc? On d^- 
 " couvre le Mont-Blanc depuis quelques points de la valine de 
 " Beaufort : c'est une roche blanche un peu plus merveiUeuse 
 " que celle assise au pied du Petit- Saint-Bernard ; et le roi des 
 "Alpes meritoit une mention speciale de la part de Polybe, 
 " le doyen des touristes." 
 
 As said in my preface, I found this pamphlet on my arrival 
 at Aix-les-Bains in August 1854, and forthwith published a 
 comment upon it, also at Chamb&y ; Imprimerie, Puthod.-- 
 The whole of it was given in my Criticism published in London, 
 April 1855, which was chiefly directed against the new theory 
 of the Little Mont Cenis : and I did intend to give here also 
 the whole 20 pages. But it would be thought an unnecessary 
 incumbrance ; and it is enough to show, by my first few pages, 
 which were on that occasion the opposing passes. 
 
 Observations sur VOuvrage de M. Beplat 
 
 Aix-les-Bains, 4 septembre 1854. 
 
 Je suis venu dans ce charmant lieu pour ma sante au com- 
 mencement du mois d'aout. Parmi les amusements que j'y ai 
 rencontres, je trouve un ouvrage sur le passage d' Annibal, 
 public a Chambery par M. Replat, jurisconsulte a Annecy : je 
 voudrais qu'on me permit aussi le plaisir de le critiquer. Je 
 veux dedier les observations suivantes aux habitants et aux 
 visiteurs d'Aix-les-Bains, qui s'interesseront toujours vive- 
 ment, j'en suis sur, a I'evenement qui, plus que tout autre, 
 donne la c^lebrit^ a leur Mont-du-Chat. Quant a moi, la 
 seule partie de la route entiere des Carthaginois, de TEspagne 
 a la plaine d'ltalie, que j'ai pu parcourir jusqu'^ present, est 
 peut-etre de six kilometres, depuis le col de cette montagne 
 jusqu'au village du Bourget. Jamais je ne me suis approch^ 
 de la chatne principale des Alpes. 
 
 II est fort Evident que M. Replat s'est bien instruit des 
 auteurs classiques. II avance ses opinions avec vivacite ; son 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 Tv'o FecuHar Tkeanes. 
 
 [part X. 
 
 style est agrees hie, et ses nouvelJes idees sont deploy ees dune 
 maniere modeste. L'exainen que je veux faire de ses opinions 
 n'a pour ohjet que ceci seul : la verite sur un fait liistorique. 
 Maintenant cet examen sera court par necessite. Je suis sans 
 livres, — sans Polybe,~sans Tite-Live ; et, ce qui est encore 
 plus desastreux pour celui qui fait un premier essai en fran- 
 gais, je suis sans dictionnaire. Si je ne resiste pas k aborder 
 un sujet aussi interessant, je m'y mele seulement dans le but 
 de corriger des erreurs singulieres, sans pretendre en cette 
 occasion etablir en detail les conclusions les plus positives, 
 auxquelles cliacun pent arriver a force de lire I'historien grec. 
 
 Voici rhyp.3tli^se de M. Replat : "Le col de la Seigne est 
 *' incontestabUjinent le col du Cramont, le Jugum Cremonis de 
 " Ccnelius Antipater." 
 
 Je puis bien conceder, puisque je Tai toujours cru, que le 
 mot Cramont represente le mot Cre7no, mentionne par Tite- 
 Live. C'est lui qui dit que Thistorien Ca^lius avait raconte 
 qu'Annibal traversa le Cremonis Jvgum. J'ai cru aussi 
 qu'Annibal a traverse la montagne ainsi indiquee par Tite- 
 Live ; mais pourquoi le Col de la Seigne? 
 
 Le Cramont est une montagne qui s'el^ve k droite quand 
 on va de Pre-S^-Didier vers le Petit-S*-Bernard. (3n pent en 
 faire lascension en partant par cette route, soit apres une 
 demi-lieure d(3 Pre-Saint-Didier, soit du village d'Elc^va, qui 
 est plus avance sur le chemin et plus pres du village de la 
 Thuile, qui ne se trouve pas loin du pied du passage du Petit- 
 Saint-Bernarcl. Le Cramont, au nord, est un precipice qui 
 borde rAllee-Blanche, par laquelle on voyage de Courmayeur 
 au Col de la Seigne, cotoyant a droite les glaciers du Mont- 
 Blanc. De Siiussure dit: "La cime du Cramont ne domine 
 " pas immediatement sur rAllee-Blanche. EUe en est separee 
 •' par des chaines de montagnes plus basses, qui empechent 
 " que les yeux ne plougent jusqu'au fond de cette vallee." 
 
 Je ne douti |)as ([ue Ciclius, ra})portant Cremonis Jiigwn 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 M. Replat. 
 
 165 
 
 a parle de la veritable route d'Annibal; et j'accepte son 
 temoignage comme le temoignage d'un liistorien qui suivit 
 Polybe sur un sujet dont il netait alors pas question. Main- 
 tenant il me semble que, x^our comprendre ce que c'etait que 
 Cremonis Jugum J i\ faut penser a I'autorite dont nous recevons 
 ces idees, c'est-a-dire a Tite-Live. Sans adopter son opinion, 
 il faut ecouter sa narration. II ne croyait pas que ce que 
 Caelius avait rapporte fut vrai. II a prononce qu'Annibal ne 
 traversa pas le Cremonis Jugum. II parle de ce passage-1^ 
 comme d'un passage qu'il connaissait bien ; il dit que c'est un 
 passage qui conduit au pays des Salasses, et que, selon son 
 opinion, il etait tres improbable qu'un tel passage fut ouvert 
 du temps d'Annibal. II prononce de meme sur le passage 
 Penine, qui conduit aussi dans le pays des Salasses. En effet, 
 il declare que ces deux passages, qui de son temps etaient 
 bien connus comme routes militaires, ne pouvaient etre prati- 
 cables dans un temps aussi ancien. 
 
 II est necessaire done que M. Replat maintienne que Tite- 
 Live, quand il fait mention du Cremonis Jugum , parle du Col 
 de la Seigne. La raison en faveur d'une telle tlieorie, ([ue je 
 trouve dans ses observations, est la meme qu'on a trouvee 
 quelquefois en faveur des autres, c'est-a-dire qu'elle est in- 
 contestable. S'il y a d' autres raisons, je ne m'en aper^ois pas. 
 II me semble qu il y a de meilleures raisons pour soutenir que 
 I'historien parle du Petit- Saint-Bernard. 
 
 So began my pamphlet, written at Aix in August, 1854. 
 It ended thus : — Les idees curieuses de M. Eeplat, au sujet 
 du Bonhomme et du Mont-Blanc, ne sont pas les plus recentes, 
 ni, peut-etre, les plus etonnantes, auxquelles on se soit livr6 
 sur le passage d'Annibal. Cette annee meme, 1854, un savant 
 de Cambridge a public un ouvrage pour demontrer qu'Annibal 
 traversa le Petit-Mont-Cenis ; et, pour soutenir cette opinion, 
 il declare positivement que la route par ce mont-la est 
 marquee {laid davm) sur la carte de Peutinger ! ! 
 
THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 PAET XI. 
 
 CONCILIATION FAILS. QUESTION 
 OF PREFEEENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Fe must elect letween the two historians. Their general reim- 
 tation. Polijhius had better access to facts. Livys facts 
 hear against his hijpothesis. We learn from him that the 
 prevailing belief tvas in a descent by the valley of Aosta ; 
 and that an early luriter of celebrity named the Pass of 
 Cremo. He avoids to mention Polybius. 
 
 I HAVE, as at first proposed, interpreted separately the narra- 
 tives of tlie two historians, for ascertaining the track of march 
 intended by each: and I have endeavoured to deal fairly with 
 the conflicting theories by which they are explained. The 
 result of the inquiry is, that the story of Polybius denotes the 
 Little St. Bernard ; and that the story of Livy denotes the 
 Mont Gen^vre. I have fairly encountered the question of 
 identity ; can the same track have been intended by both 
 historians ? Two sorts may lean to the atfirmative : tliose who 
 began with minds warped to the presumption that they meant 
 the same; and those who, deeming both narratives to be 
 doubtful, are willing to bend that which they deem the more 
 doubtful into an accordance with the other. 
 
 ■ 
 
^^^ Comparison of the Histories. [part xi. 
 
 I am too far removed from a sympathy witli eitlier of these, 
 that I should affect the task of conciliation. A geographical 
 conformity ber.ween Polybius and Livy was not anticipated as 
 necessary : nor need we strain for it, in relief of doubt : care- 
 ful and patient investigation has in my view made clear the 
 meaning of both writers : and I find no doubt that vindicates 
 so desperate an attempt. I have not the pliancy of construc- 
 tion with which to say, after M. Letronne, Janv, 1819, p. 24: 
 " Dans Tite-Live il n'y a pas un seul mot k changer pJur faire 
 coincider son texte avec celui de Polybe." On the contrary, 
 I do not discover a word which justifies the suspicion, that 
 their lines of progress coincide for the length of a kilometre 
 from the mouth of the Isere to the plain of Italy. If my 
 reasonings have been just, the Polybian march by a necessity 
 of construction moves from the Tsere up the Ehone : the 
 Livian march by an equal necessity moves from the Isere 
 down the Ehone. In one, the progress from the Is^re to the 
 first Alps, is altogether through the Allobroges : the other 
 takes leave of them at the Is^re and never meets with them 
 again. By one statement the army arrives among the friendly 
 Insubres : by the other among the hostile Taurini. 
 
 Both tracks being made evident on ample scrutiny, I cannot 
 bend either of them into accommodation with the language that 
 describes the other : nor can I bring myself to a compromise 
 m that unhap])y medium, the Cenis theory, which has the 
 merit of impartially disregarding the language of both histo- 
 rians. I leave the effort of conciliation to those, who prescribe 
 It as the chief or only duty belonging to this inquiry, and 
 have so zealously devoted themselves to the performance 
 of it. 
 
 The question of preference. 
 Which then were the Alps of Hannibal ? On which of the 
 two histories shall we rely, as instructing us to the track of 
 the great invader ?-Befoie we examine the particular grounds 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Reasons fm^ preferring Polybius^ 
 
 169 
 
 I 
 
 on which one story is preferable to the other, some notice 
 may be expected of the estimation in which these authors are 
 generally held : and of their opportunities of knowledge on 
 the facts which they relate. 
 
 Reputation. 
 
 I have no desire to dwell on their comparative claims to 
 the merits of truth and accuracy : no wish to exalt the pre- 
 tensions of one, or depress those of the other. They who are 
 at a loss on this subject may be referred to the sentiments of 
 Niebuhr. His enthusiasm on the splendid work of Livy has 
 been duly mentioned : yet he did not hesitate to confess the 
 blemishes of the author whom he most admired. " Often," 
 he says, speaking of the defeat at Candiuin, " have I been 
 " obliged to fulfil the odious duty of exposing Livy's falsifica- 
 " tions or negligences : but nowhere does he deserve severer 
 " censure than in this part of his history, one of the most 
 " brilliant in masterly clearness." * The same eminent man 
 points to the value of both historians as recorders of fact, 
 when contrasting their accounts of the same portion of history. 
 After speaking disparagingly of the statements of one, he 
 thus expresses himself concerning the other. " In the account 
 " of Polybius, on the other hand, there is not one feature 
 " which is not correct, and founded upon accurate observa- 
 " tion.f " In a previous lecture he has said of Polybius : 
 " As far as we possess his work, we cannot wish for anything 
 '* further or better : his third book is a master-work, and 
 " there is nothing in it, which leaves the mind of the reader 
 " unsatisfied." X 
 
 I ought in fairness to say, that all do not make the same 
 estimate. Dr. Arnold held a very different opinion on the 
 
 * Transl. by Smith and Schmitz, iii. 213. 
 
 t Niebuhr's Lectures, edited by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, vol. i. 
 Lect. 9. • J Ibid. Lect. 8. 
 
tf 
 
 ti 
 
 tt 
 
 ^70 Comparison of the Histories. [part xi. 
 
 third book of Polybius. He wrote on 28th January, 1841-— 
 " I have been working at my history pretty steadily, and have 
 " just finished Cannae.—The text of Polybius appears to me 
 " in a very unsatisfactory state, and the reading of the names 
 of places in Italy worth next to notliing. I am sorry to 
 say, that my sense of his merit as an historian becomes 
 " less and less continually.— I should Hke to know what 
 " Niebuhr t bought of him." * This is followed by more 
 severe comments on Livy ; of which there is another strong 
 specimen in the following September. 
 
 A strong i:estimony to the solid reputation of Polybius is 
 found in th(5 20th volume of the great work of M. Thiers. 
 Speaking of the later days of Napoleon, he says (p. 683), - 11 
 '' demandait des livres, et surtout Polybe, qu'il n'avait-pJs, ce 
 " qui le contrariait beaucoup, car il voulait puiser aux sources 
 " memes des notions exactes sur Annibal, pour lequel il 
 " eprouvait la plus profonde admiration." Again, p. 700, " II 
 " se faisait lire Homere, et les guerres d'Annibal dans Tite- 
 " Live, ne pouvant se les faire lire dans Polybe, qu'il n'avait 
 " pu se procurer." 
 
 If our most diligent and ingenious adversary, M. Larauza, 
 had sui-vived to defend or surrender his arguments for con- 
 ciliating the two narratives, he would not have desired to rest 
 on a comparison of liistorical credit : his words are (p. 29), 
 " Certes nous convieudrons bien avec M. De Luc, que, dans 
 " cette question, le temoignage de Tite-Live ne saurait' avoir 
 " la m^me autorite que celui de Polybe, et que dans le cas ou 
 " n y aurait impossibilite evidente de les concdier, on ne 
 " devrait plus balan9er a sacrifier I'historien latin a I'historien 
 
 " grec. 
 
 There is a practical confirmation of M. Larauza's remark in 
 this circumstance: among the interpreters of the march, 
 many profess to follow both Polybius and Livy as intending 
 * Xiebuhr's Lectures were not published till 18U. 
 
 CHAP. I.] Reasons for fref err iyig Polybius. 171 
 
 the same line : a few follow Polybius, rejecting Livy : there 
 mioht have been a third class, professing to follow Livy and 
 to reject Polybius. There are none such: though there is the 
 utmost disregard of what Polybius has written, none avow it : 
 the persuasion is universal, that he knew the truth and re- 
 lated the truth ; and that, if we can apprehend his meaning, 
 we are to accept his authority. 
 
 Polybius had the advantage of better knowledge. 
 
 If any should suppose that the claims of the two historians 
 
 to influence our belief are, generally speaking, equal, I would 
 
 point out that on this subject they are not equal. There are 
 
 cogent grounds of preference, founded on the superior strength 
 
 of one, available to the particular question which we desire 
 
 to solve. Polybius claims a higher credit, from the nature of 
 
 the evidence which he had the opportunity to give, being 
 
 such as Livy was not enabled to give. The geographical 
 
 evidence of Polybius is that of a man who made a careful 
 
 inspection of the country in which the events recorded had 
 
 taken place, and who in his daily life listened deliberately to 
 
 competent witnesses. The evidence of Livy is that of one 
 
 telling things not conveyed to his mind by direct testimony, 
 
 but which had been subject to the variations of successive 
 
 relators, and liable to the infusion of their conjectures. 
 
 Polybius knew the scenes of action : Livy knew them not. 
 
 Polybius saw and conversed with performers of the exploits 
 
 told : Livy flourished among their remote descendants. 
 
 These distinctions give to the earlier historian a superiority 
 of credit, even for the campaigns in Italy : but for the first 
 invasion, and, most of all, for the march from the Khone to 
 the plain, his advantage is still greater ; while to his succes- 
 sors this subject was the most open to scepticism. The place 
 where Hannibal crossed the Rhone was inspected by a Roman 
 consul : it was not likely to become a subject of disputation, 
 and we do not trace that it was so. But, from the spot where 
 
172 
 
 Comparismi of the Histm-ies, 
 
 [part XI. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Reasons for }yref erring Polyhius. 
 
 173 
 
 Scipio saw the deserted entrenchments to that where in the 
 plain of the Po he saw the living enemy, there was no official 
 knowledge of the Carthaginian track to the Roman govern- 
 ment. I have noticed their ignorance of the Alps prior to 
 these events, and their long state of non-intercourse with 
 those mountains, which succeeded. Whatever was the infor- 
 mation which they first received on the particulars of that 
 march, it would not, though true, be stamped with an 
 authority that defied question, or that would in after times 
 disarm the scruples of those who were inclined to doubt. 
 But see the difference between a new publication of Livy*. 
 day, and one that was produced a hundred and seventy years 
 earlier. While facts were fresh, Polybius was the plain un- 
 biassed narrai^or of things which he had safe means to ascer- 
 tain, and on >vhich there was no dispute, no doubt engendered 
 by conflicting speculations. After a Lapse of many generations, 
 Livy came forth as a theorist in a matter which could not 
 defy controversy. 
 
 Some, thinJ-cing that the theory did not originate with him, 
 urge that he cites the authority of Cincius and others, as 
 agreeing with, his own on Hannibars passage of the Alps. 
 This is a mistake : he refers to Cincius only on the amount 
 of loss between his crossing the Khone and his being in the 
 Taurini : and the just observation is this ; that, as in the sen- 
 tence which Jbllows, he argues the question of tlie pass, he 
 would on that subject also have brought forward Cincius, if 
 he had been an authority in his favour. On that question, 
 however, Livy expresses his surprise that the world did not 
 agree with himself : he does not intimate that any one did 
 agree with him. We understand from his protesting against 
 the Penine and the Graian, that he was espousing some other 
 way, which Lid to the Taurini : and this couLl only be the 
 Cottian: but no modern writer has brought much to his 
 support. Liv}' himself is more intelligible on the routes which 
 he denies, than on that to which he inclines. 
 
 The Statement of Livy hears against his own hypothesis. 
 
 When Livy's narrative has brought the invaders into the 
 plain, he discusses the amount of force which survived : and 
 expresses his surprise that there should be doubt on the pass 
 by which they had crossed, and gives an argument upon it. 
 Here 1 shall contend that the hypothesis of Livy is to be con- 
 demned on his own evidence ; that his comment on the track 
 is unfavourable to his own theory, and bears strongly in 
 favour of that which it is tlie purpose of these pages to 
 maintain. In short, that those things which we learn from 
 him preponderate in favour of the Little St. Bernard, though 
 his particular impression was in favour of the Mont Gen^vre. 
 
 I will quote all his words — as far as I know them, which 
 is from Drakenborch's Edition, Baxter, Oxford, 1825 : — 
 " Quantse copise transgresso in Italiam Hannibali fuerint, 
 " nequaquam inter auctores constat : qui plurima, centum 
 " millia peditum, viginti equitum fuisse, scribunt : qui mini- 
 " mum, viginti millia peditum, sex equitum. L. Cincius 
 " Alimentus, qui captum se ab Hannibale scribit, maxime 
 " auctor me moveret, nisi confunderet numerum, Gallis Ligu- 
 " ribusque additis : cum his octaginta millia peditum, decern 
 " equitum, adducta in Italiam (magis adfluxisse verisimile 
 '' est, et ita quidem auctores sunt) : ex ipso autem audisse 
 " Hannibale, postquam Ehodanum transierit, triginta sex 
 " millia hominum, ingentemque numerum equorum et aliorum 
 " jumentorum amisisse in Taurinis, qua3 Gallis proxima gens 
 " erat in Italiam degresso. 
 
 " Id quum inter omnes constet, eo magis miror ambigi, 
 " quanam Alpes transierit : et vulgo credere, Penino, atque 
 " inde nomen et jugo Alpium inditum, transgressum. Cailius 
 " per Cremonis jugum dicit transisse : qui ambo saltus eum 
 " non in Taurines, sed per Salassos montanos ad Libuos Gallos 
 " deduxissent. Nee verisimile est, ea tum ad Galliam patuisse 
 
 1 
 
174 
 
 Comparison of the Histones. 
 
 [PAllT XI. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Reasons for p^ef erring Polyhius. 
 
 175 
 
 ii 
 
 it 
 
 ** itinera : uti.que quae ad Peninum ferunt, obsepta gentibus 
 " semigermaids fuissent. Neque, Hercule, montibus his (si 
 " quern forte id mo vet) ab transitu Poenorum uUo Yeragri, 
 " incolae jugi ejus, norunt nomen inditum ; sed ab eo, quern, in 
 " summo saciatum vertice, Peninum montani adpellant. 
 
 " Peropportune ad principia rerum Taurinis, proximae genti, 
 " adversus Insubres motum bellum erat. Sed armare exer- 
 " citum Hannibal, ut parti alteri auxilio esset (in reficiendo 
 
 maxime sentientem contracta ante mala), non poterat. 
 
 Otium etenim ex labore, copia ex inopia, cultus ex inluvie 
 " tabec^ue, squalida et prope efferata corpora varie movebant. 
 " Ea P. Cornelio consuli caussa fuit, quum Pisas navibus 
 " venisset, exercitu a Manlio Atilioque accepto tirone, et in 
 *' novis ignominiis trepido, ad Padum festinandi ; ut cum 
 " hoste nondum refecto manum consereret. Sed cum Placen- 
 " tiam consul venit, jam ex stativis moverat Hannibal ; Tam^i- 
 " norumque vinam urbem, caput gentis ejus, quia volentes in 
 " amicitiam non veniebant, vi expugnarat : junxissetque sibi, 
 
 non metu solum, sed etiam voluntate, Gallos adcolas Padi ; 
 
 ni eos, circn mspectantes defectionis tempus, subito adventus 
 " consulis ob]3ressisset. Et Hannibal movit ex Taurinis, in- 
 " certos, quae pars sequenda esset, Gallos praesentem se 
 ** secuturos ratus." 
 
 What do Ave learn from this disquisition of Livy ? We 
 learn two facts :— 1. That in his day the prevalent belief was, 
 that Hannibal crossed the Penine Alp, seeking the plain of 
 Italy by the valley of Aosta. 2. That in the history of Caelius 
 Antipater, he was said to have come by the Cremonis jugum, 
 which also lea.ds to the plain down that same valley. Both 
 these statements are unfavourable to Livy's theory. And, on 
 scrutinising his reasons for coming to a conclusion adverse to 
 the Cremonis jugum, we shall find that he rests it upon feeble 
 and erroneous gi-ounds. 
 
 u 
 
 it 
 
 Livy states the prevailing helief to he in favour of the Penine. 
 
 This appears in the latter part of the comment — " Vulgo 
 credere Penino transgressum : " this prevailing belief involves 
 a persuasion that Hannibal came down the valley of Aosta : 
 and it is hostile to Livy's hypothesis, which imports an ap- 
 proach to the Po by the valley of Susa, or that of the Clusone. 
 Now that prevailing opinion, as it involves an approach 
 through Aosta, avails to aid our theory of the Graian. A 
 descent from the Penine, the Great St. Bernard, brings you into 
 the plain through the Salassi down the valley of the Doria. But 
 a descent from the Graian, the Little St. Bernard, also brings 
 you into the plain through the Salassi down that same valley. 
 Aosta (Augusta Praetoria) was built in the mountains where 
 the former track falls into the latter, which has come into the 
 Dorian valley at a higher point. Where these two approaches 
 to Italy fall into one line, the Eoman general, employed by 
 Augustus to reduce the Salassians, had his head-quarters ; 
 and, after the successes of the war, a Eoman colony was 
 founded on the site of his camp. From hence the Doria con- 
 tinues its course in the mountains, for, I believe, fifty miles 
 more, before it reaches the plain. Thus, while the tradition 
 of an invasion of Italy from the Penine involves the tradition 
 of an invasion from the valley of the Doria, it may be that 
 the latter only had a just foundation, though the former be- 
 came engrafted upon it. And such I conceive, was the case : 
 "we see our way to the truth of one and the error of the other. 
 
 When we estimate a simple tradition that the invaders 
 poured themselves into the plain from this valley, it is rea- 
 sonable to suppose that it was founded in truth : it would be 
 preserved among those who dwelt on the stream above and 
 below its outlet into the plain : it would live among the de- 
 scendants of eye-witnesses : from them it would be caught by 
 the Romans, whose more habitual contact and communication 
 
176 
 
 Cwnparison of the Histories. 
 
 [part xr. 
 
 with those descendants had been rather at the skirts of the 
 Italian plain than in the higher valleys or steeps of the Alps. 
 There is not the same probability, that the name, which some 
 were appending to the tradition, was founded in truth ; and 
 that the Doiian valley had been itself invaded from the 
 Penine Sumrait. Livy bears witness against this : he de- 
 clares that such a notion had sprung from the fancy of 
 etymologists, and asserts distinctly that it did not stand upon 
 tradition among the natives — " neque montibus his ab transitu 
 "Po^norum uUo Veragri, incolae jugi ejus, norunt nomen 
 " inditum." The denial of the tradition is applied to the 
 Penine, and to the Veragri who occupied the Penine : these 
 were not inhabitants of the valley of the Doria, or owners of 
 the approach to it from the Little St. Bernard : they owned 
 of the summit of the Great St. Bernard, and their capital was 
 Martigny upon the Ehone. Livy, controverting a Veragrian 
 reputation, adverts rather to the Helvetian than the Italian 
 side of the i\.lps, and establishes a negative which is con- 
 sistent with aad auxiliary to the route which I maintain. 
 
 He is of course sceptical on both these passes, and states 
 both to be improbable. But his argument attaches itself only 
 to one of them. He disproves a descent from the Penine 
 Alp, but leaves untouched a descent from the Graian, into the 
 valley which is the conduit to the plain from both. He suc- 
 ceeds in exposing one error. That error, I conceive, had been 
 engrafted upon truth. Separating one from the other, we 
 discover the real force of a tradition which in his day was 
 distorted to a popular belief of the Penine pass. Rome had 
 received the truth from the Salassian valley, but had given 
 her a false name. 
 
 The name l^enine, and the blunder about it, were probably 
 novelties whea Livy wrote, as well as his own conception of 
 a Taurine pass. He was about thirty-five years old, getting 
 up his materials, when Terentius Varro reduced the brave 
 
 OFTAP. I.] Livy damaged hy his own Facts. 177 
 
 inhabitants of the Salassian valley, on which the colony was 
 planted at Aosta. Speculations on the Carthaginian march 
 may have been induced on the improved opening of that 
 valley after the pacification. Augustus at that time assigned 
 names to the several parts of the Alpine chain : Penine no 
 doubt was one of them; Julius Ciesar had spoken par- 
 ticularly of that same pass, but without a name : he gives 
 account of protecting the merchants who travelled it from the 
 exactions of the natives : but there is no Penine in the Com- 
 mentaries. 
 
 Livy informs us that the historian Cmlius Antipater related 
 HannihaFs passage over the Cremonis jugum. 
 
 The reputation of the Salassian valley, as explained, pre- 
 pares us for another matter of evidence, which Livy has 
 furnished against himself, and in favour of our opinion ; 
 namely, that Caelius Antipater, who wrote a history of the 
 second Punic war in the Latin language, and preceded Livy 
 by a century, had recorded the Cremonis jugum as the Car- 
 thaginian pass. 
 
 In Cremo we trace Cramont, a mountain which ranges on 
 your right hand, as you go up to the Little St. Bernard, from 
 the valley of the Doire. Not that this similarity of names is 
 wanted, for showing that Caelius intended this pass. Livy 
 identifies it in saying, that the route by that " saltus," so re- 
 corded by Caelius, brings you, like that by the Penine, through 
 the Salassi into the Gauls of Italy : which is applicable only 
 to the Little St. Bernard. So Strabo, 208, when he tells of 
 two routes to Lyons diverging out of the valley of the 
 Salassi, speaks unquestionably of the Great and Little St. 
 Bernard. As to the word not occurring in other writers, this 
 need not surprise us. Caelius in using it may not have been 
 mtelligible to all : Livy clearly recognises it : some might 
 
 VOL. II. N 
 
 
 1 ii 
 
 4vn 
 
 :\i 
 
 .*i 
 
178 
 
 Comparison of the Histories. 
 
 [part xr. 
 
 better know tlie term Graiaii. Cremo may have designated 
 one particular mountain, as known to the natives rather than 
 to the rest of the world. How many now can talk of the 
 Great and Little St. Bernard, w^ho know not the Cramont ! 
 
 And yet, oq reference to the best modern works, this 
 mountain claims an interest in our studies ; we sympathise 
 with the disa])pointment of philosophers, who, on reaching its 
 summit, have perceived an intervening ridge, that eclipsed the 
 base of Mont Blanc. Professor Forbes, in his Travels through 
 the Alps of Savoy, p. 114, having reached the top of the 
 Cramont from the mule-path of the Little St. Bernard, says : — 
 " I was so fully imbued with De Saussure's enthusiastic 
 " picture of tlie grandeur of the station, that I was a little 
 *' disappointed, to find it, not only equalled in height by some 
 *' others in the neighbourhood, but overtopped by one, which 
 " stands between the Cramont and the Allee Blanche, 
 " effectually preventing the eye from diving into its depths, 
 " and thus measuring ^lont Blanc at once from top to bottom, 
 " as is the case in the view from the Breven, above the valley 
 *' of Chamouni." But De Saussure had himself said seventy 
 years before, " La cime du Cramont ne domine pas imme- 
 " diatement sur I'Allee Blanche : elle en est separee par des 
 '' chaines de montagnes plus basses, qui empechent que les 
 "yeiix ne plongent jusqu'au fond de cette vallee." § 915. 
 The charms of the Cramont are effectively described in a 
 recent work by the Rev. S. W. King. 
 
 Mr. Ellis, in his Treatise, p. 146, says of the Cremonis 
 jugum, " It is probably the Little St. Bernard, the ancient 
 " name being apparently preserved in the neighbouring peak 
 '' of the Cramont." In his Defence, Journal of Philol. iii. 5, 
 h3 again admits the probability: but, imwilling to concede 
 the plainest fact without some struggle, expresses a doubt, 
 saying, " If this (Alpis Graia, Little St. Bernard) were the 
 " Cremonis jugum of Ofelius, he was undoubtedly in error. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Livij damaged lij Ms owti Facts. 
 
 179 
 
 " Yet it must be remembered that in the time of Ga^lius there 
 '' were no Alpes Cottise." Be it so. But the identity is quite 
 independent of the terms Cottian, Graian or Penine. When 
 Livy quotes Caelius as naming " Cremonis jugum," he proves 
 it to have been the Little St. Bernard, by saying, that it was 
 one of the two " saltus," which bring you down through Salassi 
 into Galli. 
 
 It is then extremely important that Coelius, being of an age 
 long prior to the obscuration of this matter of historv, names 
 the pass for which we contend. The works of C^lius are 
 lost : but there is no reason to doubt his good faith in nar- 
 rating a fact like this. Livy adopted much matter from 
 Cselius ; and refers to him here, as giving a name to the pass 
 of Hannibal. 
 
 Those who hesitate to recognise the Alps of Polybius, and 
 who, in the absence of a name, desire conhrmation, may 
 accept through Livy this confirmation by Cselius, and be 
 satisfied. There is no reason to suppose, that that early his- 
 torian, who flourished between Polybius and Livy, differed 
 from his predecessor ; or that in his time any dispute on the 
 question had begun. He must have know^n that he spoke in 
 accordance with the experience of Polybius, whose acquaint- 
 ance he may in his youth have had the good fortune to enjoy. 
 
 Livy does not name Polyhius. 
 
 It is reasonable to inquire why, as he names Cselius, he did 
 not name Polybius. Polybius was a writer whom he knew 
 well and greatly respected : to whose authority he often 
 refers ; * as in book xxxiii. c. 10, " Nos, Polybium secuti sum us, 
 " non incertum auctorem, quum omnium Romanorum rerum, 
 " tum prsecipu^ in Gra^cia gestarum." It might have been 
 
 * See Livy, book xxx. 45 ; xxxiii. 10 ; xxxiv. 50 ; xxxvi. 19 ; 
 xxxix. 52 ; xlv. 45. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 Comparison of the Histories. [pakt xi. 
 
 that Livy did not know him as a writer on Hannibal, or was 
 not aware which pass was favoured by him. But he knew^ 
 it all ; and did not deem it expedient to call public attention 
 to so formidable an authority. 
 
 Livy, stud}ing other authors on this subject, must have 
 studied Polybius : for he talks of something on which all 
 writers were agreed : Polybius could not fail to be one of 
 them. In facjt, he was especially under his notice. It has 
 been pointed out that in one part of the march Livy is an 
 attentive copier of the incidents of Polybius, though not 
 assigning to them a perceptible locality : in another part 
 we have seen his utter discordance from Polybius, in inci- 
 dents, localities, and everything. Is it possible that Livy 
 should himself have been unconscious of the disagreement ; 
 or, while he perceived the track of Polybius to be hostile to 
 his own, could he fail to perceive which track it was ? Was 
 it not one of the two which he recognises as the rivals of his 
 
 own ? 
 
 There is iio question but this— when Livy in one part of 
 his line takes his facts from Polybius, and in another part 
 varies from him in everything, which did he suppose to be 
 the track intended by the other, Mons Peninus or Cremonis 
 jugum? He shows his own knowledge of both. And are 
 we to attribute his silence to accident or design ? A writer 
 of to-day may excuse himself for not understanding Polybius, 
 because he finds no name to his pass. Livy could not have 
 so excused himself. He was more acute than his followers ; 
 he knew that he differed from Polybius : they think, or with- 
 out thinking presume, that the two tracks were the same. 
 
 CHAP. II.] Livy damaged hy his own Fact-^. 
 
 181 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 Livy grounds his hypothesis on the words of Cincius, inferring 
 that the Taurini lay in the line of Hannibal's march to 
 the Cisalpine Gauls. The inference is unsound. Scdassi. 
 Libui. Explanation by Gibbon. Version of Ukert. Ver- 
 sion of Ellis. On the notion of placing Turin in the 
 line of march. 
 
