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THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 



IN TWO VOLUMES. 



THE ALPS 



OF 



HANNIBAL 



FT 



WILLIAM JOHN LAW, M.A 

FORMERLY KTUDENT OP CniliaT CHURril, 

OXFORD. 



IN TWO VOLUMES. 



VOL. I 




^Tonbon ; 

MACMILLAN AND CO. 

1866. 



1 7%^ Bight of Tran^aiian and lUprothnriiim, it reserrcd.^ 




^ -2V-. 



THE ALPS 



OF 



HANNIBAL 



r.T 



WILLIAM JOHN LAW, M.A 

FORMERLY KTITI>EST OP 0HRI.1T OHnRril, 

OXFORP. 



IN TWO VOLUMES. 



VOL. I. 






I^^.V 











Yonbon : 

■si* 

MACMILLAN AND CO. 

1866. 



[Th^ Biyht of TransfatioH find Rfprotlttriiim U f€mrrfd\ 




■£. -5V-. 



LONDON : 

B CLAY, HON, AND TATLOR, PBINTERH, 

BRRAD 8TREIT HILL. 



THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED "^ 



TO THE MEMORY OF 



MY REVERED GRANDFATHERS, 



EDMUND LAW, BISHOP OF CARUSLE, 



AND 



WILLIAM MARKHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ; 



MEN OF LEARNING AND PIETY, 



AND SINCERE LOVERS OF TRUTH. 



W. J. L 



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, 1 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 circimi- 
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 French 



viii Preface. 

and in my Alps, and amused myself during August 
with some comments, which I printed at Cham- 
b6ry, on the speculations of M. Replat. 

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 illness: 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 the disputed track. 

In my progress to convalescence at Nice, I found 
myself without employment ; and a resource oflfered 
itself in the 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 1856 Mr. Ellis defended himself in 



Preface, ix 

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. LiddeU says, " The con- 
" trover sy 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 eflfbrts 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 Preface. 

accounted for in the remark of Niebuhr, "that 
" even ingenious and learned men have opposed the 
" 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 worked more. 

When one comes to interfere in a dispute which 
has lasted so long, the great discouragement is, that 
a fit treatment 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 few pages? Heresies must be attacked 
which took root in the first days of the Boman 
empire, which have been cultivated in various forms 
to the present time ; nourished by men who have 
adorned the literature of modem Europe. Pew 
there are who take pains to scrutinise what is 
plausible, or to sift what is obscure. The laborious 
eflfort of novelty, which I have mentioned as 



Preface. 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 we consume time in combating such a 
notion as this ? '* But, if the notion which suggests 
tlie scruple should be coimtenanced by men like 
Schweighseuser, or Gossellin, or Letronne, or Arnold, 
or TJkert, there is no alternative: the unresisted 
sanction of such names governs the opinion of the 
world : and, though an error may in itself seem 
imworthy 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 
encoimtered : we dare not despise what the world 
esteems : the consequence is, that the subject must 
not be treated shortly, if it is to be treated safely. 

Fortunately 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 Treface. 

has been my fate : and I offer, though 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 will 
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 ONE. 



PAKT I. 

THE CONTROVEBST. 



FAGE 



Chap. I.— The Controversj : Progress and State of it . . . 1 
Chap. XL— The Subject proposed, and Method of treating it . . 8 



PAET IL 



ON THE AUTHORITY OP POLYBIUS. 



Chap. L — His Journey through Uie Alps 15 

Chap. II. — Strictures of Dr. Ukert. Italy and the ^Vlps. The 

Bhone. Direction of the March 23 

Chap. III. — The Polybian Map of M. Gossellin. His reference 

to Pliny for confirming it Wb Theory on the Stade . . 38 

Chap. IV, — On the Stade of Polybius, and his Distances . . . 48 



PAKT III. 

POLYBIUS INTERPRETED. PAASAOE 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 Conftnh. 



PAUK 



Chap. II. — Passage of the Hhone near Boquemaure indicated 
by the distance from the Sea ; bj the distance from the 
Island ; bj the single Stream 58 

Chap. IIL — Theory of Tarasoon. Argument of Dr. Ukert. 
Distance from the Sea. Distance from the Island. Homan 
measm^ments in Gkml and Spain. Beads in Gaul. Policy 
of Hannibal. Vessels used in the Crossing. March of 
Scipio 65 

Chap. IV. — 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. 

POLTBIUS INTERPRETED. THE BEGINNING OF ALPS. 

Chap. I. — The march of 1,400 stadia may be 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 Isdre 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 101 

Chap. II. — The Mont du Chat fulfils all the requisites of 

Polybius 105 

Chap. III. — Adverse Theories on the beginning of Alps. Two 
by which Hannibal marches forward in the Island. Mr. 
WTiitaker, going through Geneva, finds the Alps at Martigny. 
Mr. H L. Long, going through G^renoble, finds them at Fort 
Barraiix . 142 

Chap. IV. — Theories of tracks south of Isere 164 



Confrnf.'^. xv 



PART V. 

THE MOUNTAIN MARCH. ASCENT. 



PAiiK 



Chap. T. — Some theories arc not worked 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 
o( each of the fifteen days 1^ 

(/HAP. II. — Ascent to the Little St. Bri-nard. The forcing of the 
Mont du Chat, and occupation of Allobrogian town. Army 
rests there one day. On fourth day of marching from 
the town, conference with natives, who attend them for two 
days. Bourg St. Maurice and environs. The Reclus. 
Ravine and Roclie Blanche. Modem evidence. Melville. 
Brockedon. Arnold. Character of conflict. Summit 
reached on the morrow, \mng the ninth day of Alps . . .193 

Chap. III. — Ascent to the Mont Cenis. Larauza. Ihe Nine 

Days. Defile and XevicoireTpov 215 

Chap. IV. — Ascent to the Little Mont Cenis. Mr. Ellis and 
the Rock of Bauno. Tho Combat. Evasion of the Text. 
Summaries. How Mr. Ellis shortens the i*eckoning of time. 
Two days. Two days more. His final argument for 
Baune. His progress from the Battle to the Summit . . 225 

PART VI. 

THJ* MOUNTAIN MARCH. SUMMIT. 

Chap. I. — Hannibal encamps on the Summit for Two Days. 
He calls his Ti-oops together and addresses them. Evidence 
of Italy : miscalled view. The Text considered. The fol- 
lowiug day he begins the descent 251 

Chap. II. —No practicable Summit gives a View of Italy. It is 
claimed for Monte Vise, 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 
Larauza, the writer in BlachvooiTi Magazine, and Mr. Ellis 259 



PART VII. 

TUK MOUNTAIN MABCH. DESCENT^ 

PAOC 

CuAp. I. — Descent from the Little St. Bernard. The disaster 
of the first day requires particular examination of circum- 
st4ince8 told. The same phenomena still occur in the ravine 
below La Tuilo. Arguments on the Descent from the Cenis. 
Larauza. Writer in BhckifHxxTs Magazine, June, 1845. 
Mr. Ellis 279 

Chap. IL — Hannibal, having completed the passage of the Alps 
in Fifteen Days, came down boldly into the plain of the Po, 
and the nation of Insubres. c. 56 299 

Chap. III. — On the Time 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 308 

Chap. IV. — On Passes between Little St. Bentard and the Cenis. 

Brockcdon. Albanis Beaumont 327 

Map OK TiiK Ai.PH To face jmge 1 



I'larVTA. 

„ III, ,. U. /Of* '*HK»"«*'*»>»<'i»t "»»«»»/ "fti-KUtuent." 

i'4v». „ ii;i, JW "oqulvoour' rni./ " tH]uivuleiit," 

„ IftH, .. *JU. /or " marohiUK " irm/ " itsu'hiug/* 

. I»^H, .. 10. " iwww ValoiUM'" tx> b< omithti. 

„ a\||, „ U. /or "hunhlnn" i>,Mr* hatching.** 

„ 1104 . .. li, /or '• but " i^iui •* iH»f ' 

.. 010. .. n, /T»'Viii''mMr«Vlu;' 



THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 

PART 1. 

THE C0NTR0VER8V. 



CHAPTER I. 
The Controversy : Progress and State of it, 

Sevkn cities contended to l>e the bii-th-place of IIoukt. As 
many mountains contend to be the Alps of Hannibal. (Jreat 
and good men have toiled to fix the death-hour of Alexander, 
and the landing-spot of Cajsar in Britain. There are who 
hold such labours to be vain and unprofitable : and it is true 
that, in the variety of objects which provoke curiosity antl 
research, the interest which they excite is not rt»gtdated by 
their importance. But 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 liardly imports us to solve may nevertheless liC 
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 Lctronne and Ukert and Arnold, ]>e9p<?aks 
itself worthy to be explored. AMien we regard the various 
matters which such inquiries will embrace, we make better 
estimate of their value ; and see daug<T in a doctrine which, 
condemning them aa useless, would confine our exfrciso of 



2 The ControTtrsi/ : [part i. 

thinking to the exigencies of the pa8sing day. Efiforts of 
retrospect, even such as these, are conducive to the interests 
of society. 

But in our subject is there need of efifort ? Bemains there 
a question to discuss ? Has not error been removed ; and the 
evidence of truth been submitted to and confessed ? There is 
no such acquiescence. The lamented Arnold, whose loss we 
cease not to deplore, studied the subject among the Alps 
themselves: in 1825 he was on the spot with Polybius 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 Genfevre, the other to the Cenis : while 
Ameth, 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 
All^ Blanche, hailing Mont Blanc as the XcvKinrerpov ; and 
Mr. Ellis in 185^ proclaims the Bock of Baune as the 
representative of that landmark, and the little Mont Cenis as 
laid down in the Chart of Pentinger. So long as there are 
such doubts and such difficulties among learned men, the 
question is not closed; truth is not established; search is 
still reasonable : nee modus est uUus investigandi veri, nisi 
inveneris. 

Progress and State of the Controversy. 

More than eighteen hundred years ago, Livy brought 
forward the course of Hannibal as a matter of controversy : 
and it is controverted to this day. In our own times books 
and pamphlets innumerable have been written upon it, 
exhibiting various degrees of labour and merit The subject 
indeed has been agitated from time to time for the last three 



CHAP, l] Progress and State of it, 3 

hundred years, in works which the curious who have leisure 
may explore. A considerable list is given with Dr. Ukert's 
Dissertation, in his second volume, Part II. p. 563 ; and many 
are enumerateii in a preface to the work of M. le Comte de 
Fortia d' Urban, 1821. 

The earliest of modem authors, whose opinion I can quote, 
is Mr. Breval, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In his 
Travels, published 1726,* he named the Little St Bernard as 
the Pass of Hannibal But, though he saw some essential 
points correctly, his sufirage 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 
Sadne and the Ehdne could represent the district called the 
Island, he finds relief in the work of Menetrier, the historian 
of Lyons, whose antiquarian researches had brought him 
acquainted with an old canal cut from one river to the other 
— which, 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 
voluminous and wearisome commentaries of the Chevalier 
Folard appeared, encumbering the translation of Polybius by 
Dom Vincent Thuillier, which is in six quarto volumes ; our 
subject occurring in the fourth, published in 1728. 

D'Anville'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, 
1863, at the British Museum : it is entirely founded on his 
apprehension of livy, and there is nothing in correction of it 
in hiis " Ancienne Gaule," published 1760. The labour of 
interpreting Polybius does not appear to have been undertaken 
by him, nor the necessity of such a task recognised. The 

• " Remarks on several parts of Europe," 2 vols, by J. Breval, 
Esq. late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Vol. I. 228, and 
Vol. II. 2. 

B 2 



4 T?i4 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 Greneral 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 opinion 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 diflTerence in the route, from the 
map of Mr. D'Anville." 

In 1794 came 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. Eector of Buan Lanyhome, Cornwall." 
2 vols. 8vp. And in 1812 was produced the work of General 
Vaudoncourt, " Histoire des Campagnes d'Annibal en Italic. 
Par Fr^dMc Guillaume, General de Brigade," 3 tomes 4to. 
Milan. I conceive that neither D'Anville in 1760, nor 
Vaudoncourt in 1812, were aware pf 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 to be original, and he took no benefit from the 
assistance. 



GHAP. l] Progress and SiaU of it. 5 

Foitanately the General imparted his notes also to M. De 
Lac, of Geneva, who in 1S18 laid the matter of them before 
the world in a very able and convincing manner. ** Histoire 
du Passage des Alpes par Annibal. Par Jean Andr6 De Lna 
Genfeve, 1818." There was a second edition in 1825. This 
writer also made a correction of General MelvUle's line, 
which is of the utmost importance, and essential to a just 
view of the subject. General Melville fixed the main pass of 
Alpa 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. 



6 The Controvert : [PAET L 

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 numeTous the hostile list may ba I have myself met 
with the following : — 

Criticism by M Letronne. Journal des Savans. Janvier 

1819. P. 22. 
Do. do. D^cembre, 1819. P. 783. 

Dissertation sur le Passage du Ehone et des Alpes par 

AnnibaL Par M. le Comte de Fortia d'Urban. 

Paris, 1821. 
Hannibal's Zug iiber die Alpen : in the Jahrbiicher der 

literatur for July, August, September, 1823. By 

Ameth, Director of the Museum, Vienna. 
Histoire Critique du Passage des Alpes par AnnibaL 

Par feu M. J. L Larauza. Paris, 1826. 
Hannibal's Passage of the Alps. By a Member of the 

University of Cambridge, London, 1830. 
The March of Hannibal from the Ehone to the Alps. 

By Henry Lawes Long, Esq. London, 1831 (Author 

of "A Survey of the Early Geography of Western 

Europe," 1859). 
Hannibars Zug iiber die Alpea By Dr. Fr. A. XJkert 

In the Second Part of Second Volume of his work. 

Geographic der Grechen und Bomer, p. 559. Weimar, 

1832. 
Notice sur le Passage des Alpes par Annibal, ou Com- 

mentaires du r^cit qu'en ont fait Polybe et Tite- 

Live. Par le Gdn^ral St. Cyr Nugues. 1837. 
K^cherches sur I'Histoire du Passage d* Annibal d'Espagne 

en It^e, k travers les Alpes. Par M. Baud^ de 

Lavalette. Montpellier, 1838. 
G(Sographie Ancienne des Gaules. Par M. le Barqn 

Walckeuacr. l*aris, 1 839. 



CHAP. I.] Progress and State of it. 7 

Note sur le Passage d'Annibal. Par Jacques Eeplat, 
ChamWiy, 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 CoUege, 
Cambridge, 1854. 

Two papers by the same author. Journal of Classical 
and Sacred Philology. Vols. II. and III. Cam- 
bridge, 1856. 

AH these writers disclaim the scheme of march, as corrected 
by De Luc and the Oxford Dissertation, from the mouth of the 
Isfere 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 some modem commentators wind up 



8 The Controversy. [part l 

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 proofis " 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 error, 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 — iroXuv xpoi/oi/ iTrurKOTia-Oeia'a, tIXo? avri) BC iairnjf; 
eirLKparel, KciX KaTar/topt^erac rd •^cCSo?. Polyb. xiii. 5. 



CHAPTER II. 

TJie Sicbject proposed, and Method of treating it. 

In the year 218 before Christ, being the 536th year of 
Rome, Hannibal marched from Carthagena in the month of 
May ; he crossed the Rhone 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 Polybius 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 



CHAP. II.] The Subject : Method of Inquiry. 9 

iu 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 Bhone was performed fally 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 prsetorship 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 r^on which is principally concerned in the 
controversy, the answer might be this : — Imagine Hannibal 
with his army about half-way between Omnge and Lyons, 



10 TJu Controversy. [part i. 

near to the confluence of the Ehone and Is&re ; 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 Pyrenees to the Ehone, all 
have been satisfied that it proceeded through Nlmes, excepting 
Mr. Whitaker, who carried it through Carcasone, Lodeve, 
Le Yigan and Anduse, coming upon the Shone near Loriol, a 
place about nineteen miles below the influx of the Is^ra 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 appear 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 Nemausus, 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 Nlmes, efiected the passage of 
the Ehone before he marched up to the Isire ; so that our 
first business must be with his course from Nlmes 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 Nlmes to the river in one line. Still the question, 
where did Hannibal cross the Ehone, is not only interesting in 



CHAP. II.] The Subject : Method of Inqxiiry, 11 

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 
tlie 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 

Modem 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 mjyority. 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 waa 

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 sul>ject, determined to make the two agree. 