 Thus it is Livy, who tells us of the general persuasion 
 prevailing in his day, that the invaders came down the valley 
 of Aosta. It is he w^ho, though avoiding to speak of Poly- 
 bius, tells us that Cselius named the track over the Little 
 St. Bernard. Let us now examine the ground of his own 
 dissentient opinion. 
 
 He reasons as offering his opinion in opposition to existing 
 opinions. If he had told the story without argument, it 
 might be supposed that, in naming Tricastini, Vocontii, Tri- 
 corii, Druentia, he expressed what was offered to him in prior 
 narratives of the march ; we might give to those ideas the 
 credit of an earlier date, and say : '* Why should he invent 
 them?" But Livy does argue the question of the pass, and 
 those ideas have no part in his argument, though they stand 
 in his narrative. We may believe, therefore, that he first 
 introduced them into the story ; and in this we make 
 no forced construction, nor one that derogates from his 
 veracity. Having, on certain grounds, imbibed an opinion on 
 the mountain pass of Hannibal, he supplies his readers with 
 a clue for reaching it. Being persuaded that from the Is^re 
 the march must have proceeded to the Mont Gen^vre, he 
 names four objects which in such a march could hardly be 
 avoided, and this is done in a single sentence. But he is not 
 reasoning from those objects : when he wrote, this transalpine 
 
182 
 
 Coinparison of the Histories. 
 
 [PAUT XI. 
 
 district had come fully under the dominion of Eome, and it 
 was fit that he should at least provide his reader with such 
 general brief instruction. It is, indeed, of the most meagre 
 kind ; for, in getting across to the Druentia, which, as has 
 been shown, could only lead to the Genevre, not a town or 
 resting-place is named, nor a single incident reported. The 
 inference is, that he derived no information from other 
 writings concerning that j^rogress. In his details of the 
 mountain marcjh which follow, we recognise much fact of the 
 Greek history, but no geography — his geography is given 
 only from the Is^re to the Druentia, a space which he fills up 
 by naming three peoples, whom he would find in his map. 
 He had read Polybius and Caelius Antipater, and he certainly 
 did not find the four objects in their narratives : why in any 
 others ? 
 
 His impression on the pass of Hannibal had been acquired 
 without regard to those objects : it was founded on the march 
 in Italy, not en the march in the Transalpine; and having 
 the belief that that pass was the Cottian, he roughly intimates 
 the way of getting to it by a few intelligible signs ; a way 
 very simple and probable for him to think of. 
 
 His opinion on the pass was founded on the incident of 
 the Taurini : he conceived that Hannibal had from the first 
 intended the Genevre pass ; for he says that he turned up 
 the Rhone to the Isere, not as being his way to Italy, but 
 that he might avoid the enemy for a time, and postpone 
 hostile encounter till he arrived in Italy. The cause of the 
 deviation ha\ing ceased, "quum jam Alpes peteret," Livy 
 tells the march to the Druentia : having in view the Cottian 
 Alp, he gives his readers in few words the way for getting to 
 it from the I sere. As far as the Durance, there is a short 
 local instruction, but from thence to the plain of the Po the 
 narrative has no local instruction at all, not even stating into 
 what people Hannibal came down, unless it appears in an 
 
 CHAP. II.] Livy damaged hy his own Fact>>, 
 
 183 
 
 argument which follows the narrative. After saying "ad 
 planum descensum," and " hoc modo in Italiam perventuiu 
 est Alpibus superatis," Livy enters into a discussion upon the 
 amount of force which Hannibal then had left to him, out of 
 which have arisen remarks in which the Taurini are men- 
 tioned, and from which it has been inferred that Hannibal 
 first came down into that people from the Alps. 
 
 On Hannibal's losses, Livy quotes the historian Cincius 
 Alimentus, who had at some time in the war been Hannibal's 
 prisoner, and had heard him speak on the subject. Livy 
 refers to his writings thus. After saying that different 
 numbers were believed to have come over into Italy with 
 him, some saying 100,000 foot, 20,000 horse, others only 
 20,000 foot, 6,000 horse, writes thus :— " L. Cincius Alimentus, 
 " qui captum se ab Annibale scribit, maxime auctor moveret 
 " me, nisi confunderet numerum,Gallis Ligaribusque additis : 
 " cum his scribit octoginta millia peditum, decern tquitum, 
 " adducta in Italiam (magis affluxisse verisimile est, et ita 
 " quidem auctores sunt) : ex ipso autem audiisse Annibale, 
 " postquam lihodanum transierit, triginta sex millia hominum 
 " inoentemque numerum equorum et aliorum jumentorum 
 " amisisse in Taurinis, quae Gallis proxima gens eiat, hi 
 " Italiam degresso. Id quum inter omnes constet, eo magis 
 " miror ambigi," &c. Bee this all quoted hefare. 
 
 Id quum inter onines constet. 
 
 Here we inquire what is referred to by " id,"* as concun-ed 
 in by all : for whatever Livy meant by " id," it seems given 
 as the foundation of his own hypothesis on the pass : " id " 
 must mean something, and if we ask what it is, the question 
 claims a very specific answer. The answer cannot be in the 
 amount of men saved or the amount of men lost (both are 
 given) \ whether the former, including Gauls and Ligurians, 
 were 80,000 and 10,000, or the latter 36,000 and a vast 
 
184 
 
 Comparison of the Histories, 
 
 [part XL 
 
 CHAP. 11.] 
 
 Livy damarjed hy his ow7i Facts. 
 
 185 
 
 number of horses. Such is not the answer; the answer 
 ought to be by some proposition, which is plainly expressed 
 in the previous sentence. No proposition has been plainly 
 expressed, except the amount of lost or saved which one or 
 other person liad reported, with a special ambiguity in the 
 report of Cincius ; and the fact that the Taurini adjoined the 
 Cisalpine Gauls. 
 
 It is not there alleged that Hannibal descended from the 
 Alps into the Taurini ; and yet this is treated as the fact 
 which Livy says was universally agreed upon.* Interpreters 
 may choose to infer this from the text, but this has not been 
 said in the text, and it ought to have been said, in order that 
 it should represent " id." f 8o far is Livy from saying what 
 is imputed, that his statement is the reverse : he states the 
 common belief to be opposed to his own, and in favour of 
 those passes which would have brought Hannibal out, not 
 into the Taurini, but through the Salassi and then into the 
 Libui Galli. ^^nd so would the Penine and Graian have 
 done. As the Taurini and the Galli were contiguous, it is 
 reasonable that the country of Taurini should be taken as the 
 point up to which he may have counted his troops, estimat- 
 ing those who survived, or those whom he had lost ; and this 
 is consistent with my geography as well as that of my adver- 
 saries, whatever it be. I contend that Hannibal renovated 
 his troops among liis friends the Gauls, and then turned aside 
 from them over the Po against the Taurini, who had offended 
 him by spurning his alliance, while he lay encamped, occu- 
 pied with the reparation of his army. My opponents who 
 never trace the march, do not give the point of contiguity 
 between Taurnii and Galli. To that point he may have 
 
 * Mr. Ellis's Trecttise, p. 146. 
 
 t This is conjessed, when the prior words are altered, so that 
 "id" may lit that fact. 
 
 calculated his reverses. I think it requisite to call attention 
 to the position of both these peoples. The text invites us 
 to the subject. 
 
 Gens Gallis lyroxvma. 
 
 Galli here are the Cisalpine Gauls, who began in the plains 
 of the Salassian Doria, near the Po in the region of Chivasso, 
 a place between the Orca and the Doria, and the Gauls spread 
 east to Sena on the Adriatic. The Taurini were a Lif^irian 
 people, beginning some distance below Susa ; their territory 
 succeeding that of the Segusini along the minor Doria at 
 about sixteen miles above the site of Augusta Taurinorum : 
 it was continued to the site of that place, and a short way- 
 down the Po to where the great river bends to the east. 
 
 What then may we understand by the proximity of Taurini 
 to Galli ? Was it at one end of their narrow territory or at 
 the other ? At Avillano, or near Chivasso ? They adjoined 
 the Cisalpine Gauls at the latter extremity. The Orca or 
 the Doria separated them from Gauls : and Hannibal, when 
 his army had been renovated among his friends, passed into 
 the country of the enemy, and punished them. At the other 
 extremity of the Taurini, these were not " gens proxima 
 GalKs." There were no Galli, therefore no proximity. 
 
 I know no better mode of speculating on the words which 
 Livy has used on this subject. Perhaps Mr. Ellis will hardly 
 think they deserve so much consideration. He says of Livy : 
 " He loses himself among the Alps, a region of which he 
 " appears not only personally ignorant, but also to have failed 
 ** in forming a tolerably accurate conception." Treatise, p. 137. 
 After reading both histories, I am led to believe that Hannibal, 
 having marched down the Salassian valley directly into Cis- 
 alpine Gaul, and there thoroughly established the efficiency 
 
186 
 
 Conijparison of the Histories* 
 
 [part XI. 
 
 of his troops, turned aside to strike a blow against an enemy * 
 The solution of Livy's mistake, if he made one, may be 
 this : he learnei from Cincius, that Hannibal's march brought 
 him to a point where Galli and Taurini were contiguous ; he 
 neglected the fact that the Taurini were accessible through 
 the Gauls, and hastily assumed that the march had come to 
 the Taurini first. Knowing, moreover, that the first act of 
 warfare in the plain was against the Taurini, he adhered to 
 his error on their position as corresponding with that fact, 
 though not assorted ; and imagined the aggression by Hannibal 
 to have preced(3d his arrival among his allies, instead of being 
 his first enterprise after devoting himself to renovate his 
 army among them. A careful reader will not doubt that 
 the hospital quarters of the Carthaginians were established 
 among friendly Gauls, and not among Taurini, and that the 
 work of repairing the army was performed before he invaded 
 the neighbouring people, who had dared to spurn his alliance. 
 His primary duty, a necessity on escaping from the Alps, had 
 been to restore life to his army, whose shattered state both 
 historians so ])ainfully describe. The offending people, who 
 invited his vengeance, were near at hand ; but, notwithstanding 
 the proximity, Hannibal would have pursued his course with- 
 out contact with them, but for the special provocation. They 
 brought the visitation upon themselves : their contumacy 
 alone diverted Hannibal from his route, and has made their 
 name to belong to the tale of the Carthaginian progress. 
 
 Having ventured to speak of these Gauls as Cisalpines, I 
 would observ(3 that all do not recognise Livy's distinction 
 
 ♦ Dr. Arnold, writes : " Hannibal remained in the country of the 
 *' Insubrians, till rest, a more temperate climate, and wholesome food, 
 " with which tlie Gauls plentifully supplied him, restored the bodies 
 " and spirits of his soldiers, and made them again ready for action. 
 " The first movement was against the Taurinians, a Ligurian people, 
 *' who were constant enemies of the Insubrians," &c. p. 92. 
 
 (HAJ*. 11.] Livy damaged by his own Facts. 
 
 187 
 
 between Transalpines, Alpines, and Cisalpines. He speaks 
 of Galli in France ; Galli in Italy ; and Alpini or Montani 
 in the Alps. When he is bringing the march to the Alps, he 
 speaks of the natives as Galli, " cum bona pace incolentium 
 ea loca Gallorum, in Alpes pervenit." When the march is in 
 the Alps, we read, " apparuerunt montani ; montani jam 
 pauciores concursabant ; montani viam insedere." When he 
 has brought Hannibal into the plain of Italy, we read of 
 Gauls again : these are Cisalpines, and they extend to the 
 Adriatic. But the mountaineers are named distinctly : as, 
 when Hannibal speaks of himself to his soldiers in c. xliii., 
 "domitor Hispania^ Galliseque, victor Alpinarum gentium." 
 So, " Gallicee atque Alpinse gentes." 
 
 In observing this distinction, there is some variety among 
 commentators, and one specimen happens to call my attention. 
 In the Cambridge Journal of Philology, vol. iii. p. 34, Mr. 
 Ellis, after pronouncing a strong censure on Mr. Law for 
 impeaching Hannibal's veracity (an escapade which needs no 
 answer), sets forth, as from Livy, these words : — " Taurinis, 
 quce Gal lis proxima gens erat, in Italiam degressuni ;'' and 
 says of them, " Gallis is plainly contrasted with Italiam, 
 '' the one expression indicating the Transalpine, and the other 
 "the Cisalpine country." I understand no such contrast, 
 and I believe that the Gauls of whom Livy here speaks are 
 all Cisalpines ; and as Mr. Ellis seems to have conceived a 
 special respect for one tribe of them — the Libui — he ought 
 to be correct on the point, and it is well to notice what he 
 says of them. 
 
 Livy happened to name Libuos Gallos, and not wrongly : 
 though he might have said Laos, or Lebecios, or Libicos, or 
 Laevos, or Gallos only ; perhaps there were not the five distinct 
 tribes ; though all varieties are found in Poly bins, or Livy, or 
 Pliny, or Ptolemy ; and all may have been higher up in the 
 [)laiu than the Insubres who founded Milan. No writer 
 
188 
 
 Comparison of the Histories. 
 
 [part XI. 
 
 speaks of so many, or tells their relative situations ; it would 
 be difficult to show these Libui closer to Salassi than other 
 petty tribes. But Mr. Ellis seems to think that they were 
 closer, and may think that Polybius ought to have written 
 Karrjpe eU to rrSv Xi^voav €0vo<;, instead of ^laofM^pcop. 
 
 I have befoi'e justified the narrative of Polybius for the 
 descent into Insubres. He mentioned them by reason of 
 history, not for geographical controversy. It would have 
 been a great mistake if he had put forward an unimportant 
 tribe, if he had named, Lai, Lebecii, Libui, or Libici, when 
 Hannibal is said to come from the Alps among his friends in 
 the plain. He is received by the Insubres, the great leading 
 power, under whom the minor tribes are serving. From the 
 time when Polybius brought the march through the Allobroges 
 on the other side, no people has yet been named, and who so 
 worthy now to be named as the Insubres ? Among the Gauls 
 of Italy they had always held the highest rank. At the time 
 of an early irruption of the Gauls, Pol. ii. 17, we read of 
 the Insubres as '* the chief nation among them : " and now, 
 on the approach of Hannibal, they are heading the con- 
 federacy against Eome, and w^elcome the arrival of their 
 illustrious ally. Even they are not named again during the 
 campaign ; and no other Gauls are named at all. As to the 
 Libui, whatevei* degree of independence they ever had (there 
 is no trace of any), none can doubt that they were subordinate 
 to the greater ipower, which had in older times settled near 
 them in the plain. 
 
 Livy, too, recognises the superior rank of the Insubrian 
 state, when he resumes the narrative in c. xxxix. Telling the 
 state of war in which Hannibal found that country involved 
 against Kome, he names no Gauls but the Insubres, because 
 they were the chief belligerents. " Peropportun^ ad prin- 
 " cipia rerum, Taurinis proximse genti adversus Insubres 
 " motum bellum erat." Though it is not essential to contend 
 
 i 
 
 CHAP. II.] . Liw/ damaged hy his own Facts. 189 
 
 that in this passage the proximity is to the Insubres, my 
 opinion is to that effect : for which I am complimented by 
 Mr. Ellis with the want of reason and syntax. As he offers 
 no reason or syntax of his own in opposition, it still strikes 
 me, that Livy's nomination of Insubres as the party to the 
 war is in congruity with Polybius, who treats them as the 
 great allies of Hannibal, among whom he came down from 
 the Alps. 
 
 In answer to my views on these Cisalpine Gauls, Mr. Ellis 
 takes the Libui under his special protection, and charges me 
 with " an utter disregard of ancient authorities." (Journ. of 
 Phil. ii. 312.) He is shocked by my comment on the inferior 
 rank of that people, and, as the champion of the oppressed, 
 writes thus : " My object is to prove the continued existence 
 " of the Libui. It is sufficient for my purpose that Livy 
 " asserts the presence of the Libui in the plains of which 
 " Mr. Law seeks to dispossess them." Not content with the 
 evidence of Polybius and Livy, he appeals to later testimony, 
 and exclaims— -" My third witness to the existence of the 
 " Libui will be Ptolemy, who assigns to them the towns of 
 " Vercelli and Lomello. We have thus satisfactory evidence 
 '•' of the continued presence for some centuries of the Libui in 
 '' the same district. All Mr. Law's efforts to annihilate them 
 " at the time of Hannibal's passage will be perfectly vain in 
 *' the face of such testimony." 
 
 So far am I from dispossessing or annihilating that people, 
 Libui, that I am content to let them be where Livy's argument 
 places them. I believe that, two centuries before Hannibal 
 came that way, some such tribe or tribes settled between the 
 Salassi of the mountains and the Insubres of Milan. My 
 words, vdiich raised this storm on the part of Mr. Ellis, were 
 these : " We are not to infer from the words of Livy, that the 
 " obscure tribe Libui held the territory in question so that 
 " Hannibal's friends, the Insubres, could not be masters of 
 
 if i 
 
 i 
 
 
190 
 
 Comparison of tM Histories. 
 
 [PAUT xi. 
 
 (IIAP. II.] 
 
 Livy damaged hy his own Facts. 
 
 191 
 
 " it." I say so still. Other tribes — whether called Lai, Lebecii, 
 Libici, Laevi, l^ibui, whichever be the fit names — would be 
 serving under the Insubrian banner in that memorable war ; 
 and Mr. Ellis might have been satisfied with my admitting 
 their occupancy without contending for their importance. I 
 was willing to suppose that they remained where Polybius 
 settled them, I<ai and Lebecii, notwithstanding their doubtful 
 substance as a nation. I only object to a few of the centuries 
 of their contiimed presence, on which Mr. Ellis makes so 
 touching an appeal to his third witness, Ptolemy. Whatever 
 degree of independence such a state retained at the outbreak 
 of Hannibal's war, when we may presume them to have 
 served against Rome, I cannot believe that any independence 
 survived that few years' struggle. On the contrary, I believe 
 that they then came under the Roman yoke. In 218 B. c. the 
 Boii would b€ friendly to that little people : after the war, 
 they were not. 
 
 Livy, speaking of a time very soon after Hannibal quitted 
 Italy, about 200 B.C., relates (lib. xxxiii. c. 87) that a Eoman 
 army, having attacked the Boii, and compelled the surrender 
 of Bologna, turned into Liguria; that the Boii then moved 
 with a force to harass their rear. Missing the Eomans, they 
 crossed the Po, and plundered the Laevi and Libui. Coming 
 back by the ligurian border, they fell in with the Romans, 
 and were themselves cut to pieces. If this is, as it may be, 
 the latest memorial of Libui, we need not estimate their 
 importance in succeeding centuries, even if Mr. Ellis calls his 
 third witness. 
 
 So long as these Libui or Libici existed as a distinct people, 
 they may ha\ e been near the Salassian valley : being in the 
 plain, they would be crushed sooner than those mountaineer 
 neighbours. Strabo gives copious details of the extermination 
 of the Salassi, without a word of the others, who must have 
 vanished sooner. The Salassi themselves had been annihi- 
 
 lated before Livy wrote his lost book to tell of it. The great 
 nation of Boii had been quite expelled from Italy long before 
 Livy's time ; and Ptolemy was nearly two centuries later still. 
 If the appearance of the Libici in his catalogue bespeak their 
 existence in his day, by parity of reasoning their appearance 
 in the catalogues of D'Auville and Walckenner would prove 
 their existence at the present day. Ptolemy could only have 
 any knowledge of the Libui, as we have, from the waitings of 
 his predecessors, such as Polybius and Livy. If Mr. Ellis 
 should call his third witness, he could only say to him, 
 '•' Now, Ptolemy, recollect yourself ; did not you publish two 
 " towns of the Libici, YercelLne and Laumellum ; and did not 
 " you publish two towns of the Salassi, Augusta Prsetoria and 
 " Eporedia ? " The answer would be : " To be sure I did ; 
 " and what then? I picked up names as I could. As for 
 " Libici, I found them in Polybius, and their towns some- 
 " where else. I know nothing of them myself, more than 
 '' you do. When I entered Augusta as TroXt? ^aXaaalcov, the 
 " country may or may not have still been called from the 
 " Salassians. But those poor fellows never saw Augusta : 
 " they were exterminated first, and their destroyer made that 
 '' place afterwards ; and it is called Augusta still." 
 
 Such is the claim to celebrity which Mr. Ellis puts forth 
 on behalf of the Libui as next-door neighbours to the Salassi 
 montani. We concede to them all that he claims for them, 
 save a few centuries of existence as a nation. A particular 
 region seems once to have retained their name for a con- 
 siderable time, before the second Punic w^ar, and, for anything 
 I know, they may give name to a parish at the present day. 
 It is not true that I have denied their existence. I believe 
 that we have a correct idea of their original location by 
 rightly interpreting the words of Polybius in his second 
 book.* None of these smaU tribes appear as independent 
 
 * 'f>e.Q ante, Part VIII. ch. iv. 
 
 .1 
 
 i « 
 
 M 
 
192 
 
 Comparison of the Histories. 
 
 [part XT. 
 
 nations, and the few notices where their names are seen are 
 consistent with their having been, in Hannibal's war, sub- 
 ordinate to a more powerful state. History tells the achieve- 
 ments of the Insubres and the Boii, vieing with Eome herself. 
 The Salassi, the Comenses, the Cenomani, the Anamani, and 
 others, are recorded actors on the stage of history : on the 
 performances of the Libui history is silent. We learn from 
 the gravest and safest historian, that the Insubres received 
 Hannibal on his descent from the Alps ; and that fact is not 
 to be rejected because he did not introduce the other petty 
 tribes into the story. 
 
 Notions of Oilibon on the text 
 
 Gibbon, on reading Livy, understood that, though Han- 
 nibal's first act of warfare in Italy was in the Taurini, he did 
 not enter theii? territory directly from the Alps. In his mis- 
 cellaneous works (v. 376, &:c.), he discusses at some length 
 the purport of those words ; and his comment is this : " Han- 
 " nibal wished to give an idea of the losses which he had 
 " sustained in passing the mountains, in consequence of 
 battles, cold, and fatigue. He begins, therefore, from his 
 crossing the Ehone, and ends at his arrival in the territory 
 of the Tauri ni ; since it was really in their country, and by 
 " taking their capital, that he began his operations in Italy. 
 " Their territory, therefore, formed the limit between two 
 " things totally distinct — his losses in Italy, and those in the 
 " Alps. It is not necessary that the country of the Taurini 
 '' should be the first of Italy into which he descended from 
 the Alps ; it sufficed that it was the first where he fought a 
 battle. The; former explication is adopted by Livy, but the 
 " latter appears to me very capable of being defended. It 
 " deprives th<3 Latin historian of what appears to him a 
 " decisive proof. It even turns this alleged proof against 
 " him, by laying open the source of his mistake." 
 
 Cl 
 
 tl 
 
 II 
 
 it 
 
 « 
 
 [J 
 
 CHAP. II.] Livy damaged by his oivn Facts. 193 
 
 Presently Gibbon hesitates, and saj^s this — " I confess in- 
 " deed that the sense of this famous passage is rather guessed 
 " at than explained : so perplexed, defective, and faulty is its 
 " construction. Critics have endeavoured to correct it ; but 
 " it should seem more natural to say that Livy copied Cincius, 
 " and that the latter had preserved the very words of the 
 " Carthaginian general, who spoke Latin like a foreigner." 
 
 This whimsical conjecture does not aid to solve difficult v. 
 It may be, that Hannibal was not quite fluent in Latin con- 
 versation : but he and his prisoner need not have conversed in 
 Latin: Cincius wrote his history in Greek. The whole of 
 the discussion is confused. The perplexity is from Livy's 
 own words, which are meant to give the grounds of his 
 opinion, but which fail to do so, not telling us what it wa^ 
 that had met with universal assent : only that his own theory 
 did not. 
 
 If Mr. Gibbon were living and should continue to suspect 
 the conversation of Hannibal, Dr. Ukert and Mr. Ellis might 
 tempt him to enlarge his comments on the latinity. These 
 advocates of the Cenis have each used versions of the text, 
 which show an effort to remove the word " Taurinis " from its 
 proper use in the sentence, and bring it into connexion with 
 '' degressum." 
 
 Version of Dr. UJcert. 
 
 In the 2d volume of the Professor's G^ographie, p. 604, his 
 version places a full stop after "amisisse"; closing the reference 
 to Cincius without the idea of Taurini. Livy is made to say 
 on his own account, " In Taurinis, quae Gallis proxima gens 
 " est, in Italiam degressum quum inter omnes constet, eo 
 " magis miror," &c. The word " id " is omitted ; and those 
 ten words, being cut off from the previous sentence, make the 
 nominative to " constet." By this modelling of sentences, Livy's 
 statement on Hannibal's losses loses all its point : for the 
 losses were those which occurred between crossing the Ehone 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 s 1 
 
 *J 
 
 i : 
 
 Ml 
 
 .•\ 
 
■ 
 
 t 
 
 . 
 
 194 
 
 Comparison of the Hi$torit'<i, 
 
 [part XI. 
 
 CHAP. II.] Livy damaged hy his oion Facts. 
 
 195 
 
 and coming into tlie Taurini. This version also damages the 
 Latin : " in Taurinis " being a clumsy addition to " degressum 
 in Italiam." 
 
 Version of Mr, Ellis, 
 
 In Vol. III. of the Cambridge Journal of Philology, p. 32, 
 the version of Mr. Ellis has a comma inserted after "amisisse " 
 and omits " in " before " Taurinis :" so that it stands thus : — 
 " amisisse, Taurinis, quae Gallis proxima gens erat, in Italiam 
 "degressum. Id quum inte romnes constet, eo magis miror," &c. 
 This also diverts the idea of Taurini from the statement of 
 losses, and attaches it to the descent from the Alps : and here 
 again, "Taurinis" is a clumsy addition to "degressum in 
 Italiam." 
 
 If Gibbon could have seen these later attempts to express 
 Livy's thoughts, he might have been more indulgently inclined 
 to what he thought was the Latin of Hannibal. Let these 
 learned Cenisians settle their punctuation as they will ; and 
 determine the comparative merits of "degressum in Italiam 
 Taurinis " and " degressum in Italiam in Taurinis." 
 
 On the notion that Turin stood in the line of march. 
 
 Many critics think that, as Hannibal chastised the Taurini 
 before he moved forward to meet Scipio, he must have chosen 
 that course through the Alps, by which Turin would lie in 
 his way. They reason thus — " If Hannibal had entered Italy 
 " from the Graian or the Penine pass, what business had he 
 
 in the Taurini? Those passes would have brought him 
 
 down into Gaul : the Cottian Alp sent him straight on to 
 " the Ligurian Taurini, a people whom all admit him to have 
 
 attacked after his arrival in Italy." We admit that he 
 attacked them ; but not that he thought of doing so till the 
 necessity arose; which was while he lay encamped among 
 his friends the Gauls. Some there are, wlio presume that he 
 
 It 
 
 u 
 
 ft 
 
 must have contrived the nearest road from the Is^re to Turin ; 
 and therefore would not have approached them by the valley 
 of the Doria : and that, if he had come down that valley, he 
 would not have strayed from line of operations by turning 
 against the Taurini Both arguments are unfounded. 
 
 Ukert's comment on behalf of the Cenis is thus exhibited 
 by Dr. Thirlwall in the Philological Museum, iii. p. 683: — 
 " The motive for quitting the Iske at Montmeillan is suffi- 
 *' ciently indicated by the map, which shows that the road 
 "from hence to Turin, compared with that by the Little 
 " St. Bernard, is the chord of a great curve." A similar con- 
 ception was indulged by Mr. Whitaker, in conceding the 
 apparent probability of the Mont Genevre, i. 19. " Over this 
 " mountain, Mont Genevre, is the natural line of Hannibal's 
 " march at present, Turin being his grand object." 
 
 I know not how it has been discovered, that Hannibal was 
 providing for a Taurine war before he directed his march to 
 the Alps. Livy's story, " peropportune ad principia rerum," 
 &c., gives no countenance to such a notion : on the contrary, it 
 imports that the opportunity of chastising an enemy came 
 unlooked for. It is one of the many futile fancies which this 
 controversy has called forth, to imagine Hannibal on the Isere, 
 studying the most direct line to Turin. If Turin existed, and 
 a Taurine war had then occupied a chief place in his thoughts 
 instead of none at all, it would not have influenced his course 
 through the Alps. Their importance was in themselves : 
 whatever was his best way through the Alps, was also his 
 best way to attain a town on the other side. A few miles 
 saved in the plain were as nothing, compared with an 
 advantage gained in the mountains. 
 
 Some who cannot believe in the deviation of a few miles to 
 the hostile town, wherever it was, by reason of the time that 
 it would consume, contend with an appropriate inconsistency, 
 that this very object was of sufficient importance to decide 
 
 2 
 
 ^•ri 
 
 ;u 
 
 ;fi 
 
196 
 
 Companson of the Histories. 
 
 [PAKT XI. 
 
 CHAP. IT.] Livy damaged by his mvn Facts. 
 
 107 
 
 the course by which the invaders should attempt the Alps. 
 But, if we could suppose that the anticipation of a Taurine 
 enemy could have swayed the election of a pass, the Cottian 
 pass is just that which he would not have elected. He was 
 one, who could appreciate the severity of the great mountain 
 enterprise, and foresee the consequences. On reaching the 
 plain, his men were unfit for conflict : " squalida et prope 
 -Bfferata corpora — armare exercitum non poterat." The repose 
 which was to precede action would be better enjoyed among 
 acknowledged friends who bordered on the enemy's country 
 than among the enemies themselves. There is a just comment 
 made by Dr. -Arnold, which favours the Little St. Bernard ; 
 namely, that it led more directly into the country of the 
 expected allies, than the shorter passage into Italy by the 
 Cottian Alps.* The fact is true : and it is an important one : 
 but if the mountain dangers had been greater than in other 
 routes, even the arrival among friends in the plain might not 
 alone have been a cause of preference. 
 
 The other argument is urged in recent opinions, civil and 
 militaiy. M. Letronne, speaking of the reduction of the 
 Taurine town, says : "Get e^vteeraent acheve de prouver que le 
 " Mont Gene^n-e fut le lieu dti passage : Turin, place au con- 
 *' fluent de la Doria et du P6, opposoit aux Carthaginois une 
 " barriere qu'd falloit renverser pour passer outre. La prise 
 *' de cette ville etoit done necessaire : dans I'hypoth^se de 
 " M. De Luc, elle est inexplicable." t M. Baud^ de Lavallette 
 wTites, p. 108 : " Si on le fait descendre du petit St. Bernard, 
 ce siege de trois jours devient inexplicable : c'est un long 
 detour, un ecart inutile, ou s'amortit I'elan de sa marche 
 " rapide : c'est un veritable hors d'oeuvre dans ses operations. 
 " Kien ne saurait excuser la supposition ni faire admettre 
 " I'idee d'une excursion si (^^trange." General St. Cyr Nugucs 
 
 ''■• Note L to page 84. 
 
 t Journal defc Savans. Jauv. 1819, p. 34. 
 
 i< 
 
 << 
 
 expresses the same notions (p. 22), insisting that Hannibal 
 woiild only have lost ground and wasted time by attacking 
 the Taurini, " dans la vue de forcer un passage qu'ils lui fer- 
 ment et dont il n'a pas besoin." 
 
 If the Taurine town was on the site of Turin, which I see 
 no reason to assume, Hannibal's policy was to seize the first 
 opportunity of encouraging his troops by a successful effort 
 on Italian ground ; of crushing those who dared to declare 
 against him and reject his friendship ; of assuring his allies. 
 Livy's remark is, that the occasion of striking such a blow at 
 the outset of the campaign was offered to him most oppor- 
 tunely. It is true that the line of his operations was down 
 the Po: but it was his principle not to leave an efficient 
 enemy in his rear. Among the urgent motives to the reduc- 
 tion of Saguntum, we read, to he fieyto-Tov, ovBev aTroXiTroyv 
 OTTLaOev TToXifitov, a<T<f>a\(a<; TTOLrjaaaOaL rrjv ek TovjiirpoaOev 
 7rop€Lav'* The same wisdom belonged to another invader, 
 " quod neque post tergum hostem relinquere volebat." f 
 
 Such motive was cogent to justify the delay which the 
 operation of chastising the Taurini might cause ; and wisely 
 did Hannibal turn aside for it. The end was commensurate. 
 Polybius tells us (iii. 60), that he struck so great a terror into 
 the barbarians around, that all, not under present coercion of 
 the Eomans, promptly avowed their allegiance to him. Nor 
 is it clear that the operation did cause delay. Some length 
 of time necessarily elapsed between the escape of the army 
 from the Alps, and their competence to march forward against 
 Scipio : and, as the movement which destroyed the Taurini 
 may only have required a portion of the army, it may have 
 been completed before they were ready to move in mass down 
 the Po : in which case no increased procrastination of the 
 campaign resulted from it. 
 
 I have pointed out as clearly as I can, the nature and the 
 * Polyb. iii. 17. t De Bello Gallico, iv. 22. 
 
 . 
 
 :i 
 
198 
 
 Comparison of the Histories. 
 
 [part XI. 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 None have supported Livy. 
 