12 The Cantroversy. [part I. 

M. Letronne tells us, " Polybe et Tite-Iive sont nec^ssaires h 
rexplication Tun de I'autre. Dans Tite-Live, il n'y a pas un 
seul mot k changer pour faire coincider son texte avec celui 
de Polybe." In the same spirit, G6n^ral St Cyr Nugues 
writes : " II faut expliquer et concilier ces deux r^cits : voili 
ie problfeme/* M. Baudd de Lavalette: "II faut concilier 
Polybe et Tite-Live : tel est Toeuvre qui doit, en d^finitif, 6tre 
le but de nos efforts." M. le Baron Walckenaer : " On a cm 
qu'il y avoit, entre le rdcit de Tite-Iive et celui de Polybe, une 
contradiction; on a cherch(S k se determiner pour Tun des 
deux : tandis qu'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 fiiUy persuaded 
that this has never happened : no one, on tracing the outlines 
of the two stories, can be impressed in favour of their geogiti- 
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 centuries after the invasion, he cites the historian 
Coelius, one whom he held in respect, as having named a 



CHAP. II.] 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. 
x\lso, when great modern names are adduced, when we are 
told of D'AnviUe, 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 eiTor. 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 modem commentators together with our 
own. We are not to presume that the reader is already aware 



14 Th^ Controversy. [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. 



CHAPTER I. 

His Journey through the Alps, 

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 bom 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 Eoman Republic ; 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 iyranny of Rome : Cato had pronoimced 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 Achaean exile. He had filled important posts in the state 
of which he was a distinguished member ; he had become 



10 Autfi&rifi/ of Polj/bim. [part ii. 

acquainted with Boman generals and Roman 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 Rome. 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 have 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 was sought in Rome 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 Some, while the other hostages were scattered in 
distant towns (xxxii 8. 5). Being so in favour, he might 
after a time have permission to travel beyond the confines of 
Italy. The Roman 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 personal freedom which he enjoyed at Rome : 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 sufiFered 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. 



CHAP. I.] His Joicraey through the Alps. 17 

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. When 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 Achseans, 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 leisuie 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 Numantia. 
The discharge of the Greek hostages tended to cement the 
friendship between them : it was through Scipio's intercession 
with Cato, that the Achaeans were permitted by the Senate 
to return to their coimtry ; 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 graves 

* Fast. Hellen. iii. 99. Mr. Clinton quotes Polyb. Fragm. 
Vaticau. p. 447. 

VOL. L 



18 Authority of Polybins. [part n. 

by Roman corpse-bearers or their own.* Scipio then went 
to Spain, to serve under Lucnllus : 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 serviccf 
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 
Bhone : and this young officer, like other servants of the 
state, must have gone to Spain by sea. 

M. Gossellin, (E^cherches, ii. p. 6) speaks of Scipio and 
Polybius travelling, together from Carthagena to the Rhone, 
as a fact related by Polybius himself; and he refers to Polyb. 
Historiar. lib. iii. 39. This is a mistake: no such thing 
is mentioned there, nor I believe. any whera M. Gossellin 
imagines their companionship not in going to, but in returning 
from the Celtiberian 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 \m- 
known Alps. I allow that Polybius's attendance on Scipio 
was at any time a probable result of their friendship ; but if 
* Polyb, Reliq. lib. xxxv. 6. t Polyb. xxxv. 4. 



CHAJ^. l] Hia Jimrrmj through the Alps. 19 

we assume such an incident in that spaee of two years, the 
scene of it would be Spain and Numidia^ 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 &11 
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. StUl 
more improbable would be that later time, when the inde- 
pendence of his 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, which the period of 
" sixty years had not been able to eflface, 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 Acha&an 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 Bome, 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 
in the 140th Olympiad. And his own exploration of the 

c 2 



20 Amtkorit^ o/Pol^mi. [past n. 

Alps is annomioed as baring been made before he wrote bis 
aoctmnt of tbat inrasion. Xiebubr 8a3r8 (tiansL by Smith 
and Schmitz, liL 42), that the first edition at Pohrbios is to 
be phuced about the beginning of the seventh centnrr; which, 
(601 r.c) was before the retnm of the exiles. He says also 
(2l8t Lecture, published by Dr. L Schmitz, L 283) that that 
edition ended with the canying away of the Achaean hostages, 
and that a second edition was published afterwaids, with 
the subsequent histoiy. It is curious to notice how the 
historian incorporated the new matter of his further histoiy 
with tliat of the earlier ona 

He announces his history in the outset as one of fifty- 
three years, the matter of the two first books not belonging 
to that i>eriod, 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 necessaiy 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 of the third book, the fifty-three years are again 
announced as beginning with the 140th OljTnpiad, 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 events are not now to close the work, and that the 
design is enlarged. Though 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 concerned in many, and an eye-witness of nearly 
all, that he shall undertake the task of relating them, and 
bnirin 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 Jtmrney through the Alps, 21 

between Attalus and Frusias, the wars of Cappadocia and 
Syria, the return of the Achaean exiles, the last war between 
Home 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 had begun. When he is about 
to explain the institution of the Achsean confederacy in the 
second book, he takes occasion, c. 37, to allude to the fortunes 
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 — Trepl fikv ravrrjv 6\o<r)(€prj<; hr- 
avalpeai^, Trepl Be tov9 ^A)((noif<: TrapdBo^o^ aS^at^ koX 
avfiippoinfa'ts. In the sketch of Achaean annals which follows, 
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 Cannse, 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 
Poly bins 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 under 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 liis country's 



22 Authority of Pdyhius, [part ii. 

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 track 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. It 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 
iuore necessary, as some have suggested a cause, by imputing 
to the historian a singular deficiency in geographical know- 
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 fiu*ther 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 iEmilianus and his brother, to whom the minutisD of 
those campaigns and the memorials of their own illustrious 
ancestors must have been matter of interesting concern ; also 
that his study of the course through the Alps took place 
while there may have been upon it still living witnesses of 
the invasion. 



CHAP, n.] Strictures of Dr, Ukert 23 

But^ though these notions seem to be true« and> being true, 
to recommend Folybius 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 ? " Some of the disparaging comments 
I delay to notice, imtil 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 by which they dissuade us from a confidence in 
the Greek historian. 



CHAPTER II. 

Strictures of Dr. Ukert Italy and the Alps, The JRhone, 

Direction of the March. 

Dr. Fb. a. Ukebt, the eminent professor and librarian at 
Gotha, is author of a work piiblished at Weimar on the 
Geography of the Greeks and Romans : 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 



24 Authority of Polyhius, [part ii. 

doctrine which he supports in the 2d division of his second 
volume, published 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 Hannibal's passage, signed C. T.,* in the Philological 
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 
Dr. XJkert that Hannibal crossed the Ehone near Beaucaire. 
I conceive that Mr. Ellis must here have mistaken the 
opinions imputed to Dr. Ukert for the opinions of Dr. 
Thirlwall 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 writer 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.'* The 
learned writer thus introduces the German geographer to the 
attention of the reader. " Ukert has defended an hypothesis 
" which had been adopted by many learned men, and within 
" these few years by a French author, Larauza, whose book I 
" have not been able to meet with ; that Hannibal crossed the 
" Mont Cenis. Ukert has the advantage of coming last to 
" the discussion of this question, with a thorough knowledge 
" of all that has been done by his predecessors, and with all 
" the light that profound geographical learning can throw upon 
" it : so that a review of his arguments may exhibit, though 

* Connop Thirlwall, Lord Bishop of St. David'a 



CHAP. II.] Strictures of Dr. Dkeft. 25 

" 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. Tlie 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 
*• modem 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 the sea eastward, as if he had been making for 
the midland parts of Europe (iiL 47) ; when, i^ 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 ft^uently 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." PhU, Mus. May, 1833, C. T. 



« 



(( 



u 



it 



26 Authority of Polybiiis. [part II. 

Such are reported to be the views of Dr. Ukert conceming 
the authority of Polybius in the question of Hannibal's 
march. With due respect for one so laudatus laudato, I 
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 Bome, and whose inhabitants, notwithstanding 
the mitiora ingenia which Livy ascribes to them in the 
twelfth year of the war, were still rude and fierca 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 But, 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 travellers who may 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 modem tourist, the Alps and the district beyond 
them reposing under the well-established protection of civi- 
lised govemment, instead of being still unexplored by the 
Bomans, 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 modem 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 



CHAP. II.] Sirtctures of Dr. UkeH. 27 

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 
bis hand? In order that he may ascertain the track which 
Polybius intends ; that he may know how to apply his narra- 
tiva 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 It 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 mtb the most distinguished and enlightened 
'' Bomans, 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 Bhone and the course of the Po : 
and we are invited to the conclusion that the geography of 
his history is not to be reUed 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 Bhone ; and the 
direction of the march. The Po must be reserved for a 
future chapter. 



28 Authority of Polyhius, [part IL 



Italy arid 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, rpiytDvov Se 
IbUo^ TO evOvypafifjMV kclKjAtoa <ryriyM: evravda Be koX al 
fidaei^ KoX ai irXevpal Treufyepeh elatv, — "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, irXevpav yap Tjyofiev rrjy 
dympiov ypafifirfv — " 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 



CHAP. IL] Stricturfs of Dr. Ukert 29 

of writing, which is to communicate ideas by well-known 
symbols. These are to be foond in the larger features and 
more notorious marks of a countiy. He reminds us that 
mere unexplained names do not ^ve geographical impres- 
sions. When he uses the word TpavfraKTrivoi, iL c. 15, 
he takes care to inform his. readers that rpays; is Latin for 
irepav. 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, L 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 
— " tliat, 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 oifender. Strabo himself, 
the sage whose corrections are appealed to, indicates in his 
own practice the foibles which in others he condemns. Hq 
rejoices in parallelograms, not triangles: he gives, p. 177, as 
the boundaries of Gaul, the Pyrenees on the west, the Bhine, 
as their parallel, on the east : the ocean on the north ; the 
Mediterranean and Alps on the soutlL 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 north 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 Authorittf o/Polybiiis. [part ii. 

having also the ocean and the Cevenned for north and 
south. 

Let me ask whether, in the broad definitions of Polybius 
there is anything which so conflicts with the proprieties of 
modem geography as these specimens of the Augustan. At 
least let the indulgence which is claimed for the licentious- 
ness of a parallelogram 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 trXevpai. Are these d^wvioi ypafifiaif M. Gossellin 
says with much gravity, Rdcherches, ii 15, " Au temps 
" de Polybe Tltalie n'avoit pas plus une forme triangulaire 
** qu'elle ne Ta aujourd'hui." He might have added, " La 
" Grande Bretagne n'avoit pas plus une forme triangulaire 
" qu'elle ne Ta aujourd'hui :" the Bristol channel and the 
Solway derogate as much from the €v0vypafLfiov a-xfjfui as 
does the gulf of Tarentum. It is most true that Polybius 
was addicted to the pourtraying of triangular forms : it is 
seen, L 26, 14, in his account of naval manoeuvres. But 
there was excuse for the rudeness of those forms, which 
Strabo, not an illiberal critic, might have acknowledged. If 
Polybius had called Italy a parallelogram, he would have 
earned the applause of his illustrious successor. 



The Eho7ie and the Alps. 

Polybius, iii 47, thus instructs his readers. " The Rhone 
'* 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 
" himself into the Sardinian sea He is carried for a consider- 
able way through a valley, to the north of which dwell the 



u 



« 



it 



u 



CHAP. IL] Strictures of Dr, Ukert. 31 

" 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 
" Bhone, 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 Rhone, 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 i<f)apfji6rr€iv to XeySfievov 
M tI yvdpifiov, 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 Rhone by reference to the Alps. 
Precision could not attend this method of instruction : he 
teaches here that the first springs of the Rhone are away to 

* This word "ApSvts is not explained. AtSv€9 has been sug- 
gested. May it not be corrected to 'EAuv^coi ? In a passage of 
Strabo, p. 192, we find Airovorioc, which it is pretty clear should 
be 'EAovTrrcoi. Strabo, enamerating the accoIa3 of the Rhine, seems 
to take them from Cassar. Both place Nantuates on the lake of 
Geneva near the Rhone. Caesar's text, iv. 10, carries the Rhine 
per fines Nantuatium, Helvetiomm, Sequanorum, Mediomatricorum, 
Tribocorum, Trevirorum : and Strabo, probably having Caesar before 
him, writes, " The first of all, irp&roi roiv diravnay, upon the Rhine 
are Atrovarcoi.'' Then he notices the source, length of stream, 
mouths, &c.; and resumes the accolae in this way ; "Mcra 3^ rov^ 
£XovifrTu>vs 'XrfKoayol mu MAoftarpucoi Karoucown ray 'Trjvoy '/' then 
he names TptfioKxoi and then Tpi/ovcpoc This leads one to 
suppose that 'EXovi/ttioi were meant to be irpcoroi ro>v hiraimay, and 
that Airownoi is a corruption. Kramer has put "EXovi/rrioi in 
the text The word Nantuatium in Caesar's 4th book may perhaps 
be struck out 



32 Authority of Polyhius, [part II. 

the north-east, among the Alps : more than this was not 
within his reach. He had no materials by which to speciQate 
on the longitudes of those fountains: no civilised eye had 
seen the glacier of the Rhone : he conceived its direction, 
not its place. The Bomans then had no acquaintance with 
Transalpine Gaul save by the access of Marseille : while he 
lived, their only military perfonnance between that place 
and the Pyrenees was in Scipio's few days near the Rhone'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 upon 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 geography than is necessary for understanding the 
story which he is relating, iiL 56. 

In the time of Strabo, 1 40 years later, conquest had made 
the JRhone a familiar feature in the geography of Gaul : it 
was known in his earliest days through the efforts of Julius 
Csesar to purge from obstruction the main route between 
Italy and the heart of the Helvetian territory. And yet 
Strabo's Rhone has its errors : speaking of the Rhone, the 
Doubs, and the Saone, he says, iv. 186, " It happens that 
eyjh 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, which by another bend is carried southward to the 
sea." Thus the Rhone of Strabo begins at Martigny. He 
could only relate what he had heard. He relates that the 
Rhone runs into and through the lake of Geneva, and that 



CHAP. II.] Strictmes of J>r. Ukert. 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. 

T?ie direction of the March, 

Dr. Ukert charges Polybius with inaking Hannibal to 
march eastward, whmi 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 fix)m 
Bayonne to the mouths of the Rhine. The twist which he 
gives to the countries of the world might weU 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 
Garthagena to the Bhone to bear northward, and the march 
from the Bhone 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 
Schweighseuser. Uepaui^divTCDP Bk r&v OfipUov, dvaXafidp 
'Avpifia^ Toi^ k\e<f>avTcui koX roxf^ hnrcUj irpo^e, roxnov; 
dirovpa/ySv, irapd roy worap^ov airo daXarrrf^ cJ? iirl rify io> 
iroiovpevo^ ti)k wopelav, (09 €h rrjv p^ecroyatov rrj<i Evpdnrri^. 
" 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, 

VOUL D 



34 AtUhority of Polybius, [part ii. 

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 them to the plain of Italy. The first moving 
forward is seen in the word irpofjye. The making a march 
is seen in iroiovfievo^ iropelavj words which import a large 
stretch of the expedition, or the whole of it. Uapa rbv 
worafiop belongs to irporjye: but ©9 cttJ t^v ito belongs to 
woiovfievo^ iropeiav. Dr. Ukert desires to annex this idea of 
eastward to irporfye : and he would alter the usual punctu- 
ation by removing the stop from irorafiov, and placing it 
after ?a>. 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 wpofjye 
airo OcCKaTrq^ m M r^v ?a> are translated " marched away 
from the sea eastward : " and the remaining words iroioifLevo^ 
Ttfv iropeiav (09 ek rrjv fi£<r6yau)v 1-^9 Evp&mf^ are translated 
" as if he had been making for the midland parts of Europe." 
The comma after iropeiav is rejected. 

This notion 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 irporjye represents the idea of setting out or leading 
forward, with another word of larger sense expressing the 
idea of making an expedition or voyage, the words which 
give the object of movement (as here M rrjv Z©) cannot be 
annexed merely to the former, and disconnected from the 
term of larger sense. We read i. 29, i. avrffovro iroiov- 
fievoi Tov irKovv ©9 iirl rffv Aifivrjv — " they set sail making 
their voyage as for Africa." In the same way, iii. 17, ava- 
fevfa? €AC T^9 fcacvrj^ 7r6\€<o^ irporjye iroiovfjievo^ rrjv iropeiav 
iirl rrjv Z 'xavOav — " having disencamped from Carthagena 

* See beginning of this chapter. 



CHAP, il] Strictures of Dr. Ukert. 35 

he led forward, making his march for Sagontom/' In 8ach 
instances hri 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 woiovfievo^ wopelav. 
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 Bhone to the plain of the Po as 
the object: especially as the next sentence gives a south- 
west direction to the course of the Bhone. If he had said 
that the march from Carthagena to the Bhone had been m 
7rpo9 apKTov, and that now it would be m hrl rrjv ito, the 
distinction would not have been objected to. 

The rejection of the comma after iropelay 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 
iropelop, 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 Bhone, "having the Sardinian Sea on 
right hand.*' Lib. iii. c. 41. 

d2 



36 AiUhoriiy of Polybius. [part 1 1. 

have been improved in the long interval "v^hich followed him, 
giving to the Bomans 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 livy. 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 Csesar. This able and accom- 
plished man bears in matters of geography an authority 
analogous to that 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 
infaUible, the geographer by profession, commg after him, 
might have corrected his faults. When the latter wrote, 
there had been opportimity of improving upon the knowledge 
of Gaul and Britain which had belonged to Caesar. Strabo 
professes to have read the Commentaries : he observes that 
Oassar 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 Bomans; 
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 

Csesar 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 (Jaul, with their extreme points corresponding both east 
and west — Caesar de Bell. Grail, 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 Bhine 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 
" Fyreneau. This too is the shortest distance from the Pyre- 
" nees to the Ehine, as the greatest has been caUed 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 Bhine to the chain of the Pyrenees, by reieison that 
these two lines rather converge as they approach the ocean. 



88 Authority of Polybius. [part n. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Polybian Map of M. Oossdlin. His reference to Pliny for 
confirming it. His theory on (he Stade. 

Nothing can be more injurious to the fame of Polybius 
than the map of the celebrated French philosopher, M. Gros- 
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, 
" B^cherches sur 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 Bosetta at the mouth of the 
Nile. These four 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 
Eosetta, is greater than the first. The Polybian chart of 
M. Gossellin exhibits the second or middle distance as being 
the greatest of the three: it places Carthage farther fix)m 
Pachjmus than from the Pillars of Hercules ; and Pachynus 
nearly twice as 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. 



CTAP. m.] M. OossdliWi Carte de Polybe. 39 

11 Gossellin's map lepresents Italy with a straight line of 
Mediterranean coast firom Narbonne to Policastro. Now Poly- 
bins distinctly recognises the great bend of Italy, when he says 
that the Tyrrhenian and Sicilian seas bound that side which 
SEUSes the south and the west — riiv wp6^ fieaifffifiplav xai Bvafiii^ 
rerfMfAfiivfjv, 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 
lignrians dwell on either side of it as far as Pisse 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 
ftom 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 — t^k vpo^ 
avaroTiOf: KexTufUvfjy: 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, 
w£Q promptly condemn much of the map we speak of as a 
delusion* But numbers have seen, and will 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 anjrthing 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. StrabOf such authority is surely not safe for what was 



« 



it 



40 . Authority of Polyhiui. . [paet U. 

"WTitten by one who preceded him by nearly a century and a 
lialf : especially when we remember Strabo's own report of 
the Mediterranean, and that from the entrance at Gibraltar 
he 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- 
self 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 (Hannibars invasion) the Carthaginians were masters 
of all parts of Libya which are towards the inner sea, from 
^* the Altars of Philaenus 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 conceived the Sicilian strait to be at a greater dis- 
tance from the Pillars than the Altars of the Phila^id 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 
18,766? 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 : t 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 Bomans, when his great pupil 
Scipio brought these very tracts into the condition of a Soman 
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 feirly 
^^rresponds with other rational estimates made by him, and 

* Poljb, ii Ifr. 2. t /«<*. auudl 2. % lUd. x, 40. 7. 



CHAP, nt] M. Qo8seU%iC$ CarU de Fdybe, 41 

gives a o()gent disproof of the extravaga&t numel^al on whicli 
H» Gossellin relied 

lu the same region of the same map is another very 
palpable misrepresentation, where nothing can be said in 
tnitigation of it I mean the Polybian distance between 
Carthage and Lilybseum ; that is to say, between Tunis and 
Marsala, represented by M. Gossellin as 8,000 stadia. These 
are the words of Polybius himself — to Si rplrov (aKpoarrfplop) 
Thpairrai fiev €t9 airr^v rffv Aifivrjv, hrUevrai hk rot^ 
^poicetfUpoi^ rfj^ Kap)(riS6vo^ ateptorffploi^ evxaipta^^ hi€j(pv 
ik XiX/bt;9 trrahiov^' pevei 8' €49 ;^€i^pii/a9 ivaei^, huiipei Se 
ti AvfivKov KoX TO ^apSSoy viKayo^, 'irpocrarfopeuerav Sk 
AiXvfiaiov^ This is in all points true: the Lilybsean pro- 
montory does look south-west towards the forelands of 
Carthage, distant about a thousand stadia, dividing the 
Jibyan 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 (B^ch. ii. 19) 
avow it : — " Cependant, il existe une grande erreur dans cette 
^ partie de la Carte de Polyba En partant de la Sicile, il 
" place la promontoire Lilyb^e au couchant, et dit qu'il est 
'^ ^loigne de mille stades des caps qui sont pr^ de Carthage ; 
" dans notre carte, le distance entre ces deux points se trouvc 
*' 6tre d'environ 8,000 stades. Une difference si considerable 
" ne pent provenir que de deux causes ; ou d'lm faux emploi 
^' que nous aurions fait des grandes distances de Polybe dans 
** la Mediterrande, ou d'un defaut d'ensemble dans le syst^me 
" g^n^ral des mesures adoptees par cet historien. Pour ce 
^' qui nous conceme, le doute ne pent tomber que sur la 
*' correction que nous avons fedte au texte de Pline." * 

Does the erroneous exhibition of geography become a fidr 

* For this, see the next head. 



42 Authority of Polybius, [PABT IL 

proceeding by M. Gossellin's confessing the discrepancy 
between the real Polybius and his own? His argmnents 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 I 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 Mediterran^e 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 GosseUin 
for its truth. It is awkward, under any circimistances, 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. GosseUin was well- 
informed of the facts from which Polybius's acquaintance 
with all the ground 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 
AMca, and his study of that continent from the Nile to the 
Atlantic. In some leading distances the historian had spoken 
plainly for himself, even if Pliny had said nothing to illustrate 
him. Yet, M. GosseUin, cUnging to that loose and half-told 
stoiy of Strabo, constructs upon this basis a system for 
Polybius, holds him answerable for aU 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 measurements can claim to be observed, they 
are the measurements of that author himself ; and one, who 



CHAP» in.] M. Oos8ellin*8 Carte de Polyhe. 43 

could only make a Polybian map by sacrificing tliose, might 
have abstained from the attempt. 



His appeal to Pliny. 

I must be content with my protest against this map. One 
who ventures to be dissatisfied with M. Grossellin 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 L 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. Gossellin 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 = 2,345f 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 

* E6cheiches, torn. iL pp. 8, 9, 13. 



44 Authority of Polybius. [pakt il. 

stated thus : k Graditano &eto ad orientem recto cursu Sici- 
lian! : Cretam : Bhodum : Chelidonias : Cyprum : Syriae Seleu- 
ciam Keriam — which M. Grossellin thus presents in trans- 
lation, with the distances — * 

Du d^troit de G^es, au d^troit de SicUe 1260j- m. p. 
Du d^troit de SicUe, k File de Crite . . 375 

De rile de CWte, Ji Ehodes 183J 

De Bhodes, aux ties Chelidonise . . . 183^ 

Des ChelidonisB, k Tile de Cypre ... 322 

De Cypre, k S^leucie en Pi^rie . . , 115 J 



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 part ; not saying a woixi upon the other fiva He ratifies 
his favourite exaggeration k Gaditano freto Siciliam; and, 
bestowing the additional 1,000 miles on the 1,260^ 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, 1,260^ m. p. would need no correction, 
being 10,084 stades. M. Gossellin, however, construing Sici- 
liam "to the Strait," includes in the 1,260 j- 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 H^cherches, iL 8. 



CHAP. III.] M. Oos8ellin*8 CarU de Polybe, 46 

instaliuent ? 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 itsel£ 
The thing told is the whole length k 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 ofiered 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 diflSculty is met with com- 
placently assuring us, that Pliny had a bad edition of Poly- 
bius — " II faut en conclure, que Terreur que Pline entre- 
voyoit, ^toit dans Texemplaire de Polybe, qu'il avoit sous 
les yeux, et non dans celui d' Agrippa, comme il le conjectu- 
roit." — G^og. des Anciens, ii. p. 10. 



46 AtUhm'ity of Polybvus. [partn. 

New Theory of the Stetde. 

To those who 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 the 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. (Jossellin exhibits many of these varieties in 
the total perimeter from 180,000 to 4!00,000 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 earth ; 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 the 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' exprim^es en modules diflG^rens :" that Patro- 
cles had expressed himself in stades of 666f to the degree ; 
Megasthenes in those of 1,111^; and Eratosthenes in those 
of 833^ — and, when he finds in Strabo, iv. 178, that from 
Aix en Proven5e 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 Rhone from Vienne to Lyon, M. Gossellin inter- 
prets them by the standard of 833 J. Notes to Strabon, tom. ii, 
pp. 7. and 27. 



CHAP* III.] M, Gassellin's Carte de Polybe, 47 

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 degree; another in 
stades of 1,1 Hi 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 fortime 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 d^troit des Colonnes jusqu'au detroit de 

SicQe, 8,800 stades; Polybe vouloit qu'il en eftt 18,837; 

et Strabon, critiquant ces deus auteurs, pretend qu'il s*en 
" trouve 12,000." 

" La grande dissemblance de ces derni^res mesures feroit 
" croire, au premier aspect, qu'il est impossible de les con- 
" cilier, et que Tune on I'autre, ou toutes les trois peut-6tre, 
" renferment des erreurs considerables. Cependant, on les 
" trouvera assez justes, si Ton soit distinguer le module 
'* du stade qui appartient h, 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. 

* Eech. torn. iv. p. 315. 



« 



« 



« 



48 Authority ofPclyhius. [part it. 



CHAPTER IV. 

On the Stade of PolyhmSy wnd his IHstances, 

PoLTBiUB reckons distances from place to place, commonly 
by the stade, a Greek measure ; sometimes by the mile, a 
Boman 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 
Bomans 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, notwithstanding what he had written on measure- 
ments in 1816, became a convert to the notion in 1832. 

The notion that Polybius treated the Boman mile as equal 
to 8J stades rests only on a few words of Strabo, lib. vii 
p. 322. The passage 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 river Hebrus, 535 miles. Beckoning 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 8J stades. In D'Anville's Trait<^ des mesures 
Itin^raires, p. 54, he says this : — '* Quand on lit dans Strabon 



r$t^ 



CHAP. IV.] His Stade and Distances, 49 

* que fielon la comparaison qne faisait Polybe de i'lntervalle 
** des colonhes milliaires k des stades sur cette voie; 11 comp- 
" toit 8 stades et un tiers pour nn mille, 11 ne s'ensult pas 
" qu'on soit dans robllgatlon de prolonger le mllle d'un tiers 
" de stade, pour suffire en riguenr k cette Evaluation ; et 11 
*' n'y faut voir qu'une m^prise, qui pent procEder de la pro- 
^' portion du pied Grec au pied Bomain, 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 Boman foot. The stade is a Greek measure, consisting 
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, yott 
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 hlirXeOpovy 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 Kard, araSiov^ o/crd of Poly- 
bius himself to the ok UdKvfico^ 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 mllliary 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 gi'eater improbability was never suggested than 

VOL. I. E 



50 Authority of Polybius. [part n. 

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 Soman 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 clua 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 
Bomans marked their distances along the Iberian coast at 
intervals of eight stadia^ do we not see that the intervals 
were Boman 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 omoient les 
voies Bomaines," he had said reasonably, "D'apr^ ce passage 
" il paroftroit que Polybe auroit reconnu que le mille Eomain 
" valoit huit stades juste." — IWcherches, ii. p, 6. But in the 
next page he turns away from those appearances, and sub- 
mitting himself to *'le t^moignage positif d'lm auteur aussi 
grave que Strabon," 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 which 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 the writings of Polybius 



OHAP« IV.] J9f* Stade and Distances. 51 

" whioh temain to us» we find bim 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 
PolybiuB as spurious, and asserts him to reckon 8^ stadia to 
the mila 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 *' Boman measurements in Gktul and Spain." 

^d 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 roimd 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 Boman 
Itineraries every space is given in entire miles, the mile being 
6,000 Boman 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 Bome 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 tliis or that place ; accordingly, the length 
which he gives to the interval is a criterion towards de- 

e2 



62 Authority cf PolyUus. [part ii. 

termining what that place was, and the trastworthiness of 
fiuch 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 Hannibal's route through Gaul and 
the Alps : we find our way by description of r^ons traversed, 
with allegation of time and spaca In telling the story of the 
invasion, there 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 AndrosinL 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 Garthagena to the Ebro, and from the Ebro to 
Emporiimu 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 Bome from one extremity to 
the other. Scipio had advanced a little way from the eastern 
mouth of the Bhone, and visited the site of the Carthaginian 
encampment; but he returned to his ships, not having 
trodden one stadium of Hannibal's routa 

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 the plain, one people only has been named, and one 
river besides the Ehona Of the march from the Pyrenees to 
the Bhone it was enough to say, that they performed it, 
having the sea on their right hand ; and the point where they 
first touched the Bhone, is to be perceived only by its distance 



CHAP. IV.] His Stade and Distances, 63 

from natural objects, the sea below it, and a confluent river, 
the lahie, 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 
farther 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 coimtries 
** 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. 
*' 1 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 



54 Authority of Polybitts. [part il. 

" us ; by the perception of which all of us, that 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 appljdng what we hear to 
" those distinctions, we come to have clear and familiar 
" notions about places imknown 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." 

The observations from which these extracts are given, are 
made in peculiar application to that small portion of the 
earth's surface which is the theatre of this controversy. The 
tale, which for good reasons is weak in names, assumes an 
increased strength 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. 



PAET HI. 

POLYBIUS INTERPRETED. PASSAGE OF THE 

RHONE. 



CHAPTER I. 

IfUroduetion, Division of the March. Three points to be 
fixed : the Passage of the Rhone ; the "beginning of Alps ; 
the exit into the Plain. 

SAGUimTM fell during the winter of 219 B.C. Thereupon 
the Romans sent an embassy to Carthage, demanding the 
sunenderof Hannibal and other chiefs, with war as the alter- 
native. We may collect from Polybius, that the Consul had 
completed his successes in lUyria and returned to Rome 
before the siege of Saguntum was brought to a conclusion. 
The Romans had despatched iEmilius with his army to IHyria 
at the opening of the season ; and Hannibal marched from 
Carthagena against Saguntum about the same time. His 
designs were ftdly understood by the Romans ; 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 Rome in triumph 
on the close of the summer, Xfjyovarj^ rjSTj 7^9 Oepela^. 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 hi. 