 199 
 
 value of Livy's argument in favour of the Cottian Alps : and 
 now, let me aslc, what is the eifect of his disquisition on the 
 passage of Hannibal ? The facts which we know through his 
 disclosure of them are, — that there was a prevailing belief 
 that Hannibal entered Italy by the valley of Aosta : that a 
 foolish assimilation of the word Penine to Poeni had induced 
 the notion that he came into that valley over the Penine 
 pass ; and thai Cselius recorded him to have reached it by 
 the pass of Cremo. Is it not curious, that Livy himself, the 
 advocate of the Cottian pass, should be the reporter of these 
 striking and important facts? The legitimate application of 
 them is purely in favour of the pass of Cremo. Livy, how- 
 ever, objected to that pass : he did not believe it to have been 
 open in so eaily times. The pass of Cremo, the Little St. 
 Bernard, had been traversed by Eoman armies from the time 
 he was bom ; and it became a great Military Way of the 
 Empire. He s.dvances no good reason to impeach that pass : 
 but discloses matters which are powerful to support it. If, 
 besides all this, his argument for his own hypothesis is as 
 nugatory as I have on fair examination shown it to be, we 
 are entitled to claim him as a witness, an involuntary witness, 
 in support of I*olybian truth. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 Of writers prior to Livy no one favours his hypothesis. In 
 addition to the historians Polyhius and Ccelius, we find 
 some evideihce in Sallust and Cornelius Nepos, tending in 
 favour of the Little St. Bernard. Writers after Livy give 
 no light. Silius Italicus* Pliny, Appian, Ammianus 
 Marcellinus. 
 
 SALLUST. 
 
 There is an observation in Mr. Merivale's History of the 
 Romans under the Empire, which, being found in so great a 
 
 i 
 
 ■'W 
 
 (( 
 
 <t 
 
 work, I cannot leave unnoticed. In voL i. c. 6. p. 290, having 
 stated that Caesar hurried back into Gaul by the route of the 
 Cottian Alps, we read in a note, " The more usual but longer 
 
 route would be that by the Col de Timers and Barcelonette, 
 
 discovered by Pompeius. Sail. Fr. Hist. iii. 3. Appian, 
 « B.C. i. 119. Walckenaer, G, des G. I 225, 538." 
 
 I can only suppose that Mr. Merivale has stated the 
 opinion of the Baron Walckenaer without scrutiny, entering 
 as authority the references of that writer without consulting 
 them himself TJiere is nothing which appears to warrant or 
 provoke the introduction of the name of Sallust, for carrying 
 Pompey over the Pass here denominated Col de Timers. This 
 singular notion seems to have been caused by an unsuccessful 
 effort on the part of Baron Walckenaer to render a few 
 words of Appian, whereby he has converted a disaster of 
 Pompey in Spain into a success of Pompey in France. 
 
 Let us first vindicate Sallust. Among the fragments of his 
 works is a despatch addressed by Pompey to the Senate about 
 the year 75 B.C. Pompey is remonstrating with the Senate 
 for starving the war in Spain. With feelings of resentment 
 and indignation, he points out what in three years he has 
 done for them, and what they have not done for him — " Per 
 " Deos immortales, utrum censetis me vicem serarii prsestare, 
 " an exercitum sine frumento et stipendiis habere posse ? 
 " Equidem fateor me ad hoc bellum majore studio qu^m 
 " consilio profectum : quippe qui, nomine modo imperii k 
 " vobis accepto, diebus quadraginta exercitum paravi : hostes- 
 " que in cervicibus jam Italise agentes, ab Alpibus in His- 
 " paniam submovi. Per eas iter, aliud atque Hannibal, nobis 
 " opportunius, patefeci. Kecepi Galliam, Pyrena^um, &c." 
 This must be the fragment referred to for the Col de Timers ! 
 Let us look to the other references for Pompey crossing a 
 Col de Timers, meaning, I presume, a pass accessible by 
 ascending the river Tinea. The Baron Walckenaer writes 
 
 W 
 
 n 
 
 ^ 
 
 & 
 ^m 
 
200 
 
 Comparison of the Histories, 
 
 [part XI. 
 
 <i 
 
 thus, p. 225 : — " Le premier qui decouvrit un passage des 
 " Alpes different de celui que nous venous de nommer, est 
 " Pompee, qui s'en fit un titre d'honneur aupres du Senat, 
 " ainsi que nous le voyons par une de ses lettres conservees 
 *' dans les fragmens de Salluste — lib. iii. p. 157. J'ai prouve 
 " ailleurs que cette route, peu eloign(3e de celle des Alpes 
 " maritimes, etait le passage du col de Timers et de la vallee 
 " de Barcelonette ; mais comme ce passage retombait dans 
 " celui des Alpes maritimes, il n'en fut jamais disting-ue. Le 
 " lieu nomme Lauro dans Appien, ou Pompee posa son camp 
 " apr^s avoir ciefait les Gaulois, est Laures, dans la vallee de 
 " Barcelonette/' See also p. 538. 
 
 In a note to the same page (225) of Partie ii. ch. 1, of 
 Geograjphie des Gaules, there is this translation of Appian : 
 " Pompee fut charge de se mettre en marche pour liberie : il 
 " prit courageusement le chemin des Alpes. 11 ne suivit pas 
 ** la route frayee par Annibal, et il s'en ouvrit une nouvelle." 
 " Appien ajou1:e que Pompee, apres avoir defait les Gaulois, 
 *' posa son camp pres d'un lieu nomm^ Lauro, qa'il le prit, le 
 " saccagea, et le detruisit. Laures, qui est Lauro, se trouvait 
 '* en effet sur la route de Pompee : quelques cartes nomment 
 *' a tort ce lieu Lauret." 
 
 Such is the Baron's version of Appian. Now see what 
 that author has said according to some editions. He states 
 that " Pompey , being commissioned to Spain with a fresh 
 " army, struck boldly through the Alps by a new route dif- 
 " ferent from that of Hannibal, and near to the sources of the 
 " Rhone and the Po, rivers that rise in the Alps not far from 
 " one another." He then writes — d(f)CKOfi€Vov 8' €? 'l^rjplav, 
 avTLKa 6 ^epTLOpLo^ riXof; oXov iirl '^oproXoylav e^ibv avTOc<; 
 vTro^vylot^ Kal BepaTrovav avv€Koy(r€* kov Xavpwva ttoXiv 
 i(t)opcopTo^ avTOv UofMirrjcov BirjpTraae Kal KaTeaKayjrev — edit. 
 Amstelodaiiii, ii. 696. " When Pompey had arrived in Spain, 
 •* Sertorius .succeeded in entirely cutting off' one of his legions 
 
 (: 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 None have sup^^o^'tcd Livij. 
 
 201 
 
 " which was out foraging, together with its followers and 
 " baggage cattle ; and assaulted and plundered the town of 
 " Lauro under the eyes of Pompey himself." The innovation 
 of the critic seems to be, that he substitutes " apres avoir 
 defait les Gaulois " for a^iKO[ikvov ^ ev ^l^TjplaVy and makes 
 Pompey the nominative to SiTjpirao-e Kal KareaKa^^ev, instead 
 of Sertorius.* 
 
 As to the supposed route, I find no meaning in the propo- 
 sition, *' ce passage retombait dans celui des Alpes maritimes 
 — il n'en fut jamais distingut^." Such a route would from 
 Nice proceed up the Var by Aspremont, then up the Tinea 
 by St, Sauveur and St. Etieune, and then over the Col in 
 question to Barcelonette in the valley of the Ubaye. This 
 course and the route of the maritime Alps, are from the Var 
 to the Ehone utterly dissociated. Such, however, is the 
 Baron's " opportunius iter." 1 should think that, if Pompc^y 
 had ever got to Nice in his way to Spain, he would have 
 proceeded by the Military Way then already established 
 through Frejus and Aix. If curiosity should lead any man 
 over the Col de Tiniers, let him come again and try the 
 Estrelles : then let him say which is the easiest and 
 pleasantest march : and let him, if he can, find the meaning 
 of "jamais distingue." 
 
 Let us now see whether this despatch of Pompey, as re- 
 ported by Sallust, may throw light on the track of Hannibal. 
 Pompey claims credit for having opened to the llomans a 
 military way through the Alps to Spain more convenient 
 than that by which Hannibal had come from Spain into 
 Italy. He names neither pass ; but he distinguishes his own 
 from that of Hannibal : and speaks of the latter as a thing 
 known and recognised by those to whom he writes. Wliich 
 
 •1 1*1 
 
 * ^ 
 
 The author refers also to " I'analyse des Itineraires " in his 
 3d vol. (p. 11, I believe) ; but there I found no assistance. 
 
202 
 
 Comparison of the Histm^ies, 
 
 [part XI. 
 
 t 
 
 then was the " opportunius iter " of Pompey ? Enough has 
 been said to negative the Col de Timers. So also it was not 
 the coast line : Pompey could not boast of that as his own 
 discovery ; for Eoman armies had used it for half a century 
 or more. Also we may throw aside the Col d' Argentine and 
 the Col de Viso, as Pompey has not yet been charged with 
 making those passages. We need only advert to the Mont 
 Genevre, the ]VIont Cenis, the Little St. Bernard and the 
 Great St. Bernard. 
 
 The superior convenience and facility of the Genevre have 
 satisfied many in construing the words of Pompey, both that 
 it was his own pass, and that it was not the pass of Hannibal : 
 for, if it had been, there was none which Pompey could, on 
 comparison, call " opportunius " for himself All who carry 
 Hannibal by any one of the three more northern passes, may 
 acquiesce in the Genevre as the route of Pompey, and ac- 
 knowledge it as the most convenient " in Hispaniam." Even 
 Mr. Ellis, who sends Hannibal over the Little Mont Cenis, as 
 " the earliest known passage," and whose etymology compels 
 Csesar into the same track, even he seems to tolerate the 
 Genevre as the pass of the intermediate general. He states 
 {Journ. of Phil No. 7, p. 20) — " Mr. Law says that Pompey's 
 " march to Spain was undoubtedly over the Mont Genfevre. 
 " I wish I could prove this, as it is exactly the assumption 
 " that I should wish to make." I must take exception to the 
 word "exactly.' Our routes would differ exceedingly. From 
 the Po to Cesanne they have not a yard in common. Mr. 
 Ellis would carry him through Susa : I know that Caesar 
 in his march quitted the Inner Province at Ocelum : and I 
 believe that Pompey had there established a garrison post on 
 the frontier si.\.teen years before. He was bound for Spain, 
 and his way was down the Durance. No Koman way to those 
 Alps through Susa then existed. 
 
 But, while Pompey's letter indicates that the Genevre was 
 
 iL, 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 Noiie have supjwrted Livy, 
 
 203 
 
 his own pass, does it help us to recognise any one of the 
 other three as the pass of Hannibal ? I think that it does 
 so ; and for this reason. He takes Hannibal's route as a 
 standard of comparison, as a thing known to, and acknow- 
 ledged by those whom he is addressing : and it is probable 
 in itself, that the passage so understood between them should 
 be the same, which at that time stood designated by one 
 historian of established reputation, Cselius Antipater, and 
 which soon after was so clearly pointed out by another, Cor- 
 nelius Nepos. It is far less probable that the track which 
 in this correspondence was recognised as the iter of Hannibal, 
 should be a track which is not found mentioned or referred to 
 in history till fully 900 years later. 
 
 The Cenis is, I believe, not to be recognised in the whole 
 range of ancient literature. Even that curiosity of later date, 
 the Chart of Peutinger, while it exhibits new tracks within 
 the Alps not known to the Koman itineraries, is exempt from 
 any discovery of the Cenis route. I have never urged the 
 ancient ignorance of the Cenis as itself conclusive on this 
 question of Hannibal : but it is a very important circum- 
 stance : and when the great general, who had triumphed over 
 the Alps in his way to Spain, is bringing forward, for com- 
 parison as ascertained things, the two routes, his own and the 
 earlier course of Hannibal, it is greatly to the purpose that 
 we know only of two writers prior to the controversy after- 
 wards made by Livy, who gave a name to that earlier course : 
 and that they pointed out unmistakeably the course of the 
 Little St. Bernard ; Ceelius in the term " Cremonis jugum," 
 and Cornelius Nepos as the pass of the Graian Hercules. 
 Pompey writes between the periods of these two definite 
 commemorations : he treats the pass of Hannibal as a known 
 thing, and negatives the more commodious pass of the 
 Genevre: may we not then believe, that he apprehended 
 that which had been named by the standard historian who 
 
 M 
 
 (I 
 
 
 ■'ii 
 
204 
 
 Comjparison of the Histories. 
 
 [PAKT XI. 
 
 «l 
 
 preceded him, and was soon named again by the accomplished 
 
 writer who succeeded him ? 
 
 This recognition of the pass by the earlier authorities aids 
 
 the belief that the controversy began with Livy. The only 
 
 good sense which belongs to his criticism is available, not 
 
 against the tiuth, but against that which had chanced to 
 
 pervert the truth : like other critics, he vanquishes a phantom. 
 
 The nonsense about the Penine, which he exposes, had not 
 
 embarrassed the minds of Pompey or Nepos : w^e hear of it 
 
 first in Livy's report. I may add, that, if any should not 
 
 credit the despatch of Pompey, but think it to have been 
 
 written, as speeches are, by the historian for his hero, the 
 
 argument remains the same : Sallust was of a generation prior 
 
 to Livy. 
 
 Cornelius Nepos. 
 
 This author, writing, as I have said, before the criticism of 
 Livy, notices the Carthaginian passage in his Life of Hannibal. 
 He says this : — " Ad Alpes posteaquam venit quae Italiam 
 " ab Gallia sejungunt, quas nemo unquam cum exercitu ante 
 " eum prseter Herculem Graium transierat (quo facto is hodie 
 " saltus Graius appellatur), Alpicos conantes prohibere tran- 
 " situm concidit ; loca patefecit, itinera muniit, effecitque ut 
 " ea elephantus ornatus ire posset, qua ante unus homo 
 " inermis vix poterat repere." 
 
 The anonymous critic of Cambridge, 1830, who has been 
 occasionally alluded to, denies that this evidence favours the 
 Graian Alp. He denies (pp. 25, 26), that the words repre- 
 sent Hannibal to have crossed the Graian Alp, or followed the 
 steps of Hercules : his opinion is, that " is saltus" means only 
 the pass wher(3 Hercules crossed ; not the " pass of Hannibal." 
 But he is mistaken : " is saltus " is not explained by gram- 
 matical relation : for no " saltus " or pass has been spoken of 
 before. But, as " is saltus " must mean some pass, we seek it 
 in the context of the previous words ; and from them we find 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 None have snjyported Livy. 
 
 205 
 
 it to mean " that over which none but Hercules had gone with 
 an army before Hannibal." Accordingly, Hannibal was the 
 first who crossed it with an army after Hercules : and the 
 pass spoken of is that of Hercules and Hannibal. If the 
 words in parenthesis were wanting, the idea that none but 
 Hercules had ever crossed with an army before Hannibal 
 might be applied to the entire Alps that range between Gaul 
 and Italy : but the words " quo factu is," &c. limit the appli- 
 cation of that idea to the one particular pass. Cornelius 
 Nepos would never have applied the proposition to all those 
 Alps : he could not mean to say that none but Hercules ever 
 led an army over the Alps till 218 A.c. He was well aware 
 of the large bodies wdiicli before Hannibal's time had crossed 
 the Penine under Viridomarus and others : it was the Graian 
 Alp which he considered to have been traversed before Han- 
 nibal only by the expedition of Hercules. The way was 
 called Graian, from the Graian Hercules who first crossed it. 
 But what way ? The way of Hannibal : Plannibal's way is 
 the subject which employs the writer. 
 
 The same critic has discovered another reason that 
 Cornelius Nepos did not impute the same pass to Hercules 
 and Hannibal : namely, that the wretched track of the latter, 
 " qua unus homo inermis vix poterat repere," could not be 
 one which had given passage to Hercules and his army : he 
 is confident that Hannibal would have found a good wide 
 road if he had followed Hercules. I cannot admit this 
 necessity. Without disparaging the merit of Hercules as an 
 engineer, one may conceive his improvements to have become 
 obliterated after the lapse of ten centuries. 
 
 Here, again, as in the dispatch of Pompey, it is to be 
 observed that the author, a learned and accomplished man, 
 the friend and biographer of Cicero, speaks of tlie pass of 
 Hannibal as a thing known to his readers, without any mark 
 of doubt. 
 
 ■ .1 
 
 'f 
 
 n 
 
 w 
 
II; 
 
 fin 
 
 il 
 
 
 206 
 
 Comparison of the Histm^ies, 
 
 [PAET XI. 
 
 Writers after Livy. 
 
 An author so popular and fascinating as Livy, was likely 
 to make proselytes to his opinion. But his influence does not 
 appear to have been so great of old as upon the savans of the 
 18th and 19t]i centuries. Indeed his successors are not seen 
 to have made a question on Hannibal's march. 
 
 Silius Italicus is claimed as an ally by some French critics ; 
 and they are welcome to his assistance. He was born soon 
 after the death of Livy, and, as to the route, is to some extent 
 a versifier of Livy, but not without poetical variety. From 
 the Pyrenees he seems to conduct Hannibal to Lyons : for he 
 describes the more vigorous stream embracing the gentler 
 waters of the; Arar, and carrying them along with his own. 
 So, when we come to Asdrubal's expedition, whom Livy brings 
 from Spain through the Arverni, the poet seems to do the 
 same, by placing in his way the dwellers on the lazy Arar : 
 after which this general appears to cross the Alps by fol- 
 lowing the steps of his brother, Hercules having been the 
 precursor of both. 
 
 When the armament has crossed the Ehone, the poet con- 
 trives to fall into the track of Livy : we meet with " Tricas- 
 tinus finibus, rura Vocontia, turbidus Druentia ; '' and when 
 Hannibal has subdued the Alps by combustion, he is brought 
 to an encampment " Taurinis campis." The noble Roman does 
 not further m ark his own view of the controversy on the route. 
 When Hannibal has reached the summit, no locality is to be 
 found for it, imless through the remote idea of Taurini. The 
 poet exhibits Venus coaxing Jupiter to favour the descendants 
 of ^neas : but she does not happen to mention the particular 
 Alpine heights against which it would be expedient to hurl 
 the divine thunderbolt for arresting the Carthaginian progress. 
 
 Pliny was a very learned man : but his belief was not 
 diverted from the valley of Aosta to the Cottian Alp : enume- 
 
 It! 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 None have snjp'pm^ted Livy. 
 
 207 
 
 rating places and peoples in a geographical work, he fixes 
 the position of Aosta, giving the names of the two Alpine 
 tracks which meet there — Salassorum Augusta Prsetoria, 
 juxta geminas Alpium fauces, Graias atque Peninas—and 
 he adds the vulgar reputation of their origin, '' His Panos, 
 Graiis Herculem transisse memorant." Lib. iii. 21. 
 
 Appian, who flourished about 60 years later, in his book on 
 the wars of Hannibal (p. 315) says, that he made his way 
 through the Alps with fire and vinegar ; that he descended 
 into the plain ; and, having rested for a time, moved on to 
 Taurasia, a Celtic town, and, taking it by storm massacred the 
 inhabitants, and then advanced to the Po and encamped. He 
 further informs us, De Bell Civit p. 419, that Pompey did 
 not adopt the same track ; that he ascended the Alps, not 
 according to the great enterprise of Hannibal, but cutting 
 through by a different way about the sources of the Rhone 
 and the Po, rivers which rise not far from one another. Tims 
 Appian appears impartial in the patronage which he affords 
 to the two great historians. The conquest of the Alps by fire 
 and vinegar is favourable to the authority of Livy : the 
 source of the Rhone is quite opposed to it; so that Mr. 
 Whitaker was satisfied with Appian as confirming his own 
 preference of the Great St. Bernard. 
 
 Ammianus Marcellinus, writing towards the end of the 
 fourth century, as we have seen already, paints strongly the 
 horrors of the descent into Italy from the Cottian Alp : but 
 at the same time states it to be the best and most frequented 
 in his day. He adds that other ways were used in ancient 
 times : the first having been constructed by Hercules near to 
 the Maritime Alps. The author then undertakes to explain 
 the reason why the Poenine Alp came to be so called. The 
 explanation is this, and no more : that Scipio, finding he 
 could not overtake Hannibal, who crossing the Rhone got 
 three days' start of him, made a rapid voyage to Genoa, and 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 t^ 
 
 
Mj 
 
 r. 
 
 M 
 
 208 
 
 Co7nparison of the Histories. 
 
 [part XT. 
 
 (( 
 
 (( 
 
 waited there to catch him on his descent from the Alps : that 
 Hannibal, bein^^ too cnnniiig for him, " Tanrinis ducentibus 
 accolis, per Tricastinos et orani Yocontiornm extremam ad 
 saltns Tricorios venit : indeque exorsns, aliud iter antehac 
 " iusuperabile fecit, excisaque rupe in immensum elata, quam 
 " cremando vi magna flammarum acetoque infuso dissolvit, per 
 " Druentiam flamen gurgitibus vastis intortum regiones occu- 
 " pavit Hetruscas."— So the story ends : The problem, " hac ex 
 causa sunt Alpes excogitatse Poeninse," is not further elabo- 
 rated : but the author, as if suddenly inspired by Livy, 
 defeats a prodigious precipice with fire and vinegar and then 
 rushes through the whirlpools of the Druentia into Etruria. 
 I leave it to the followers of IVIr. Whitaker, Lord Wood- 
 houselee, and Mr. Ellis, to decide whether the whirlpools of 
 Ammianus Marcellinus belonged to the Arve, the Dranse, or 
 
 the Drac. 
 
 I have noticed the ancient memorials of the Carthaginian 
 march of invctsion, as far as I am invited to do so by the 
 adverse efforts which have been made on the subject. Livy 
 was the only litigant : the only writer who plainly challenged 
 existing opinions. When he approached the subject, there 
 had been no dispute, save a competition of the two lines 
 which join one another at Aosta : and I have endeavoured to 
 show that his evidence adds strength to one of them. 
 
 As to writeirs who came after Livy, tlieir allusions to the 
 matter are futile, and neutral in their futility. Some, as 
 Pliny, inherited the impression on the northern entrances, 
 without heeding that Livy had proposed another. Others, 
 such as Silius and Ammianus, show by their incoherent and 
 contradictory stories, that Livy's theory floated with others in 
 their memories. Some say too much: some too little. 
 Appian suits no party : and Florus, caring for no party, omits 
 the Taurini altogether. None treat it as a matter of dis- 
 sension : none argue it, reasonably or unreasonably. Nothing 
 
 I. 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 None have supported Livy. 
 
 209 
 
 shows that Livy's views on the passage of Hannibal swayed 
 the minds of his countrymen as they have disturbed the 
 judgments of the savans of modern times. 
 
 The earlier memorials, which could not be influenced by 
 his conceptions, are adverse to his hypothesis : all indicate 
 the passage which is here maintained : and he himself, though 
 looked upon as the champion of a contrary opinion, is in truth 
 an effective witness for verifying the same passage. As such, he 
 closes a continuous series ; Polybius, Caelius, Pompey, Nepos, 
 Livy. The first explainer of the track receives confirmation 
 from all the rest : all, when we examine them, carry us to one 
 conclusion, not excepting the adversary himsel£ His evidence 
 is strong, though he felt it not : its impulse is against the 
 intention of the writer ; who, as the advocate of an unsound 
 proposition, has disclosed the better reasons for the worthier 
 cause. Truth required not this corroboration : but we have 
 it. If the march of Hannibal had found no memorial in the 
 writings of Polybius and others, there is in the history of 
 Livy that which should incline us to reject the opinion which 
 he himsehr cherished, and to believe that the invaders were 
 launched into the ItaKan plain through the valley of Aosta. 
 His own statement, which is aimed against both the courses 
 for entering that valley, exhibits good reason for believing 
 that the invasion was made by one, and that it was not made 
 by the other. 
 
 %\ 
 
 f 
 
 VOL. IT. 
 
 P 
 
 i 
 
1 I 
 
 m 
 
 THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 PAET XH. 
 CAUSE OF DOUBT. CONCLUSION. 
 
 If 
 Iftt! 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Doubt has eome by neglect of PolyUus, D'Anville failed, in 
 ignorance of Polyhius. Gibbon failed, in deference to 
 D'Anville. Niebuhr did not fail. Melville had unveiled 
 the Truth : and De Luc had ;proclaimed it adding fresh 
 light. 
 
 One who has noted the phenomena of this controversy, may- 
 feel what has been said by Mr. Babbage concerning more 
 serious inquiries — " It is a condition of our race, that we must 
 ever wade through error in our advance towards truth." I 
 would add that, when error has been surmounted, it is useful to 
 account for its having existed. Prominent among the causes 
 of failure in this long fought question, is found that disabling 
 prejudice, the fear of difficulty. There has prevailed a sort of 
 timid acknowledgment that it is full of difficulty and doubt : 
 and this impression has dissuaded instead of stimulating the 
 spiiit of original search. Many a critic has known the Latin 
 narrative of events rather than the Greek : and it has hap- 
 pened, that better men have adopted the doubts of their less 
 competent predecessors. Doubt which originated in incom- 
 petence has thus become inveterate, engendering a general 
 
 p2 
 
 I. 
 
 I 
 
r i^ TgsfjgT i ■> ■ > - , m»m wsma 
 
 
 H 
 
 •m 
 
 ! < 
 
 212 
 
 Cause of Doubt. 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 persuasion that there is not intelligible evidence, and many, 
 giving undue weight to prior opinions, have consented to blame 
 the obscurity of truth, themselves making no effort to discern 
 it. There has been no want of courage to embrace a theory 
 first, and work up arguments for it afterwards, but great want 
 of resolution for the independent purpose of sincere inquiry 
 and interpretation. 
 
 The subject has become one, in which a theory cannot be 
 effectively enforced without fairly combating other theories : 
 some writers abstain from the pugnacious effort ; and this is 
 no proof of confidence in their own tenets. The cause with 
 some is, that the spirit of just inquiry has yielded to the 
 desire to be ori^jinal : others have found it easier to invent 
 than to explaii]. ; and some are open to the suspicion of 
 struggling against their own conviction. Livy was an original 
 sceptic : and was too easily satisfied on a hasty and superficial 
 view of the subject : one excuse for him may be that he had 
 no knowledge cf Alps ; an excuse which men cannot plead 
 now. After reading Polybius he resolved to have an hypo- 
 thesis of his own : he expresses neither assent nor dissent ; 
 nor inquires into that great authority on the invading march. 
 If it were asked, why did he, in his discussion of other 
 men's opinions, bring forward Caelius, and not bring forward 
 Polybius, the most plausible excuse, though not the true one, 
 would be, that ( 'aelius had named the pass of the Alps, Polybius 
 had not. This want of a name is an excuse better suited to 
 the moderns, under which they are tempted to disregard the 
 chief authority, or avoid the task of interpreting him. 
 
 In progress through the subject, T have exhibited by 
 instances the extravagant resources which I began with 
 imputing to the defenders of many hypotheses. But there 
 have been gra^e and strong minds — minds not given to wild 
 fancies or deformed with the desire of novelty— whose failure 
 to hit the truth may well surprise us. It was said in the 
 
 CHAP. I.] Neglect of PolyUus — Examples. 213 
 
 outset, that when the views of distinguished men are adduced 
 for gaining assent to some interpretation of the problem, their 
 arguments only should be heeded, not their names. Profitin^T 
 by this caution, we may still be perplexed to conceive how 
 some have been deluded into error, or disabled from detecting? 
 it. The fundamental cause of mistake, whether in critics the 
 most distinguished or the least so, has been always this, that 
 Polybius has not been studied. By many he has not been 
 studied at all ; by some under the bias of unreasonable pre- 
 possession; by few with any fixed and steady attention. 
 Ignorance of his history in some, and neglect of it in others, 
 has been the primary cause of failure. 
 
 If, as has been said, the data are really insufficient for 
 solving the question, all must fail. But it is hasty to pro- 
 nounce them insufficient, till every effi^rt has been made to 
 comprehend and apply them; and this effort is due now, 
 among others, that we should strive to discern the causes of 
 failure in those who seem best qualified to have been suc- 
 cessful — men such as DAnville, Gibbon, and Arnold. If we 
 can safely see the reasons why they have not established the 
 truth before the world, it is more conceivable that success 
 may be reserved for others. Also, by seeing where they have 
 erred, we may more easily believe that the larger catalogue of 
 unsatisfactory reasoners could be confounded by their own 
 mistakes, or the blundering of their predecessors. 
 
 D'Anville failed. 
 
 It is not without regret that we miss the respected name of 
 D'Anville from the list of partisans in all the theories for 
 interpreting Polybius. If it is asked how such a man could 
 fail to hit the truth, the question has a ready answer. Though 
 deservedly esteemed in matters of ancient geography, he took 
 no pains to explore the text of Polybius. The pretensions of 
 the Graian Alp were unknown to him : he would have written 
 
 I i 
 
 f 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 I I 
 
 
 I 'If 
 
 
 214 
 
 Cause of Doubt. 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 differently if De Luc had written before him ; he partook of 
 the common inclination to reconcile the two histories, or 
 rather to presumes on their concurrence. This has caused, in 
 many, a careless .'-itudy of that which claims the greater study, 
 and which, without that greater study, is not to be inter- 
 preted. The naixative of Polybius is a tale of fact and 
 description, written by an original inquirer, suspecting no 
 controversy. The narrative of Livy is rather a tale of names, 
 written in a later age for a theory in a declared controversy. 
 The latter has this chance of success in the hands of an inter- 
 preter — ^it is easier to make description bend to names than 
 to make names yield to description : by the first course a 
 man deludes himself with a seeming conciliation ; when he 
 strikes out a name, he is conscious of an act of violence. The 
 pass of Alps intended by Livy could not be mistaken by so 
 reasonable a man as D'Anville; and if, as appears, he took 
 for granted the coincidence of the two histories, he might 
 think it enough to interpret that in which the pass intended 
 was hardly open to doubt, and which, perhaps, was the more 
 familiar to him. If he had been told that he had made no 
 effort to interpret Polybius, he would have acknowledged the 
 imputation, and struggled further. 
 
 D'Anville's Carte pour r Expedition d'Annihal, published 
 in 1739^ (see ante, Part IX. c. iii.), shows an early intention 
 simply to follow Livy. When, in 1760, he published his 
 Notice de VAncienne Gaule, he had still the wish to illus- 
 trate Hannibal's march ; and his neglect of the authority 
 which would best have guided him, is as plainly apparent as 
 his mistake on that which did guide him.* If we turn to the 
 word Allobroges, we find that his account of that people, as 
 concerned with Hannibal, is given on the scanty notice of 
 them by Livy : the ampler account of the Allobroges by the 
 Greek historian, who wrote one hundred and fifty years earlier, 
 
 * 8ee antCy Part IX. c. iii. 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Neglect of Polybius — Examples. 
 
 215 
 
 is not noticed ; Polybius being only mentioned, together with 
 Plutarch, Dion, and Appian, as spelling the word Allobroges 
 with an " i," instead of an " o." There is the same neglect of 
 him in the article " Allobroges " of Dr. Smith's Dictionary, 
 from the pen of a well-known writer, where we read : " The 
 " Allobroges are first mentioned in history as having joined 
 " Hannibal (B.C. 218) in his invasion of Italy. — Liv. xxi. 31." 
 The earlier historian is not alluded to. In either Dictionary, 
 however, both that of 1760 and that of 1856, there is a sub- 
 sequent article, " Insula AUobrogum," where the name of 
 Polybius is introduced on the geographical character of the 
 Island. It is curious that, in Dr. Arnold's account of Han- 
 nibal's progress, neither the AUobroges nor the Island are ever 
 mentioned at all, 
 
 DAnville assumed that Livy represented Polybius, and 
 therefore read the earlier narrative with little attention. He 
 says, in v. Tricorii, that the two historians give the reason for 
 Hannibal, on crossing the Rhone, deviating to the Isere ; but 
 Livy alone speaks to that effect. I am not aware of DAn- 
 ville's bringing any statement of Polybius into discussion on 
 the effect or bearing of it. Once, when he seeks to give pro- 
 bability to Livy's march, " depuis I'lsere jusqu'aux Alpes," 
 also in v. Tricorii, he adduces the 800 stadia of Polybius. A 
 most unhappy illustration ! To serve Livy, he invents his 
 worst error ; besides which, the thing was not applicable : the 
 800 of Polybius was 800 along a river ; and DAnville thought 
 to corroborate a measurement which was quite across country. 
 1 believe that DAnville never discusses the meaning of Poly- 
 bius, or the application of his words ; nor alludes to the 
 possibility of his having intended a route differing from that 
 which he is imputing to Livy. He does not seem to appre- 
 hend that any one would suppose the two to disagree ; and 
 shows, in a few words, the summary and infirm process by 
 which he allied himself to Livy : — " Comme Annibal des- 
 
I > 
 
 p. 
 
 216 
 
 Cause of Doubt, 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 " cendant en Italie, rencontra d'abord les Taurini, cette cir- 
 " Constance determine en effet le passage d'Annibal par cet 
 " endroit des Al])es." It is clear that the French geographer 
 never sifted the iGlreek history, nor adverted to the necessity 
 of doing so. Accordingly, there was nothing which could 
 bring him to the result of renouncing the French Alps of 
 Livy, or to a suspicion that his Tricastini, Vocontii, Tricorii, 
 and Druentia were fallacious. While these stood unsuspected 
 in the line, his pass was necessarily the Mont Genevre. 
 
 I have spoken only of the error for which D'Anville is 
 accountable in the neglect of Polybius, not of the blunder 
 in his conception of Livy. That misfortune might have hap- 
 pened to any man in 1739, when he published the map 
 which tells of his construction of Livy's track. (See ante, 
 Part IX. c. iii.) Most men were then unacquainted with Mont 
 Pelvoux, and liable to be misled by an apparent authority 
 framed 1,300 years before. D'Anville is not for that less en- 
 titled to our respect. But it was his own fault that he was 
 uninstructed by Polybius. Yet, under the circumstances, he 
 might have done worse. Two candidates, at the most, to 
 represent the pass, were likely to arise in his mind, as a 
 disciple of Livy. He voted for the Genevre : he might have 
 done worse, voted for the Cenis. 
 
 IM 
 
 I ,1' 
 
 
 Gibbon failed. 
 
 One should have expected that the opinion of a man 
 having the powers and the advantages of Gibbon for a 
 subject like the present, would be a safe opinion : and we 
 have a good lesson on the imperfection of critical inquiries, 
 when we see th(i result of the " reading and careful reflec- 
 tion upon the subject," which he states himself to have 
 bestowed.* He began well, for he cleared the common 
 stumbling-block, the determination to reconcile the histories ; 
 
 * Miscellaneous Works, vol. v. p. 370. 
 