After the news of this event was received, the embassy was 
sent to Carthage; and Hannibal was then in his whiter 
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 Spain 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 Bomans; knowing that his hopes of success must rest 
mainly on their co-operatioa 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 
Carthaga Elated and confident, he announced to the army 
his resolution to invade Italy, and named a day for marching 
from Carthagena. 

Having made all his arrangements during winter quarters, 
on the appointed day he led forward about ninety thousand 
infantry and about twelve thousand cavalry : 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 sufl&cient force from his own army to keep 
the newly-conquered peoples in subjection ; and, as a matter 
of policy, freely discharged an equal number of his Iberian 



CHAP. L] Three PkUf Paints in the March. 57 

troops. Taking with him the rest of his anny, fifty thousand 
foot and nine thousand hoise, lightly equipped, he led them 
fiirwaid in march through the Pyrenees for the passage of 
theBhona 

At this stage of the narrative the historian digresses into 
eonmients (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 will thence be given in 
translation,* till the invaders reach the plain of Italy in 
ch. 61, where the Boman 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 Garthagena to the Italian 
plain, is broken into five parts : the termini being Garthagena, 
the Ebro^ Emporium, the passage of the Bhone, the beginning 
of Alps, the end of Alps. The last three are the peculiar 
subjects of 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? 

This line of march being our subject throughout, it may be 
set forth in the autlior's own words, according to the edition 
of SchweighsBuser. 

Having said that the tcacinj TroXiv, 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. airo Bi ravTi]^ elalv cttI /jl^v rhv "l^rfpa worafiov, e^aKoaioi 

* See Appendix. 



68 Polyhius interpreted, [PAKT ill. 

2. a7r6 Bi rovrov ^aXiv eh *Efiwopetop, x^^^^ ^^ e^atcoalois. 

3. Kal fiJjv hnrevOev Arl rrjy rov 'FoSavov Bidfiaaip irepl ;f iX/bt;? 

i^cucoalov^ (ravra ^hp vOp Pefirniarurra^yKaX a-etnffAeimrat 

4u wiri hi T^9 Btafida-eot^ rod ^PoSavov, iropeuofiivoi^ Trap' auroy 
t6v nrorapJbv cS? inn tA? injya^ ?(»9 7rp6^ r^v dyafioXrjp 
r£y "AXirea^p rrjp 6& ^IraXiay, %/Xu>i rerpaKScioi. 

6. XonraL Bk ai r&y W'lreoty vwepfioXaX, irepX ;f iXibt/9 Buuco- 
clov^* 09 VTrepfidXKMP CfieXKep H^etp ek rd irepX t6p IlaSoy 
weSia T^ 'IraX/a9. 

The words in parenthesis have been objected to by Dr. 
TTkert, 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 IL 

JPassage of the lUume 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, much distance would 
be lost in crossing, each boat reaching the opposite bank 



qHAP. n.] T?ie Rhone at Roquemaure, 59 

much below the point which it had parted from : so that a 
great stretch of unembarrassed stream, not often found in the 
lower Bhone, was to be looked for. This idea is expressed by 
Polybius, in the words Kara rrjv affhSjv pvcw. 

On observation of the river, and the country about it, all 
will believe that the passage was effected, either at the 
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 Eoquemaure and Montfaucon, 
being about five miles firom 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 Ugemum, 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 tcs 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 fibad the 
place: 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 Isfere down the Rhone to the 
sea may be exhibited in these successive measurements : to the 
reach between Roquemaure and Montfaucon, about 75 Romau 
miles; thence to Tarascon and Beaucaire, about 29 miles: 
thence to the eastern, or Massiliotic mouth of the Rhone about 



60 PalybiuB interpreted, [part in. 

36 miles — ^total 140. If we recognise, as the place of crossing, 
the parts near MontfiEiucon, we assign about 75 miles to the four 
days' mai*ch 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 
modem, this must be admitted : that, if 140 miles of Bhone 
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 part 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 Foss® Marianse, 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 Marseilla D*Anville (notice de Graule) looks 
upon Foz as the place named Fossae Marianse in the Itineraries, 
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 Boquemaure, 
according to De Luc; making that place 66} from Fossae 
Marianse. 

By modem measurements, the distance appears much the 
same. M. De Luc states the lengths of which it is composed, 
as me«wured now on the Great Map of France, thus — " Depuis 
•* I'embouchure orientale du Rh&ne jusqu' k Aries, 26 milles 
** remains; Tarascon, 10; Avignon, 15; Sorgues, 7 ; vis-^-vis 



OHAP. TL] The Rhone at Itoqitemaure. 61 

** de Boqnemaure, 6i es 64^ miles." But he conceives that the 
ancient mouth was to the east of the present mouth, and not 
earned so £eir 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. 

11 Laranza, adopting Foz as a probable terminus &om 
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, 
" 11,600 ; 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 Eoque- 
maure and Montfaucon, was about 65 milea 

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 roisters. The six stages from Orange to Valence 
appear in the Jerusalem Itinerary as 66 miles = 49,896 toises. 
Trfiranza adds, from the Passage to Orange, 3,600 ; and from 
Valence to the Is^re, 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 
(Bach other in most points of our subjects, try other tests for 
the length of the line in question : one referring to an old 



62 PolyUm interpreUd, [part in. 

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 Boman 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 Ehone which 
is 75 miles = 600 stadia below the influx of the Isfere, it is 
plain that Polybius would have recognized the same interval ; 
for, though he does 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 Ehone 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 Bidficuri^ or the dpafidki], have, 
with two exceptions, agreed in accepting 600 steuiia as the 
length of the first four days' march from one to the other : 
and all agree that this was the distance from Boquemaure 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 
" Khone to be seventy-five miles below Lyons :" and, in a 
note, he says, " Polybius, iii 39, tells us that Hannibars 
* " 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 Ehone jusqu' i\ la raont(5e des Alpcs : 



CHAP. IL] The Rhone at Boqicemanre. 63 

'* il dit qu' Annibal a parcourir huit cents stades depuis Ttte 
** dont il s'agit et la mont^ des Alpes : c'est done six cents 
^ stades depuis le passage jnsqu' k la riviere, ou 75 miUes 
** Bomains." — Journal des Savans, Janv. 1819, 26-7. 

M. TATanza says : — " Nous voyoni dans Polybe lui-mSme 
'' qu'il compte quatre jours de marche pour les 600 stades, ou 
" 75 milles, qu'il fait parcourir k Annibal depuis le passage 
'' du Kh8ne jusqu' k I'lla" 

Gr^n^ral St Cyr Nugues, expounding Polybius, says : — " La 
" distance du point de passage du Bhdne k celui ou Tarmde 
" s'arr6ta le quatriime jour, etoit de 600 stades, 75 milles 
" Bomains." — Notice, p. 33. 

So M. Baudd de Lavalette, B^cherches, ''Polybe fixe k 
" 600 stades la distance parcourir dans ces quatre jours de 
" marcha" 

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 
" hatten die Karthager, in vier Tagemarschen, 600 Stadien 
** zuruckgelegt." — " 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 feet of distance, saying, — "The absolute distance of 
" 75 M.P. measured fit)m the Isfere downwards, must always 
" terminate at Boquemaura" — P. 21. 

Though no one has controverted the fact, that the distance 
of our Bidfiaa-i^, 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 Fortia d' Urban does not allow 
Hannibal to bend his steps towards the Island at all, and 
thinks that, having crossed the Ehone, he proceeded very 



64 Polybiiis interpreted, [part ni. 

slowly, from knowing that the Bomans 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 .**—?. 32. 

Thus a Polybian measurement assented to by all, fixes the 
Sidfiaai^ for which we contend, at 75 miles below the Isfere 
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 Is^re for a four days' march. 

The single Stream. 

Another circumstance in favour of the passage between 
Koquemaure 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 Boque- 
" maure, il y a im espace de 1,800 toises, oii le KhSne n'a point 
" d'iles, et o4 il n'a que 250 k 300 toises de largeur." General 
Vaudoncourt's map, which is on a large scale, corresponds 
with that assertion. In the Oxford Dissertation it is said, 
p. 42 : — " The Bhone flows uninterrupted by islands from 
" Caderousse (the large island above Montfaucon) to Boque- 
" maure, a distance of nearly a league ; and, with the excep- 
" tion of a similar stream immediately below the island at 
" Boquemaure, though for a much shorter distance, this cir- 
'' cumstance does not occur for many miles up or down the 



" river." 



I do not know that all writers and map-makers are unani- 



OHAP. lU.] Tarascan Theory. Ukert 65 

mous on the perfect absence of islands in this part of the 
Bhona 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 : — '* L'inspection des 
" lieuz entre Avignon et le Pont St. Esprit donne k ce 
" r^nltant un nouveau degr^ de precision. Le cours du 
'' Shdne se montre, dans cet intervalle, embarrass^ par une 
" foale d'iles qui le forcent k se deviser en plusieurs bras 
" tortueux^ entrelac^ de la mani^re la plus bizarra On y 
" remarque huit iles principales indiqu^s dans les anciennes 
" cartes par les noms de TOiselet, le Chateau de Lers, le 
Queironette, Piboulette, la Berre, Gadanet, TAgace et 
Crompa. Le fleuve egar^ dans ce labjninthe d'iles ne put 
" Stre traverse ni au-dessus du territoire de Montfaucon, ni 
" au-dessous de Boquemaure : on ne le trouve riuni en un 
** eeiU courani d'une 6tendue suffisante, qu'entre ces deux 
villages. L^ il coule tout entier dans un lit de 245 k 250 
toises de laigeur sur un longueur de 1800 toises. G'est done 
aux environs de Montfaucon que furent lances les bateaux 
** et les radeaux dont Annibal fit usage : entrain^ par le 
courant, ils durent aborder 800 ou 900 toises plus bas sur 
la rive oppos^" 






u 



€1 
41 



CHAPTER III 

Theory of Tarascon. Argument of Dr, Ukert Distance from 
the Sea. Distance from the Island. Roman meastirements 
in Oavl and Spain. Roads in Oaul, Policy of Hannibal. 
Vessels used in the Crossing. March of Scijpio. 

As Tarascon on the left bank still bears its ancient name, 
while Ugemum on the right bank has become Beaucaire, let 
the former place entitle this theoiy. I know only of three 

VOL. I. F 



66 Polybitis interpreted. [part hi. 

who subscribe to it : the anonymous of Cambridge, 1830 ; 
Dr. 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^"Prom Nlmes 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 Ehona" Again, p. 45, " Polybius describes 
*' Hannibal as arriving by a Boman road at the banks of the 
" Ehone." Many, 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 Roman 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 atteution. 



On the distance of Tarascon from (he Sea. 

Tliis much commended geographer pronounces the place of 
crossing thus : — " When Polybius says that Hannibal crossed 
" Kara rfjv aTrXrjv pvaiv, this was certainly north of the island, 
" which lies opposite to Beaucaire : and Hanno might choose 
" a place north of Aramon." He then takes great pains, but 
in a mysterious mtmner, to induce his readers to the notion, 
tliat 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 inipoi-t- 
ing a distance of 600 stadia for an army, and more for a 
traveller. 

Avoiding all direct assertion of the distance of Tai-ascon 
from any other point, Dr. Ukert first contrives a proof that 
the distance from the Durance to the mouth of the Rhone is 
from 700 to 800 stadia : and then he pronounces that Tarascon, 






CHAP. III.] Tarascon Theory. Ukert. 67 

being lower down, might be about four days' journey from the- 
mouth. His proof of the 700 or 800 is by 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 drawn by Polybius would no doubt give us quite a 

different picture of the country firom that which our own 

maps give ; especially 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 Rhone have experienced many changes, we cannot 
" declare with certainty where the Roman 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 arrive at any conclusion. 

** Let us therefore seek for information among the ancients. 
" Strabo says, lib. iv. p. 193 : — " airo AovySovvov fJi^ixP'' '^^^ 
" ^Kovdva yCkUov arc&Uov iarlv* tkarrov hh rj hvirXdaiov rov^ 
" Tov, t6 oTri T&p eiafioK&v rov ^VoSdvov fiixP^ AovyBovpov.* 

'^ 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 Isire, 700 stadia — to Vienne 320 — to 
** Lugdunum 200 = 1220 stadia, we find that the distance 
*' from the mouths of the Rhone to the Druentia, is from 700 
^ to 800 stadia ; and the place accepted by us, as that where 
** the Rhone was crossed, Polybius might justly call about 
" four days' journey from the sea." — Ukert's Geogr. ii 2d part, 
581, 2, 3. 

* Traiidated, It is 1000 stadia from Lyons to the Seine : and 

less than the double of that from the mouths of the Rhone to 

Lyons. N.B. Strabo is speaking of the carriage of goods from the 

Mediterranean to the British Channel up the Saone and across 

to the irktoiiAvov of the Seine. 

F 2 



68 Polybius interpreted. [part III. 

The calculation is this: — From Lyons to the Bhone's 
mouth is less than 2,000 stadia ; firom 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 Bhone from the 
Durance to the mouth. 

Now the subject which Dr. Ukert takes in hand is a 
certain distance do¥m the Bhone to the mouth ; i.e. from the 
confluence of the Durance. He quotes Strabo for the total 
length of the Bhone from a higher point of the river, Lyons. 
Then, by way of showing the length below the confluence, he 
professes to deduct 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 Bhone. The 1,220 stadia which 
figure in his demonstration are borrowed from a line of dis- 
tances drawn across country from Marseille through Cavaillou ; 
and in which line the subject of his proof, Tarascon, would be 
looked for in vain. 

This much-commended geographer has 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 aigument seems to be carrying the 
reader along the Bhone to the sea, he is in fact travelling in 
a cross-coimtry road to Marseille ; and, as he did stray into 
that line, he might have profited by it. Strabo, besides 
reporting the three 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. The whole matter upon these distances is as 



«< 



41 



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 iidiabit 
^ it as far as the river Durance, for 500 stadia 

** And if you cross the ferry to Cavaillon, all 
" belongs to the Cavari, as far as the junction of 
" the Isire with the Rhone : — 

"To that point from the Durance is a dis- 
" tance of 700 „ 

Afterwards we read — 

From the Is6re to Vienne 320 „ 

From Vienne to Lyons by land 200 „ 

By water a little more. 

1,720 stadia. 

Perhaps Dr. Ukert may apprehend the confluence of the 
Rh6ne and the Durance to be here s}X)ken of. But it is not 
80 : that confluence is never spoken of ; and the idea of it is 
excluded by the traveller being instructed to cross by the 
ferry at Cavaillon. Whatever may be the excuse, this matter 
of Strabo throws more light on the .distance fvoxa Lyons to 
the Rhone's mouth than " less than the double of a thousand.'' 
He reports 1,720 stadia from Lyons to Marseille, and therefore 
must have apprehended less than 1,720 to the mouth of the 
Rhone ; for we know that he attributed to Marseille a more 
southern latitude. He caUs the Galatic gulph, into which 
the Rhone is discharged (p. 122), koKitv; fiera^u McuraaXlaq 
teal Nap/9fl»i/09 : and he states as a fact, (p. llo), that Marseille 
lies more south, voaiMripa^ than the recess of the gulph. 
Thus, when Dr. Ukert was studying the length of the Rhone 
from Lyons to the sea, he had before him sometliing better 
worth attending to tlian the uncertain numeral in p. 193 : he 
would see not only that Strabo considered the line of Rhone 
below Lyons to be "less than 2,000 stadia," but that he 
onsidered it less than 1^20 stadia. 