 SI! 
 
 CHAP. I.] Neglect of Polybius— -Examples. 217 
 
 and he promptly apprehended two strong points of Polybius, 
 of which so many critics are insensible ; the continuance of 
 the march up the Ehone, and the emerging from the Alps 
 into the Insubres. This amount of observation might have 
 led to more, and have encouraged him to probe the whole 
 text. But he did not persevere : he heeded not the plain 
 country to the first Alps, nor the Allobroges defending them, 
 nor the measurement of the march which led to them. He 
 huiTied up the Rhone to Martigny, blind to the other pre- 
 scriptions of the historian. 
 
 His faculties of inquiry seem to have been paralysed by a 
 most unreasonable impression with which he embarked in it, 
 and from which he never escaped. He entertained the subject 
 as a matter of competition between the Great St. Bernard and 
 the Mont Genevre, as if he had only to arbitrate between their 
 respective advocates. He declares the former to be the pass 
 of Polybius, as promptly as he declares the latter to be the 
 pass of Livy ; and the chief thing which he agitates is the 
 question of credit between the two authorities. On this 
 point he writes with spirit and interest, pronouncing a 
 laboured eulogium of Polybius, as the historian of higher 
 truth. But he ends the matter miserably. He is dissatisfied, 
 as might be expected, with the two Alpine passes which he 
 has admitted to the competition ; he does not suspect the 
 possibility of a third candidate, and at last, in despair, 
 generously surrenders his right of thinking to the name of 
 13'Anville, and for the very strange reason that that writer 
 had not disclosed the grounds of his opinion. He says : " In 
 " M. D'AnvUle's map of Hannibal's expedition, that accurate 
 " geographer, whose positions are always chosen on reflection, 
 " makes the Carthaginians pass by the Cottian Alps. I am 
 " stopped and silenced by the authority of this learned man, 
 " which in this case is the greater, because he conceals the 
 " reasons on which his opinion is founded." Thus does one 
 
 m 
 
218 
 
 11 
 
 '. i 
 
 #5 
 
 % 
 
 f\ 
 
 Cause of Doubt. 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 man desist from a comparison of two historians in deference 
 to another man, who had never thought it necessary to com- 
 pare them at all. 
 
 It is evident that Gibbon, being under the impression that 
 the question was wholly between the Great St. Bernard and 
 the Genevre, and seeing which of the two was related by 
 Livy, looked into Polybius only so far as to be assured that 
 he differed from Livy. He neglected to investigate the story 
 of Polybius as a subject of itself. If he had read the narra- 
 tive with fair atr.ention, not caring for the opinions of others, 
 he could not have mistaken it. After all, it is strange that 
 his attention was not compelled to the evidence ; for he cites 
 the 1,200 stadia, as the " breadth of Alps," and yet the 1,400 
 which in the enumeration of Polybius immediately precedes 
 the 1,200, is unobserved. It is said erroneously, in the Preface 
 to the Oxford Dissertation, that Gibbon was ignorant of the 
 passage alluded to by Polybius, i.e. of the Little St. Bernard. 
 He may, indeed, have forgotten it for a moment when he was 
 writing these words (v. 380) : — " Hannibal at the confluence of 
 ** the Ehone an<i Saone followed the shortest route into Italy, 
 " when he crossed the St. Bernard." * But this was careless- 
 ness, not ignorance. He deprives himself of all excuse when 
 (p. 378) he thus retails the ideas of Strabo. " In the reign 
 " of Augustus, when Eoman policy had levelled the Alps, 
 that prince made two military ways, which, diverging from 
 Augusta Prsetoria, again united at Lyons. One of those 
 roads, which crossed the Pennine Alps, was still so difficult 
 " that it could not be passed by carriages." He who wrote this 
 might have paused to ask himself whether the other of those 
 two ways, which he well knew as a course of Eoman armies, 
 might not be the line of Hannibal intended by Polybius. 
 
 * He has already said, " Livy carries Hannibal over the Cottian 
 " AlpvS, properly Mont Genevre; Polybius leads him by the Siunmus 
 ** l*enuinus, or Great 8t. Bernard.'* 
 
 (( 
 
 *t 
 
 it 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Neglect of Polybius — Examples. 
 
 219 
 
 I say then of Gibbon, that he failed in his study of Poly- 
 bius. He began inquiry under a false prepossession ; that 
 is to say, with a contracted notion of the scope of it. But 
 he was dealing with evidence, and had the fairest prospect 
 of encountering the truth, which was in a line which lay 
 between his line and D'Anville's. They were both wrong, 
 and he saw it ; but instead of prosecuting the search for 
 truth by renouncing both errors, he says a civil thing to 
 DAnville and gives the matter up. What was this but the 
 fear of difficulty ? The result of a little perseverance would 
 have been that the world would owe the development of 
 truth to Mr. Gibbon instead of General Melville. 
 
 If any one had happened to address Mr. Gibbon, " What 
 say you to the Graian Alp?" he would have opened his eyes, 
 quickened his attention, and determined the question. He 
 wrote his comment in 1763 : in a later day he would at least 
 have said one thing which is said by his friend and editor, 
 Lord Sheffield : " Perhaps the subject is best understood by 
 the late General Melville." The noble editor is alluding, in 
 a note, to Mr. Whitaker's treatise of 1794, and he speaks 
 with kind commendation of the criticism which followed it 
 by Mr. Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, a Lord of Session. 
 That short work is but an indiscreet eulogium of the vagaries 
 of Mr. Whitaker. But the compliment to the pamphlet is 
 duly superseded by the words that follow, "Perhaps the 
 subject was best understood by the late General Melville." 
 See Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, v. 381. 
 
 Niebuhr did not fail, 
 
 Niebuhr was not spared to embrace in his great work the 
 career of Hannibal, and to pourtray in all its dimensions the 
 genius of that wonderful man : accordingly, he was not 
 brought to deal deliberately with the invading march. His 
 history, however, though not reaching that period, is not 
 
 A 
 
220 
 
 Cause of Doubt. 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 \ 
 
 II 
 
 a 
 
 without allusion, to the subject, and it may be seen that the 
 Polybian narrative of the track through the Alps is accepted 
 with its obvious intei'pretation. 
 
 Speaking of the invasion of the Gauls, he says : — " It 
 may be regarded as clearly certain that the Gauls came 
 down into Italy through the valley of Aosta. It would be 
 " idle to inquire! whether, like Hannibal, they crossed the 
 " Little, or lik(i Buonaparte, the Great St. Bernard, and 
 " whether their march followed the Is^re, or the northern 
 " shore of the lake of Geneva." Translation by Hare and 
 Thirlwall, ii. 535. 
 
 In his last lectures on Eoman history, given in the winter 
 of 1828-9, and ]3ublished by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz in 1844, 
 Niebuhr shortly alludes to the controversy, and in very plain 
 terms. He gives to General Melville the credit of having 
 shown the truth to the world : he speaks, indeed, as if the 
 General had himself published the result of his investiga- 
 tions. These are his words — " After the researches of General 
 " Melville, there can be no longer any doubt as to the road 
 " which Hannibal took : and, if any one who has a practical 
 " mind compares with the researches of General Melville the 
 account which Polybius gives, he must see that no other 
 road is possible." Vol. i. p. 170. The name of De Luc 
 might with justice have been added to that of General 
 Melville. 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 Arnold recognised the Truth : and might have extinguished 
 Doubt. But not giving to Polybius the credit of shoivijig 
 him the Truths he blamed him where he sJwuld have com- 
 mended him. Conclusion. 
 
 In investigating the narrative of Polybius, I have sometimes 
 adverted to comments of Dr. Arnold, according to my view of 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. A r n old — Conclusion. 
 
 221 
 
 tt 
 
 ti 
 
 their merits. Though some have required to be canvassed, he 
 plainly leaned to our hypothesis. But there is from time to 
 time one general persevering criticism, more likely than any 
 comments on the narrative, to influence the judgment of 
 others ; his censure of the authority on which the question 
 rests. Those who may be inclined to treat the question as 
 depending on the authority of Polybius, are taught by that 
 censure to distrust the value of his evidence. 
 
 The distinguished writer of whom I speak, whose death is 
 still a fresh grief to literature and to society, and whose 
 memory every good man must cherish, was one of rare power 
 and attainments. His mind was characterised by zeal for all 
 that was right and tending to the happiness of his fellow- 
 creatures. His days were devoted to vigorous and various 
 research. As a traveller with keen faculties of observation, 
 as one who must have worked laboriously * on the career of 
 Hannibal before he grasped the history of Rome, and to whom 
 the line of the great invasion continued to be a subject of 
 strong interest and repeated study, he must be deemed amply 
 conversant with the question in which I am engaged. For 
 these reasons T cannot disregard his declared sentiments : and 
 not disregarding, I must either resist or embrace them. 
 
 One who recognises the superior ability of Dr. Arnold for 
 scrutinising the style and merits of a Greek author, may 
 nevertheless be excused for objecting to the particular crimi- 
 nation here spoken of : for it arises out of, and is specially 
 applied to the history of the march througli the Alps. The 
 charges brought against Polybius are illustrated expressly 
 from this subject : and, if the attacks are just and fair, they 
 damage the authority, on whose strength I rely throughout. 
 I wiU examine them with the freedom that would have been 
 approved by him whose views provoke the comment. 
 
 In the third volume of the History of Rome, remarks on 
 * See EncyclojKJedia Metropolitana. 
 
222 
 
 Cause of Doubt. 
 
 'i 
 
 fi f. 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 the geographical incompetency of Polybius, and the conse- 
 quent inaccuracy and obscurity of his writings, appear in 
 many places. The most injurious matter, which I will 
 presently exhibit, is in the text. Much that is curious and 
 interesting is found in the notes : the following is an elaborate 
 instance. Note I. to ch. xliii. " The question, in what direc- 
 " tion this famous march was taken, has been agitated for 
 " more than eighteen hundred years : and who can under- 
 " take to decide it ? The difficulty to modern inquirers has 
 " arisen chiefly from the total absence of geographical talent 
 " in Polybius. That this historian indeed should ever have 
 " gained the reputation of a good geographer, only proves how 
 " few there are who have any notion what a geographical 
 " instinct is. Polybius indeed laboured with praiseworthy 
 " diligence to become a geographer ; but he laboured against 
 " nature ; and the; unpoetical character of his mind has in his 
 " writings actually lessened the accuracy, as it has totally 
 " destroyed the bejauty of history. To any man who compre- 
 " hended the whole character of a mountain country, and the 
 " nature of its pasises, nothing would have been easier than to 
 " have conveyed at once a clear idea of Hannibal's route, by 
 " naming the vail ey by which he had ascended to the main 
 " chain, and afterwards that w^hich he followed in descending 
 " from it. Or, admitting that the names of barbarian rivers 
 " would have conveyed little information to Greek readers, 
 " still the several Alpine valleys have each their peculiar 
 " character, and an observer with the least power of descrip- 
 " tion would have given such lively touches of the varying 
 ** scenery of the march, that future travellers must at once 
 " have recognised his description. Whereas the account of 
 " Polybius is at once so unscientific and so deficient in truth 
 and liveliness ol' painting, that persons who have gone over 
 the several Alpiiie passes for the very purpose of identifying 
 " his descriptions, can still reasonably doubt whether they 
 
 (( 
 
 <( 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. Arnold — Conclusimi. 
 
 223 
 
 " were meant to apply to Mont Gene vre, or Mont Cenis, or 
 " the Little St. Bernard." Again, in note F, he says : " His 
 " descriptions are so vague and imperfect, and so totally 
 " devoid of painting, that it is scarcely possible to understand 
 " them." 
 
 Thus does the Alpine traveller of the nineteenth century, 
 charge him of IGO B.C. with neglecting his facilities. He may 
 be defended by denying the facilities. Neither Polybius, nor 
 any man of his day or of ages which succeeded him, had 
 the means " to comprehend the whole character of a moun- 
 tain country and the nature of its passes." No civilized 
 community possessed the necessary facts, or knowledge, or 
 experience. I conceive that Polybius was fully on a par in 
 geographical instinct with Larauza, Arnold, and Ellis : and 
 that, if he had possessed their advantages, and seen what they 
 have seen, he would have conveyed by names and otherwise, 
 as clear an idea of the several passes, as they could do. He 
 has plainly told them the valley by which Hannibal gained 
 his first Alps ; and is hardly listened to. He has not named 
 that by which he ascended to the main chain : and possibly 
 he hardly knew that in that valley the invaders regained the 
 river over which they crossed into the Island a fortnight 
 before. Geography from authors he had none : maps there 
 were none : and the identity may not have been conveyed to 
 his mind through the varying dialects of successive Alpine 
 tribes : the name, as articulated at Conflans or St. Maurice, 
 may have been neither Scoras nor Isaras, nor anything which 
 would have given light to his narrative, had he attempted to 
 pourtray it in Greek characters. I may at least reply to such 
 objection — " As you do not understand his valley of the 
 ** Ehone, say not that he would have made you understand 
 " the valley of Scez." 
 
 Dr. Arnold, always conceiving that the course through the 
 Alps should have been characterised by a lively pourtraying of 
 
 1 
 
 i'ni 
 
i* 
 
 224 
 
 Cause of Doubt, 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 €t 
 
 <i 
 
 its varied scenery, wrote in 1835 : " I have been and am 
 " working at Hannibal's passage of the Alps : how bad a 
 " geographer is I'olybius ! — The dulness of his fancy made it 
 " impossible for him to conceive or paint scenery clearly : 
 " and how can a man be a geographer without lively images 
 of the formation and features of the country which he 
 scribes ? Ho\^' different are the several Alpine valleys : 
 " and how would a few simple touches of the scenery which 
 " he seems actually to have visited, yet could neither under- 
 " stand nor feel it, have decided for ever the question of the 
 " route ! Now tlie account suits no valley well, and therefore 
 " it may be applied to many/' While I doubt that such 
 touches of scenery would have decided the question, I con- 
 sider that the plain leading facts of the narrative do decide 
 the question. They pronounce the path of Hannibal by land- 
 marks which are ample for our guidance, though so many are 
 unsuccessful in the recognition of them. The clouds which 
 have so long obscured this subject were not produced by the 
 defective painting of Polybius. It is the false light streaming 
 from the more familiar tale of the Eoman historian which has 
 diverted many from observation of the better guide : and, if 
 that guide has not led to knowledge, it is because they who 
 most wanted it have so feebly sought and accepted his 
 instruction. 
 
 The landmarks of Polybius are these — Tlie arrival at the 
 Island. The operations in it. The clear description of that 
 country. The further ascent of the Khone to the Alps. That 
 this march was over ground practicable to cavalry. That it 
 traversed the coimtry of the Allobroges. That the first Alps 
 were forced against leaders of that people. The precipitous 
 descent on the other side of the barrier. The quiet of the 
 succeeding march. The productiveness of the district, ap- 
 parent fi-om the supplies obtained after the first conflict, and 
 again on the sixth day of Alps. The white rock at the scene 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. Arnold — Co?iclusion. 
 
 225 
 
 of action on the eve of the summit. The broken way, and 
 the last year's snow on the first day of descent. The pasture 
 valley below. The arrival in the plain among the Insubres. 
 These things, with the arrangement of the whole track of the 
 march into intelligible sections, and the assigning to each of 
 them its proper measurement and period of time, these are 
 the landmarks of Polybius : more or less strong, when taken 
 separately ; conclusive, when combined. 
 
 An inquirer into the Polybian history ought at least to 
 apprehend these leading features of the tale, before he com- 
 plains of the absence of instruction. When it is asked how 
 for so many miles we read no names, the historian himself 
 has provided the answer : * and it is philosophical and just. 
 When something more lively, more pictorial, more poetical, 
 is required, we feel that it is not reasonable to exact, that 
 Polybius should have painted the features of Hannibal's Alps 
 in the spirit of contrast with those of other Alps. He did 
 not go to solve a disputed point of history : dispute had not 
 begun. He found the track, and he pursued it. We know 
 not that he ever explored any other Alpine pass. He alone 
 of his rank and station encountered the perils of this. 
 
 The illustrious of Eome in his day had little, if any 
 personal intercourse with the Alps. The Greek hostage threw 
 himself into those mountains in search of truth, and has re- 
 corded it in sufficiently clear characters. It was not presented 
 to his mind, that he should guard it against misapprehension, 
 by cumulating characteristic notices in the chance of distin- 
 guishing this pass from others of which he had no experience. 
 He could not foresee the singular fatality by which truth has 
 been resisted, nor the inventions which have led to feuds 
 among his interpreters. He affected only the historian. His 
 employment was on facts, not the embellishment of facts : 
 and the indicia which he has given us are better than 
 
 * Polybius, iii. 36. 
 
 VOL. II. (^ 
 
226 
 
 Cause of Doubt. 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 CHAP, II.] 
 
 Dr. A mold — Conchision. 
 
 painting or poetry. But even here his defects may be exagge- 
 rated. He could paint, and with a strong hand. When man 
 or nature gives obstruction to the march, that strength appears. 
 When all is easy and unimpeded, he bestows a lighter touch. 
 His subject was history, not landscape : Hannibal, not the 
 Alps. Is there the imputed dulness ? Many a page of more 
 popular histoiy may be read, without finding a truer or livelier 
 picture than that which Polybius has given of the passage of 
 the Ehone by the Carthaginian armament. The account of 
 the assault on the unwinding column, as they surmounted 
 their first Alps, and trod the margin of the precipice, is 
 strikingly clear and forcible. The descriptive power of Poly- 
 bius, not enough for somp, is too great for others. The oprj 
 hvGirpoaoha Koi Svaifi^oXa, kol cr^eSov, w? elirelvy aTrpnaLra, 
 represent effectively the outworks of the great natural bul- 
 wark which seemed to defy the progress of the invaders. If 
 truth fails here, not weakness nor dulness is the cause : for 
 grave authorities have, on this force of description, been 
 seduced to say, that through such mountains no way could 
 be for Hannibal. Dr. Ukert, arguing to that effect, is called 
 sagacious by Dr. Thirl wall.* 
 
 I repeat that none are entitled to impute their difficulties 
 on the track to the dulness of the author, so long as they are 
 blind to the main facts through which he has exhibited it. 
 Dr. Arnold had not that blindness. His error is peculiar to 
 himself He saw the truth, and was qualified to grasp it ; 
 and did grasp it, My complaint is, that he did not do justice 
 to the gTeat authority from which he learned it. The struggle 
 made by the multitude for a march up the Isere, is made only 
 in the pretence of following Polybius. Livy did not misap- 
 prehend his pre'lecessor. He did not insist that Hannibal, 
 on reaching the Island, proceeded to the Alps by keeping the 
 valley of any river. He disregarded the track of Polybius, 
 
 '' Philol. Museum, ii. 681. 
 
 227 
 
 J 
 
 and preferred an hypothesis of his own. No modern com- 
 mentator, French, German, or English, has the courage to do 
 this. None say that they disown Polybius. All say that he 
 must be right. Let them then accept his evidence. Let them 
 see that his course is up the PJione to the Alps ; being 
 of necessity irreconcilable with ever reaching the Genevre. 
 Let them see that his descent from the Alps into the Cisalpine 
 Gauls places him in incurable contradiction of any pass which 
 they can call Cottian : and that his distances negative irre- 
 mediably an approach to Italy from the Penine. 
 
 When broad instructions are openly misconstrued, truth is 
 challenged and error can be met. It is more injurious that 
 they should be passed by, with saying that the author fails 
 to throw light upon the subject. I will advert here to a most 
 important point in the disputed track, and one on which Dr. 
 Arnold has shown more courtesy to critics than justice to the 
 historian ; the continuance of the march up the Pthone. While 
 Polybius is blamed for the evidence which he is said not to 
 give, there is hardly an acknowledgment of the evidence 
 which he does give. Instead of thanks for his instruction, he 
 receives censure for the want of it. It will perhaps be said 
 that, as Dr. Arnold believed in the march up the Ehone, to 
 the Mont du Chat, lie had no occasion to enlarge his pages 
 by giving the data which commanded his assent. But un- 
 fortunately the comment that he does find room for is a repre- 
 hension of Polybius touching the very points on which that 
 march depends. There is not, I believe, in ancient writings, 
 a hint which would guide Dr. Arnold up the PJione to the 
 Mont du Chat, save in the plain words with which Polybius 
 has made the facts known. And it is to be lamented here, 
 that the censure is rashly and hastily applied. 
 
 Dr. Arnold's narrative of Hannibal's arrival on the Isere 
 and advance towards the Alps, is in these words : — " In four 
 " days they reached the spot where the Isere, coming down 
 
 Q2 . 
 
228 
 
 Cause of Doubt. 
 
 [PAKT XII. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. Arnold — Conclusion. 
 
 229 
 
 " from the main Alps, brings to the Rhone a stream hardly 
 *' less full or mighty than his own. In the plains above the 
 *' confluence, two Gaulish brothers were contending which 
 ** should be chief of their tribe : and the elder called on the 
 " stranger general to support his cause. Hannibal readily 
 " complied, established him firmly on the throne, and re- 
 " ceived important aid from him in return. He supplied the 
 ** Carthaginian army plentifully with provisions ; furnished 
 " them with new arms ; gave them new clothing, especially 
 " shoes, which Avere found very useful in the subsequent 
 " march ; and accompanied them to the first entrance on the 
 •* mountain country, to secure them from attacks on the part 
 " of his country Djien." 
 
 Such is the historical statement as imputed to Polybius by 
 the pen of Dr. Arnold, who immediately adds this criticism, 
 accounting for the doubtful information which it contains : — 
 " The attentive reader, who is acquainted with the geography 
 " of the Alps and their neighbourhood, will perceive that this 
 " account of Haimibal's march is vague. It does not appear 
 " whether the Carthaginians ascended the left bank of the 
 " Is^re, or the right bank, or whether they continued to ascend 
 " the Ithone for a time, and leaving it only so far as to avoid 
 ** the great angle which it makes at Lyons, rejoined it just 
 *' before they entered the mountain country, a little to the 
 " left of the present road from Lyons to Chamberi. These 
 " uncertainties cannot now be removed, because Polybius 
 *• neither possessed sufficient knowledge of the country, nor 
 *^ sufficient liveliness as a painter, to describe the march so 
 ** as to be clearly recognised." Having thus fixed the blame 
 on the historian, he expresses his own opinion on the line of 
 march, according to the line which Polybius has pointed out. 
 
 Though the uncertainties which the incapacity of Polybius 
 has bequeathed to us are pronounced irremovable, they are 
 made to vanish before the opinion of Dr. Arnold. In truth 
 
 f f 
 
 they only appear to us by the way in which Dr. Arnold has 
 told the story. The account which he impeaches as vague, is 
 his own. It affirms nothing upon a river with a name, or 
 without a name, and raises no question. In the statement of 
 Polybius himself, Hannibal marches irapa rbu irorafjiov, and 
 I greatly doubt that any man ever rose from a first perusal 
 of the history itself, with the impression that the author by 
 Tov TTOTafiov meant anything but the Rhone. Polybius 
 teaches plainly enough for any one, that Hannibal marched 
 up the Rhone till he found the Alps : he teaches, moreover, 
 that the march was through the Allobroges, menaced by that 
 people, and ultimately resisted by them. If Polybius had 
 been the liveliest of painters he could hardly have identified 
 the river more intelligibly. " The river" by ordinary reference 
 is the Rhone, and no one need stray from that construction 
 to assume that the local guides would take the army away 
 from the Alps into angles only to bring them back again and 
 increase the length of march. If Dr. Arnold saw doubt in 
 the TTorafiov of c. 50, he might have said so : if he was not 
 satisfied with Polybius's statement of the march, diro rij^; 
 oia^daecof; rod 'Po3avo{) Trap' avrov tov irorafjuov W9 iirl rd^; 
 7r7jyd<; eo)? irpo^ rrjv dva/3o\r}V tmv "AX-jreoyv in c. 39, he 
 might have said so. But is it credible that, with those words 
 before him. Dr. Arnold could admit either shore of the Isere 
 to be a competing line of march within the words of Polybius? 
 The authority of Dr. Arnold condemning the vagueness and 
 uncertainty, more than anything that has been written, is 
 calculated to engender a suspicion that the text of Polybius 
 is ambiguous. The danger of this, is my best excuse for 
 having dwelt so deliberately on the text and context of the 
 historian touching the progress to the first Alps ; protesting 
 against the many who shirk that evidence, and the few who 
 have ventured their feeble argument in favour of the Is^re — 
 (Part IV. ch. iii.) A careful exhibition of the facts and the 
 
230 
 
 Cmise of Doubt. 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. A mold — Conclusion. 
 
 231 
 
 *l 
 
 context was indeed called for by the scepticism of less potent 
 writers. But it was still more due after the defective report 
 and the ready reproaches of one so looked up to as Dr. Arnold. 
 Viewing, as I do, the clearness and cogency of that evidence 
 already pointed cut by De Luc, I am at a loss to understand, 
 that Dr. Arnold can have so read the story, as to find the 
 pretensions of the rivers and of his three suggested tracks 
 doubtfully balanced ; and that, while he himself gives pre- 
 ponderance to a march up the Ehone, he could lament that 
 the uncertainties cannot be removed, and could denounce 
 Polybius as the cause of them. The plain words of Polybius, 
 and nothing else, taught Dr. Arnold that Hannibal went up 
 the Rhone to find the Alps : and it is unfortunate, that the 
 author of a worlc so universally read, did not employ a few 
 words for aiding the judgment of his readers with that which 
 had compelled his own. Instead of giving Polybius credit 
 for the instruction, and using a few words to vindicate his 
 meaning, he reprehends him as the cause of the uncertainty 
 through his incompetence to apprehend and to relate. 
 
 Polybius is innocent of the uncertainty. Misconstruction 
 has long been favoured, and confusion nursed by those who 
 would distort him into an accordance with Livy. But such 
 confusion might have been cleared away by one who was 
 himself proof against it. That idle longing to reconcile irre- 
 concilables has been to others the spring of the mischief. 
 If Polybius had been the only witness, a famed Helleniste of 
 the College de France, Letronne, would no more have thought 
 to construe irorafiov the Isere than he would have thought to 
 construe it the Seine. Larauza, Ukert, Ellis, and the rest, 
 would have been spared their curious efforts in the same de- 
 ceptive cause. And, if the favourite and popular blunder, 
 the doubtfulness of the river, had not been so engrafted into 
 the controversy when Dr. Arnold came to deal with it, he 
 would never ha\e told his reader that the river of the march 
 
 > 
 
 does not appear; and that the uncertainty cannot be removed: 
 he would not, when suggesting the truth for himself, have 
 condemned the very source that gave it him, and found 
 excuse for doubts which were unworthy and unable to shake 
 his own judgment. I have come to the conclusion, that no 
 reader of Polybius is to be excused for not understanding 
 that Hannibal found the Alps by marching up the Rhone to 
 the Alps. Dr. Arnold did understand it : such a man could 
 not help understanding it. But he missed the opportunity 
 of doing a just thing, and of vindicating the historian, rather 
 than the host of authors who had perverted the meaning of 
 his words. Toleration of doubt by him has been more inju- 
 rious than argument from others. 
 
 The incompetence of the historian is proclaimed, as having 
 caused reasonable doubts of modern inquirers. I deny that 
 the doubts are reasonable, and assign a different cause for 
 their existence. Livy reasoned feebly : he avowed his belief 
 in a line of march, and seemed to have the belief : and critics 
 have shrunk from rejecting it. While none dare avow that 
 they reject Polybius, this has sustained a state of doubt. The 
 perplexity has been increased by the efforts to escape from 
 it. Volumes, that have been written with inventions for 
 solving it, have been but a waste of words to establish an 
 impossible conciliation. Many constructions of Livy had 
 not their origin in doubt of the pass which he favoured, but 
 in the struggle to reconcile him with Polybius. Both are 
 mutilated, that they may be one. Men would never have 
 been provoked to misconstrue the pass, if there had been 
 but one history to construe. If Polybius were the only 
 writer, the Rhone would be the accepted criterion of the 
 march to the Alps. If Livy were the only writer, the accepted 
 criterion would be the Durance. All theories, except the 
 Graian, are infected with the spirit of conciliation. This 
 alone could have produced the laboured theories of the Mont 
 
232 
 
 Cause of DouU. 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. A mold — Conclusion. 
 
 233 
 
 Cenis. Conciliation dislocates rivers, and builds upon their 
 banks with etymology. An exchange of names is made 
 between the Ehone and the Isere. Strange casualties awaited 
 the Druentia : it was not enough that in the last century two 
 of our countrym(}n discharged that river into the Ehone, one 
 at Geneva, and one at Martigny. The bold Cenisians, coming 
 thirty and sixty years later, empty him into the Isere instead 
 of the Khone. 
 
 Such are specimens of the rise and progress of doubt. 
 Charge them not to the dulness of Polybius : but to the vain 
 spirit of conciliation. Cease to make Polybius responsible 
 for the doubts of " those who have gone over the several 
 " Alpine passes for the very purpose of identifying his de- 
 " scriptions/' Dr. Arnold himself really travelled in that 
 purpose : and, though he did not declare all doubt dispelled, 
 he hardly resisted the full result that we desire. Others have 
 contemplated the Alps, not for the purpose of identifying the 
 descriptions of I'olybius, but for the purpose of reconciling 
 them with the descriptions of another writer. This has been, 
 and, according to their own express resolves, this ought to be, 
 the definitive aim of. their exertions — " Concilier Polybe et 
 Tite-Live, voil^ le probleme ; le but definitive de nos efforts." 
 
 Dr. Arnold travelled with a mind free from that disturbance : 
 he was not a man to be awed by the numbers, weight, or per- 
 tinacity of the heroes of this controversy ; but he laboured 
 under a strong distaste of the author. Depreciation of 
 Polybius had become habitual to him : the doubt between 
 the right of Isere, the left of Isere, and the Ehone, is pro- 
 nounced irremo\'able : the description of the march by this 
 historian is said to be so obscure as to defy recognition: 
 vagueness and want of painting. are said to make it unintel- 
 ligible. Dr. Arnold made repeated efforts to understand this 
 matter of history : we read of his labours and his scruples in 
 1825, and 1830, and 1835 : and in 1841 he declares, that his 
 
 sense of Polybius's merit as an historian is becoming con- 
 tinually less and less. This feeling did not favour the success 
 of a search into the author for instruction : and the result has 
 been, that justice is not done to him, and that false critics are 
 " spared at his expense. Had Dr. Arnold sifted more severely 
 the wayward interpretations of those for whose errors he finds 
 excuse, and tried them by the words of the unpalatable 
 history, he might not have added his weight to denounce the 
 obscurity of a plain straightforward tale. 
 
 It is the great Eoman historian, who has led the world 
 astray by his conception of the Carthaginian invasion. His 
 fame is riveted by the eulogies of one who owns his faults, 
 the illustrious Mebuhr. Let those eulogies adorn the name 
 of Livy. But let the interests of literature and historical 
 truth prompt us to sustain also the fame and character of 
 Polybius. Homage thafr is paid to the memory of Livy, the 
 same lament over the spoils of time is due, though for other 
 virtues, to the historian of Megalopolis. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 Of the comprehensive histories of Polybius, five books 
 only have survived entire. Others are partially saved. Their 
 value is inestimable. Through the few years to which these 
 relics belong, we cling to them as to a great and safe 
 authority. We find in their author not only a narrator of 
 facts, and an expounder of geography, but an accomplished 
 soldier, statesman and philosopher. He taught his country- 
 men and the world to found the success of human enterprise 
 on the provisions of skill and industry, noting the moral 
 causes of events, without imagining at every step the miracu- 
 lous interposition of a patronising deity. Such precepts 
 tended to improve mankind by inducing them to rely for 
 success on their own merits and exertions. They have been 
 censured by critics of different periods as the offspring of 
 
— HI" ■! " 
 
 234 
 
 Cause of Donht. 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. A mold — Conclusion. 
 
 
 & 
 
 an irreligious mind. Do they not betoken rather a mind 
 breaking from the; gloom of the religion which surrounded it, 
 and struggling to discern a light beyond ! 
 
 I venture upon this tribute to the merits of Polybius, not- 
 withstanding the following criticism : — " Polybius, by temper 
 " and by circumstances a rationalist, is at great pains to assure 
 " his readers that Scipio owed no part of his greatness to the 
 " Gods, and that his true oracle was the clear judgment of his 
 *' own ndnd. According to him Scipio did but impose upon 
 " and laugh at the credulity of the vulgar, speaking of the 
 *' favour shown him by the Gods, while he knew the Gods to 
 " be nothing." Dr. Arnold conceives that Scipio is misrepre- 
 sented ; he vindicates the hero, impeaching the historian. 
 
 I venture to doubt that Polybius imputed such sentiments 
 to Scipio, or that he entertained them himself. Such anim- 
 adversions are not made now for the first time. Casaubon 
 found occasion to refute the errors of those " qui male de 
 " Diis et Divinf. Providentia Polybium sensisse ausi sunt 
 " scribere." * The Eoman people indulged the notion that 
 Scipio was a favourite with the Gods, that he held converse 
 with them, and that his schemes pros])ered under their 
 special intei'position. It appears that that great commander 
 countenanced a superstitious feeling beyond what his own 
 mind accepted ; that he encouraged his soldiers to believe 
 that there was a divine inspiration in his enterprises, and 
 that the Gods were on their side, knowing that this per- 
 suasion would raise the spirits of other men nearer to a level 
 with his own, and work them to a state of resolution for 
 mighty deeds — 77/309 ra heiva rtav epycov. The historian gives 
 Scipio the credit due to his actions, of wisdom in his designs, 
 and vigour in th(! prosecution of them, and upon this is based 
 
 * See his dedication to Henry the Fourth of France, given by 
 Schweigh?euser, as Praefatio Casauboni 
 
 the imputation that the power of the Deity was held of no 
 account, and the superstition of the Eomans treated as an 
 object of ridicule. 
 