70 Pohjbius interpreted. [PART III. 

Let us then apply this in aid of Dr. Ukert's estimate of 
Shone below Durance. Let us allow the total below Lyons 
to be the fiill 1,720, though it is not so much. How shall 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 
Boman 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 registers 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 modem 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 Bhone : such 
is, in truth, the maximum distance of Dr. Ukert's Sid^aai<; 
from the sea, if he will interpret Strabo justly : rather a short 
distance to represent the (rxjeSov iqfiep&v Tcrrdptov oSov of 
Polybius. 

It is to be observed 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 Ehone. Now 
we may suppose, that the Eoman 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 diflBculty of proceeding. He did not Itind 
as an adventurer in an imreported region : his native ally 
added a force to his force, and would aid in fixing the spot 
for a first encampment, having in view the obstruction of the 



CHAP, m.] Tarascon Theory, UkerL 71 

Carthaginian expedition. If it is meant to be insinuated 
that the sea has gained on the land, and so to favour the 
supposition that Tarascon was of old farther from the Ehone's 
mouth than now, I apprehend the contrary to be the fact. 
De Luc cites the testimony of M. Darluc from his Histoire 
naturelle de la Provence, 1782, p. 262. *' La Camargue est 
" un grand terrain qui forme, par sa position, un triangle 
" ^uilat^ral, ayant sept lieues de longueur de chaque c6t^. 
'* Cette lie s^pare les deux bras du Rhone qui se divisent au- 
" dessous d' Aries. Son enceinte ^tait moins considerable 
" autrefois. Les atterrissemens successifs que le Rhone a 
" fonnes h, son embouchure, Tont aggrandie. La tour de St. 
" Louis, qui fut flev^e pr^s des bords de la mer en 1630, en 
" est eloign^e aujourdTiui 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 Amo. In Languedoc, not far 
from the scenes we are speaking of, there is the little town of 
Aigues-mortes (equee morture) now some miles from the sea, 
formerly close upon the shore. 

To his ill-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 
Tarascon. 



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 suc(!ession from the 



72 Polyhius interpreted, [part hi. 

place of crossing, Hannibal arrives at the Island." Presently, 
however, he appears dissentient, by starting a doubt on the 
Island itself. He says, " Let us look back and ask where the 
** Island is situated. Polybius tells us to look for it at a 
'' distance of 600 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 fihone between the Island- 
and the htdPcurv; 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 Sidfiaai^. 2. From the Bcdfiaav^ 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 
Boquemaure. 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 



CfliAP. in.] Taraseon Theory. Vkert 73 

lefers to Itineraiy (p. 553, Wesseling), and sets forth from 
it a length of 600 up the Ehone thus (p. 590). ♦ 



Belliutum 






Avenio . . 


. . V. 




Cypresseta . 


. . V. 




Aransio . . . 


. . XV. 




Ad Lectore . 


. . XTII. 




Novem Craris . 


. X 




Aeunum . . 


. . XV. 




Batiana . . . 


. XII. 


• 




75 m. p. 


— 600 Stadien. 



Now Dr. Ukert knew Taraseon 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 
Taraseon below Bellintimi ; 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 moi^ which are from Valentia to the Is^re : 
also having first omitted the length, whatever it is, from 
Taraseon to Bellintum. The enumeration of these 600 stadia 
is delusive, quite immeaning. Dr. Ukert would see that the 
true distance from Taraseon 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 
Taraseon nearer to one another than as nature and art have 
placed them. 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 IB aa exact copy of the Jems. Itin. .except that Wesseling 
writes Vandanis for Batiana : the figures are the same. 



74 Polyhins interpreted, [part iir. 

did not. This is his argument, p. 590 : — " Tlie historian does 
'* not assert that Hannibal 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 by 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 : and, 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 fJKe 
and d<f>iK6fjL€vo^, as well as avp€7ri0€fjL€vo^ and avveKfiaXd^Vy 
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 B^dficun^ 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 Is^re was, by obvious motive, a rapid march, and would 
cover the full space. 

I have expended many words upon that which is but a 



CHAP, ni.] Tarasron Tluory Vkert. 75 

small part of our entire subject ily apology is this : ad- 
verse aigaments are not to be neglected because ourselves 
think them feeble : the character of the adversary is to be 
considered : and Dr. XJkert 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. XJkert, which have as yet met with no resistance. 

On Roman Measurements in Gaul and Spain^ 

Polybius, in a 39, enumerates six distances, beginning 
from the Pillars of Hercules. To Garthagena : to the Ebro : 
to Emporiimi : to the passage of the Bhone : to the beginning 
of Alps : to the plain of Italy. And after the statement of 
distance to the Ehone, we read these words — "for these 
'' distances have now been carefully stepped, and marked at 
" every eight stadia, by the Eomans." 

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 Bomans 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 Bhone. Dr. Ukert, with due regard to history, disowns 
Polybius as a witness to Boman 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, raSra yap vvv, &c. ; he 
writes thus — " What ! Polybius, having the distances mea- 
" sured and given by the Bomans, and himself giving a ratio 

* Henry Long applies rovra to the French lino of coast only ! 
—P. 16. 



76 Poll/bills interpreted. [part hi. 

" between the stadium and the Eoman mile, could he satisfy 
'* himself with employing about — wepl 1600 st — ? Our doubt 
'' is increased, when we see that the ratio stated is not that 
" which Polybius follows : for he reckons a mile equivalent to 
" 8^ stadia^ When Polybius travelled through the south of 
" Gaul, no Boman roads had been made then : it was in the 
" year 118 b.c. that the Bomans first entered these countries 
" as conquerors, and in the same year foimded the colony of 
" Narbo : they could hardly have constructed regular roads 
" before this period. Moreover, Polybius wrote his work 
" earlier than that : he was writing it in the year 145 
" RC, 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 mile- 
" 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 Somans had begun the conquest of GauL He 
cannot, therefore, have spoken of Boman 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 value. 

The notion that 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 Boman measurements in 1816. And I hope to 
show that, while his correction of chronology is accepted, he 



CHAP. UL] Taraacon Tluory. Ukert. 77 

is still at liberty to reject the notion of %^ stadia to a Roman 
nule. 

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 Somans : 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 &om 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, " ciim 
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 Cartliagena : 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 Rhone 



78 Polylivs interpreted, [part ill. 

and the Pyreneea 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 yeaf& after his death, that the Somans 
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 Bhone and Is^re : and not till 
118 B.C., as stated by Ukert, being six years after the death of 
Polybius, was founded the first colony beyond the Rhone. 
Even then it is probable that for some time their armaments 
continued to proceed 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 the existence of such a road 
along the Iberian coast And it seems to me, that the pro- 
position in parenthesis, rauTa y^pj &c., which is quite Poly- 
bian, is not spurious, 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 
Bhone. When Polybius 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 6^ was stepped, and its division 
into miles indicated a-etrrjfieufo/Mivr), if not KaTearrjXcofjUvi], 
Their military way, when afterwards made through the 
Pjrrenees into Spain, did not go through Emporium : it went 
direct &om 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 



OUAP, in.] TaroHCon Theory, UkerL 70 

time. The Iberian distances are alleged without irepi, Uepl 
is only applied to the scope of march wliich includes the 
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 ftom this city to the river Ebro, it is . . 2,600 „ 

And &om this river, again, to Emporium . . 1,600 „ 
(For these distances have now been care- 
fully stepped, and marked at every 8 
stadia by the Bomans.) 

And on from thence to the passage of the 

Hhone, ahaut 1,600 „ 

And &om the passage of the Khone, 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 Oaul in UannibaVs time. 

Although Dr. Ukert has rightly rejected the notion that 
Polybius lived to see Roman roads in Languedoc, he seeks 
the aid of Roman roads to support his interpretation of the 
Biafiaai^ — he says tliis : — " 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 after\vards used by the 
" Romans when they formed their roads. The nature of the 
*• coimtry itself woidd inquire them to pursue nearly the same 
" track along the plain region between the coast and the line 



80 Polybius interpreted, [part iil 

" of mountains : we find that here in later times there were 
" Roman roads, and these in all probability led to the Ehone 
*^ at that part where, according to the means then in use, a 
" passage would be most easily efifected. Polybius speaks of 
'* such a place ; but not of any town in the neighbourhood — 
* which Strabo does in his description of this road. 
" Nemausus (he says) lies on the road from Iberia to Italy, 
" being 100 stadia fix)m 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 Pjrrenees as far as Nimes. But from thence to the 
Bhone there is no confinement : a north-east course, a straight 
onward course, and a south-east course were equally open to 
the invaders ; nature ofifers no obstruction to a march for 
Avignon or Montfetucon, which lies over undulating plains. 

Strabo tells us that the coimtry near the Ehone is usefully 
practicable. While he commends the depth of the river for 
navigation, he says that the difficulty of ascending it is so 
great, from the rapidity of the current, that merchants avoid 
it, and transport their goods in waggons, the country being 
level, towards the Arvemi 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 Nlmes was established in any direction for crossing 
the Ehone. He would 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 ; for it was in the great military way to Spain, 
whether from the north or south of Italy : that way crossed 



CHAP, in.] Taraseon Theory, Weert 81 

the Bhone at Aries, not at Taraseon. Strabo speaks of 
Aries as ttoXk ical ifivopiov ov fitkpov. The virtues of the 
Taraseon road from Ntmes are also alluded to : passable in 
summer, but deep in mud and flooded in spring and winter: 
Oipov^ lihf eS/Sarov oiaav, ;^6e/teSvo9 tk fcal eapo^ td^XcoSi; 
teal woTafiofeKuaTw, iL 187. At a later period it came to be 
improved. M. Astruc relates (Hist. Nat. do Languedoc, 
p. 225) that milliary columns, of the age of Tiberius, have 
been foimd between Ntmes and Beaucaire: a fact which 
D'Anville tells with much satisfaction ; adding that the space 
between two of them, as they were found, was just 764 
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 Taraseon road 
which the Bomans gave it two or three centuries later, 
Hannibal would not have availed himself of it for efibcting 
his march to the Island. The notion of crossing the Bhone 
below the influx of the Durance, is only suitable to a theory 
of going on direct to the Mont Gen^vre. But Dr. Ukert does 
not so construe Polybius. Why then does he struggle for a 
passage at Taraseon? Because he intends his four days' 
march to halt short of the Ishve. Therefore it suits him to 
find arguments for crossing the Bhone 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 Bomans, 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. t o 



82 Pdyhim interpreted. [pakt hi. 

*' attended the passage of the Durance would also be as little 
" thought of then as in later times, when the principal Boman 
" Eoad was carried over the Rhone south of that river. People ' 
" from Nemausus came either to Ugemum, or more south to 
" Arelate : the road to the latter place then branched into two ; 
" one went south-east to Aquae Sextice, 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 
Boman 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 Boman army must 
always have dissuaded from crossing the Bhone too near the 
sea. What pretence is there for saying, that the arrival of 
the Boman 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 Bhone, Hannibal was not so well aware 
of these favouring circumstances as we are now. The Bhone 
was a great line of advantage for withstanding the effort of 
invasion, and the Bomans were just too late to avail them- 
selves of it. If we believe that Hannibal might have been 



CHAP. III.] Tarascan The/yry, Vkert 8 



o 



repulsed in attempting the passage of the Ehone in face of a 
Koman 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 great 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 impediments 
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 Bomans, when Hannibal 
was in full retreat. 

Dr. Ukert further requires us to believe that, at the end of 
September or banning 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 
of floods. But that Alpine river may be swollen by ruins and 



84 Polyhiits interpreted. [PART III. 

melted snow any day in the year. To shun it at any season was 
prudence, even in September and October. In October, 1841, 
when bridges were seriously damaged at Vienne 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 obliged to move to Nlmes. 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 Ehone 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 Boute de 
Beaurepaire and the Route Eoyale had been rendered im- 
passable, and the bridge of chains carried away : that an inn 
near the bridge had fallen, burying an ostler in the ruins. 
The report from Tarascon was that the Bhone 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. Ukert ? 
In the inundations of 1846, when the overflowings of the 
Loire and the Var were so calamitous, the sudden rise of the 
Durance arrested 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 Tim^ corre- 
spondent at Paris reported a letter from Eemusat, in the 
Dr8me, 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 



CHAP, in.] Tarttscon Theory. Ukert 85 

away. Another at Vaucluse 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 ttie Vessels used in the Passage, 

Dr. Ukert ofiers 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 
*' C«sar 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 boats lead over the Rhone there, 
** and it is a place of considemble trailia" (p. 582.) 



80 Polybiui inUrpreUd. [PABT UI. 

I know not how Dr. Ukert has discovered that the Xi/jfio^ 
of Hannibal, and the navis longa of Csesar, were built on the 
same model Is the resemblance in balk, 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 ? CsBsai^s ships wore never put to either of those 
tests : they were built at Aries, and went at once to the sea — 
** Naves longas Arelate numero XIL facere instituit Quibus 
" eiFectis armatisque diebus XXX. k qua die materia csesa est, 
" adductisque Massiliam, his D. Brutum praefecit."* 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 humidH materi&). They 
certainly never foimd themselves in the reach above Boque- 
maure, but neither were they ever off Tarascon. 

The vessels which took over the cavalry soldiers of Hannibal, 
are called by Polybius Kefifioi : a term applicable to any kind 
of transport vessel, and to river barges ; as, when Latinized, 
— <}ui adverse vix flumine lembum Semigio 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 the 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 Roman war-ship. 

The difficulties of the Rhone 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, de Bello Civili, L c. 34. 



CHAP, in.] Tarasam Theory. Ukert. 87 

made the canal to avoid these impediments of entrance ; and 
the Massiliam, to whom he presented this work^ derived a 
oo»riderable 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 Rhone, 
a little below Aries. M. Gosselin, in opposition to D'Anville, 
and professing to interpret Ptolemy on the site of Fossae 
MariansB, places the canal west of Aigues-mortes — 6^. de 
Strabon. ii p. 21, a 1. This notion is contradicted by all 
probability, and by the Itinerary, in which Fossae Marianae 
occurs between Marseille and Aries. The military object, 
when the canal was made in the Gimbrian war, was conmiu- 
nication with Marseille, whence 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 Soman purposes, would have been exposed to the cUter- 
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 which, 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 aflTects 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. 

Dr. Ukert on Scipio's March. 

Scipio advanced up the coimtry from near the mouth of the 
Rhone 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 ite distance from the 

sea. 

Dr. Ukert (p. 583) invites that question in words which, I 
believe, are fairly ti-anslated thus—" That the distance of tlie 



88 Polyhius interpreted, [part m. 

'* point of crossing was not so high 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 Rhone, 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 was not so 
" great as has been supposed by De Luc, seems to follow 
" from Scipio's march to the Cai*thaginian 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 tjfiipac^ iarepov 
Tpial T^9 dva^iryrji; r&v Kap'^rjSovicov. Livy says that he came 
to the encampment triduo fere post quam Hannibal ab rip& 
Rhodani movit. Neither historian assigns a duration to 
Scipio's march. 

I had recourse to competent persons, and received difierent 
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 
Hannibal's 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 



CHAP, in.] Tarascon Theory, Ukert. 89 

follow : those words suggest a calculation of the time which 
would intervene between the conflict of cavalry 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 
days, or five and a half; and, by this, he seems to insinuate 
that, if the encampment had been as high up as Boquemaure, 
those things must have occupied a longer tima 

I cannot admit that they would. Scipio came to the posi- 
tion " in 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, 
which 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 hva^vyij, would have been ample for our 
theory, and decidedly too much for the theory of Tarascon. 

Let us suppose that the engagement of cavalry took place 
on a Monday morning, and that Hannibal and his army were 
en route the following day, Tuesday : Scipio might reach their 
encampment in three days after they were en route, namely, 
on the Friday. The news of the engagement, which took 
place in the morning and was soon over, would reach the 
consul in the course of the following day, Tuesday : and we 
may believe that he marched the next morning, and, by three 
days* march reached the position which the enemy had 
abandoned. It is to be observed that the day of Hannibal's 
departure was before those three days of Scipio, who arrived 
^fUpai^ iarepov rpial t^9 dvofiry^?. Where was the diffi- 
culty ? Was not a day and a half ample for the intelligence 
to travel ? In the morning, before Hannibal assembled his 
troops to the conference with the Cisalpine chiefs, he had sent 
out the five hundred Numidian horse to recoimoitre : they fell 



90 Polyhiua interpreted, [PART III. 

in with the Boman detachment ahnost 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 Sai the report of 
these proceedings to Y» canied 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 Soman 
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. News 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 intelligence found Scipio in a full state of readiness. 
He had known Hannibal to be on the Rhone before ever 
he sent the cavalry forward, and had consulted with 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 
Boquemaure. 

If any should doubt that a Soman 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 boimd to contend that 
Scipio's army did march that whole distance. In the first 
place, sixty-five miles is our distance from the sea, and 
the camp may have been some miles above high water-mark. 



CHAP. ttL] Tarascan Theory . Ukert 91 

Then it is no% improbable that the force was beginning to 
move to the intern^ while this detachment was away ; and 
certainly it is not to 1)% assumed that the entire force ever 
completed that march, and actOBliljr reached the scene of the 
deserted entrenchments. Poly bins says, *'Tbe Eoman general 
coming to the place and finding the enemy gone^^^fM ez- 
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 encampment. 

Now consider the events as applied to the Tarascon theory. 
If the passage and the encampment were near to that place, 
the Boman cavalry must have gained their success at a dis- 
tance of about thirty-six, certainly not forty, miles fix)m 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, Knreifitov avfifil^in rol^ virevavrloi^, 
with no Durance intervening, with a more unqualified favour 
from the natives for expediting his communications, coiJd 
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 infantr}' marched up the river ; and that 
the consul anived three days after the departure of Han- 



92 Polybius interp^reted. [pabt hi. 

uibaL Polybius says, "after the decampment of the Cai- 
" thaginians/' r$9 aval^vyrj^ r&v Kapxn^ovinv : and, if Han- 
nibal had stayed two days behind, which he did not, ava^vyij 
was the breaking up of the force when the infantry marched : 
rifv T&v ire^&v itelvei Buvafiiv ite rod yapaKO^ el^ iropeiav : 
this was the aKa^tryi; of the Carthaginians : and Scipio, 
coming to the place in three days after tliis, 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 importa 
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 elephantst 
(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 (t. c, below the scene of opeiu- 
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. 



QHA^. IV.] Tarascan Tlieary, H, L. Long. 98 



CHAPTER IV. 

Tarascon Theory, Arguments of H. L, Long, Distance from 
the Sea, Distance from Emporium, Tlie single Stream, 
Strabo 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 Shone 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 Is^re, and 600 for the 
progress to the Alps. This novelty, with the 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 Narbo. The idea is new. Suppose that 
my friend, having just come up from Southampton, was 
dealing with white bait at Blackwall, 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. 



9-1 Polybius interpreted. [PART III 

context as well as proximity, bespeaks the mouth of the 
Bhone : in the 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 Bhone ; 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 Shone. Very different 
words would have been used, if he had desired to give the 
distance traversed from a past point of the march. Beading 
forward, we find that, while the elephants are passing over 
the Bhone, the cavalry is drawn out 0)9 irpo^ OdXarrav. Ts 
this too the sea at Narbo ? 

It is fair to say that Long announces this notion with great 
diffidence. I quote it, because it is useful to show the argu- 
ments to which 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, rather 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 tlu Rhone. 

Polybius states this distance to be about 1,600 stadia = 200 
miles : an amount which, upon fair examination, is found io 
accord so nearly with both the rival crossings, that it furnishes 
no preference to either. From Emporium to Ntmes, 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 Boquemaure; making 207 m. = 1,656 stadia. 
H. Long adds 15 for his continuation to Beaucaire, making 
192 m.= 1,552 stadia. Need we discuss whether 1,552 or 
1,656 best represents " about 1,600 ? " 



CHAP. IV.] Tarcueofi Theory, H. L, Lang. 95 

Long relies on this, that his distance is below the amount 
named, not above it : and he insists, p. 20, that, when Poly- 
bius 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 ircpl 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 includes the passage of the Alps. He could not 
have ascertained or heard of any measured distance in these 
two instances. Where was he to find an estimate to aid 
him ? There was none ; and therefore he used irepL My 
friend is in the common error of supposing that Polybius 
spoke with knowledge of Soman measurements between 
Emporium and the Ehone. When they did establish a Way 
through France into Spain, it did not touch Emporium. It 
is true that Polybius applies irepl for qualifying an ex- 
aggerated total; when he has enumerated many amounts, 
which added together would be 960, he will probably say, 
&aT€ elvai irepl 1,000 : but where, as in the instance before 
us, irepl is 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 flag- 
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 Roquemaure or Tarascon, we would controvert 
it on better grounds than the distance from Emporium. 

T?ie single Stream. 

Though diffident of one discovery, Long rests confidently 
on another which he has made, for indicating the place of 



it 



96 PolyhiiLs interpreted, [pabt III. 

passage, and which has escaped all other critics : it concerns 
the words Karh rfjv aifKr^v pvatv, " 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 Ehone 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 of the Ehone begins : at Aries there are two 
** streams, and the passage would have been Kara rifv SiirXifv 
** pva-iv, Polybius, speaking of the Po, employs the same 
" expression — t^v fikv yctp wpmrrfv ix r&v irrff&v ^ei f>vaiv 
** airXrjv, o^lfyTaL S* ei^ Svo fiipt) tcara T0U9 irpoaarfopevO' 
fiivov^ rptrfafioXov^, the river flows firom 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 airKrj pva-i^ 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 I Here it is connected with the old blunder of supposing 
that Polybius testifies to Soman roads in France. Long 
stamps them as Boman ways, saying, p. 17 : — " The words of 
" Polybius are decisive : he distinctly points out a road 
" between Emporium and the Bhone, measured and marked 
•* by the Bomans. No other Boman way leading from Nlmes 
" to the Bhone exists, even in tradition : it follows therefore, 
" that, either at Beaucaire or Aries, Hannibal must have 
" efiTected 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 rrjv aifKrjv pvaiv" 
The best excuse for Long's error on Boman ways is, that our 
common friends of the Oxford Dissertation had themselves 



CHAP. IV.] Taraseon Theory. H. L. Long. 97 

been similarly oblivious : they tell us, p. 39 :— " Polybius 
" observes that he is correct in his reckoning, because the 
" Romans 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 the great Boman road to Nlmes." It has 
been shown that Polybius never heard of it himself. 

This argument, however, on the single stream is intrinsically 
void of effect If Boman 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, Soman, 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 duplicity 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 
airXri and inr\r\. 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 duplicity of stream. Not only 
the greater towns on the Lower Bhone, but Long's own emblem 
of simplicity, Boaucaire 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 :" Kara ri^v o7rXi)v pwiv, without more, dis- 
proves a crossing at Tarascon. 

VOL. I. 11 



98 Polybim inUrpreted, [part III. 

On ancient Registers of Distance. 

, As Dr. Ukert declines to antedate the commencement of 
the conquest of Gaul, there is not much comment in which he 
and H. Long run together. Indeed Strabo's fact, that in the 
time of Augustus there was a way of getting over the Rhone 
at Tarascon, supplies the only item in which there is sympathy 
between them. From this result of Boman 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 Gsesar. Illustration is 
wanting. 

, The Itineraries have been searched in vain ; both that 
which bears the name of Antoninus, and the later one of 
Jerusalem : unhappily, neither furnishes the wished-for track. 
The Via Aurelia proceeds by the Maritime Alps to the Ehone 
at Aries : the Iter in Hispanias proceeds by the Cottian Alps 
to the Bhone at Aries : nor Ugemum nor Tarasco exist in 
these registers. Long at last brings forth a witness not 
adverted to by 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.] TarMcon Theory. H, L, Long. 99 

two roads leading from Nismes to the Ehone. He says, 
" they are really Boman, as well as being still in use as 
" important thoroughfares. Of these, one runs in a direction 
** due east from Nismes to Beaucaire, the ancient Ugemum ; 
" 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 Strabo." Unhappily, in this Theodosian Table we look 
in vain for " two roads leading from Nismes to the Ehone.*' 
We know that Beaucaire is on the Ehone : but perhaps the 
Theodosian artist did not : his Ugemum is not on the Ehone : 
the portrait which is appealed to, gives only one road, which 
seems to reach the Ehone at Aries ; and Ugemum is exhibited 
as a half-way house between that place and Nlmes. Whatever 
be the pretensions of Beaucaire and Tarascon to have given 
passage to Hannibal, my friend must not rest them on the 
delineations of the Pentingerian Chart — animum picturft 
pascit inani. 

Tabula PciUiiigeriana. 
Carte de Peutinger, or, Table Theodoeienne. 

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 Theodosius, 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 alluded to by Jomandes, Bishop of 

Bavenna, who flourished about A.P. 552. 

H 2 



100 Pidybius interpreUd. [PABT ui. 

Their known histoiy is this, — In 1459 Coniad Cdtes was 
employed by the Emperor Maximilian to travel in search of 
ancient mannscripts 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 of them copied ; and the copy was discovered 
in 1587 by Maro 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 fr^sh 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 KUz, a bookseller of 
Augsburg, that he might endeavour to purchase them. The 
Peutinger who then owned them, allowed Kiiz to have them 
at no extravagant price ; and, on the death of Kiiz, his family 
were willing to 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 libraiy of Charles the Sixth, and it is at 
Vienna at this day. In 1741 it underwent a scientific 
reparation: accurate engravings wero made by Solomon 
Kleiner, of the size of the original Tables, and published in 
1753 by Francis Christopher de Scheyb. 



THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 



PAET IV. 

POLYBIUS INTERPEETED. THE BEGINNING 

OF ALPS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The march of 1,400 stadia may he taken in two parts : 1. to the 
Isire, 2. to the beginning of Alps. Hannibal, crossing the 
Ish'e, went forward. Most critics maJce him recross the Isire, 
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 Alldbroges. 

In discussing the first litigated teTminus, the place of 
crossing the Ehone, we have gained a knowledge of the 
march, for 600 stadia beyond that point; namely, to the 
Is^re : we now have to delineate the remaining 800, for com- 
pleting the 1,400 of Polybius. 

Here the combatant critics are of two sorts : those who 
continue the march north of Is^re, 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 finally parta 
from the Ehone soon after he has crossed it. We propose 
to cross the Is^re with the whole armament, and to proceed 
on our march to the Alpa Some carry the whole force over, 
but bring it back again : and our roost laborious opponents. 



102 Polyhius interpreted. [pabt IV. 

the Cenisians, make a reluctant admission, that some opera- 
tions may have been at first conducted on the other side 
of the river. 

Little need be 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 with 
the Ehone, the Is^re, the Drac, and the Drome : and M. 
Fortia 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 Is^re, and their connecting chain of mountains, as the 
Island of the Polybian history. 

Some who have pretended that the army did not cross the 
Isfere, have relied on this — ^that Polybius does not relate the 
operation. That 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 Isfere, bringing the auxiliary force with 
them: and then send the whole expedition over the Drac, 
which they paint as most formidabla As they cannot pre- 
tend that Polybius 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 
Phone. 

Hannibal's passage of the Is^re, however, is not left to 
conjecture. It is necessarily implied in the operations told : 
it appears in the words icara\al3wy iv airry' avveK^aXdyv, 
If a man has kicked another out of a house, we are apt 
to believe, that for the operation both were in the liouse. 
And, if it were suggested that he only kicked him out by 
persuasion, such a word as aw€7ri0€fi€vo^ would give the idea 
of personal conflict, requiring the presence of the agent as 
ut'll as the patient. ITie details prove movements beyond 



CHAP. I.] Passage of Rhone to the Alps. 103 

the Is&re : 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, im pays dans une situation semblable k celle de 
'* cette contree qu'on appeloit Tlsle. II y a bien des rivieres 
" qui se rencontrent ; mais oii sera la chaine des montagnes 
'* qui, en s'^tendant d' ime rivifere k Vautre comme ime 
" haute muraille, enfermera un pays de manifere k Tisoler 
" complfetement." Dr. Ukert, indeed, refers to the same ex- 
pressions Sfyr) 8v<rrrp6aoSa, Koi Bva-ifijSoTui, koI o-^^eSov, (U9 
eliretv, airpia^Ta, 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 were, 
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 ax^^ov, m eiireZv^ avpoa-ira, 
is said to point evidently to a passage through it That 
which is really airpoa-iTOV would not be called ax^^ov, ©9 
elireJy, airpoaiTov. Niebuhr, recording the irruption of the 
Gauls, calls the Alps, " the seemingly impassable mountain 
barrier of Italy." * 

* Ii-anslation by Hare and Thirlwall. 3d edit ii p. 511. 



1 04 PolyUus 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 Allo- 
" 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 Hannibal's 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 words exhibit five things as necessary incidents 
to this very interesting part of the controverted track — 1. The 
progress was performed 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 Poly bins has 
described. 

There arc three routes by which the march has been sup- 



u 



M 



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 Bhone to Geneva, and along and beyond the 
lake, finds the first Alps at Martigny.* Another is that 
which keeps the right bank of Isfere, through Grenoble to La 
Buissiire, under the heights of Fort Barraux. The routes 
which are traced to the Alps by proceeding southwards from 
the Is^re are numerous. 



CHAPTER II. 

The M&nt da Choi fulfils all the requisites of Polybius, 

In our march to that which we deem the avaPoXrj of the 
history, we satisfy the text in all respects. The line of pro- 
gress which we maintain attends the Bhone to Vienne. 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 Is^re to the Bhone, commonly 
called the chain of tlie Grand Chartreuse. There, 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 Isire, and the rest south of Isire, till 
they severally reach the Alps. 

* A further progres* up the Rhone lia>* been suggested : but I do 
not propose any sopurate discussion of it. 



106 Polybivs interpreted. [part IV. 

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- 
plished b/ 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 confluence of the rivers. 

No part of these ten days can have been employed in free 
and efisy 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 Dauphin^ a 
continuous march 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 Vienne, the probable head-quarters of the 
ally. There was also the crossing of the Isfere 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 was made in the ten days, it is imlikely that 
each could be a day of progression. We shall find hereafter, 
that of the fifteen days in which the Alps were tmversed, 
some were not days of progress. In this march to the begin- 
ning of Alps, there 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. 



CHAP. II.] First Alps. Mont du Chat, 107 

2. The iOQ 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 Is^re : and to reach the iva^oXtj "'AXiretDv 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 Ehone at St. Eambert, a place below Vienne, and to 
cross the country to les Echelles, not touching the Ehone 
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 half way 
from Augustum, St. Genix d'Aoste, to Lemincum, Chamb^ry ; 
14 miles from each. 

The length of this scope of march from the Is^re 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 XJrsolis, Vienna, Bergusia, Augustum, Labiscone^ 
98 miles : but this includes the 5 miles from Valencia to 
the Is^re, which, being deducted, we have 93 miles. M. De 
Luc, however, measuring from Port de L'Isere to Yeuiie 
exhibited the actual distance, sho'wdng it to amount to 73,550 
toises = 97i 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. 84. 



108 Polyhitu interpreted. [part iy. 

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 fix)m Aix, that the ava^oXri 
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, fix)m 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 EcheUes through the tunnel to Chamb^ry. 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 Tfipine: the other more south by the village of 
AJguebellette. 