 It is to the honour of Polybius, that he did not keeprpace 
 with the superstitious of the age, nor suppose the noble 
 Roman whose achievements he recorded to have ascribed all 
 happy results to dreams and omens and the caprice of the 
 Gods. He gave its due rank to the genius of that illustrious 
 man, while feebler observers, incapable to appreciate his 
 sagacity, and blind to the connexion of moral causes and 
 effects, imputed each successful effort to chance or to the 
 special interference of the Gods.* It is unjust to charge 
 Polybius with a scorn of the Deity, because he censured those 
 writers, or because he extolled the greatness of Scipio. Diffi- 
 cult as it is to dissect the thoughts of men, and tell where 
 religion ends and superstition begins, there is no reason to 
 doubt that both the hero and his eulogist were men of 
 reverential minds. 
 
 One might suppose from the terms of condemnation, that 
 Polybius was the patron of a system in which there was no 
 God, and man was everything. But in truth the ground he 
 takes is on the defensive against those who deemed the 
 virtues and abilities of man to be nothing, and who referred 
 each success of human labour to the caprice of a God or the 
 agency of chance. If we could study the whole of such a 
 controversy, we might find the religious principle beaming 
 with a purer light from Polybius than from his opponents. 
 
 There is good sense, and no impiety, when he rebukes 
 other writers for introducing divine agents where they are not 
 wanted : and, when this reasonable censure is deemed a con- 
 tempt of the Gods, it is like denouncing a man as an infidel 
 because he does not believe in ghost stories. Polybius insists 
 that the wisdom and energy of a man produces fruits, though 
 
 * Polyb. X. 
 
236 
 
 Caiise of Doubt 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 not backed by pi-eternatural means ; and he dissents from 
 those who ascribe; each prosperous result to dreams, omens, 
 Gods, and fortune. He was intolerant of the story that some 
 divinity appeared in person to escort Hannibal over the preci- 
 pices ; and, if he had heard of the celestial vision on which 
 that hero was enjoined to fix his eyes, with the gigantic 
 serpent and the destroying tempest in the rear,* he would 
 have remarked that the great invader made his w^ay through 
 Spain and France? without those auxiliaries. He did not 
 credit the special interference of Neptune to accomplish the 
 assault of Carthagena, though he tells how Scipio encouraged 
 his soldiers to the belief of it. The sentiments of Polybius 
 were not only not hostile to religion, but they accorded with 
 the sounder notions on the divine government of the world. 
 In denying false agencies and vindicating the energies of 
 man, he best asserts the power of God. 
 
 The distinguished writer and editor of the Dictionary of 
 Biography, as if adopting the censure to which I object, pro- 
 nounces Polybius to be " a decided rationalist -/' but he adds 
 this : " Although he regards Fortune {Tvxv) as the Goddess 
 '' who regulated the affairs of men, whose hand may always be 
 *' traced in the history of nations, and to whom the Eomans, 
 therefore, owe their dominion (comp. e.g. i. 4, 58, 86, ii. 35, 
 70, iv. 2, viii. 4), still he repeatedly calls the reader's atten- 
 tion to the means by which Fortune enabled this people to 
 *' rise to their extraordinary position. These he traces first of 
 *' all in their admirable political constitution (vi. 1), and in 
 " the stedfastness, perseverance, and imity of purpose, which 
 " were the natural results of such a constitution." 
 
 One who so speaks of the Tvxv of Polybius, might have 
 omitted the designation of rationalist. The term Tvxn^ 
 representing Chance or Fortune, is in frequent use with 
 Polybius, as with others. It is familiarly used by some for 
 
 * Livy, xxi. 22. 
 
 ft 
 
 i( 
 
 t( 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. A mold — Conclusion. 
 
 237 
 
 good luck : and why not ? Polybius personifies her ; so do 
 we. If he deifies her, which I am not aware of, so do we. 
 The gravest modern writer can speak of the smiles and the 
 frowns of the fickle goddess, but his conscience bears no 
 allegiance to such divine personage, neither did the con- 
 science of Polybius. There is no sentence of his in wdiich 
 the word appears, that might not be written by a Christian. 
 When, in opposition to certain writers, he denies the agency 
 of Tvxv, he intends Chance. But when, in discussing the 
 mutability of human affairs, he reprehends those who com- 
 plain of Tvxv, he has regard to the dispensations of Provi- 
 dence. The words just quoted from Dr. Smith express a 
 power " which regulates the affairs of men, and w^hose hand 
 may be traced in the history of nations." What is this but the 
 Providence of God ? 
 
 While Polybius with sound discernment traces effects to 
 their moral causes, he does not pretend to explain all results 
 by his own efforts of reasoning. He applies the ideas of bad 
 and good fortune as we do, when events seem not the fair and 
 probable consequences of things precedent : as when one, who 
 has ably done all within his reach, is defeated by overpowering 
 circumstances. This is not peculiar to him, nor wrong in any 
 one. We do not offend the religious sentiment, when we call 
 the man unfortunate, who with honest efforts fails of success : 
 nor is Polybius to be blamed for saying, that fortune prevailed 
 against Hannibal, who had done iravra ra hvvara irpo^ to 
 vc/cav. 
 
 He denies the agency of Chance, when, in praise of the 
 energy and perseverance of the Ptomans (i. 63. 9), he states 
 them to have attained the ends they aimed at, ov tvxv* 
 KaOdirep eviOL hoKovai tmv 'EWtjvcov. ovS* avTO/jLaray^j aXXa 
 KoX Xlav elfcoTw^;. This very repudiation of Chance might be 
 thought to involve him in irreligion by those who deemed all 
 praise of man to be a slight of the Gods. Insisting on human 
 
 m 
 
 ^m 
 
 n 
 
238 
 
 Ca\ise of Doubt. 
 
 [part xir. 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. Arnold — Conclusion. 
 
 239 
 
 sagacity and labour as bearing their fruits, he condemns those 
 who gave to Chance the merit of success and the blame of 
 failure, and says (ii. 38. 5), " Charge it not to Chance, but 
 look for a cause." Still we find him inclined to show that 
 the course of events is just, and cautioning his readers against 
 the hasty assumption that it is unjust. Speaking (xv. 20. 5) 
 of the conspiracy of the two kings against the infant sovereign 
 of Egy^pt, and their sj^oliation of his possessions, he says that 
 there had indeed been excuse to complain of Tvxn - ^^t he 
 calls attention to the retribution which followed, roU 
 iin'yevofiivoL^ kclWicttov vTroheiyfia irpo^ iTravopOcoacv. Here 
 Providence is the object of vindication. 
 
 If there is reason in these remarks, the comment which has 
 invited them cannot be just. The severity of it is pointedly 
 clear : that the rationalist Polybius laboured to show that 
 Scipio OAved no part of his greatness to the Gods, while he 
 laughed at the vulgar credulity and knew the Gods to be 
 nothing. I believe that, in all the works of Polybius, no such 
 nor similar sentiments are to be found. In these our times 
 rationalist is a well known term of reproach : it embraces 
 that with which Polybius could not be chargeable, a rejection 
 of divine truth ; a distrust of the word of God, in restincr on 
 the standard of liuman reason. This with us is irreligion : 
 for it shows the paramount duty of obedience ; and we are 
 commanded to b(dieve though we cannot comprehend. Where 
 was the revealed word, which claimed this duty of Polybius ? 
 Was it in the fa\^oured communications that were rumoured 
 as vouchsafed to Scipio, or in the familiar interventions with 
 human society which the ancients imputed to their Gods ? 
 What breach of duty constituted the rationalism charged 
 against Polybius ? To repudiate all divine interposition in 
 the affairs of mankind was in any age impious. But an 
 ancient j)hilosopher is not to be stigmatised for withholding 
 his assent from notions which his reason could not accept ; 
 
 for disbelieving miracles which he had not witnessed, or 
 striving to account for them by natural causes. Before we 
 join in the reproach, we should at least know the character of 
 the things which he questioned : if, for instance, he discredited 
 a knowledge gained through the flight of birds or the entrails 
 of beasts, was the scepticism vicious or praiseworthy ? 
 
 See now the rationalism of Polybius: he challenged the 
 absurdity of writers, who asserted a statue of Diana, standing 
 open to the heavens, to be privileged against rain and snow :* 
 he impeached the authors, who declared that the forms of 
 those who entered a certain temple would throw no shadow 
 from the light : f he exposed the ignorance of a commander, 
 who, being blockaded by a superior force and having contrived 
 a plan of escape, was deterred from the execution of it by an 
 eclipse of the moon. I He was indeed the assertor of human 
 reason : like Strabo, he found in the glorious work of Homer 
 a depth of knowledge not heeded in the poorer praise of some 
 who went before him.§ Polybius denied the splendid course 
 of Scipio to be the mere result of the patronage of Gods, and 
 applauded the judgment, wisdom, and energy that worked the 
 welfare of his country. They too, who in the poverty of their 
 reasonings had celebrated the Carthaginian hero as achieving 
 the impossible Alps under the present guidance of a God, are 
 rebuked with the assurance that this extraordinary man had 
 ascertained and estimated all difficulties, and foreplanned the 
 efforts to surmount them. 
 
 These instances of right reason will perhaps be conceded, 
 and the charge made to touch a more serious chord, the 
 acknowledgment of a Supreme Being. Is it true then, that 
 Polybius imputed to Scipio, that he believed the Gods to be 
 nothing ? His desire was to do justice to the memory of 
 that great man on points where others did not do him justice. 
 
 * Polyb. xvi. 12. t Ibid. t Ibid. ix. 19. 
 
 § 8traT)0 i 23, &c. 
 
 if' 
 
240 
 
 Cmtse of Doubt. 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 He was not called upon to extol his devotional character. In 
 the purpose of pourtraying other great features, he was more 
 likely to soften than to exaggerate the tinge of superstition 
 which belongs to the anecdotes that he relates. It seems a 
 great mistake, that because he bestows not the praise of super- 
 stition, he is taken to deny the grace of religion : and the 
 historian is himself held up as a libeller of the Gods, because 
 he ascribes to his hero merit of his own. That merit was, 
 that he served his country with transcendent ability and 
 perseverance. Polybius complains (lib. x.) that all who had 
 hitherto written about him, had left those merits untold, only 
 proclaiming him a child of good fortune and a favourite of 
 the Gods. A long period had elapsed since the death of 
 Scipio, when I'olybius so vindicated his fame, and declared 
 that the world remained uninstructed on the greatness of his 
 genius and em^rgy by those who had pretended to write the 
 history of his time : he therefore was resolved to show to the 
 Eomans what that illustrious commander had done for 
 their country, and that his successes were the intelligible 
 results of wisdom and energy, not the offspring of dreams 
 
 and omens. 
 
 Before he exhibits by facts the marvellous industry and 
 talent displayed by Scipio in war, he relates, as heard from 
 Lc^lius, an incident in his early life, which encouraged the 
 general impression of his supernatural support: and the 
 historian's report of it has tended perhaps to bring censure on 
 himself. The story is, that the elder brother Lucius was a 
 candidate for the office of ^dile, and that his mother was 
 trying to propitiate the Gods by sacrifice. Scipio, conscious 
 that he would himself be most acceptable to the people, and 
 might carry his brother's election also, assured his mother 
 that he had dreamed that he and his brother were both 
 elected, and so obtained her permission to offer himself. This 
 incident, with the success which followed, aided the reputation 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 />/'. A mold — Conclusion. 
 
 241 
 
 n 
 
 <t 
 
 « 
 
 t< 
 
 of Scipio as a favourite with the Gods. This is the comment 
 of Polybius—" of which things the dream was none : but, 
 " l^eing generous, munificent, and of kindly demeanour, he 
 " reckoned on the good-will of the multitude towards himself. 
 " In the result, having happily hit the right time both with 
 " the people and with his mother, he not only gained his 
 <' object, but was thought to do so through some inspiration 
 " of the Deity. For those who cannot survey with exactness 
 " the seasons, and the causes, and the coincidences of things, 
 whether from poverty of spirit or from inexperience or 
 indifference, ascribe to the Gods and Chances the originating 
 of that, which is accomplished by sagacity with reasoning 
 and foresight. I make these observations for the sake of 
 " my readers, lest, being led away falsely by the current notion 
 "concerning him, they should be insensible to the most 
 " honourable and the noblest features of the man : 1 mean 
 " his skilfulness and perseverance in toil." 
 
 These sound remarks are found in the remains of the tenth 
 book: where afterwards, in the admirable account of the 
 siege of Carthagena and the recovery of the Eoman prepon- 
 derance in Spain, Polybius traces the effect to its cause, and 
 explains the singular merit of the general. All is plain 
 common sense, and creditable to him who tells it : there is no 
 more impiety in one who thus commends the insight of Scipio 
 into the affairs of life, than in those who extol the military 
 instinct of Wellington or Kapoleon. Well does the historian 
 pourtray the character which he celebrates, when he says of 
 the youthful proconsul, going forth to Spain two years after 
 the anecdote just related,— ej^(9a/>o-ft)9 htUeLTo irpo^ rrjv e^oBov, 
 ov rfj Tvxo ^carevcov akXa rol^ (Tv\\oyL(TfjLot<;. We find in 
 Strabo a similar contrast between Chance and Design, where it 
 is applied to a higher subject, the beneficent providence of 
 the Creator, testified by arrangements made ovx ottco? eTvxei^, 
 aW &)9 av fjLera Xoyiafiov tlv6<;. iv. 189. 
 VOL. TI. 5 
 
242 
 
 Cause of Doubt, 
 
 [part xit. 
 
 The unfavourable impressions which I am here combating, 
 have, I believe, been founded partly on what Polybius has 
 said in the sixth book on the BecaiBaifjuovia of the Eomans ; 
 to which he attributes, among other things, their superiority 
 in moral principle to Carthaginians and Greeks, and their 
 resistance to pecuniary corruption. He extols as a whole 
 their studious system of observances, and thoir awe of the 
 praeterhuman, the influence of which was practically inter- 
 woven with all affairs of state and the usages of domestic life. 
 He notices, however, the excess and exaggeration to which 
 tliese things were carried, and observes that it had been so 
 done Tov ttXyjOov^ %aptV (for the sake of the mass) : adding, 
 " that such a inethod would be unnecessary to a community 
 " of wise men, if a State could be composed of them ; but 
 that, as the mass everywhere is thoughtless, full of illicit 
 cravings, irrational impulse, violent passion, they must be 
 *' constrained ly uncertain terrors, and such theatrical solemni- 
 " ties {to2<; dSrj\oi<i (jyo^oL^ /cal rfj rocavrrj TpayaySca). That 
 " the ancients therefore appeared to have designedly intro- 
 " duced for the mass, notions about the Gods, and conceptions 
 " of things done in the infernal regions ; and that the moderns 
 " rather were unwise in rejecting them." In the same spirit, 
 and without the tinge of irreligion, Strabo says that "you 
 cannot rouse the mob of mankind by philosophic reason- 
 ing to reverence, holiness, and faith (tt/oo? evce^eiav koX 
 " oatoTTjra koI ttlo-tlv), but must act also through super- 
 " stition {aXXa Bel xal BetacBacfjiovla^y' i. 19. 
 
 The religion of the Eomans did indeed embrace a wide field 
 of wonders, some of which might, for swaying inferior minds, 
 receive a qualified sanction from philosophers. AecaiBaifjuovia 
 is not here emi)loyed merely in its best sense, the fear of God : 
 nor ra iv ahov to express the fact of a future state. To dis- 
 pense with the recognition of those ideas, would be to teach 
 that religion is needed only a.s a bugbear to terrify the way- 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr, Arnold — Concludon. 
 
 243 
 
 tt 
 
 ft 
 
 li 
 
 <t 
 
 ward and headstrong. But it was not those instincts of a 
 reasonable mind, that wanted merit in the eyes of Polybius, 
 or that he would dismiss as unnecessary from a society of wise 
 men. The fables of a heathen mythology v/ere an unreal 
 mockery to his sober mind : and the BeKnBaifiovia of the 
 Romans, however politically useful, abounded in the false 
 agencies which he rejected. He repudiates the notions that 
 the wise Lycurgus had learned to found his polity by the 
 teachings of a Pythian priestess, and that Scipio had raised 
 his country through the impulses of dreams and omens.* 
 He predicates an undue BeiaLBaifiovla of him whose courage 
 quailed under an eclipse of the moon, and shows that he would 
 have been the better for some knowledge of astronomy.f On 
 Timaeus he observes, that, while he opposes the audacious 
 statements of others, he is himself full of dreams, and wonders, 
 and incredible fables, abounding, in short, in low superstition 
 and womanish nonsense (BecatBac^ovla^ ay€vpov<; kuI reparela^ 
 yvvaiKcoBov^;), xii. 24. 
 
 It seems to me that in these matters Polybius exhibits a 
 sound discrimination : and that he is not to be censured, 
 either for the resistance which he offers to superstition, or 
 for the modified toleration which he extends to it. If he is 
 charged with imputing atheism to Scipio, it seemed relevant 
 to consider whether he could be so charged himself: therefore 
 I have aUuded to some matters in the sixth book. But in 
 truth, in those comments on Roman institutions, he is not 
 dealing with the principles of religion and the duty of man to 
 his Creator : his subject is the perpetual blending of sacred 
 ceremonies with the ordinary transactions of life : and he 
 treats with respect forms and observances which awe the 
 ordinary mind into rectitude. Thus he notices the oath of 
 office, the obligation of which, tJ kut^ rhv '6pKov irlaTK;, made 
 * Polyb. X. 3. t lb. ix. 19. 
 
 e2 
 
 'M 
 
 I « 
 
 
244 
 
 Cause of Doiibt. 
 
 [part XII 
 
 the Eoman faithful to his trust of public money, a virtue 
 unknown to the Greek. Shall we also not allow, that in a 
 society of wise and good men, oaths would be superfluous? 
 Yet not the less must we agree with Polybius in the principle 
 by w^hicli they are required. We claim the oaths of wit- 
 nesses : a process as needless to bring truth from a good man, 
 as it is vain for stifling the lies of a bad man : but upon the 
 shadowy multitude that intervenes, the solemnity has a clear 
 practical influence to the daily benefit of society. The religion 
 of an oath has merit in its political usefulness : but he who 
 approves it on that ground is not to be construed as under- 
 valuing religion. 
 
 The mind of such a man as Polybius was likely to become 
 cautious of su])erstition, and bold in the cause of Truth, by 
 the variety of circumstances in which his life was placed, and 
 his opportunities of viewing with deliberation, and scanning 
 without prejudice, the institutions of the civilized world, their 
 beauties and their blemishes. He was free to use the voice 
 of reason, and to grapple with those who invited the belief 
 of mankind to things, which he designates as " falling beyond 
 the scope, not only of what is probable, but of what is possible." 
 He could doubt what others believed; and censure what 
 others sustained: but did he withhold honour and praise 
 where honour and praise were due ? Were his scruples not 
 based in truth ? If they \vere, blame him not for moderating 
 his acquiescence in the delusions of his age. Had he gone 
 further, we might have excused without applauding him. 
 Things, not reasonable in themselves, may from circumstances 
 be entitled to excuse, or almost to commendation. Cicero 
 believed in the unity of a wise and beneficent Creator : vet 
 it became his duty to observe, and to enforce the observance 
 of the religion of his country. So let it stand. If it be 
 required to bring these merits into critical balance, and to 
 
 1 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. Arnold — Conclusion. 
 
 245 
 
 pronounce for one the greater praise, that praise must be 
 rather that he was a sceptic among heathens, than that, an 
 enlightened theologist, he was an actor in heathen cere- 
 monies. 
 
 What was it, then, which the philosophy of Polybius 
 rejected ? Not the belief in a Being greater and wiser than 
 man : but the surrender of the understanding to notions pre- 
 posterous in themselves, and irreverent of that greater and 
 wiser Being. He defines the extent to which superstition 
 may be tolerated, limiting it to that which is subservient to 
 religion, and protesting against the nonsense which, offending 
 our reason, does not tend to a reverence of God. " We may 
 " excuse some historians," he says (xvi. 12, 9), " when they 
 " deal in miracles and fables, so far as it tends to sustain the 
 " piety of the multitude tow^ards the Deity (ocra tiev awreivei 
 '' 7r/0O9 TO BLaaco^etv rrjv rov ifKr^Oovf^ evcreQeiav Trpo^; to 
 ** Oehv) ; all beyond this is inadmissible." This comment is 
 in check of superstition : but even that superstition was not 
 the subject of ridicule : still less could religion be so. If 
 there are passages in which his accusers find the Gods to be 
 nothing, let them be pointed out. In the meantime there 
 are those which tell plainly his contrary impressions. When 
 he speaks of religion, of the duty of man to God, his terms 
 are eva-i^eia and ra 7rpo9 tov<; Oeovq oata : these always 
 had an advocate in him. In treating of democracy as a form 
 of government (vi. 4), he desires to be understood as meaning, 
 " not the wilful rule of a mob, but a system which cherishes as 
 " national the worship of the Gods, honour of parents, respect 
 " of seniors, obedience to the laws." His praise of his country- 
 men, the Arcadians (iv. 20), is that, " while they habitually 
 " fulfil the duties of society and hospitality, they are chiefly 
 " distinguished by their reverence of the Deity " — Bca ttjv 
 €49 TO Oelov evae^eiav. 
 
 ifi 
 
 i; 
 
246 
 
 Cause of Doubt, 
 
 [part xu. 
 
 u 
 
 tf 
 
 One who so writes cau hardly be moved only by worldly 
 usefulness ; but, if more is wanted to show that there was a 
 duty of religion in which Polybius sympathised, a heartfelt 
 principle, not the mere approval of an invention convenient 
 to society, there is that may satisfy the most scrupulous. In 
 the very passages (x. 2) where he has been supposed to heap 
 honour upon Scipio at the expense of the Gods, there is plain 
 proof that his was the true spirit of piety, and which retorts 
 the impiety upon his opponents. "All other writers," he 
 says, " introduce Scipio as the man of good fortune, whose 
 " endeavours prospered as of themselves and beyond reason : 
 " they hold such men to be more godlike, more admirable, 
 " than those who act in all matters upon a fixed principle. 
 " They see not the distinction between that which is praise- 
 " worthy and that which is prosperous. The latter may fall 
 ' to any sort of men ; the other is proper to those who are 
 
 endowed with mind and reason : these we are to esteem as 
 " godlike— these the dearest to the Gods." This doctrine of a 
 divine approbation of human merit is worthy of the writer ; 
 while there is a vulgarity in its opposite, which wantonly 
 visits with celestial patronage those who have not merit of 
 their own. And let us not forget that Polybius was one who 
 acknowledged a divine justice and a divine vengeance. It 
 is enough to note his words upon the rebels, reduced by 
 Hamilcar, and perishing by famine : - The deity executing 
 " upon them an appropriate retribution for their impiety and 
 " lawlessness towards their neighbours— toO BaLfioplov rrjv 
 *' oUelav dfiotf3r)v avrol^ i7ri(l>€povTO<;, rfj tt/oo? tov<; iriXa^ 
 " dcreffela kol irapavofjiia.'' i. 84. 
 
 Such sentiments are not those of a contemner of divine 
 power, but of one who beUeved in the ever-present miracle, 
 unscanned by human reason,— the government of the invisible 
 God. When such sentiments have sprung under the light of 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. Arnold — Conclusion. 
 
 247 
 
 nature, not of revelation, let us give credit to the author of 
 them for a pure rather than a perverse impulse, nor depre- 
 ciate the source of that which in itself is wise and true. If 
 the doctrines of Polybius are challenged as advei^se to the 
 duties of Paganism, let them be hailed as akin to purer 
 influences by which Paganism was to be overthrown. He 
 vindicates the dignity of man's intellectual and moral nature, 
 and claims that great and good actions shall bring him 
 honour. Shall this be treated as contempt of the Gods? 
 Different was the impression of one to whom his full works, 
 unhappily wanting to us, gave ampler evidence of the spirit 
 of his opinions. Suidas, a Greek writer of the eleventh 
 century, thus alludes to those opinions, as in harmony with 
 the sentiments of a Christian : '' Fortune, with Greeks, is the 
 " government of the world without a Providence ; a course 
 " from uncertain to uncertain, of events turning up as of 
 " themselves. But we Christians acknowledge God as admi- 
 * nistering all things ; and to this effect speaks Polybius." * 
 
 I hope to be excused for these notices of a great and good 
 man, whose claims to our respect I believe to be not suf- 
 ficiently estimated. While he is the only safe authority on 
 an important period of the history of the Koman common- 
 wealth, he is not among those whose works every one reads 
 in the course of classical study, as pursued for improving the 
 taste and the conception of universal language. He is read 
 by the laborious few who read everything, by the professed 
 historian, and by those who find themselves directed to him 
 for a particular object ; not by the mass. Though not en- 
 
 * Tux»?> Trap "EXXr/o-tv, a7r/JOK>»?ros Kocr/xou hoUrjats ' y <f>opd e^ 
 d^nXwv ek d^riXoi^ Kal avTOfiarov. d Sc XpiaTia»/ot 0f6v 6^ioXoyoO^€y 
 hoiK£ly rd irdvTa. mt IIoXv/3ioq (pijffL Suida3 Lexicon in v. Tv^Vy 
 and see Casaubon's dedication, and Schweigheuser's edition of 
 Polyb, Fragment a Grammaticay v. Tl'x'/. 
 
248 
 
 Cause of DwfM. 
 
 [part xit. 
 
 dowed with the splendid eloquence of Thucydides, nor with 
 the masterly and charming flow of Livy, he is in the highest 
 rank of historiar.s. Much of Aristotelian wisdom and accuracy 
 18 found m his written counsels ; but he belonged not to the 
 days when letters were fostered by liberty in Greece: and 
 there was m h.im a sobriety of thought not favouring the 
 
 Irif ^'n^^^^^^^^- ^-^' --ng him in contrast 
 with the more brilliant models, have been extreme in dis- 
 paraging his genius : not satisfied with proclaiming him " a 
 decided rationahst/^ they denounce him as ^^not possessing 
 a particle of enthusiasm in his nature." * I venture to think 
 that m every sentiment there is to be traced a disciplined 
 and right^feelmg nimd-the merit of enthusiasm, without its 
 extravagance. His nacure knew the better kind ; an ardent 
 zea in illustrating, without the waywardness of fancy all 
 that IS great and noble, and that sheds honour and dignify on 
 our species. His doctrines, without attracting by style of 
 expression, are persuasive with energy and warmth He 
 had musick in himself;" and if there be anything in ancient 
 literature woi^hy to have suggested to our own great poe hi 
 charming eulogy of the musical sense, it is in the coiiJn^^ 
 
 with which he rejects the notion of Ephorus, that music was 
 ^ven to man for deceit and witchery, and insists that Z 
 to reclaim and soothe the ruggedness of our nature We 
 
 The men of Cyna.tha were " fit for treasons, stratagems and 
 spoils," wanting that sweet softener of humanity ^ 
 
 One who shall diligently study the writings of Polybius 
 
 " Dictionary of Biography, '' Scipio," 12 
 T I*ol>b. iv. 20, 2i,22, 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 Dr. Arnold — Gmiclusion. 
 
 249 
 
 which time has spared, not diverted by undue contrasts and 
 the bias to which they lead, and who will observe the station 
 which he took in the promotion of general knowledge and in 
 the active business of the world, will find many high faculties 
 to be respected, many admirable features to be contemplated 
 in his character as a citizen and a philosopher. The study 
 is of one, whose endowments commanded the affectionate 
 respect, and whose care framed the minds of the sons of 
 ^niilius ; whose wisdom under national affliction secured the 
 gratitude of the cities of Achaia ; and whose monument re- 
 corded, that he reclaimed from the oppressor the memorials of 
 those who had asserted their country's freedom ; of one whose 
 fame it is, that, if she had obeyed his counsels, that country 
 would have averted her degradation.* 
 
 And with these merits, let us remember the sacred attri- 
 bute, which, though it can consist with inferior claims, was 
 in him the controlling guide of a great and powerful intellect. 
 They who, in the easy enjoyment of the fruits of modem 
 science, look down upon the hard-earned knowledge of the 
 ancient geographers, and they whose literary taste is most 
 unsatisfied with the style and diction of this historian, fail 
 not to confer one praise, while they cling to censure that im- 
 pairs it. All are constrained to own, that among those to 
 whose labours we are indebted for a knowledge of the times 
 that are past, there is no name that lives ennobled above the 
 name of Polybius by the clear spirit of truth. This was the 
 the light of his path, and thus he hails it : — " Truth is the 
 *' eye of history : for, as the living thing deprived of sight 
 " becomes all useless, so, if truth be taken from history, what 
 " remains is an unprofitable tale.'' f ^i^d again : " If one has 
 " come to knowledge, then is the most difficult thing of all ; 
 
 * Pausanias viii. 37. Polyb. xl. 8. 
 
 t Polyb. 1. U. 
 
♦ 
 
 250 
 
 Cause of Douht. 
 
 [part XII. 
 
 " for even the eye-witness to control his knowledge, and, de- 
 " spising the paradoxical and marvellous, to give for his own 
 " sake the firtst honour to truth, and tell us nothing that 
 " transgresses her." * WhHe such his zeal, and such his 
 sense of dang(3r, he felt the higher principle in which this 
 virtue has her safety: he taught the bright lesson, that 
 truth to man is kindled in sincerity to God— t^ 7^^ iMavOdvetv 
 d^jr€va"^€cp irpd^ roif^ Oeoi;^ V7r6evyln<$ iarl rrj^ 7rp6^ dXKrjXov^ 
 d\7]0€la<;.f 
 
 * Polyb. iii. 58. t Ibid. vi. 59. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX A. 
 
 TRANSLATION OF PART OF THIRD BOOK OF POLYBIUS. 
 
 (c. 39 TO c. 61.) 
 
 From Schweighmmer's ed. Oxford : Baxter. 1823. 
 
 Carthaginian Power in Spain, 
 39. The Carthaginians at this period ruled all those parts 
 of Libya which border on the Mediterranean sea, from the 
 altars of Philsenus, which are on the Great Syrtis, as far as 
 the Pillars of Hercules, a line of coast exceeding 16,000 
 stadia. Crossing the strait at the Pillars, they had in like 
 manner subdued all Iberia, as far as the rocky ridge which 
 on our sea terminates the Pyrenean mountains, that separate 
 the Iberians and the Celts. That place is distant from the 
 Herculean strait about 8,000 stadia. For from the Columns 
 to the new City whence Hannibal began his expedition to 
 Italy, it is 3,000 : some call the new City, I^ew Carthage. 
 
 The line of March to Italy in five Sections. 
 
 And from this City to the river Ebro it is 2,600 stadia : 
 and from the Ebro to Emporium, 1,600 : and from thence 
 again to the passage of the Ehone, about 1,600: (for these 
 distances have now been stepped and carefully marked at 
 every eight stadia by the Eomans.*) And from the passage 
 for those who travel along that river as if towards its source, 
 
 * I conceive that this remark ought to follow the 1,600 to 
 Emporium. 
 
 
254 
 
 Appendix, 
 
 as far as the ascent of Alps which leads into Italy, 1,400 : 
 and the rest of the way over the heights of Alps, about 1,200: 
 surmounting which, he was to enter into the Padan plain of 
 Italy. So that the entire distance which he had to traverse 
 from the New City was about 9,000 stadia. Of his march 
 through these regions he had already accomplished nearly 
 half in distance : but in difficulty, the greater part of the 
 march remained to be performed. 
 
 Roman Preparations. Rising of the Gauls. 
 40. Hannibal was now encountering the defiles of the 
 Pyrenean Mountains, having some fear of the Celts by reason 
 of the defensible nature of the positions. About the same 
 time the Eomans, having learned from their ambassadors to 
 Carthage all that had been resolved and the words spoken, 
 and the news of Hannibars passing the river Ebro having 
 come upon them sooner than they expected, determined to 
 send off the consuls with their armies, Publius Cornelius to 
 Iberia, and Tiberius Sempronius to Libya. While the consuls 
 were engaged in the enrolment of the legions and other 
 matters of preparation, those who had been before appointed 
 to dispatch the colonies into Gaul, were hastening to the 
 fulfilment of the business : they were actively walling the 
 cities, and they ordered the settlers to repair to their posts in 
 thirty days, in aiimber as much as six thousand for each 
 city; one of wliich they founded on this side of the Po, 
 ealHng it Placentia, and the other on the other side, naming 
 it Cremona. 
 
 No sooner were these colonists settled, than the Gauls 
 caUed Boii, who had long been watching, as it were, to break 
 their alliance with the Romans, but as yet had not the oppor- 
 tunity, now elat(!d and confident, through the emissaries, of 
 the approach of the Carthaginians, broke off from the Romans ; 
 abandoning the hostages delivered by them on the close of the 
 
 Narrative of Polybius translated. 
 
 255 
 
 last war, of which I have given account in a former book. 
 Having called to them the Insubres, and laid their plans 
 -together under the feelings which already impelled them, 
 they plundered the district which was allotted to the colonists 
 by the Romans : and jointly pursuing those who fled to 
 Mutina, which was a Roman colony, besieged them there. 
 Among these were three men of distinction, who had been 
 commissioned to the partition of the lands ; Caius Lutatius 
 of Consular rank, and two of Praetorian rank. On these 
 demanding a conference, the Boii assented : but, when they 
 came forth, seized them in breach of good faith, hoping by 
 this means to recover their own hostages. Lucius Manlius, 
 who was Prsetor, and had charge of the posts thereabouts with 
 a force under his command, hearing what had taken place, 
 hastened to their assistance. The Boii, aware of his approach, 
 prepared an ambuscade in a forest district ; and, as his force 
 moved on into the wooded parts, fell upon them at once from 
 all sides, and slew many of the Romans. The survivors at 
 first made a precipitate flight ; but, on reaching high ground, 
 they made a stand in some measure, so as to effect, though 
 with difficulty, an orderly retreat. But the Boii pursued 
 these into the village called Tannes, and shut them in there. 
 When the news reached Rome that the fourth legion, sur- 
 rounded by the Boii, was besieged by open force, they sent 
 off in haste to their relief, under the command of a Praetor, 
 the legions which had been equipped for Publius, and ordered 
 him to raise and enrol fresh legions from the allies. 
 