D'Anville has conjectured that Novalfese is the Labisco of 
the Itinerary : a place by which one, who has come from the 
west across the Guiers, may proceed over the Mont de 
I'^pine to Chamb^ry. This is not said by him in relation to 
Hannibal's track: nor is he contesting the pretensions of 
any other place to represent Lavisco : he had probably never 
heard that any 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 Tancienne 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 Noval^se, which is a few miles from St 
Genix d'Aoste in the dii*ection of the Mont de I'^lpine ; and 
says that a small stream, called. La petite Laisse, runs from 



CHAP, il] First Alps, Jdont du Quit 109 

thence into the Guiers. I see in Ba3rmond's map the river 
Laisse, on the other side of the mountains, running from 
Chamb^ry 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 
Boman road ; especially when, for supporting his notion, he 
has to alter the figures of the Itinerary. He admits that 
a road from Aoste to Chamb^ry by ](foyal^e and the Mont 
de rapine would not exceed 17 or 18 Boman miles, en droite 
ligne : the Itinerary gives 28 : so he reduces it by altering 
the XIIII of the first half into Villi. He does not notice 
the possibility of any other track through those mountains, 
but says '' U faut franchir le Mont de T^ine," 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 coi sidering 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 — iraph rov irorafiSy. 

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. 60, 
irapA Toy irorafiov, the meaning which I assert as plainly 
belonging to them — ' along the Bhone.' 

We contentl that, by grammatical reference and the ordi- 
nary use of language, the river Bhone, 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 Bhone to the Alps' is said to be irap' ainov 



110 Polyhiu* i^Uerpreted, [PART IV. 

Toy TTOTafiSv. Nevertheless the advocates of rival theories 
rely on the word irapci, as excluding our march to the Mont 
du Chat from all claim to favour ; they say that our course is 
not along the river Bhone, because it bears away from it at 
Yienne, 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 proceeding up the valley of a river to a mountain 
pass which rises in the vicinity of the river, then the march 
which we give 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 conveyed in irapa rov irorafiov is rightly fulfilled by 
this route only, and is the conclusive test which should remove 
every 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 Bhona 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. ElUs. 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 Schweighseuser. The Chevalier is the author of 
voluminous notes appended to a translation of Polybius by 



CHAP. II.] First Alps. Mont du Cliat 111 

Pom Vincent Thuillier, published at Paris in 1728, in six 
quarto volumes. The work would, 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 imobjectionable. " Depuis 
** le passage du Bhone en allant vers ses sources jusqu'k 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 fh)m 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 
Komanche, crossing the Mont de Lens and the Lautaret, and 
so by Briangon to the Gen^vre. This he calls " la route la 
plus ordinaire et la plus pratiqu^e des Gaulois en Italie." — 
Tom. iv. 89. 

Those opinions of Chevalier Folard were published in 1728 ; 
and I am not aware of any further criticism that may be 
adverted to concerning the irorafiov 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 
Texp^tion 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 Fplard, and roused the attention 
of others to the river. But he did not heed Polybius, nor 
canvass his story of Hannibars 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. 



« 
it 



112 Polybius interpreted. [PART IV. 

so. But D*Anville 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 fJKc 
wpo^ rifv KaXovfiivffv vtjaov, he wrote thus : — " Ad iTtsviam 
" dicit, non in insulam. Nee enim dicit Polybius, trajecisse 
** fluvium Hannibalem cum toto agmine, sed jtta^a fluvium 
" progressum ait cap. 50. 1, quod cum Folardo de Isarft intelligi 
" potest, ita quidem, ut Isaram k Isevft habuerit. Substitit 
" quidem per aliquod tempus cum exercitu ad illam insulam, 
" alteri ex fratribus, qui in ill^ de regno dissidebant, sup> 
petias ferens ; sed id facere potuit parte copiarum fluvium 
traject&y reliquo exercitu interim in stativis agente. Quod 
si etiam totum exercitum Isaram trajecit Hannibal (quod 
credi potest eo consilio fecisse, ut fluvium hunc k tergo 
" haberet, si sequerentur Bomani), non multum tamen deinde 
" versus Septentrionem in Insulfi progressum videtur agmen, 
" sed prope Isaram substitisse, ac deinde advers& hujus fluvii 
" ripft iter continuasse." — Adnotatumes ad Polyh, iii. 49. 

In a subsequent note on iropevdeU irapa rbv irorafioVy 
commenting on the Latin version of Casaubon, which is 
" propter Ehodanum," Schweighseuser says : — " At non propter 
'* Rhodanum, sed propter Jluvium Polybius dicit: neque Eho- 
" danum, sed Isaram fluvium nimc dici a Polybio putem. 
" Nee enim immanem ilium anfractum, quem facit Ehodanus 
" ad Lugdunum, emensum esse agmen, probabile est ; et, si 
** h&c vik iter fecisset, multo longius sane, quam centum 
'• mUlium passuum, iter fuissct ab Isar&, Shodani ripam se- 
** quendo, usque ad eum adscensum Alpium, k quo deinde 
" quinto decimo die in Italiam pervenire agmen potuit. 
" Omninoque hoc dicere Polybius videtur, advers& Isar» rip4 
" versus fontem ejus fluvii, decem diebus per C. millium pass. 
" spatium progressum esse agmen ; eamque viam postquaiu 



CHAP. II.] Firzt Alps. MorU du Chat. 113 

" per convalles emensum est^ deinde ipsa montium juga con- 
" scendere ccepisse. Sed jam video, eodem loco, quern modo 
*' citavi, (cap. 39, 9) ipsum Polybium diserte dicere videri, non 
^ discessisse k Bhodano Hannibalem, donee ad consceiisum 
** Alpium pervenit Quod si ita est, intelligo, comiere ea, 
** quffi de itinere, adversft Isarse rip^ institute, dicta sunt. 
** At dubitare fortasse licebit, an adeo stricte in banc senten- 
*' tiam accipienda sint prsedicto loco Polybii verba.** 

These are the words of a candid man, not the partisan of a 
theory ; and his Latin version is " propter Bhodanum.** 

Mr. Whitaker does not adopt the Is^re ; he ascends the 
Bhone, but forgets the limit of 800 stadia : he says, p. 96, — 
** Hannibal kept close to the Bhone, and thus advanced up to 
'' Lyon. He still kept close to the Bhone, and thus advanced 
" up to the Alps." Mr. Whitaker finds Alps for him at last ; 
not at Lyon, nor Gteneva, but at Martigny. 

M. Letronne is strict upon Trapa, which he applies to the 
Bhone for the four days, but afterwards to the Is&re and the 
Drac, saying, — "Annibal, dit Polybe, marcha dix jours, le 
** long du fleuve, Tespace de huit cent stades, et atteignit la 
** mont^ 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 
'* id^, Annibal a quitt^ le Bhone k Vienne, et a traverse la 
** plaine du Dauphin^, &c tandis que Polybe dit formellement 
** qu' Annibal a suivi la fleuve — ^il le suivit jusqu'au dixi^me 
" jour ; cette mesure ^quivaut k 100 milles remains ; prise le 
" long de risire et du Drac, elle porte k Saint-Bonnet." 
{Jourrud des Savans, Janv. 1819, p. 31.) M. Letronne uses 
bits of three rivers to make " le fleuve,** rather than omit an 
angle made by ona 

General St. Cyr Nugues pursues boldly the same principle 
(pp. 49, 60) : — " Les mots irapci rov 'rrorafiop d^ignant le 

Bhdne, ne permettent pas la moindre aberration. Sur les 

54 milles de chemin que Tarm^ d* Annibal, au sortir de 

VOL.1. I 






114 Polybim interpreted. [part iv. 

** Vienne, doit parcourir le long du Ehone pour arriver k la 
" mont^e des Alpes, M. De Luc commence par lui faire 
" faire 42 milles loin du Eh8ne." 

M. Band^ de Lavalette sings the same song, pp. 54, 55 : — 
" II r&ulterait de Ik qu'au Heu de faire les 800 stades en 
" entier le long du fleuve, Annibal en aurait parcouru 400 
"LOINDUFLEUVEr 

H. L. Long says, " There is no possibility, with any rational 
" result, to produce a march of 100 m. p. along the river, after 
" Hannibars arrival at the Is^re (p. 45)/' 

M. Larauza considers that the words irapa rbv irorafiov 
condemn our system below Vienne 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 cette partie du fleuve, qui se trouve entre Tls^re 
*' et Lyon, on ne pent douter que de ce cot^ il lui eftt 6t& im- 
'* possible de continuer k marcher le long du fleuve 'rrapi rov 
" irorafAoy : dans toute cette partie de son lit, surtout depuis 
" les environs de Gisors, jusque vers St. Vallier, il se trouve 
*' encaiss^ entre des rochers escarp^s qui, sur plusieurs points 
" de sa rive gauche, soit baign^s par les eaux, et ne laissent 
** nul passage aux pi(5tous." The extent of error is exhibited 
thus, p. 41 : — " De Vienne k St. Genix d'Aouste M. De Luc 
" compte 32,300 toises, c'est k dire 16 lieues de poste environ 
" sur 37, pendante lesquelles M. De Luc nous tient ^loignfe 
" du Ehone, k une distance de 6, 5, et 4 lieues k vol d'oiseau. 
" Or, peut-on dire s^rieusement que ce soit 1^ marcher le long 
" du fleuva" 

Dr. Ukert chimes in with a liberal translation of the leagues 
of M. Larauza, saying, " Those who lead Hannibal through 
" 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 
Rhone to the Mont du Chat, but he does not acknowledge 



CHAP, il] First Alps, Mont du Chat, 115 

that he learned it fix)m Polybius. He rather justifies the 
dissent of other critics, saying, ** 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 Ehone, 
" &c." Without helping to explain either Trapa or irorafiov, he 
arraigns the historian as the cause of confasion, saying, 
'* These uncertainties cannot now be removed, because Poly- 
'* bins neither possessed sufficient knowledge of the bearings 
** of the country, nor sufficient liveliness as a painter, to 
" describe the line of march so as to be clearly recogmsed." 
(iiL 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 
** Bhone, and in the second the Is^re." Again, p. 27, " The 
** most obvious interpretation of the words irapa riv worafiov 
" in chap. 32 would lead us to think, that Hannibal followed 
" up the Bhone from the place where he crossed that river, 
" up to the first ascent of the Alps." These words are the 
bright spot in Mr. Ellis's work. It is effaced, and the good 
sense of it abandoned, without any reasonable apology. 

M. Eeplat (Chamb^ry, 1851) writes, in subservience to 
prior authorities, "II est remarquable, que depuis le chap. 
" 49, oii il a nomm^ le Scaras, soit Tlsaras, Polybe cesse 
" de designer nominativement le Rh&ne, dont il avait jusque- 
" ]k fait mention plusieurs fois." 

i2 



116 Polyhius interpreted, [part iv. 

Dr. liddell in hifl history does not deal with irapa or 
iroraiJLov : 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 Bhone. 

There is still another author, and an able one, Mr. George 
Long, who rather sides with our opponents. In his article 
"Insula Allobrogum," 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 Rhone and the 
" Isere, commenced his march over the Alps. It is not 
" material to decide 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 marched up the valley of the Isire towards the 
" Alps ; and the way to find out where he crossed the Alps 
" is by following the valley of the Isdre." 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 Bhone. 

Such is the accumulation of wisdom, which refuses to con- 
fess that Polybius in the words waph rov worafAov spoke of 
the Bhone. 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 Is^re ; or that he 
intended a succession of rivers, together representing irorafiSy. 
Fact is, however, that critics innumerable have on this 
point come to be infested with the fancy of substituting the 
IsSre for the Bhone of Polybius : and the error, if such it 
be, ought to receive correction. 

It is quite true, that our line of march up the Bhone does 
at a particular point strike away from the river, and, avoiding 
Lyons, is for a time quite away from the stream. Accord- 
^^8^y» yow naay think, if you wiU, that Polybius makes too 



CHAP. II.] FiT^ Alps. Mont du Chat. 117 

liberal use of the word wapd, 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 Rhone, which 
is one terminus of the progress here spoken of by Polybius, 
and the beginning of Alps, which is the other terminus t 
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, tiU 
the expedition reaches the Alps : the valley of the Bhone is 
the scene of the events that are told. M. De Luc observed 
that, before the sentence in question, the Rhone 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 
Rhone : when he speaks of invasions of Italy made by 
the dwellers on the Rhone ; and when the Rhone is named 
as a boundary of the Island : these are all the instances of 
'P0&1V09. When he is mentioned in the military movements, 
he is spoken of as ''the river." Hanno inarches irapa rov 
wara/ioy. Scipio inarches wapa rbv worafAov. Hannibal, 
after crossing, marches irapci rov worafiov : and in the sen- 
tence before us, having been refitted by the prince of the 
Island, he continues his march to the Alps wapA riy 
TTorafi&v. They who allow Trora/iov to be the Rhone in 
every other instance, ought to show good reason when they 
say that it is not the Rhone in this instance. 

In the host of writers to whom I have referred, many do 
no more than grumble on the word wapd. Neither Dr. 
Arnold, nor l)r. liddell, nor Mr. G. Long help the question 
with any reasons for doubt on wapd or on worafiSv. M. 
Letronne alone ventures to argue the question, and deals 
with the words of the historian, giving reasons that TroTafiSv 



u 
u 



118 PolyUus interpreted. [paet iv. 

should mean the Is^re. He admits the other instances when 
De Luc has shown it to mean the Rhone ; and says on them, 
— ^"Dans ces passages, les mots irapd rov irorafiov suivent 
" imm&iiatement le nom du Eh6ne, en sorte qu'il n'y a point 
de doute i cet ^gard ; au lieu qu'ici le nom du fleuve qui 
pr^c^e imm^diatement est celui dlsaras; le nom du 
" Rh6ne n'est point r^p^t^ dans Tintervalle ; il est done 
" naturel d'appliquer k Tls^re les mots wapcL riv TrorafAor." 
— Joum, des Savansy Janv. 1819. 

In all the criticism that has been heaped upon the subject 
of the march, there is nothing more futile than this granmiati- 
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 of perverting language. Others, in their emer- 
gency, have been tempted to accede to the logic of M. Letronne. 
Larauza tells us, "C'est de Tlsfere qu'il a parl^ en dernier 
" lieu, et depuis cet endroit t^ fiev yap 6 'PoBay6^, r^ 8^ 6 
'* ^ladpa^,* il ne nom plus le Bhone une seule fois." So De 
Lavalette: — "L'intention de Polybe a du 6tre en eflfet de 
'* designer Tls^re, puisqu' il venoit d'en ^crire le nom." 

If there were truth in the supposed rule of construction, 
which there is not, this application of " en dernier lieu " 
would be ludici'oua When Polybius describes the shape of 
the Island, c. 49, 'PoSavov and 'ladpa^ are bracketed together, 
as the nominative to diroKopv^vai,. 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 marched 800 stadia ircLpd rov worafiSv, he b^an the 
ascent. Here it is that M. Letronne interprets irorafUv the 
Isfere, because it was " the river last named." C'est de Tlsfere 
qu*il a parl^ en dernier lieu ! 



* iii 49, 6. This is the only place where Polybius names the 
Isdre. 



CHAP. IL] First Alps. Mont du Chat. 119 

To know what river is intended, we have to rt^ard 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 Bhone 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 — hrl r^v rod 
irorajMov Suifiaaiy; and probably, when M. Letronne read 
the history, he believed this irorafAov to be the Rhone : 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 worafiov by " le nom 
" qui pr^cMe imm(Sdiatement," you wiU perceive that he con- 
gratulated them on their successful passage of the Fo. As for 
the Isire in the instance before us, M. Letronne does not even 
fulfil the philosophy of his own precept : for when, to under- 
stand TTorafAoy, he retreats through the text in search of a 
river, the first he stumbles upon is in truth neither Rhodanus 
nor Isaras : he first encounters riv rwv irorafiAv pvaei^, 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 Nile. 

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 

* Set* note in Appendix. 



1 20 Polybius interpreted. [paet TV, 

e. 39, dividing the whole march into five sections, mentioned 
this section, " fix)m the passage of the Bhone to the b^inning 
or ascent of Alps/' as being 1,400 stadia irap' aMv rby 
TTorafiov: and one would say, that the term irapa rov 
TTorafiov, 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. 

Statemeni of this section of the march in c 39. 