 ■ Scipio lands in Gaul. Hannibal on the Rhone. 
 
 41. Such then was the state of events among the Gauls 
 from the first, and until the coming of Hannibal ; and such 
 the issue of them, as I have detailed in what I have written 
 both before and now. The Roman generals, having got all 
 things ready for their respexitive enterprises, set sail, when 
 
256 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 the season came,* to their appointed duties : Publius for 
 Iberia with sixty ships ; Tiberius Sempronius for Libya with 
 a hundred and sixty quinqueremes, with which he purposed 
 to carry on th(i war in so astounding a manner, making such 
 equipments too at Lilybaeum, by collecting every necessary 
 from every quarter, as if he was straightway on landing to 
 lay siege to Carthage herself. 
 
 Publius, making his voyage along the Ligurian coast, came 
 to the parts about Marseille on the fifth day from Pisse, and 
 mooring off the first mouth of the Ehone, he landed his 
 forces, hearing indeed that Hannibal was already crossing the 
 Pyrenees, but persuaded that he must still be far distant, on 
 account of the difficulty of the country and of the great popu- 
 lation of the Celts who lay between. But Hannibal did 
 arrive, beyond all expectation: having overcome the Celts, 
 some by force of arms, others with bribes, he came with his 
 forces, having the Sardinian sea on his right hand, to the 
 passage of the Ehone. When it was made clear to Publius 
 that the enemy was at hand, doubting it in some respects 
 because of the speed of his appearance, but still anxious to 
 know the real truth, he recovered his force from the effects 
 of the voyage, and deliberated with the tribunes, as to the 
 positions whi(jh they should take, and where they should 
 bring the eneray to action. He sent forward three hundred 
 the most valiant men of his cavalry, adding to them as guides 
 and fellow-warriors some Celts, who were with the Massaliots 
 as mercenaries. 
 
 Preparations for crossing, March of Hanno. 
 
 42. Hannibal, having arrived in the country upon the 
 Pthone, straightway set about effecting the passage where the 
 river ran in a single stream, being encamped at a distance of 
 
 * Scipio was delayed, and cannot have sailed from Pisse so early 
 SA Sempronius put forth from Lilybjeum, 
 
 KarraMve of Polyhivs translated. 
 
 257 
 
 nearly four days' journey from the sea : and, having in every 
 way conciliated those who dwelt along the river, he purchased 
 from them all their single timber boats, and their barges, 
 which were sufficient in number, as many of the dwellers on 
 the Ehone carry on a trade from the sea. Moreover, he got 
 from them suitable timber for making the canoes; from 
 which there was in two days a numberless multitude of 
 vessels of transport ; each man striving to be independent 
 of his neighbour, and to have in himself his hope of a 
 passage. 
 
 By this time, a crowd of the barbarians was collected on 
 the opposite shore for the purpose of preventing the passage 
 of the Carthaginians. Looking well at these, and considering 
 from existing circumstances, that it would neither be possible 
 to force a passage in the face of so numerous an enemy, or to 
 keep his position without expecting the enemy upon him 
 from all sides, Hannibal, as the third night is coming on, 
 sends off a division of the army under the command of 
 Hanno, son of the king Bomilcar, joining to them guides 
 who are natives of the country. After marching along the 
 river up the stream for a distance of 200 stadia, and coming 
 to a place where the river is divided into two branches round 
 an island, they halted there : and having got timber from a 
 neighbouring forest, they soon fitted out a number of rafts 
 sufficient for the present purpose, partly by framing the 
 timbers together, partly by tying them. On these they were 
 safely carried over, no one obstructing them ; and, having 
 taken up a strong position, they remained there that day, 
 giving themselves a respite after the hardships they had 
 undergone, and preparing themselves for the coming emer- 
 gency, according to the plan concerted. Hannibal too was 
 doing the same with the force that remained with him. His 
 greatest difficulty was the passage of the elephants : there 
 were thirty-seven of them. 
 VOL. II. S 
 
258 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 TJie Passage of the Rhone. 
 
 43. As the fifth night came on, the division, which had 
 already crossed the river, pushed forward about the morning 
 watch along the river, against the barbarians who were oppo- 
 site to the Carthaginian army, Hannibal now, having his 
 soldiers all ready, was intent on the work of crossing, having 
 filled the baiges with the light-shielded cavalry, and the 
 canoes with the lightest of the infantry. The barges were 
 ranged highest up and along the stream ; the small craft were 
 ranged belo\A^ them; that, the former sustaining the chief 
 force of the current, the crossing of the canoes at the passage 
 might be accomplished more safely. And they made a plan 
 of drawing on the horses swimming at the sterns of the 
 barges, one Qian managing three or four with reins from 
 either side of the stern, so that a sufficient number of horses 
 were at once carried over with them in the first crossing. 
 
 The barbarians, seeing the purpose of their enemies, rushed 
 out from th(3ir entrenchments in a disorderly and confused 
 manner, persuaded that they could readily prevent the land- 
 in^ of the Carthaginians. But Hannibal, as soon as he per- 
 ceived that his own troops were already drawing near on the 
 other side, for they made signal of their approach by smoke 
 as was agre(5d upon, at once gave orders for all to embark, 
 and for the managers of the transport vessels to contend 
 forcibly against the current. This being speedily done, and 
 the men in the boats vying with each other, and shouting 
 and strivin^j against the force of the stream, and the two 
 armies standing forward on either side to the brink of the 
 river, their own men sympathizing and shouting and cheering 
 them, the barbarians in front raising their war song and 
 challenging to the danger, the scene was one of terror and 
 of excitement to the struggle. 
 
 At this moment, the tents of the barbarians being left 
 
 Farrative of Polyhins translated. 
 
 259 
 
 vacant, the Carthaginians, who had before passed to that side 
 of the river, falling upon them suddenly and unawares, some 
 set fire to the camp, while the mass rushed upon those who 
 were guarding the passage of the river. Seeing an event so 
 utterly unlooked-for, the barbarians ran, some to protect their 
 tents, others stood against the assailants and fought. Han- 
 nibal, all things succeeding according to his purpose, straight- 
 way drew up together those who first landed, encouraged 
 them, and engaged with the barbarians : the Gauls, from their 
 want of order, and from the strangeness of all that occurred, 
 soon turned and made a precipitate flight. 
 
 Conference ivith the Gaulish Chiefs. 
 44. Tlie general of the Carthaginians, victorious at the 
 same time over the passage and over his enemies, immediately 
 attended to the transport of those who yet remained on the 
 other side : having in a short time brought all the troops 
 over, he encamped that night along the river. On the 
 morrow, hearing that the expedition of the Komans had 
 anchored off the mouths of the river, he selected five hundred 
 of the Numidian cavalry, and sent them off to ascertain 
 where the enemy might be, and in what numbers, and what 
 they were about : at the same time also he appointed fit per- 
 sons for bringing over the elephants. Then, himself assem- 
 bling his forces, he introduced the chieftains who were with 
 Ma<^ilus : for they were come to him from the plains of the 
 Po : and he made known to the soldiers through an inter- 
 preter all that had been resolved upon among them. Of the 
 things brought forward, the most effective for giving confi- 
 dence to the mass were, first the fact of the presence of those 
 who were inviting them on, and who declared that they 
 would make common cause in war against the Eomans ; 
 next, the credit that seemed due to their promises when they 
 engaged to conduct them through regions by which, with no 
 
 s2 
 
260 
 
 Appendix, 
 
 want of necessary means, they should accomplish the march 
 into Italy safely and by a short route : and beyond all this, 
 the richness oi' the country which they would arrive at, its 
 extent, and the zeal of its inhabitants, in conjunction with 
 whom they were to contend against the armies of Eome. 
 
 The Celts, having discoursed to this effect, retired. After 
 them, Hannibal coming forward himself, first reminded his 
 multitudes of their past deeds ; that, engaged in many an 
 enterprise of difficulty and danger, they had not failed in one, 
 having obeyed his judgment and counsel: next to this he 
 exhorts them that they will now also be of good cheer, seeing 
 that the most important work has been performed with suc- 
 cess ; for they have mastered the passage of the river, and 
 have been eye-witnesses of the zeal and good feeling of their 
 allies : that they should make theniselves easy on matters of 
 detail, as being his care ; and, obedient to orders, should be 
 good soldiers worthy of their past exploits. The multitude 
 applauding and exhibiting great zeal and eagerness, he com- 
 mended them, and having prayed to the gods on behalf 
 of all, he dismissed them, with orders to get themselves 
 refreshed, and to make their preparations with activity, as 
 the camp would be broken up the next day. 
 
 Conflict of Cavalry, March up the Rhone. 
 
 45. When the assembly had broken up, the Numidians, 
 who had been before sent forward to reconnoitre, came in 
 after the loss of most of their number and the total route of 
 the remainder : for on their falling in, not far from their own 
 camp, with the Koman horse who had been sent out on the 
 same service by Publius, both parties brought such a zealous 
 emulation to th(3 conflict, that there were slain of Romans and 
 Celts as many as an hundred and forty, and of JSTumidians 
 more than two hundred. On this, the Eomans in the pursuit 
 came up to the Carthaginian entrenchments ; and, after recon- 
 
 Narrative of Polyhins translated. 
 
 261 
 
 noitring, made all haste in their return, in order to confirm to 
 their general the fact of the enemy's arrival : reaching the 
 camp, they made their report. Publius immediately, having 
 put all his baggage on board the ships, broke up with his 
 whole army, and led forward along the river, eager to bring 
 the enemy to action. 
 
 On the day after the holding of the assembly, Hannibal 
 with the first light placed out all his cavalry in direction of 
 the sea, drawn up as a corps to cover his operations : the in- 
 fantry force he put in motion from the entrenchments on their 
 march ; and waited himself for the elephants and the men 
 who were left with them. 
 
 Passage of the Elephants. 
 46. The transport of the elephants was effected in the fol- 
 lowing manner -.—Having constructed a good many rafts, they 
 joined together two of these strongly, and so as to fit closely 
 one with the other, and planted both firmly in the shore at 
 the place of embarkation, the two together being about fifty 
 feet wide : then joining other rafts together in the same way, 
 they attached these on to the former at the outer end, carrying 
 the fabric of the bridge forward in the line of passage : and, 
 that the whole structure might stay together and not be 
 carried away down the river, they secured the side which 
 was against the stream by cables from the land fastened to 
 some trees which grew on the brink. When they had thrown 
 out this bridge to the length of two plethra (200 feet) in the 
 whole, they added at the extremity two rafts constructed 
 more perfectly than others and the largest of all ; bound with 
 great strength to each other, but to the rest in a way that the 
 fastenings could easily be severed: to these they fixed a 
 number of towing lines, with which the towing barges were 
 to prevent their being carried down the river, and holding 
 them by force against the stream, to take over the elephants 
 
262 
 
 A]}pendix. 
 
 Narrative of Polyhius translated. 
 
 263 
 
 upon them and land them on the other side. After this they 
 brought a quantity of dug earth to all the rafts, and spread it 
 till it was level with and looked just like the road that led 
 over the dry land to the crossing place. The elephants were 
 used always to obey the Indians to the edge of the water, but 
 never yet ventured to go into the water : they brought them 
 therefore along this bank of earth, putting two females first ; 
 and the beasts obeyed them. AVhen they got them on to the 
 furthest rafts, then, cutting away the fastenings by which 
 these were fitted to the rest, and laying a strain on the two 
 lines with the barges, they soon carried away the beasts and 
 the rafts which bore them from the earthy pier : thereupon 
 the animals, quite confounded, turned themselves about and 
 rushed in every direction : but, surrounded every way by the 
 stream, they shrank from it and were compelled to stay where 
 they were : and, in this way, the two rafts being fitted on 
 repeatedly, most of the elephants were brought over upon 
 them. But some cast themselves into the river in the midway 
 across througli fright ; and it happened that all the Indians 
 belonging to these were lost, but the elephants were saved : 
 for with the power and size of their probosces, raising them 
 above the surface of the water, and breathing through them, 
 and spouting out all that got into them, they held out, makin 
 their way for the most part erect below the water. 
 
 (.}- 
 
 March itp the river : the Rhone : the Alps. 
 
 4:7. The elephants having been brought over, Hannilml, 
 bringing up th-^m and the cavalry, and covering the rear, put 
 forward along the river ; making his march away from the 
 sea as towards the east, as if for the midland of Europe. The 
 Ehone has his sources above the Adriatic gulph facing west- 
 ward, in those parts of the Alps which slope away to the 
 north : his course is to the winter sunset, and he discharges 
 himself into the Sardinian sea. He flows for a considerable 
 
 
 way through a defile, to the north of which dwell the Ardyes 
 Celts, while the whole southern side of it is bounded by the 
 mountain sides of the Alps which slope northwards : the 
 higher Alpine chain separating the plains of the Po, on which 
 I have often spoken already, from the valley of the Ehone, 
 and spreading from Marseille as it were to the head of the 
 Adriatic gulph : which higher chain Hannibal having sur- 
 mounted from the country on the Rhone, invaded Italy. 
 
 Errors of Authors. 
 Some of those who have written on this passage of the 
 Alps, wishing to astound their readers with marvellous stories 
 on the regions here spoken of, fall unconsciously into two 
 things most adverse to all history : in fact they are driven 
 to state falsehoods and to write things which refute themselves. 
 For, while they proclaim Hannibal an incomparable general, 
 both in daring and foresight, they unquestionably exhibit him 
 to us as quite void of reason : at the same time, unable to 
 reach a conclusion or any result of their fictions, they intro- 
 duce Gods and the sons of Gods into practical history : for, 
 when they represent the impregnable ruggedness of the Alpine 
 mountains to be such, that not only horses and armies with 
 their elephants, but even light-armed foot-soldiers almost find 
 them impassable, and when, in the same way, they describe 
 such complete desolation in these regions, that, unless some 
 God or hero had appeared and pointed out the ways to Han- 
 nibal's soldiers, they must all have perished without resource, 
 it will be acknowledged that in these representations they fall 
 into each of the faults here described. 
 
 48. In the first place, what general could show himself a 
 more senseless and stupid leader than Hannibal, if, connuand- 
 ing so vast a force, and resting upon it the high hope of suc- 
 ceeding in his main purpose, he was, as these writers allege, 
 altogether uninformed on the ways and the positions, and as 
 
2G4 
 
 Appetulix. 
 
 to where lie was marching, and into what nations he was 
 marching ; and if, moreover, the enterprises which lie pur- 
 sued were not such as might by some means be compassed, 
 but were on the contrary just impossible. And yet what 
 even those who have utterly failed in their measures, and are 
 in every way reduced to emergencies, do not venture upon, 
 namely, to plunge with an army into a country of which they 
 have made no inquiry, this these writers ascribe to Hannibal 
 at a time when upon the whole undertaking his hopes were in 
 their full integ;rity. In tlie same manner, their stories of the 
 desolation and insuperable difficulty of these parts, plainly 
 falsify themselves : for, not being informed that in fact the 
 Celts who dwelt upon the Ehone, having before the coming 
 of Hannibal, not once or twice only, and not in former times 
 only, but of late, crossed the Alps with great armies, had 
 faced the Eomans, making common cause with those who 
 inhabit the plain of the Po, as told by me in what has gone 
 before, and moreover not aware that a numerous race of men 
 do in fact inhabit the Alps themselves ; ignorant, I say, of all 
 these things, they teU us that some hero, appearing to the Car- 
 thaginians, attended as the guide of their course. Herein, as 
 might be expecr.ed, they fall much into the way of the tragedy 
 writers ; with all of whom the catastrophe of a plot requires 
 to have a God or some artifice, inasmuch as the hypotheses 
 on which they rely are fundamentaUy false and against reason : 
 the same thing necessarily happens to writers of history, when 
 they conceive a basis of their narrative that is incredible and 
 false : they too must provide the apparitions of gods and 
 heroes : for how is it possible to give a rational end to aii 
 irrational beginning ? 
 
 The truth is. that Hannibal, far otherwise than as these 
 persons have written, pursued his enterprises throughout in 
 the most business-like manner ; for he had investigated ac- 
 curately the nature of the country whicJi he designed to come 
 
 Narrative of Polyhius translated. 
 
 265 
 
 down upon, and the estrangement of the population from the 
 Romans ; and for all the difficult country which lay between, 
 he employed native guides and conductors, men who were to 
 share the same hopes with himself I give account of these 
 things with confidence, because I have sought information 
 upon the transactions from those who belonged to the times 
 when they took place, and have inspected the scenes of 
 action, myself making a journey through the Alps, that I 
 might know and see. 
 
 Scijpio returns to Italy, 
 
 49. Now Publius, the Eoman general, coming up three days 
 after the decampment of the Carthaginians to the place where 
 they had crossed the river, and finding the enemy gone for- 
 ward, was greatly astonished : having felt persuaded that they 
 would never venture to make their march into Italy that way, 
 on account of the numbers and lawlessness of the barbarians 
 inhabiting those parts ; seeing, however, that they had ven- 
 tured, he hastened back to his ships, and on reaching them 
 embarked his forces : he sent his brother off to carry on the 
 war in Spain, and himself set sail back for Italy, eager to 
 anticipate the enemy by reaching the passage of the Alps 
 
 through Etruria. 
 
 Hannibal in the Island. 
 
 Hannibal, having marched four days consecutively from the 
 passage of the Ehone, came to the Island, as it is called ; a 
 very populous and corn-growing country ; and which has its 
 appellation from this incident, that the Rhone, on one hand, 
 and a river called Isara, on the other, flowing on either side of 
 this region, bring its form to a point at their confluence with 
 one another. It nearly resembles in size and shape what is 
 called the Delta in Egypt ; only that one side of the Delta is 
 connected with the streams of the rivers by the sea ; while the 
 third side of this region is formed by mountains, difficult to 
 
if; 
 
 266 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 Narrative of Polyhius translated. 
 
 267 
 
 n 
 
 approach, difficult to penetrate, and almost, so to speak, 
 inaccessible. 
 
 Coming to this Island, and finding there two brothers in 
 dissension upon the sovereignty, and in the field against each 
 other with armed forces, and the elder seeking to gain him 
 and imploring his co-operation for securing the command, 
 Hannibal assented; and, as it was easy enough to see the 
 advantages that would result to him for his present purposes, 
 he joined forces, and attacked and drove out the other ; and 
 he earned great assistance from the conqueror : for not only 
 did this chief supply the army liberally with corn and other 
 necessaries, but also, by changing all their arms that were old 
 and worn, h(; renovated the whole force most seasonably. 
 Moreover, by furnishing most of them with clothing, and in 
 addition to other things, with shoes, he rendered them vast 
 service towards the passage of the mountains. But the 
 gi-eatest of all. was this : as they were in a state of much 
 apprehension about their march through the country of the 
 Gauls called iUlobroges, he covered their rear with his own 
 forces, and secured their march until they drew near to the 
 ascent of the Alps. 
 
 Hannibal surmounts the first Alps, defeating the Allohroges. 
 
 50. Hannibal, having in ten days made a march of 800 
 stadia along the river, began the ascent of the Alps : and it 
 happened that he fell into^ the greatest dangers. As long as 
 they were in the plain country, all the detached chieftains of 
 the AUobroges held off from him, partly in fear of the cavalry, 
 partly of the barbarians who escorted them. But when the 
 latter had turned back homewards, and Hannibal's troops were 
 beginning to advance into the difficult places, then the leaders 
 of the Allobroges, collecting themselves together, being an 
 ample force, preoccupied the advantageous posts, by which it 
 was requisite that Hannibal's forces should effect their ascent. 
 
 If then they had kept their intentions secret, they might have 
 utterly destroyed the Carthaginian army : as it was, being 
 detected in their purpose, they still inflicted a heavy loss to 
 Hannibal's force, though not a less one to themselves. For 
 the Carthaginian general, aware that the barbarians had pre- 
 occupied the advantageous posts, encamped his army in front 
 of the heights and waited there : then he sent forward some 
 of the Gauls who were acting as guides, in order that they 
 might see into the designs of the enemy and their whole plan. 
 AVhen these men had executed all that was arranged, the 
 general, learning that the enemy steadily kept to his post and 
 watched the passes through the day, but that they went to 
 their repose at night in a neighbouring town ; acting suitably 
 to that state of things, he contrived this scheme : putting his 
 force in motion, he led them forward openly, and having come 
 near to the difficult places, he made his camp not far from the 
 enemy : when night came on, ordering fires to be lighted, he 
 left the greater part of his forces there, and, having lightly 
 armed the most effective men, he made his way through the 
 defiles in the night, and took possession of the posts pre- 
 viously held by the enemy ; the barbarians having retired to 
 the town as they were accustomed. 
 
 He forces the Pass, and tales the enemy s town. 
 51. This behig done and day coming on, the barbarians, 
 when they saw what had happened, at first abstained from any 
 attempt: but afterwards, observing the crowd of beasts of 
 burthen and the cavalry winding out from the defile with 
 much difficulty and in a long-drawn column, were encouraged 
 by these circumstances to close in upon the line of march. 
 AVhen this took place, and the barbarians fell on at many 
 points, a great loss ensued to the Carthaginians, and chiefly in 
 the horses and beasts of burthen ; not so much from the 
 enemy as from the nature of the ground : for, the pass being 
 
268 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 W\ 
 
 not only narrow and rugged hut also precipitous, at every 
 movement and every shock numhers of the carrying cattle 
 were sent with their loads over the precipices. And most of 
 all, the wounded horses were the cause of these shocks : for 
 some of them, in the panic caused by their wounds, drivin- 
 right against the baggage-cattle, others with a rush forward 
 knocking over everything that came in their way in this 
 difficult passage, completed the vast confusion. Hannibal 
 observing this, and reflecting that, even though the troops 
 should escape, the loss of the baggage must be attended with 
 the rum of the army, advances to their aid with the detach- 
 ment which had occupied the heights during the night ; as he 
 made his attack from higher ground, he destroyed many of 
 the enemy, not however without suffering equally in return • 
 for the disorder of the march was much increased by the 
 conflict and clamour of these fresh troops. But when the 
 ^-eater part of the Allobroges had perished in the combat, and 
 the rest had been forced to fly for shelter to their homes then 
 only, the remainder of the beasts of burthen and cavaliy 
 with great toil and difficulty, succeeded in emerging from thJ 
 pass. 
 
 Hannibal, having then drawn together all the troops he 
 could collect after the engagement, proceeded to assault the 
 town, from whence the enemy had made their attack; and 
 finding It almost deserted, because the inhabitants had been 
 all induced to go forth in quest of booty, he easily became 
 master of it ; and from thence derived many important advan- 
 tages, both for his immediate as well as his future wants. 
 
 For his present supply he obtained a vast number of horses 
 and beasts of burthen and captives ; and besides, a quantity 
 of corn and cattle sufficient to maintain the army with ease 
 for two or three days : he also infused sucli terror into the 
 neighbouring p.^ople, that none of those who dwelt near the 
 ascent of the mountains would easily be induced to form any 
 enterprise against him. 
 
 Narrative of Polyhius translated. 
 
 269 
 
 After a day's halt, march resumed. On fourth day conference 
 with natives, who attend the march two days : then attack 
 
 52. Here then Hannibal encamped ; and after staying for 
 one day, set forward again. In the days which followed, he 
 carried the army through safely up to a certain point : but in 
 the course of the fourth day, he again came upon great 
 dangers: for those who dwelt near the passage, having 
 conspired to entrap him, met him bearing green branches and 
 wreaths : for this is the symbol of friendship among nearly 
 all barbarians, as the caduceus is with Greeks. Hannibal, 
 who was inclined to be suspicious of such a pledge of friend- 
 ship, sifted scrupulously their intentions and their whole 
 design : when they said that they were perfectly aware of the 
 capture of the town and the destruction of those who had 
 attempted injury to him, and explained that they were come 
 for this reason, desiring neither to give nor to receive any 
 annoyance, and promised moreover to give hostages from 
 among themselves, he was for a long time apprehensive and 
 quite distrustful of what they said : but reasoning with himself 
 that, if he should admit their proposals, he might perhaps 
 soon make those who had come to him the more cautious and 
 more quietly disposed, but, if he should not receive them as 
 friends, he would certainly have them for his enemies, he con- 
 sented to what they had spoken, and professed, as they had 
 done, to establish the friendship. 
 
 On the barbarians delivering the pledges, and bringing a 
 most bountiful supply of sheep and goats, and in fact putting 
 themselves completely into their hands without any pre- 
 cautions, Hannibars men trusted them so far as to employ 
 them as guides for the difficult country which lay before 
 them. 
 
 But when they had gone in advance for tw^o days, then the 
 people I have spoken of and those who had followed with 
 
 
 
270 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 them, collecting themselves together, set upon the Cartha- 
 ginians, as they were making their way through a defile where 
 there was very bad footing and much precipice. 
 
 TJie, Engagement. 
 53. At this juncture Hannibars army must have been 
 utterly destroyed if they had not, still retaining some degree 
 of fear and an expectation of what was coming, kept the 
 baggage-cattle, and the cavalry in the van of the march, and 
 the heavy anned infantry in the rear : these being always 
 ready in reser/e, the calamity was less than it would other- 
 wise have been, for they withstood the onset of the bar- 
 barians. Not but that, even under these circumstances, a 
 considerable number both of men and horses and beasts of 
 burthen were destroyed, for the ground occupied by the 
 enemy being on a higher level, the barbarians made a corre- 
 sponding advance along the sides of the mountains, and 
 rolling down iragments of rock on some, and striking others 
 with stones thrown by the hand, threw them into the utmost 
 consternation and danger, to a degree that compelled Hanni- 
 bal to pass the night with half his force about a certain white 
 rock— a strong position— away from his horses and beasts of 
 burthen, on guard for their protection till in the whole night 
 they with diffi(;ulty defiled out of the ravine. 
 
 The army reacTies the Summit and encamps for two days. 
 On the morrow, the enemy having retired, he joined force 
 with the cavalry and beasts of burthen, and led forward to 
 the summit of the pass of Alps, no more falling in with any 
 complete organised body of the barbarians, but harassed by 
 them partially, and at particular points, some of whom car- 
 ried off a few baggage cattle from the rear, others from the 
 van of the march, dashing at them as opportunity favoured. 
 The elephants rendered Hannibal the greatest service, for in 
 
 Narrative of Polybius traTislated. 
 
 271 
 
 whatever part of the line they showed themselves that part 
 the enemy did not dare approach, being astounded with the 
 strangeness of the look of the animals. 
 
 On the ninth day Hannibal, having accomplished his 
 march to the summit, encamped there, and staid on two days, 
 wishing at the same time to give rest to those who were 
 brought up safe, and to wait for those who were left behind, 
 during which time many of the horses that had run off in 
 fright, and many of the beasts of burthen that had thrown 
 off their loads, came again beyond expectation, following the 
 tracks of the army, and joined the camp. 
 
 Hannibal addresses his Soldiers. 
 
 54. The snow having by this time become collected 
 about the tops of the mountains, for the setting of the Pleias 
 was at hand, Hannibal, seeing his multitudes in a dis- 
 heartened state, both from the hardships which had already 
 befallen them, and those which were still anticipated, assem- 
 bled them and made an effort to cheer them, having for this 
 end one resource, the clear evidence of Italy. For she so lies 
 stretched under the mountains which I have before described, 
 that, when both are contemplated together, the Alps seem 
 placed as citadel to the whole of Italy. "Wherefore, pointing 
 out to them the j)lains of the Po, and reminding them gene- 
 rally of the friendliness of the Gauls who dwelt there, and at 
 the same time suggesting to them the very situation of Rome 
 herself, he succeeded to some extent in confirming the spirits 
 of his men. 
 
 March resumed — The Snouj — The hroke7i path. 
 
 On the next morning, resuming his march, he began 
 the descent, in which he no longer fell in with enemies, 
 excepting those who pillaged by stealth ; but from the 
 character of the country, and from the snow, the number 
 
 1 1 
 
272 
 
 Aiypendix. 
 
 that he lost was not much inferior to that of those who 
 perished during the ascent. For the downward way being 
 narrow and very steep, making it impossible for any one to 
 know what he stepped upon, everything that erred from the 
 right track an d lost its footing, was carried down the preci- 
 pices. Still, however, they endured these calamities, as being 
 familiar with such hardships. But when they came to a 
 place such that neither horses nor baggage-cattle could pos- 
 sibly pass on account of its narrowness, the path having 
 before been broken away for nearly three half stades, and 
 now lately beijag still more broken away, then was the army 
 again thrown into despondency and alarm. At first the Car- 
 thaginian general made an effort to go round the bad parts, 
 but fresh snow coming and making this impracticable, he 
 desisted from the attempt. 
 
 Causes which prevented tJie going round. 
 55. For the circumstance was peculiar, and at that time 
 excessiva The snow of the present year had recently fallen 
 upon snow thai:; was already lying, having remained since the 
 last winter. The new snow was easy to be cut through, botli 
 because being fresh it was soft, and because as yet it had 
 little depth ; but when, after treading through this, their 
 steps came upon that which was beneath it and of a firm 
 consistence, they no more trod through, but slipping at once 
 with both feet slid upon it, as happens on any ground to 
 those who walk where there is a surface of mud. But the 
 consequence of all this was still more distressing, for the 
 men, unable to penetrate the under snow, when after fallintr 
 they tried to raise themselves on their hands or knees in 
 order to get u]) again, slid on so much the more, together 
 with anything they tried to liold by ; the places being for 
 some way on a declivity. When the baggage-cattle fell, they 
 broke through into the lower snow in their efforts to rise, and, 
 
 Narrative of P oh/hi us translated. 
 
 27?> 
 
 having penetrated it, remained with their loads as if fixed 
 there, both by reason of their weight, and of the firmness of 
 that older snow. 
 
 The Path repaired — Horses pass on, ami at last the Elephants. 
 
 Wherefore, abandoning this hope, Hannibal made his 
 camp near the mountain ridge, having cleared away the snow 
 that was upon it : and after that, turning out his whole force, 
 built up the precipice with very laborious effort. Thus in 
 one day he completed a passage fit for horses and baggage- 
 cattle, so that carrying these through at once and pitching 
 his camp about parts which had as yet escaped the snow, he 
 forwarded them away to the pastures. He brought out the 
 Numidians in successive gangs to the building of the road ; 
 and it was mth difficulty and after much suffering that in 
 three days he got the elex^hants through. They had come to 
 be in a wretched state from hunger, for the higher points of 
 the Alps, and' the parts which reach up to the heights are 
 utterly without trees and bare, because of the snow remaining 
 constantly summer and winter ; but the parts along the middle 
 mountain side produced both trees and underwood, and are 
 altogether habitable. 
 
 Hannibal comes down into the Plain and the Insuhres. 
 
 56. Hannibal, having got together all his force, moved 
 down, and in the third day from the precipices which have 
 been spoken of, completing the Alps, touched the j)^ain, 
 having lost many of his soldiers, both by the hand of the 
 enemy and by the passage of rivers during the entire march ; 
 many too from the precipices and rugged regions of tlie Alps ; 
 not men only, but still more horses and baggage-cattle. At last, 
 having performed the whole march from Carthagena in five 
 months, and the passage of the Alps in fifteen days, he came 
 down daringly into the plain of the Po and the nation of the 
 
 VOL. II. T 
 
274 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 Insubrians, having safely brought through of his Libyian 
 force 12,000 infantry, and of Iberians 8,000, and cavalry in 
 the whole not above 6,000 : as he himself sets forth on the 
 column at Lacinium, which bears an inscription concerning 
 the strength of his army. 
 
 Scipio on the Po. 
 
 About the same time, as I have said, Publius, having left 
 his forces with his brother Cna3us, and enjoined him to devote 
 himself to the affairs of Spain and prosecute the war vigo- 
 rously against Asdrubal, sailed himself with a small number 
 of men to Pisae : then, after making his way through Tyrrhenia 
 and having taken the command of the armies from the Praetors, 
 armies which were in the field sustaining the war against the 
 Boii, he arrived in the plains of the Po and, having encamped, 
 was intent on the enemy, eager to engage with him in battle. 
 
 57, 58, 59. (Ill these chapters, vihicJi inay he omitted, Polyhius 
 excuses himself for not enlarging on geographical description, 
 ivhen loriting history. Though some readers might expect him 
 to describe the Pillars of Hercules and the outer sea, the British 
 islands and the tin mines, Spain and the silver mines, &c. &c., 
 he considers that such a course ivould too much interrupt the 
 narrative, and divert attention from the 'proper subject. He 
 therefore reserves his own geographical hnoivledge, which has 
 cost him much labour, for a separate ivorh, and gives reasons for 
 doing so,) 
 
 Hannibal encamps — Restores his Ariny to condition — His 
 Losses — He chastises the Taurini. 
 
 60. We have already shown the amount of force with 
 which Hannibal entered Italy. Having made his encamp- 
 ment close under the mountain range of Alps, he first re- 
 cruited the health of his forces : for the whole army was 
 brought into wretched condition, not only by their marches 
 
 Narrative of Polyhius translated. 
 
 275 
 
 of ascent and descent, and further by the ruggedness of the 
 footing in the heights of Alps ; but by the scantiness of 
 necessary supplies and the neglect of their persons they were 
 in miserable plight ; and many absolutely gave themselves up 
 under this state of destitution and continued fatigue. For 
 they were quite unable to convoy through such places provi- 
 sions adequate for the sustenance of so many thousands ; and 
 of the quantity which they had provided, these, in the 
 destruction of the baggage-cattle, were to a great amount 
 destroyed also. By which causes he who had set out from the 
 passage of the Rhone with 38,000 foot-soldiers and more than 
 8,000 cavalry, had lost nearly half by some means in the 
 passes of the Alps, as above told : and those who were saved 
 had all become savage as it were, both in appearance and 
 condition, from the constancy of their sufferings. 
 
 Hannibal having great providence for the care of his men, 
 recruited both their minds and their bodies, and also his 
 horses. When these things were done, his force being now 
 recruited, the Taurini who dwell in front of the mountain 
 side, being then at war with the Insubres and not placing 
 faith in the Carthaginians, Hannibal in the first place invited 
 them to his friendship and alliance ; and, as they would not 
 listen to him, he invested their chief town, and in three days 
 took it by storm : and, liaving put to death all who opposed 
 him, threw such terror into the neighbouring tribes of bar- 
 barians, that they all promptly joined him, giving themselves 
 up into his confidence. The remaining mass of Celts inha- 
 biting the plain, hastened to make common cause with the 
 Carthaginians, according to their first impulse. But, as the 
 Eoman legions had already passed the chief part of them and 
 shut them in, they remained quiet : some indeed were com- 
 pelled to join force with the Piomans. Hannibal, looking 
 upon these things, determined to make no delay, but to lead 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 Ajppendix. 
 
 on forward, and accomplish something for encouraging those 
 who were ready to join their hopes with his. 
 
 Each Chief ivonders at the presence of the other. 
 61. Taking these things into consideration, and hearing 
 that Scipio had already crossed the Po with his forces, and 
 was near him, he at first distrusted what was reported to 
 him, remembering that a few days before he had left Scipio 
 near the passage of the Ehone, and considering that the 
 voyage from Massalia to Tyrrhenia was somewhat long and 
 difficult in the performance ; and, moreover, ascertaining that 
 the march from the Tyrrhenian sea through Italy to the*" Alps 
 was long and nearly impracticable for armies. But as more 
 were always bringing him the same information and more 
 clearly, he wondered and was struck with the whole enter- 
 prise and performance of that general. A similar feehng 
 arose also to Scipio : for he had at the first promised himself 
 that Hannibal would never attempt a march through the 
 Alps with a force composed of various races ; and that, if 
 he should dare it, he would evidently be destroyed. With 
 these reasonings therefore, when he learned, both that he 
 had arrived in safety, and that he was already laying siege 
 to Italian towiis, he was struck with the desperate daring tf 
 the man. 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 TRANSLATION OF PART OF TWENTY-FIRST BOOK OF LIVY. 
 
 (c. 22 TO c. 39.) 
 
 From Drakenhorch's edition. Oxford : Baxter. 
 
 March from Carthagena, 
 
 22. From Gades Hannibal has come back to Carthagena, 
 the winter quarters of the army ; and from thence, having 
 marched by the city of Etovissa, he leads them to the Iberus 
 and the sea-coast. There the story is that a youth of god- 
 like form appeared to him in the time of sleep, who de- 
 clared himself sent by Jupiter for a guide to Hannibal into 
 Italy — ^let him then follow, and by no means turn away his 
 eyes from him. Alarmed at first, he followed, not looking 
 about, not looking behind : then, in the anxiety of human 
 temper, as he turned in his mind what it could be that he 
 was forbidden to look back on, he could no longer control his 
 eyes ; that he saw behind him a serpent of wondrous size, 
 borne on with vast destruction of trees and thickets, and after 
 him came on a rain-storm with a crash of the heavens : then, 
 seeking to know what was this monster, what did it portend, 
 that he was told. It was the devastation of Italy — Let him go 
 forward, nor ask more, but let the fates be undisclosed. 
 
 Across the Ehro. 
 
 23. Eejoicing in this vision, he led his forces in three 
 divisions across the Iberus, having sent forward some who 
 
 '^^h !iU 
 
 ■■t^s.rrm-m a^..^in~^^ 
 
278 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 w 
 
 might propitiate with gifts the minds of the Gauls through 
 whom the ai.-my had to pass, and examine the passages of the 
 Alps. He curried across the Iberus ninety thousand foot and 
 twelve thousand horse. He then reduced the Ilergetes, the 
 Bergusii, th(j Ausetani, and Lacetania, which lies under the 
 Pyrenean mountains ; and placed Hanno over all this line of 
 country, that he might command the defiles which connect 
 Spain and (kul. He gave him ten thousand foot and a 
 thousand horse, for garrisoning the region that he was to 
 occupy. W]ien the army had begun to move through the 
 passes of the; Pyrenees, and reports of war against Eome were 
 spread with more certainty among the barbarian allies, three 
 thousand of Carpetanian infantry marched away at once ; not 
 so much influenced, as was evident, by dislike of the war, as 
 by the length of the march and apprehension of the insur- 
 mountable ^Ips. Hannibal, as it was hazardous to counter- 
 mand them or to retain their services by force, and an irritat- 
 ing of the fierce spirits of the other barbarians was to be 
 avoided, sent back seven thousand more to their homes, whom 
 he knew to be averse to the campaign ; pretending too that 
 he had hims<.4f discharged the Carpetani. 
 
 Through the Pyrenees to Ruscino. 
 
 24. He straightway passes the Pyrenees with the remainder 
 of his force, that their minds may not get uneasy by delay 
 and inactivity ; and encamps at the town of Illiberis. The 
 Gauls, though they understood that the war was being 
 carried into Italy, still, as it was said that the Spaniards on 
 the other side the Pyrenees had been subdued by arms, and 
 strong bodies of men were set over them, some states roused 
 to arms by 1:he fear of being enslaved, assemble together at 
 Euscino. W'hich when it came to the knowledge of Han- 
 nibal, fearinf; delay more than hostilities, he sent envoys to 
 their chiefs, representing that he desired a conference himself 
 
 Narratim of Livy translated. 
 
 279 
 
 with them ; and either they might come nearer to Illiberis, 
 or he would go forward to Euscino : that they might more 
 readily meet from head-quarters : for that he would be happy 
 to receive them into his camp, or would himself without 
 hesitation come to them. That he had arrived as the guest, 
 not the enemy, of Gaul, and should not draw a sword before 
 he reached Italy, if the Gauls would favour that intention. 
 So much was notified through emissaries. Now, when the 
 Gaulish princes, having at once advanced their camp towards 
 Illiberis, came to the Carthaginian without any feeling of 
 mistrust, overcome by his presents, with the greatest good- 
 will they forwarded the army through their territories past 
 
 the town of Euscino. 
 
 Affairs in Italy. 
 25. In the meantime no further intelligence had been 
 brought to Eome by the emissaries of the Massilians, than 
 that Hannibal had crossed the Iberus ; when the Boii, having 
 roused the Insubres, revolted, just as if he had already passed 
 the Alps : and this, not so much from the old causes of 
 animosity against the Eoman people, as that they could 
 not patiently endure the colonies newly established on the 
 Po within the Gaulish territory, Cremona and Placentia. 
 Accordingly, having in an instant taken up arms, and made 
 irruption into that very district, they caused so great terror 
 and confusion, that not only the rural populace, but the 
 Eoman Triumvirs themselves, who had come to apportion the 
 lands, C. Lutatius, C. Servilius, and T. Annius, not trusting to 
 the walls of Placentia, took refuge in Mutina. There is no 
 question on the name of Lutatius. Instead of C. Servilius 
 and T. Annius, some annals have Q. Acilius and C. Heren- 
 nius : others P. Cornelius Asina and C. Papirius Maso. It is 
 doubted also, whether the persons of ambassadors sent to re- 
 monstrate with the Boii were violated, or whether the attack 
 was made on the Triumvirs measuring the ground. While 
 
280 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 they were besieged in Mutina, and a race of men with no 
 experience in the art of attacking towns, and very slow in 
 military operations, were sitting lazily before the unassaHed 
 waUs, they b(^gin pretending to enter into terms of accommo- 
 dation : and the ambassadors invited out to a conference by 
 the chiefs of the Gauls, are seized,. not only against the law 
 of nations, but in violation also of the faith pledged for this 
 occasion : the Gauls declaring, that they will not release them 
 unless their o wn hostages should be restored. 
 ^^ When this affair of the ambassadors wti^ reported, and that 
 Mutma and the garrison were in peril, the Pr^tor L. ManHus 
 furious with anger, heads a large force in loose march to 
 Mutma. In those days there were woods about the line of 
 road, most parts being uncultivated. There, marching throuc^h 
 ground which had not been examined, he went headlong inlo 
 an ambush, and with difficulty gained the open countr/after 
 much slaughtc3r of his men. There he fortified an encamp, 
 nient; and as the Gauls hoped for nothing by making any 
 attack upon that, the spirits of his soldiers were revived • 
 although it was clear enough that his resources were impaired 
 He then rene^^'ed his march : and so long as he was carrying 
 his force through open places, no enemy appeared. When the 
 woods were entered again, then attacking his rear to the great 
 contusion and alarm of all, they slew eight hmidred soldiers 
 and captured six standards. The terrors of the Gauls and the 
 lears of the Ec»mans came to an end, on their getting out of 
 the trackless and entangled forest. From thence the Eomans 
 easily protecting their column of march in the open countiy' 
 made their way to Tanetum, a vHlage rear the Po There 
 they maintained themselves with an entrenchment for the 
 occasion, and with supplies obtained by the river, and with 
 the aid of the Ikixiani Gauls, against the masses of the enemy 
 which were increasing daily. 
 
 Narrative of Livy translated. 
 
 281 
 
 Scipio at the mouth of the Rhone. 
 26. When this sudden outbreak becomes known at Eome, 
 and the Fathers have learned that a Carthaginian war is 
 grown larger by the addition of a Gaulish war, they order 
 the Praetor C. Atilius to proceed and reinforce Manlius with 
 one Eoman legion and five thousand of the allies, just raised 
 by the Consul on a new levy. He reached Tanetum without 
 any fighting, the enemy having retired in fear of him. And 
 P. Cornelius, a new legion having been made over to him in 
 place of that which had been sent off with the Pra3tor, pro- 
 ceeding from Eome with sixty ships of war, along the coasts 
 of Etruria and Liguria, and the mountainous coasts of the 
 Salyes, gets to ^lassilia, and makes his camp at the nearest 
 mouth of the Ehone (for the river comes down into the sea 
 divided into many streams) : hardly now fully believing that 
 Hannibal has passed the Pyrenean mountains. When he 
 comes to know that he is actually preparing for the passage 
 of the Ehone, then, undetermined as to where he should 
 oppose him, his own men too not yet quite recovered from 
 their tossing about at sea, he sends forward three hundred 
 cavalry, picked men, guided by some Massilians and auxiliary 
 Gauls, to gain information on all things, and to get a sight of 
 the enemy from a point of safety. 
 
 Hannibal is already crossing the Rhone, 
 Hannibal having quieted the other nations either by fear 
 or gifts, had now arrived into the country of the Yolcae, a 
 powerful state. They also occupy both banks of the Ehone. 
 But, having no confidence in their ability to keep the Cartha- 
 ginians off from their country on the right bank, and in order 
 to have the protection of the river, they were now occupying 
 the left bank in arms, having carried over nearly all that be- 
 longed to them across the Ehone. The other dwellers on the 
 river, and such of this people too as had remained in their 
 
282 
 
 A;p'pendix. 
 
 Narrative of Livy translated. 
 
 283 
 
 homes, Haniiibal induces by gifts to get together vessels for 
 him, and to build them : at the same time they were them- 
 selves anxious for the army to be carried over, and for their 
 own district to be relieved as soon as possible from the pres- 
 sure of so great a multitude. And thus was brought together 
 hastily a vast force of vessels and boats, which happened to 
 be ready for the use of the neighbourhood ; and other new 
 ones the natives, beginning them first, hollowed out of single 
 trees ; and 1;hen the soldiers themselves, encouraged by the 
 abundance of material and the easiness of the work, made 
 hastily illshg-pen barks, not caring for more than that they 
 should float in the water and hold their burthens, and so 
 carry them over with what belonged to them. 
 
 The March of Hanno. 
 
 27. And now, when all preparations for crossing had been 
 adequately made, the enemy on the other side gave them 
 much alarm occupying the whole bank, men and horsemen. 
 To divert th(ise, he orders Hanno, son of Bomilcar, in the first 
 night-watch to proceed for a day's march up the river with 
 part of the force, and cross it where first he should be able, 
 as secretly as he could, and bring his troops round for attack- 
 ing the enemy in their rear, at the convenient time. The 
 Gauls who \^'ere given as guides for this operation, point out 
 that about five and twenty miles higher up, the river offers a 
 place for crossing, flowing on both sides of a small island, 
 being wider where it is so divided, and accordingly of less 
 depth. Materials were hastily cut there, and rafts made, on 
 which men and horses and other burthens might be carried 
 over. The Spaniards, not adding to this mass, put their 
 clothes into leathern bags, and placing their bucklers under 
 them, to lean upon, swam over the river. The rest of the 
 troops also, carried over on the rafts fastened together, after 
 they had made their camp near the river, weary with the 
 
 night march and the labour of these operations, are recruited 
 
 with one day's rest, their leader being bent on fulfilling his 
 
 design in the most advantageous manner. On the following 
 
 day, having made their march from that place, they give 
 
 signal by sending up a smoke, that they have got over, and 
 
 are not far off. As soon as Hannibal has recognised it, he 
 
 gives the order for crossing, that he may not fail in his 
 
 opportunity. 
 
 The Crossing. 
 
 The infantry now occupied the boats ready and fit for them. 
 The mass of vessels higher up the stream, carrying over the 
 horsemen, who were mostly near their swimming horses, 
 broke the force of the current, and made the passage smoother 
 for the boats that crossed lower down. A great part of the 
 horses were drawn by reins at the stern, besides those which 
 they had got into the ships equipped and bridled, that they 
 might be ready for the use of the horsemen immediately on 
 disembarking. 
 
 28. The Gauls rush to the bank to oppose them, with 
 various yelling and singing in their fashion, shaking their 
 shields above their heads, and flourishing their weapons in 
 their right hands, although such a mass of vessels from the 
 other side terrified them, together with the prodigious noise 
 of the river, and the various shouts of the sailors and soldiers, 
 who were struggling to break through the force of the stream, 
 and of those who from the opposite bank were encouraging 
 their comrades in their passage. And now, being amply 
 frightened by the uproar in face of them, they are assailed by 
 a more alarming clamour from behind, their camp having 
 been taken by Hanno. And presently he himself was upon 
 them, and a twofold terror surrounded theia ; in the multitude 
 of armed men poured out of the ships on to the land, and the 
 battle pressing unexpectedly from behind. The Gauls, after 
 being repulsed in the attempt to force their way forward, now 
 
 'll 
 
284 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 Narrative of Livy translated. 
 
 285 
 
 break through wherever a way seems most open to them, and 
 fly trembling in all directions each to his own village. Han- 
 nibal, having brought over his forces leisurely, for he now 
 holds the (Gaulish tumults in contempt, makes his en- 
 campment. 
 
 Passage of the Elephants. 
 
 I conceive there had been various plans for getting the 
 elephants across : there are certainly various accounts of the 
 accomplishment of it. Some relate that, when the elephants 
 were assembled on the bank, the most savage of them being 
 irritated by his driver, pursued him on his retreating swim- 
 ming into tlie w^ater, and drew all the rest after him ; and 
 that each, as. the ford failed him, in his fear of the deep 
 water, was carried by the very force of the stream to the 
 opposite bank. But it is rather the common belief that they 
 were carried over on rafts ; and as this would have been the 
 safer plan before the thing was done, so, since it was done, it 
 is the more lit to be credited. 
 
 One raft of two hundred feet in length, and fifty in 
 breadth, was extended from the bank into the river, and 
 this, that it might not be carried down the stream, was 
 firmly bound with several strong cables at the higher part 
 of the bank, and was covered with earth like a bridge, in 
 order that the beasts might walk on to it with confidence 
 as on the land itself. Another raft, of the same breadth, 
 and one hundred feet long, fit for passing over the river, 
 was fastened, to this ; and when the elephants, driven, with 
 the females going first, had passed over the fixed raft, as a 
 road on to the smaller one which was attached to it, the 
 fastenings with which the latter had been slightly fixed on 
 were at once loosened, and it was carried on by some towing 
 vessels to the opposite bank. So the first being landed, the 
 others were then sent for and taken over. They were not 
 alarmed at anything, so long as they were driven on a bridge 
 
 which held, as it were, to the land. Their first fright was 
 when, the raft being detached from everything, they were 
 hurried on to the deep water : then, pressing ui^on one 
 another, as those on the edge of the vessel shrank from the 
 water, they showed some amount of trepidation, till fear 
 itself rendered them quiet, looking on the Avater around. 
 Some indeed, growing savage, fell into the stream ; but stand- 
 ing by their own weight, when their riders were thrown, and 
 feeling their way in the shallows, they came to land. 
 
 Conflict of Cavalry. Boian Envoys: 
 
 « 
 
 29. While the elephants are being brought over, Han- 
 nibal had in the meantime sent five hundred Numidian 
 cavalry towards the Roman camp to reconnoitre ; to dis- 
 cover where they were, and in what force, and what they 
 were preparing to do. The three hiindred Roman horse, 
 sent, as said before, from the mouth of the Rhone, fall in 
 with this squadron of cavalry. An encounter takes place 
 more severe than in proportion to the numbers : for, be- 
 sides many wounded, the number of killed was x^retty equal 
 on both sides. The flight and panic of the Numidians 
 gave the victory to the Romans, when they were already 
 much exhausted. There fell of the victors to the number 
 of a hundred and sixty : and not all Romans, some were 
 Gauls. Of the vanquished more than two hundred fell. 
 This, a beginning and an omen of the war, as it portended 
 to the Romans a prosperous issue to the sum of events, so 
 it portended a success, not bloodless, but through a fluc- 
 tuating struggle. When, after this affair so performed, each 
 party returned to their general, Scipio could come to no re- 
 solution beyond this, that he would regulate his proceedings 
 according to the plans and undertakings of the enemy. 
 Hannibal, undetermined whether he should push on the 
 march into Italy which he had begun, or give battle to this 
 
286 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 Narrative of Livy translated. 
 
 287 
 
 the first Eoman army that had thrown itself in his way, 
 is dissuaded from present hostilities by the anival of the. 
 Boian envoys and the potentate Magalus; who, declaring 
 themselves the guides of his marches, the associates of his 
 dangers, give their judgment that Italy must be invaded in 
 the freshness of the war, not sooner making any experiment 
 of strength. The multitude were indeed in fear of the enemy, 
 retaining the memory of the last war : and yet they were in 
 greater fear of the unmeasured journey, and of the Alps, an 
 object which report made terrible to men wholly ignorant of 
 them. 
 
 Hannibal addresses his Troops, 
 30. And so Hannibal, when his own resolution was 
 formed, to push forward and march for Italy, having sum- 
 moned an ass(;mbly, works upon the minds of his soldiers in 
 various ways by chiding and exhortation. " He wondered," 
 he said, " what sudden alarm had entered into breasts alw^avs 
 " undaunted : that they had served so many years victorious, 
 " and only quitted Spain when all the nations and countries 
 " which the two opposite seas enclose were subjected to the 
 " Carthaginians : and then, indignant at the Eoman people 
 " demanding that the besiegers of Saguntum should be de- 
 " livered up as to punishment, had crossed the Iberus to 
 " destroy the Eoman name and liberate the world. At that 
 time, no one thought it long if they stretched their march 
 from the setting of the sun to its rising. Now, when the 
 " far greater part of the journey was seen to be performed, 
 " when the passes of the Pyrenees had been surmounted 
 through the fiercest peoples, when they had crossed the 
 " Ehone, so great a river, so many thousand Gauls resisting 
 them, and the power of the stream itself being overcome, 
 when the Alps w^ere in sight, whose other side was Italy, 
 they became- weary, and paused in the very gates of the 
 enemy. What did they suppose the Alps to be but the 
 
 <( 
 
 t( 
 
 II 
 
 it 
 
 « 
 
 it 
 
 it 
 
 i( 
 
 « 
 
 " heights oT mountains ? Let them be thought loftier than 
 " the Pyrenees : earth nowhere reaches the heavens, nor is 
 '* impassable to mankind. The Alps are cultivated ; they 
 " produce animals and maintain them. Are they practicable 
 " to a few, and not to armies ? The ambassadors who were 
 " then before them had not come over those mountains on 
 wings. Their ancestors had themselves not been aboriginal 
 dwellers, but had come over these very Alps to cultivate 
 " Italy, as strangers migrating from time to time in numerous 
 " hosts with wives and children. What could be an obstacle 
 " or insuperable to an armed soldier, bearing with him nought 
 " but the munitions of war ? For the capture of Saguntum, 
 " what dangers for a space of eight months, what toil did they 
 " not endure ? When the aim is Eome, the capital of the world, 
 " shall anything seem arduous and rough to arrest their en- 
 " terprise ? The Gauls of old had vanquished that which the 
 " Carthaginians despaired of reaching. Let them then yield in 
 " courage and spirit, to a race which they had of late so often 
 " vanquished : or let them trust that their journey's end would 
 " be the plain between the Tiber and the walls of Eome." 
 
 March to the Island. Transactions with A llohrogcs, 
 
 31. He now orders his men, encouraged by these exhor- 
 tations, to refresh their bodies and prepare themselves for the 
 march. The next day, having gone forward on the further 
 side of the Ehone, he bends his way tow^ards the inmost parts 
 of Gaul : not because it was the more direct way to the Alps, 
 but because he thought, that the further he withdrew from 
 the sea, the less chance there was of encountering the Eomans ; 
 with whom it was not his purpose to engage before he should 
 arrive in Italy. In four days' march he comes to the Island. 
 There the rivers Ehone and Isere, running down from dif- 
 ferent Alps, and having encircled a good district of land, flow 
 together into one stream. The name " Island " has been mx^n 
 
 m 
 
288 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 to the cotinfcr7 which they enclose. Near at hand, the Allo- 
 broges inhabit it, a nation already then inferior to none in 
 Gaul for power or reputation. It w^as then in a state of dis- 
 cord. Two brothers were at variance in a struggle for the 
 sovereignty : the elder, he who had ruled it before, named 
 Brancus, was then excluded by his brother and the mass of 
 younger men, who prevailed by force, not by right. The 
 arbitrament of this insurrection being very opportunely re- 
 ferred to Hannibal, he being thus umpire of the kingdom, 
 restored the j^overnment to the elder one, because this had 
 been the opinion of the senate and men of rank. For this 
 service he was supplied with provisions, and all things in 
 abundance, chiefly clothing, of which an ample preparation 
 was demanded by the intense cold of the Alps. 
 
 Marcli towards the Alps : to the Druentia. 
 
 When Hannibal, having settled the disputes of the Allo- 
 broges, was now in march for the Alps, he did not shape his 
 course by the direct way : but turned to the left into the 
 Tricastini : fr^m them, going through the further borders of 
 the Yocontii, he went on into the Tricorii ; the march being 
 nowhere impended till he came to the river Druentia. This, 
 being itself an Alpine stream, is by far the most difficult to 
 pass of all the rivers of Gaul, for, while it carries a prodigious 
 force of water, still it does not admit of navigation ; for, not 
 confined within banks, flowing in many channels, and not 
 always the same, constantly forming new shallows and new 
 whirlpools (whence the track, even to a pedestrian, is uncer- 
 tain), moreover rolling gravelly rocks, it affords nothing that 
 is steady or safe to him who steps into it : and at that time, 
 happening to be swollen by rains, it caused immense confusion 
 to those who were crossing it, while beyond all other things 
 they were confounded by their own terrors and bewildered 
 cries. 
 
 Narrative of Livy translated. 
 
 289 
 
 Scipio returns to Italy. 
 
 32. The Consul Publius Cornelius, in about three days 
 after Hannibal moved from the banks of the Ehone, had 
 arrived, marching in square order, at the enemy's encampment, 
 meaning to make no delay in engaging him. However, when 
 he sees that the entrenchments are deserted, and that he shall 
 not easily overtake them, having got so much in advance of 
 him, he returns to the sea and his ships, that he may by so 
 doing more safely and more easily oppose Hannibal on his 
 descent from the Alps. Nevertheless, that Spain, his allotted 
 province, might not be destitute of Eoman reinforcements, he 
 sent his brother Cneius Scipio, with the larger part of his 
 force, against Asdrubal : not merely that he might protect old 
 allies and conciliate new ones, but that he might even drive 
 Asdrubal out of Spain : he himself sails back to Genoa with 
 very few troops, meaning to defend Italy with the army which 
 was then on the Po. 
 
 HannihaVs March from the Druentia to the Alps. 
 
 His Stratagem. 
 
 Hannibal made his way from the Druentia to the Alps, 
 chiefly by a route through plain country, on peaceable terms 
 with the Gauls inhabiting those parts. Then, although the 
 subject was preconceived from report (which carries beyond 
 the truth things not ascertained), yet the height of the moun- 
 tains seen when close approached, and the snows intermixed 
 with the sky, — ^hideous dwellings put upon rocks, flocks and 
 cattle parched with cold, men unshaved and uncivilized, — all 
 things animate and inanimate stiff with frost, and all besides 
 more foul to see than to tell, — renewed their terror. As they 
 brought up their march to the first acclivities, the moun- 
 taineers were perceived posted on the eminences that hung 
 above; who, if they had planted themselves in the more 
 
 \ 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 U 
 

 90 
 
 Appendix: 
 
 hidden valleys, and sprung suddenly together to an attack, 
 would have inflicted great slaughter and rout. Hannibal 
 orders his standards to halt ; and finding, after he had sent 
 forward his Gauls to inspect the places, that there was no 
 passage by th at way, he encamps in the most extensive valley 
 he can command, where all places were rugged and broken. 
 Having learned through those same Gauls, who had got into 
 conversation with the mountaineers — from whom, in fact, 
 they differed little in language and manner, — that the pass 
 was only beset in the daytime, and that at night every one 
 betook hims(;lf to his own dwelling, he moved up towards 
 those heights, at the dawn of day, as if intending to force the 
 narrow passes openly and in daytima Then, the day having 
 been employed in pretending a plan different from the one in 
 preparation, after they had fortified their camp in that position 
 where they had halted, as soon as Hannibal perceived that the 
 mountaineers had gone down from the heights, and that the 
 keeping guard was relaxed, — having, for the sake of appear- 
 ance, lighted more fires than the number who were staying 
 behind would require, and leaving the baggage and cavalry, 
 and the larger part of the infantry, — he himself, with some 
 light-armed, every man being of the most valorous, daslied 
 through the narrow pass, and took post on the very same 
 heights which the enemy had occupied. 
 
 He defeats the Natives ; takes their Fort and Villages ; 
 
 proceeds for three days. 
 
 33. And now, when day dawned, the camp was broken 
 up, and the rest of the army began to move forward. The 
 moimtaineers were now coming together, on a given signal 
 from their fortresses, to their accustomed posts ; when all at 
 once they descry the enemies, some threatening from above, 
 having got possession of their citadel, others coming through 
 by the road. And these things, being offered at once to their 
 
 Narrative of Livy translated. 
 
 291 
 
 
 eyes and their minds, kept them for some time motionless. 
 Presently, when they saw the wavering in the narrow passes, 
 and the army itself confused by its own disorder, the horses 
 being exceedingly terrified, — then, thinking that any addi- 
 tional alarm which they could themselves inflict would com- 
 plete the destruction, they ran on, dispersing themselves 
 round the rocks, by places untracked and devious, which 
 they were familiar with. The Carthaginians then were thus 
 opposed both by the enemy and by the hostile nature of the 
 ground ; and the struggle was greater among themselves than 
 with the enemy, each man striving for himself first to get 
 clear of the danger. But the horses caused the greatest dis- 
 order in the march, who, in fright at the discordant cries, 
 which were multiplied by the forests and echoing valleys, 
 and struck, perhaps, or wounded, became terrified to such a 
 degree, that they caused a vast destruction both of men and 
 baggage of aU kinds ; and, the narrow passages being abrupt 
 and precipitous on either side, the throng forced many down 
 to a prodigious depth; some, too, being the armed soldiers, 
 but the great crash was in the rolling over of beasts with 
 their burdens. 
 
 Though these things were frightful to see, yet Hannibal 
 paused awhile, and restrained the force that was with him, 
 that he might not aggravate the confusion and unsteadiness. 
 Afterwards, when he saw the line of march to be broken, and 
 that there was a chance that he should have brought the 
 army through to no purpose, if deprived of its baggage, he 
 rushes down from the higher ground; and when he had 
 overthrown the enemy by the very force of the assault, he 
 also increased the confusion to his own troops. That con- 
 fusion, however, is quieted in a moment, on the passage 
 becoming clear by the flight of the mountaineers ; and soon 
 all were brought through, not only without molestation, but 
 in silence. Hannibal then took possession of the fort, which 
 
 u2 
 
 1 
 
 ■ t 
 
Ill 
 
 ^!' 
 
 9( 
 
 Ajypendix. 
 
 was the chief place of that district, and the circumjacent 
 villages ; and he fed the army for three days with the flocks 
 of his captives : and as no obstruction was offered by the 
 mountaineers,, who had thus in the beginning received an 
 ovei-throw, nor much by the nature of the country, he made 
 good progress in his march for those three days. 
 
 Conference with Natives, Assault in a narroiv Pass. 
 
 34. He then arrived into another nation, abounding in cul- 
 tivators of tlie soil, considering it was a mountain country. 
 There he was nearly defeated, not by open war, but by 
 his own arts, deceit, and then ambuscades. The chiefs of 
 their fortresse;s, men advanced in years, come as spokesmen 
 to the Carthaginian leader, expressing to him that, taught by 
 the calamities of others a useful lesson, they would rather 
 experience tlie friendship than the strength of the Car- 
 thaginians ; they would, therefore, be obedient to his orders, 
 and furnish supplies and guides for the expedition, and 
 hostages for the good faith of their promises. Hannibal, 
 when — by nedther rashly trusting in them, nor disdaining 
 them, lest, being rejected, they should become openly hostile 
 — he had answered graciously, and received their hostages, 
 and possessed himself of the supplies, which they had them- 
 selves brought down into the road, follows the leaders of 
 them in compact marching order, not as among a people 
 brought into peaceful subjection. The first body consisted of 
 the elephants and the cavalry : he himself followed with the 
 strength of the infantry, anxiously watching all things around. 
 When they came to a narrower road, subject on one side to 
 overhanging lieights, the barbarians from their ambush attack 
 them at once on all sides, from the front, from the rear, in 
 close combat, and from afar. They roll down enormous rocks 
 upon the mai'ching column : the greatest force of men pressed 
 them from behind. When the front of infantry was turned 
 
 Narrative of Livy translated. 
 
 293 
 
 against these, it was apparent that, if the rear of the march 
 had not been made strong, a vast slaughter would have been 
 met with in this pass. Even then, they came into extreme 
 peril, and almost destruction ; for while Hannibal hesitates 
 to push forward the march through the narrow pass, having 
 no support to his infantry from behind, like that which he 
 afforded to his cavalry, the mountaineers attacking them 
 laterally, broke through the middle of the column, and beset 
 the way ; and one night was passed by him without his 
 cavalry and baggage. 
 
 The next day m^der of March restored. Summit reached 
 
 on ninth day. 
 
 35. The following day, the barbarians becoming less active 
 in their incursions, the forces were reunited, and the pass 
 was overcome, not without loss, but with more destruc- 
 tion of cattle than of men. After that, the mountaineers 
 engaged them in smaller numbers, and rather in the way of 
 plunder than of warfare — now against the head of the column, 
 now against the tail of it, according as either the ground 
 might be favourable, or as opportunity was given by those 
 who got too forward or who lagged behind. The elephants, 
 while they were urged headlong through the confined tracks 
 with slow progress, still, wherever they went, they rendered 
 the march safe from the enemy, who feared to come near to 
 those strange creatures. On the ninth day, they reached the 
 summit of the Alps, through parts without a track, and errors 
 that were caused either by the deceit of guides, or, if these 
 were distrusted, by guessing at the route, and striking at 
 random into valleys. 
 
 Two days on Summit. Snow, March renewed at daybreak, 
 Hannibal addresses the Army on tlie march. View. 
 
 The encampment was stationary on the summit for two 
 days : rest was given to the soldiers, wearied with toil and 
 
 > ' I 
 
i 
 
 294 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 it 
 
 <e 
 
 fighting ; and in this time some of the cattle which had 
 fallen down among the rocks reached the camp, by following 
 the track of the march. And now a fall of snow, for the con- 
 stellation of the Pleiades was setting, added a great terror to 
 men worn with the pressure of so many disasters. When, on 
 the standards being raised at daybreak, the march was pro- 
 ceeding very slowly, through snow that covered everything, 
 and languor and despair was marked in every countenance, 
 Hannibal, going forward in front of the standards on a certain 
 promontory, whence the view w^as far and wide, and having 
 ordered a halt, displays to the soldiers Italy, and the plains 
 around the Po, lying under the Alps, impressing upon them, 
 " that they are now scaling the walls, not of Italy only, but 
 " of the Eoman city ; that all to come will be smooth and 
 straightforward ; that by one, or at the most a second, en- 
 gagement they will have the citadel and capital of Italy in 
 " their possession and control." After this, the column began 
 to get forward ; the enemy now not even attempting more 
 than occasional petty thefts. The way, however, was far 
 more difficuli; than it had been in the ascent (as, indeed, most 
 of the Alps are on the Italian side steeper as well as shorter) ; 
 for nearly th<3 whole track was precipitous, narrow, and slip- 
 pery ; so thai; they could neither keep themselves from falling, 
 nor could those who had once tottered a little, and become 
 distressed, keep their footing, but were falling, men and beasts, 
 one over anoi:her. 
 
 Broken Path. Fall of 1,000 feet. Attempt to go round. 
 
 Old Snow. 
 
 36. They ]iow came to a much narrower course of rock, 
 and masses of it so upright, that an unencumbered soldier, 
 feeling his ^v^ay, and grasping with his hands twigs and 
 stumps which stood out about him, could hardly let him- 
 self down. This place, naturally very steep before, had by 
 
 Narrative of Livy translated. 
 
 295 
 
 a fresh fall of the ground been broken away to a depth of 
 about a thousand feet. When the cavalry had come to a 
 stand here, as at the termination of aU track, it was re- 
 ported to Hannibal, who wondered what could be stopping 
 the march, that the rock was impassable : he then went off 
 himseK to inspect the spot. There seemed to be no doubt, 
 but that he must carry the march round, though by a long 
 circuit, through pathless places as yet untrodden. But that 
 way was not practicable : for, as there was a shallow surface 
 of new snow lying upon the old snow that was undamaged, 
 the feet of those who first stepped upon it easily rested on 
 the soft snow of little depth. But when this had fallen to 
 pieces by the treading of so many men and cattle, they had 
 then to step on bare ice beneath in the fluid mess of melted 
 snow. Then was a frightful struggling ; when, from the 
 slippery ice which would not hold their steps, and the foot 
 tripping up more readily in the declivity, whether in the 
 attempt to rise they had sought help in their hands or knees, 
 they again fell forward, these very supports sliding away from 
 them, there were neither twigs nor roots about, which any 
 one could strain at with the hand or foot: so they only 
 tumbled about on the smooth ice and melted snow. The 
 cattle both cut into the under snow walking upon it, and 
 sometimes plunging about with their hoofs more heavily in 
 the effort to keep themselves up, quite broke through it : so 
 that many, as if snared, became fixed in hardened and deeply 
 compacted ice. 
 
 Repairs. Trees cut. Fire. Vinegar. Four days so spent. 
 Three days' rest. Descent to the Plain. 
 
 37. At length cattle and men being wearied to no pur- 
 pose, the camp was formed near the ridge of the mountain, 
 and a space cleared for that very purpose with very great dif- 
 ficulty : so large a quantity of snow had to be dug up and 
 
 f? 
 
 h 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 i 
 
M 
 
 
 296 
 
 App&ndix. 
 
 removed. Then the soldiers selected for repairing the rock, 
 by which alon(} a passage could be obtained, for stone required 
 to be broken, liaving levelled huge trees which were near and 
 lopped them, made a vast pile of timber ; and, as a strong 
 wind had arisem calculated to encourage the burning, they set 
 it on fire, and pouring vinegar on to the stone in a glowing 
 state, loosen its substance : thus they lay open with iron the 
 rock hot with the conflagration, and lessen the declivities by 
 gentle turnings, so that not cattle only, but the elephants also 
 could be brought down. Four days were spent at the rock, 
 the cattle being almost worn out with hunger : for the tops 
 of the mountains are mostly bare, and, if there is any feed, 
 the snows cov(ir it. The lower parts have valleys and some 
 sunny hills, and streams near the woods, and at last places 
 worthier of human occupation. There the cattle were turned 
 to pasture, and a rest of three days was given to the men 
 wearied with the repairs. Thence they came down to the 
 plain, where the cKmate was milder as well as the disposition 
 of the inhabitants. ; 
 
 On the Force which Hannibal brought into Italy, Livy's 
 
 Argument on the Pass. 
 
 38. In this manner for the most part they arrived in Italy, 
 in the fifth month from New Carthage (according to some 
 writers), the Alps being overcome on the fifteenth day. 
 Authors are by no means agreed on the amount of the force 
 which Hannibal had when he had crossed into Italy. Those 
 who state the most, say that there were 100,000 infantry and 
 20,000 cavalry : those who say the least, state 20,000 infantry 
 and 6,000 cavalry. L. Cincius Alimentus, who writes that 
 he was taken ]3risoner by Hannibal, is an author who would 
 most influence me, if he did not make a confusion of the 
 numbers, by njckoning Gauls and Ligurians. With these, he 
 makes out that 80,000 foot and 10,000 horse were brought into 
 
 Narrative of Livy translated. 
 
 297 
 
 Italy — (probably still more joined him, and so some writers 
 say.) And he states that he heard from Hannibal himself, 
 that from the time he crossed the Ehone, he had lost 36,000 
 men, and an enormous number of horses and other cattle, 
 when he was in the Taurini, a people which to him, after his 
 descent into Italy, w^as contiguous to the Gauls. As that is 
 a matter on which all are agreed, I am the more surprised 
 that it should be doubted, by what route he came over the 
 Alps; and that it should commonly be believed, that he 
 crossed the Penine (also that the col got its name from this 
 circumstance) : Caelius states that he came over by the col of 
 Cremo : both which passes would have brought him down 
 not into the Taurini, but through the Salassi, who are 
 mountaineers, to the Libuan Gauls. Neither is it probable, 
 that those passages into Gaul were then open: indeed the 
 parts which lead to the Penine, were beset with nations half 
 German ; and by Hercules, if any are led by the name, the 
 Veragri, who dwell on that col, know nothing of its being 
 named from the passage of the Poeni ; but from him, whom 
 the mountaineers call Peninus, consecrated on their highest 
 summit. 
 
 Insubres at tvar with Taurini. HannibaVs Army unfit for 
 service. He destroys the Taurine town; then proceeds 
 against Scipio. 
 
 39. Most opportunely for the commencement of opera- 
 tions, a war had been raised against the Insubres, by 
 the Taurini, a neighbouring people. But Hannibal was 
 unable, for the assistance of either party, to put his men 
 under arms, who were now most conscious of the wretched 
 state they had been brought to, in the effort to repair it. For 
 repose after toil, abundance after want, personal comfort after 
 disease and filth, were in various ways taking effect on their 
 squalid and almost savage-looking bodies. This was a reason 
 
 
 I 
 
298 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 1 
 
 Pi 
 
 with the Consul P. Cornelius, when he got to Pisa3 with his 
 ships, for hastening to the Po, with the army which he re- 
 ceived from Manlius and Atilius, being raw soldiers and 
 dismayed with the recent disgraces of their arms, in order 
 that he might bring the enemy to action before he should 
 recover his efficiency. 
 
 But when the Consul reached Placentia, Hannibal had 
 already moved from his encamped position : and had taken 
 by storm one town of the Taurini, the chief place of that 
 people, because; they would not come readily into his alliance; 
 and he would have associated with himself the Gauls of the 
 Po, not by fear only but by inclination, had not the arrival 
 of the Consul suddenly overpowered them, when looking out 
 for the opportunity of deserting his cause. Hannibal too now 
 moved from tlie Taurini, thinking that the Gauls, hesitating 
 which party to follow, would follow him, being on the spot. 
 And now the armies were almost in sight, and the commanders 
 brought together; not yet sufficiently known to, but impressed 
 each with some admiration of the other. For the name of 
 Hannibal had become very famous among the Eomans even 
 before the destruction of Saguntum : and Hannibal looked 
 upon Scipio as a superior man from the fact that he had been 
 chosen to take; command against him. Moreover each had 
 increased such opinion in the other ; Scipio, that having been 
 left behind in Gaul, he was ready to meet Hannibal when he 
 had come over into Italy : Hannibal, by his daring enterprise 
 to cross the Alps, and the fulfilment of it. 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 4 1 
 
 Encounter with Scipio on the Po, 
 
 The error which I have combated as affecting the line of 
 march to the Alps, is not the only instance in which learned 
 men have caused confusion by misinterpreting the words 
 irapa rbv irorafiov* As some have converted the Rhone into 
 the Isere, so others have converted the Po into the Tesin. 
 Polybius, telling of events in the valley of the Rhone, speaks 
 of the Rhone as " the river." When the valley of the Po 
 becomes the scene of operations, he speaks of the Po as " the 
 river." A contrary opinion has been expressed by those who 
 in other matters are my allies, De Luc and Cramer. Both 
 have pronounced it to be the Tesin : De Luc favouring the 
 left bank, Cramer the right bank. 
 
 De Luc writes (2d edit.) : — "On voit clairement que Tarm^e 
 " Romaine etoit encore sur la rive gauche du Tesin lorsqu'elle 
 '' eut avis de I'approche de Tarm^e d'Annibal ; celle-ci avoit 
 " done ddja traverse cette riviere entre Novare et Milan pour 
 
 se reunir aux Insubres qui ^toient alors en guerre avec les 
 
 Romains, et qui devoient etre les plus puissans allies des 
 " Carthaginois. Au moment de la bataille, les Romains 
 " avoient necessairement, comme le dit Polybe, le T^sin k leur 
 *' gauche, et les Carthaginois I'avoient a leur droite ; ce qui 
 " fixe Templacement de la bataille un pen au-dessus de Pavie, 
 " sur la route de Milan." P. 233. 
 
 This notion of the engagement being on the left bank of the 
 Ticinus is contradicted by the context of the history, which 
 ^hows that Hannibal never crossed that river, but was pre- 
 
 4» 
 
 i< 
 
 n 
 
 
 I 
 
300 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 vented from doing so, and had to give up his pursuit of the 
 enemy, and to retreat up the Po, in order to find a fit place 
 for transporting his army. 
 
 Cramer, in his Ancient Italy, i. 55, says :— " Polybius in- 
 
 " forms us, that Scipio had crossed the Po, and was employed 
 
 " in throwing a bridge over the Ticinus, for the purpose of 
 
 "passing that river also. Having exhorted his troops, he 
 
 II marched along the Ticinus: while the Carthaginian army, 
 
 " which had nc w come up, was advancing to meet him on the 
 
 "same bank of that river." Cramer explains, that Hannibal 
 
 was marching up the right bank of the Ticinus : and (p. 56) 
 
 *'that Scipio, having crossed that river at a considerable 
 
 " distance abov(} its junction with the Po, was moving parallel 
 
 ''with the curr(3nt;" so that, after his defeat, he had to retreat 
 
 up the river and regain his bridge ; over which Hannibal 
 
 could not follow him. His opinion is, that " these operations 
 
 " of Hannibal, as they are reported by Polybius (iii. m), are 
 
 "perfectly natural and intelligible, if we understand \he 
 
 "action to have taken place on the right bank of the 
 
 " Ticinus." P. 58. 
 
 As I consider all these marches to be told as along the Po, 
 I will quote th6i narrative. We read in the 64th chapter :-^ 
 " Scipio about this time, having already crossed the river Po, 
 "and being further resolved to cross the Ticinus, gave orders' 
 " for a bridge to be made by those to whom this service 
 " belonged ; and, assembling the rest of his forces, addressed 
 " them." After the address, the history, c. 65, proceeds thus : 
 —"On the^ following day, both put forward along the river, 
 " 7rpo^-/ov dfM(f>6Tepot irapd rhv irorafiov, on that side of it 
 " which is towards the Alps, the Eomans having the stream on 
 '' their left hanoi, the Carthaginians having it on their right." 
 This river is the Po. Cramer construed it the Ticinus. 
 
 The plain of the Po has become the scene of operations. 
 Hannibal reached the plain of the Po before he turned his 
 
 Encounter with Scipio on the Po. 
 
 301 
 
 arms against the Taurini. When Scipio landed in Italy, the 
 plain of the Po was named as the object of his march. He 
 has now crossed the river, and crossed the Ticinus also. The 
 side of the river on which the armies are seeking each other, 
 TO 7rpo9 Ta9 'AX7r6i9 /tepo?, shows where they were : though 
 Cramer considered this circumstance to indicate the right bank 
 of the Ticinus, it seems to me to suit the left bank of the Po : 
 and is in accordance with the author's descriptions where the 
 Alps are spoken of as the northern side of the great plain, and 
 the Po is said to bisect it, running from west to east. 
 
 The narrative proceeds thus : — " On the next day, finding 
 " that they were coming near to one another, each encamped 
 '' and waited : and on the day after that, the two commanders 
 " taking with them all their cavalry, and Scipio his javelin 
 " men also, pushed forward over the plain, each hastening to 
 "survey the force of his adversary." The conflict is then 
 described : and in c. QQ, Scipio's retreat " in haste to regain 
 " the bridge by which he had crossed the Po." Hannibal 
 pursued " as far as the first river and the bridge over it." He 
 found that the bridge had been rendered unserviceable, and 
 made prisoners six hundred Eomans who had not got back 
 over it. Then, " hearing that the rest of the Eoman force had 
 " already made a great start forward, he turned round again, 
 "and marched along the river in the contrary direction, 
 " hastening to find a place on the Po where he might make 
 " a bridge. In the second day he halted, and having bridged 
 a crossing with vessels belonging to the river, he committed 
 the transport of the army to Asdrubal, and immediately 
 " passing over himself transacted business with emissaries from 
 " the neighbouring districts, who were ready for him. Havincr 
 " given to all a hearty reception, when he had got his forces 
 " over from the other side, he led them forward alo7ig the river 
 " in a direction contrary to the prior one : for now he marched 
 "down the stream, hastening to come up with the enemy," 
 
 a 
 
 t( 
 
302 
 
 Appendix, 
 
 This narrative tells three movements of Hannibal, all irapd. 
 TOP TTorafiov : 1. his first advance, which, after the conflict, 
 was continued in pursuit to Scipio's bridge on the Ticinus : 
 
 2. his march back in search of a place for crossing the Po : 
 
 3. his onward march after crossing. To know one is to know 
 all : for the second was retrograde to the first : and the third 
 was retrograde to the second. The contrast between the 
 second movement and the first is in these words :— /lera- 
 ^aXkofievo^i adOc^ ek Tavavila napd top iroTafibp iiroLelTO 
 TTjv TTOpelav, airevBcov iirl tottov evye(f>vpo)Tov d^iKeGOat tov 
 ndSov, The contrast between his third movement and the 
 second appeal's by these words :—7rapa t6p iroTUfibp t^v 
 ivavTlav TTOtovfievo^ Ty irpSaOev irapSSS' kut^ povp y^p 
 iirocelTO ttjp iropdap, airevBcov avpdyjrac toc^ virevaPTLOi^. 
 No one doubts that the river now crossed was the Po, or that 
 the march after crossing it was down the Po : this was con- 
 trary to the prior march, which therefore was up the Po : and 
 that was contrary to the first march, which therefore was 
 down the Po. 
 
 It is said that this battle was always caUed the " pugna ad 
 Ticinum "; but Polybius himself, as remarked by Schweig- 
 hseuser, refers to it in the tenth book as liriro^iaxla irepl tIv 
 na6oV. When Cramer wrote about the Ticinus, he was arbi- 
 trating on the disputes of Italian antiquaries, whose contest 
 was, whether i:he armies met on the right bank or the left 
 bank of the Ticinus, and for determining this question they 
 were searching for vestiges of Scipio's camp and bridge up 
 that river a^ far as Sesto Calende. These ingenious persons 
 could not hav6j desired a better arbitrator : but, as in this 
 matter they happened aU to be wrong, my friend need not 
 have decided in favour of any of them. His error resembles 
 that of Gibbon, who, in treating the main question, only per- 
 forms an arbitration between the Penine and Cottian passes, 
 blind to the possibility of a third candidate. 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 On the Battle of the Trehia. 
 
 It is curious that Niebuhr should have forgotten or dis- 
 regarded the narrative of Polybius which we have just been 
 construing ; and should ever have conceived, as he must have 
 done, that Hannibal crossed the Ticinus instead of turning 
 back from it. This casualty in the memory of such a man is 
 so much connected with the incidents which we have just 
 been dwelling upon, that I hope to be excused for alluding to 
 it. It appears, though not from anything which he himself 
 published, that Mebuhr conceived Hannibal to have crossed 
 the Po below Placentia ; and to have been encamped on the 
 right bank of the Trebia when the battle was fought on that 
 river. He was in error on both points. Dr. Arnold has fol- 
 lowed him on one, and Dr. Liddell on both. 
 
 There is in the Life of Niehuhr^ both that by Madame 
 Hensler, and the later one by the Chevalier Bunsen, a letter 
 written by him to the Count de Serre, of 22nd May, 1823, 
 containing this passage: — " Yaudoncourt's work, though 
 " printed at Milan, was not to be got at Rome ! I expect 
 " that one of Buonaparte's generals will have perceived, what 
 " the scholars have not dreamt of, that Hannibal's course 
 " before the battle of Trevia, was exactly that of Buonaparte 
 " before Marengo ; namely, that he crossed the Po below 
 " Piacenza, and cut the Eoman army off from the road to 
 " Rome : the Po and the fortresses were behind him ; there- 
 
 i^ 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 U 
 
 Vii] 
 
 m 
 
304 
 
 Ajpyendix. 
 
 " fore utter destruction was his doom if he were beaten ; but 
 '' he knew that he should be victorious." * 
 
 Niebuhr may never afterwards have refreshed his concep- 
 tions of the text of Polybius, while his imagination continued 
 to be impressed with the illustration from Napoleon. Be 
 this as it may, he announced the same notions in 1829, 
 within two years of his death. In the 10th Lecture (i. 176), 
 published by Dr. Schmitz in 1844, there are the following 
 words : — " We find Hannibal on the eastern bank of the 
 " Trebia : th(j Eomans cross the river to offer battle : con- 
 " sequently Hannibal, who was on the right bank of the 
 " river, must have crossed the Po somewhere below Placentia. 
 " We must suppose that the Eomans had crossed the Po in 
 " the neighbourhood of Pavia ; and Hannibal, as all circum- 
 " stances show, and as I have already observed, some distance 
 " below Piac€inza. It is said, for instance, that the Eomans 
 " transferred their camp from the left bank of the Trebia to- 
 " wards the foot of the Apennines, where they were better 
 " protected against the cavalry of the Carthaginians, by 
 " several low hills rising out of the plain. This and several 
 " other things are intelligible only if we suppose that Han- 
 " nibal crossed the Po somewhere between Piacenza and 
 " Parma. Hannibal was encamped south of Piacenza, on the 
 " right bank of the Trebia, and the Eomans opposite to him 
 " on the left bank." 
 
 It is almost incredible that Niebuhr can have so forgotten 
 or set aside I'olybius, as he did when he made this statement. 
 That he did make it we cannot doubt, seeing how circum- 
 stantial it is, and knowing by whom it is reported. Poly bins 
 in no way countenances the idea that Hannibal was encamped 
 on the right or eastern bank of the Trebia. And yet it is in 
 
 * Niebuhr's expectations were not fulfilled. General Vaudoncourt 
 had not madci Hannibal to cross the Po below Placentia, nor to 
 encamp on the; right bank of the Trebia. 
 
 Battle of the Trebia, 
 
 305 
 
 accounting for that position, that Niebuhr imagines him to 
 have crossed the Po below Piacenza ; a notion which is in 
 plain contradiction of Polybius, who states him to have 
 crossed the Po much above the influx of the Ticinus, de- 
 scribing it circumstantially. If there were any ground for 
 supposing the two armies to have changed places before the 
 battle of the Trebia, it still was not necessary to invent a new 
 place for Hannibars crossing of the Po. 
 
 Dr. Arnold misplaces the combatants at the Trebia, as 
 Niebuhr does : but he accepts Hannibal's crossing of the Po 
 as Polybius relates it : he was aware of Niebuhr's idea on the 
 subsequent position of the armies ; for in Note N. to p. 99, 
 he quotes with approbation that letter, in which Hannibal is 
 said to have acted like Napoleon at Marengo, throwing himself 
 between the Eomans and the line of their retreat: but on 
 the passage of the Po he has followed Polybius without com- 
 ment. I will give the reasons for believing that the two 
 armies kept their relative places as natural to retreat and 
 pursuit ; and that the Eomans crossed the Trebia from the 
 right bank to attack the Carthaginians on the left bank. 
 
 Polybius, in telling Scipio's retreat after the first engage- 
 ment, says that he made the best of his way to his bridge on 
 the Po, first crossing the Ticinus ; and that, after crossing the 
 Po, he encamped irepl iroXiv UXaKevrcav, towards or near 
 Placentia ; or, as one might say in sea phrase, off Placentia. 
 TlepL is a word used with much latitude. Strabo says of Ver- 
 cellse and Ictumuli, v. 218, ela-i Trepl UXaKcvrlav. This retreat 
 was effected by Scipio with the utmos^speed ; as well as the 
 push made after him by Hannibal, who had first had to retreat 
 from the Ticinus up the Po. As soon as he came within fifty 
 stadia, he offered battle. Then came the revolt of the Gauls 
 in the Eoman camp, on which Scipio retreated across the 
 Trebia : and if the Carthaginian soldiers had not wasted time 
 in the pursuit by stopping to plunder and burn his camp, the 
 
 VOL. II. X 
 
I 
 
 
 I' I 
 
 306 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 success would have been more complete. A few Komans were 
 glain, and a few made prisoners : but nearly all had crossed 
 the Trebia before the Carthaginians came up with them. 
 Surely this flight over the Trebia by Scipio was from west to 
 east. No crossing of that river by Hannibal is ever mentioned 
 at all. The Trebia has not been mentioned before : and neither 
 here nor elsewhere is there a word which imports that the 
 retreating and the pursuing army had changed places. It is 
 the tale of a continuous retreat ; consistent with what follows, 
 as with what has gone before. Sempronius joins Scipio with- 
 out interruption. Hannibal communicates with the traitor of 
 Clastidium without interruption. He continues to be on the 
 left bank, till Sempronius crosses the river to attack him. 
 
 Both Niebuhr and Arnold, in pronouncing that the battle 
 was fought on the right bank of the Trebia, speak positively 
 of the previous junction of the two consular armies on the 
 left bank. Niebuhr's comment is this : — " We must suppose 
 " that the Romans had crossed the Po in the neighbourhood 
 " of Pa via : it is said that they transferred their camp from 
 " the left bank of the Trebia towards the foot of the Apen- 
 " nines." He should have said, " from the left bank to the 
 right hank!' By omitting the latter idea, he represents them 
 as being still on the left bank when Sempronius arrived, and 
 still there when the battle took place. Under this impres- 
 sion as to the army of Scipio, he provides for Hannibal being 
 on the other side, by imagining, in opposition to the history, 
 that he had (jrossed the Po below Piacenza. 
 
 Arnold writes differently : he says that Scipio had, in his 
 original advance to meet Hannibal, crossed the Po at Piacenza : 
 and, speaking of the subsequent retreat, says that "the Eomans 
 " recrossed the Ticinus, and then, crossing the Po also, estab- 
 " lished themselves under the walls of Placentia." Ptelating 
 Hannibal's passage of the Po according to Polybius, he says 
 this : — " Again descending the river, he arrived, on the second 
 
 Battle of the Trehia, 
 
 307 
 
 " day after his passage, in sight of the Eoman army, and on 
 ^ the following day offered them battle. He posted his army 
 " five or six miles from the enemy," and he adds (not from 
 Polybius), " and apparently on the east of Placentia, cutting 
 " off their direct communication with Ariminum and Rome." 
 The reference here is by some mistake given to Polybius. 
 But Polybius gives no hint of " communication cut off," as 
 suggested : and he relates what Dr. Arnold omits ; viz. the 
 revolt of the Gauls, and the consequent retreat of Scipio, 
 when he was driven across the Trebia, and not followed by 
 his pursuer. This is not alluded to : but it is conceived and 
 insinuated, that that retreat was from east to west. 
 
 Dr. Arnold fully sympathises with Niebuhr on the diJBficulty 
 which their notion of the position involves. He says — " It is 
 " not explained by any existing writer how Sempronius was 
 " able to effect his junction with his colleague, without any 
 " opposition from Hannibal. The regular road from Ariminum 
 ^' to Placentia passes through a country unvaried by a single 
 " hiU : and the approach of a large army should have been 
 " announced to Hannibal by his Numidian cavalry soon 
 " enough to have allowed him to intercept it. We only know 
 " that the two consular armies were united in Scipio's position 
 " on the left bank of the Trebia." The cause of Dr. Arnold's 
 perplexity was the gratuitous assumption of that fact, which 
 had been carelessly assumed by Niebuhr. Cramer had worked 
 the battle rightly in his map, 
 
 I believe that Niebuhr's illusion was in the fancy about 
 Napoleon, and that Arnold just followed that fancy : but it is 
 possible that the error might be encouraged by what is related 
 of the retreat to Placentia after the battle : though not by a 
 right construction of it. The battle was fought some way up 
 the river: ten thousand Roman infantry fought their way 
 through the Carthaginian centre, and effected their retreat to 
 Placentia : and some may think this to indicate that the battle 
 
m 
 
 308 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 was fought on that side of the river to which Placentia 
 belongs. Such an inference would not be just. Wherever the 
 battle was, they would take refuge in that place : if it had 
 been fought on the right bank, the ten thousand would have 
 reached Placentia without crossing the river : as it was fought 
 on the left bank, they retreated down the river till they came 
 to the usual crossing which led to their fortified city. Polybius 
 would have introduced a superfluous fact, if he had alleged that 
 the survivors of the battle had to cross the river before they 
 got to the town : he never deals in unprovoked minuteness. 
 If conflict had attended this retreat of the ten thousand, the 
 Trebia might again have been a feature in the tale : but there 
 was none : they left the field compact and unmolested, ddpoot 
 fjLer da^akelaf;' and, as the town was held by a Pwoman 
 garrison (they held it till near the end of the war), that 
 retreating force had no occasion to cross the Trebia, till they 
 came to the usual passage of it leading to that j)lace in the 
 line of travelling down the Po. 
 
 The story told by Livy seems to me to correspond in its 
 tenor with tliat of Polybius : it is damaged only by an 
 incredible anecdote introduced after the battle. On the 
 retreat of the Eomans from the Ticinus, Livy says, — " Prius 
 " Placentiam ]3ervenere quam satis sciret Hannibal ab Ticino 
 " profectos." This rapidity of Scipio strengthens the argument 
 made from the speed of Hannibal. These words import that 
 Scipio with great speed made good his retreat to Placentia ; 
 they do not show where he first placed his camp — this I 
 apprehend must have been west of the Trebia, which was 
 only two mil(3S distant from Placentia. Livy adopts the 
 details of his i)redecessor, saying that Hannibal found a place 
 for crossing the Po in two days after he turned back from the 
 Ticinus ; that, when he marched down, he made his camp six 
 miles from Placentia; that he offered battle which Scipio 
 declined ; that on the following night a body of Gauls 
 
 Battle of tJie Trebia. 
 
 309 
 
 deserted to him from the Eoman camp; and tliat the night 
 after that, Scipio marched to the Trebia, pursued by the 
 Carthaginians, and effected his passage of that jiver. There 
 is no hint that Hannibal ever crossed it, or that the retreater 
 and the pursuer ever changed places. 
 
 Niebuhr is at variance with Livy as well as with Polybius : 
 he differs from both, in asserting that the Carthaginians 
 crossed the Po at a lower point than the Eomans : he differs 
 from both in not mentioning the revolt of the Gauls in the 
 Eoman camp, which caused Scipio's retreat across the Trebia ; 
 nor the incident which prevented Hannibal from continuing 
 his pursuit beyond the river. Neither liistory imports that 
 Hannibal ever got to the right bank before the battle was 
 fought, nor gives any hint that Scipio's communications were 
 interrupted. Livy says, " Sempronius Ariminum pervenit : 
 " inde cum exercitu suo profectus ad Trebiam flumen colleg?e 
 *' conjungitur." He represents Hannibal the pursuer, as keep- 
 ing his place in rear of the retreater. '' Traditur Hannibali 
 Clastidium : id horreum fuit Poenis sedentibus ad Trebiam." 
 
 Mr. Bunbury, a very able contributor to Dr. Smith's 
 Dictionary of Geography 1856, gives from Polybius, under 
 " Trebia," an accurate analysis of the successive positions of 
 the armies, describing righliy the field of battle, with the 
 retreat of the ten thousand : and his interpretation of the 
 scene is the more valuable, from his having previously given 
 undue weight to the doubts on the Ticinus, and in the 
 Dictionary of Biography 1852, under the word '' Hannibal " 
 placed the Eoman camp on the left bank. I would say, 
 however, that Mr. Bunbury does not speak from Polybius in 
 what he says of other fugitives driven across the river and 
 joining the ten thousand, and of Scipio repairing to Placentia 
 the following day with the force that had not been engaged. 
 
 Livy alone speaks of Scipio's movement : and he attributes 
 it to the night after tlie battle. The incredible anecdote which 
 
i 
 
 310 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 Battle of the Trehia. 
 
 311 
 
 M 
 
 i 
 
 he then introduces is not worthy to cause a doubt on the 
 clear narrative of Polybius, or on that which he has already 
 given himself. He agrees with Polybius from the linro^axia 
 on the Po to the battle of the Trebia, including the retreat of 
 the ten thousand from the field ; and says that they reached 
 Placentia. This fact does not show the side of the river on 
 which the action took place : if it was on tlie right bank, they 
 would not have to cross the Trebia at all : if on the left, there 
 was equal facility of reaching the place, without the folly of 
 crossing the stream near the hostile camp, and venturing into 
 so dangerous a neighbourhood. 
 
 The Eomans left their own camp and crossed the river to 
 fight. After she battle, the ten thousand " flumine interclusi," 
 could not have regained their own camp ; and they went off 
 straight to Phicentia, which was quite practicable from the field 
 of battle, on whichever side it was. It is not of them, but of 
 the camp garrison and the few who had regained the camp, 
 that Livy tells the following story. "Nocte insequenti, quum 
 " proesidium castrorum, et quod reliquum ex magna parte 
 " militum ereit, ratibus Trebiam trajiceret, aut nihil sensere 
 " Pceni, obstrepente fluvia, aut, quia jam moveri prae lassi- 
 *' tudine neqidbunt ac vulneribus, sentire sese dissimularunt: 
 '' quietisque Poenis, tacito agmine ab Scipione consule exer- 
 *' citus Placentiam est perductus." 
 
 Dr. Arnold has related this most improbable incident, for 
 which the editor in mistake refers to Polybius as the authority. 
 After saying that " the legions forced their way through the 
 enemy's line and marched off the field straight to Placentia," 
 ^he writes thus — " But those who fled towards the river, were 
 " slaughtered unceasingly till they reached it. The Cartha- 
 ginians, ho>v^ever, stopped their pursuit on the bank of the 
 Trebia: the cold was piercing, and to the elephants so 
 " intolerable, that they almost all perished : even of the men 
 " and horses many were lost ; so that the wreck of the Eoman 
 
 (( 
 
 <i 
 
 \ 
 
 *' army reached their camp in safety : and, when night came 
 " on, Scipio again led them across the river, and, passing 
 « unnoticed by the camp of the enemy, took refuge with his 
 *' colleague within the walls of Placentia." 
 
 What can be more incredible than this story of Scipio 
 
 electing to pass the river in the vicinity of the hostile camp ? 
 
 The enterprise, as related, would involve enormous danger 
 
 without any adequate motive to incur it. The torrent, in the 
 
 morning, had been only just fordable : "pectoribus tenus — 
 
 erat brum^ tempus et nivalis dies." After such a day, the 
 
 stream would be more swollen: in the attempt to recross 
 
 after the battle many had been "gurgitibus absumpti;" and 
 
 one cannot conceive that Scipio would voluntarily encounter 
 
 so fearful an obstacle in the darkness of night, and near the 
 
 quarters of the more vigorous enemy. The absurdity of such 
 
 a thing is more striking if we imagine the Eoman camp on 
 
 the left bank. Scipio, in that case, would have been well 
 
 satisfied that the enemy did not cross to him : he would have 
 
 moved down on his own side of the Trebia, till the usual 
 
 crossing of it near the mouth should carry him unmolested to 
 
 the Eoman fortifications. 
 
 If we except this topic of embellishment, the whole tenor 
 of Livy's naiTative is consistent, and the same with that of 
 Polybius; and the addition of such an anecdote does not 
 prove that his opinion on the field of battle was different 
 from that of his predecessor. The story may, perhaps, justify 
 a remark of Dr. Ukert, which I find in Dr. Thirlwall's review 
 of his work : " Livy, in drawing his accounts from various 
 " sources, failed to perceive that he was framing his narrative 
 " out of statements that were irreconcilably discordant." 
 {Phil. Museum, iii. p. 677.) Dr. Arnold has shown, in a severe 
 comment, how Livy is contradicted by his own anecdotes. 
 {Life of Arnold, Letter cclxxxiv.) 
 Here, as elsewhere in this controversy, we see how error is 
 
312 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 ■ I 
 
 perpetuated by one commentator copying another, without 
 exercising his own judgment. Dr. LiddeU (1855), after telling 
 of Scipio's rtitreat from the Ticinus, says this : " Hannibal, 
 " after spending two or three days on the north side of the 
 " Po, crossed, somewhere below Placentia ; and Scipio, not 
 " finding his position near that town secure, fell back, so as 
 " to place th(j Trebia between himself and Hannibal. On the 
 " left bank of this river he fortified a strong camp, with the 
 " purpose of awaiting the arrival of Sempronius. Hannibal 
 " followed the Piomans, and encamped in view of them on 
 " the right bank of the Trebia." No part of this statement 
 has the authority of Polybius or Livy ; while the author 
 omits that which they do relate, namely, the revolt of the 
 Gauls in the Eoman camp, which led to the flight of Scipio 
 across the I'rebia. He follows Mebuhr, not the ancient 
 historians. If Niebuhr had lived to write the history of 
 those times, he would perhaps have examined the authorities 
 
 agam. 
 
 The author of a recent work on the campaigns of Hannibal, 
 Colonel Macclougall, being satisfied on Hannibal's position as 
 certified by it^iebuhr and Arnold, says : " It was a masterly 
 " manoeuvre ; for Hannibal placed himself between Scipio 
 " and the adA^ancing army of Sempronius : he doubtless did 
 *' so with the intention of interrupting the latter. Why he 
 " did not exe(?ute that intention, it is impossible to explain." 
 As such man.ieuvre never took place, the failure of its object 
 need not be accounted for. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 !« 
 
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