^Airi Si rfj^ Buifidaec^^ rod 'PoBavov iropevofiivoi^ irap 
aurov rov worafAov cS? ^l to? miyci^ &a$ irpb^ rifv ivafioXify 
r&v "AXm-etov, r^v eh *lTa\iav, x^^^ rerpaKoaioi : and from 
the passage of the Bhone, 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. 

Tfie same progress in the narrative. 

c. 47. 1. nepau/fOiyretv Bi r&v OijploDv, 'Ayylfia^ Trpofjye 
wapcL rov irorafiov. The elephants having been 
brought over, Hannibal led forward along the river. 

c. 49. 5. 'AwijSa^ Bk ironrjadfievo^ €f^9 i^rl rerrapa^ fjfiipa^ 
rffv iropelav mh rrj^ Bcafidaeci^ fJKe irpb^ rifv /caXovfiivrfv 
'Srjaov. Hannibal, having marched from the passage of 
the river for four consecutive days, came to the Island, as 
it is called. 

c 50. 1. Awlfia^ B*iv ^fiipai^ Bixa iropevOeU irapa rov 
TTorafiov et9 itcraKoalov^ araZiov^, ijp^aro Tfj^ 7rpo9 
rd^ lAXirei^ dpa/SoXf}^, Hannibal, having in ten days 
marched along the river eight hundred stadia, began the 
ascent to the Alps. 
Now, supi>osing a man to have doubted whether the 

narrative represents the four days' march to the Island, and 

the ten days' further march to the avafioXi], to have been 



CHAP, n.] First Alps. MofU du Choi. 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' avrov rov irora/iov. 
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 b^inning 
of Alpa He admits 1,400 stadia to be the distance between 
those termini ; but not that the words iropevofAivot^ irap' 
avrbv rov irorafAov w i^rl t^9 irtficu^ are applicable to that 
scope of march : he lunits their effect to this — that the 
progress was begun up the stream : and contends that 
iropevofuu means only ''to set out" 
These are his words — " Si M. De Luc avoit fait attention 
lui-mdme k la phrase de Polybe k laquelle il renvoie, il y 
auroit vu que les 1,400 stades n'y sont pas comptds le long 
du fleuve, et que son opinion k est ^gard tient k ce qu'il ne 
saisit pas le sens de I'original, qui du reste a ^t^ fort mal 
*' entendu. Par les mots irap' avrov rov irora/Aov m iirl ra^ 
" mrya^, Annibal ne fait qu'indiquer en g^n^ral le direction 
" de le route k partir du passage du Bhdne : il veut dire 
" simplement qu'au lieu de se dinger droit k Test, vers les 
" Alpes, on commence par remonter le fleuve ; sans pr^tendre 
" appliquer a la longueur de la route le long du fleuve, la 
" mesure de 1,400 stades jusqu'a la mont^e des Alpes." 
(Jaum, des Savans, 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 k quo, and disconnected from the terminus ad quem, 
you take from those words all their value. Their value is, 
that they help us through &)9 ^p^? 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 



« 



122 Polybius interpreted. [part nr. 

are told in c. 39, by naming the termini and the distance 
between them. But in this instance, the march is further 
explained, as performed 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 iropevofjtivoi^ is applied only to the h^dfictav; of the Shone, 
as the terminus '' & 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 bespeaJs: such connexion : 
you are to march m hfi ri^ mfyd^, and you are to do this 
&»9 irph^ rify ayaffoX^v. 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 Bhone are driven to 
maintain, that Suifidaefo^ intends the passage of one river, and 
mryd^ the source of another. If Polybius had only wished to 
express that the inchoate movement from the place of crossing 
was up the stream, he would have abstained from all those 
expressions, and been content with avrioU r^ pevfiari. 

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 Shone. 
They are in conformity with the statement on the three boun- 
daries of the island — Shone 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 Shone 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. Mont du Chat. 123 

march from the Bui/Saai^ by this instruction; we abstain 
from wanderings in the plain that would be Mvolous 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 his opposition to the Shone. Not 
so Mr. Ellis ; he still maintains the Is^, persevering in a 
bad cause, and after a bad fashion. In my criticism of his 
" Treatise/' I quoted his confessions as they appear abova 
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 Philology y 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 difficult : though avrov 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 hank 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 Rhone, 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 wopevo^ivoi^ 



124 Polybvus interpreted. [part iv. 

wop avTov Toy irorafiiv w Arl rci^ irriyd^. The words which 
immediately precede those words are otto rfj^ Siafidaem^ rod 
'PoSavov : and the words which immediately follow them are 
fo? irpb^ rifv avafioXifv r&v "AXweav. 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 critics 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 iropevofihoi^ : he 
rightly apprehends " the obvious interpretation," and tells us 
80. Though he only begins his translation of the history in 
the forty-ninth chapter, he read the thirty-ninth, and tells us 
80. 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 i*ational 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 Bhone : if more, there is much 
to choose from. A long list of critics, ending with Beplat 
and Ellis, make up their worafioy 1,400 stadia, with a length 
of Bhone and a length of Is^re : Letronne and de Lavalette 
add to this a length of Drac. The Cambridge anonymous 
of 1830 does not reach his avafioXi], till he has performed 
fractions of Bhone, 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 Bhone. 

If Uorafiov is the Bhone, the protest founded on the word 
wapd becomes an idle scruple, which has unworthily haunted 



CHAP, n.] First Alps, MotU du Chat. 125 

the minds of learned men. They have reproached us with 
the distance k vol d'oiseau between Boorgoin and the Khone. 
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 Shone, as ever he was from the river in his 
march to the Alps : yet he reached the Bhone, '' 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 
Bhone, oUovyre^ wapci rov *PoSav6v irorafASv: that they 
crossed the Alps, and joined force against the Bomans 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 hut<i of those 
who were admitted to the ranks of the invaders. Let critics 
take farther 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 ra ireBla wapa rov iraSSv from the 
valley of the Bhone (Polyb. iiL 47, 4) ; and that those ireBla 
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 Shone at Lyons." Why assume this t 
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 modem 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 



126 PolyUus interpreted, [part iv. 

adversaries, imputes 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, 
oh h/firov rh aifv roh (r/coXKOfiaa'iy (ov yap yeayypa^i/coy 
TovTo) dXX' iir evOeia^ Xiywy. — ii. 107. Again, reporting 
Polybius's estimate of the circumference of the Peloponnesus, 
he says, viii 335, that he reckoned it ptfj /caraKoXTrl^ovri, 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 a-KoXidfia 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 the history rightly shows his course irapa rov 
irora^y, prescribing it fjtff Kara/coXirl^oyrv. 

4. ThroiLgh a country where Cavalry cotUd a^ct. 

The correspondence of Northern Dauphin^ 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 
frx)m attack by two things ; the native auxiliary force, and 
the Carthaginian cavalry, that arm of war in which Hannibal 
was always superior to his enemies. When is this terror said 
to operate?. so long as they were in the plain country — 6(»9 
iy roU hriviSot^ ^itray. When did this terror cease ? when 
the ally turned homewards, and the army moved into the 
difficult ground for the assault of the Alps : cavalry, the 
object of fear in an open country, loses all advantage in a 
mountain pass. 



CHAP. II.] First Alps. Mmt dv CJuU. 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 jQt 
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 Isire, 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 Tarm^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 Ehone in a part below Vienne, 
" depuis les environs de Gisors jusque vers St VaUier." But, 
if the country just there is not quite plain, of which 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 : horn 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 wrong 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 Polyhius interpreted. [part IV. 

Fyrenees to the plain of the Po, they claim particular notice 
when we seek to identify the line of marcL Now the pas- 
sages of the history, where this people is expressly named, 
are these : — 

The friendly prince lent the aid of his force till Hannibal 
drew near to the Alps, because of the apprehensions which 
the Carthaginians entertained of the march through the Gauls 
called Allobroges. 

While the march was in the plain country, the several 
leaders of the Allobroges abstained from attacking them. 

When the Carthaginians were getting into the difficult 
places, the leaders of the Allobroges pre-occupied the pass. 

In forcing the pass, Hannibal destroyed, or put to flight, 
the greater part of the Allobroges ; and afterwards occupied 
the town whence they had come forth in the morning to the 
attack 

It is thus an essential part of the history, that the progress 
from the confluence of the rivers to the first Alps was made 
through the people called Allobroges, 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 
Allobroges : and those who say with Dr. Arnold, that " it 

does not appear whether the Carthaginians ascended the 

left or the right bank of the Is^re, or continued to ascend 
" the Ehone, and that these uncertainties cannot be removed," 
must embrace in this uncertainty whether the Allobroges of 
Polybius were on one side of the Isfere or the other. Dr. 
Arnold does not mention them at all : but Mr. 6. Long, who 
has two articles in Dr. Smith's Dictionary, Allobroges and 
Insula Allobrogum, speaks of them as north of Isire, 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 Allobroges? Was the district, which is 



it 



CHAP. II.] First Alps, Mont du Chat, 129 

so clearly and minutely described as the Island, the Island of 
the Allobroges? And was the southern boundary of the 
Island, the Isire, also a boundary of their possessions ? One 
of our strongest opponents, M. Letronne, conceded the former 
point, when he said, " Cette ile est done Tinsula Allobrogum." 
— Jaurn. des Savans, 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 trfes forte, mais surtout centre 
" M. Letropne, qui, pla5ant dans Tile les Allobroges, fait k 
" ses adversaires, et bien gratuitement, une concession tout 
" k son d^savantage." 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 
Isire 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 Vocontii, and the Iconii, otherwise called 
UcenL 

The most diligent mystifier of the Allobroges, M. Larauza, 
says (" Hist. Critique," p. 35) : " Nous convenons que du tems 
" de Cic(5ron, de Cdsar, et mSme avant, les Allobroges occu- 
'* paient tout ce pays qui se trouve entre le Saone et Tls^re : 
" c'est encore Ik que, plus tard, les pla9ent Strabon et 
" Ptolem(5e, en leur donnant Vienne pour capitale. Mais 
" etaient-ils \k k T^poque dont il est ici question ? Les seuls 
" auteurs qui puissent foumir quelques lumiires sur ce sujet 
" sont Polybe et Tite-Live." It is true that these lights are 

VOL. I. K 



130 Polybius interpreted. [part IV. 

enough for those who will constrae them. But there arc 
other sufficient authorities to the same purpose. 

Caesar, relating his march from the interior to the ulterior 
Province, says, i 10, that he arrived " in fines Vocontiorum, 
" inde in Allobrogum fines : ab Allobrogibus in Segusianos : hi 
" sunt extra Provinciam trans Ehodanum primi" Now, to enter 
the Allobroges from the Yocontii, he must have crossed the 
Is^re : and to get on to Lyons, the chief city of the S^usiani, 
he must have marched through Allobroges and crossed the 
Rhone. 

In the year which followed the murder of Csesar, 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 Isar&, flumine maximo, quod in finibus 
est Allobrogum, ponte uno die fia^to, exercitum traduxi," x. 15. 
In another letter, he reports that he is advancing, having 
secured the bridge on the Isire, 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 Vocontii, crossing 
the Is^re and destroying the bridges. This letter is dated 
"Cularone,* ex finibus Allobrogum." I think there is another 
letter, in which the Is^re is mentioned as separating the 
Allobroges and the SegalaunL 

Strabo, after placing the Vocontii along the Durance, iv, 
179, says that they reach northward through mountain valleys 
fiiXP^ *AX7^fipiywv — 203. And of the Allobroges he says, 
that they are the occupiers from the Is^re to Lyons ; and of 
Vienne he says, that it is now raised to the rank of a city, 
where those of high distinction live ; but that, in the earlier 

* The ancient name was Cularo ; in a later day Gratianopolis, 
whence Grenoble. Civarone and Ciyarone are also found in manu- 
scripts. 



CHAP. II.] First Alps. Mont dii CluU. 131 

days of their power, it had been their metropolis, when only a 
village. 

Pliny lecognises a similar division of peoples by the Is^re : he 
saySyiiL 5, " In agro Cavarum Valentia: Vienna, Allobrogum." 

Ptolemy, in his catalogue of States and Towns of Keltoga- 
latia Narbonensis, ii. 10, says : — " Of those who occupy the 
" country east of the Bhone, 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 CavarL" 

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-^-fait T^tat des choses 
" au tems d'AnnibaL Comment se faire une objection de ce 
" qu'il est impossible de connoitre." — Joum. 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 
" Hannibars entrance into their territory." Cambridge, 1830. 

Such conception of ubiquity in this people enables the 
advocates of the Cenis, the Genivre, or the Viso, to place the 
overthrow of the Allobroges by Hannibal in any part of Gaul 
south of Isire, 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 C&anne. The curious thing 
is, that these writers limit the privilege of being AUobrogian 

K 2 



132 Polj/biics inteTpreied. [PART iv. 

to the regions south of Is^re : 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 purposa 
But M. Larauza says, p. 37, that the vagabond life of the 
population of that period makes topographical distinction 
impossible. He is content with the etjonology of Bochart. 
" Ce mot Allobroges est compost de deux mots, all qui veut 
" dire haut, et hro qui signifie terre, dont on tire ais^ment le 
" nom de montagne, et celui de montagnard, qu'on rend par 
" celui d'Allobroge."* Each expression of Polybius is twisted 
to favour the ubiquit)' of the Allobroges ; that they were not 
a nation, but many " peuplades distinctes," as Larauza would 
explain Kara ^epo^ Ijyefiove^ : 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 
contix)l 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 tfcese, " quorum auctoritas 
apud plebem valebat," should he in movement with their 
immediate dependants. 

lArauza thinks his view to be confirmed by the expression 
^ AXKofipirftov KoXovfiiptop Takar&y, as if it was meant for a 
name not national but descriptive; and so applicable to 
many peoples. He might have seen that the term koXov 
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. 13G. 



CHAP. II.] First Alps, Mont du C/iat. 133 

fancy suggests a most unfortunate illustration ; nainely, 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 was 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 everjrwhere or nowhere, the adver- 
saries profess to have ascertained that that nation was not 
on the right, but on the left bank of the Is^re. And one argu- 
ment is, that Polybius must have viewed them as a distinct 
people firom 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- 
hseuser, in a note on this passage, says, " Duos illos fratres 
" de r^no contendentes, Allobroges fecit Livius, xxi. 31. 
** Polybius vero hoc cap. vers. 13, et cap. 50, 2. satis diserti 
" ab Allobrogibus eos distinguit. Credi tamen potest, varias 

fuisse Allobrogum gentes." 

Larauza, p. 35, adopts the distinction. " Polybe ne nomme 

nulle part le peuple qui habitat Tile : 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 



u 



tt 



« 



134 PolybiiLS interpreted. [part iv. 

" spoken of in general terms as barbarians. Polybius names 
the Allobroges as being inhabitants of the country through 
which Hannibal pursued his march when he set out again : 
they are Grauls: 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 Is^re." 
Mr. Ellis in his Treatise, p. 133, asserts that it is clear from 
Polybius, that the Allobroges were not inhabitants of the 
Island in Hannibal's time. In my criticism, p. 17, 1 pointed 
out the causes which had led to that error. Mr. Ellis, in his 
Defence (Jovmal of PhUol. 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 Allobroges were south of Is^re, ^d denounces the con- 
trary notion as absurd. He neither defends the view of 
Schweighaeuser 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 were the Allobroges 
of Polybius, is thus a proposition at once susceptible of a 
" redtcctio ad absurdvm'' 

Mr. Ellis seems to defy us to meddle with Polybius ; but 
in fact he is only defying us to meddle with himseK : 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 " Allobrpgian " in 
both places of the text ; but I should not thereby substitute 
it for a term which never was in the text. 

Schweighaeuser, Larauza, and Ukert had been misled by 
this. They saw that Hannibal's friends were called /Sdp^apoi, 



t€ 



H 



CHAP, n.] First Alps, Mont du Chat 135 

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 
oountiy 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, the 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 which may have 
been is reUeved. 

The error of supposing that the inhabitants are caUed 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 ¥dll find that the term " barbarian " 
tends to identify Hannibal's aUy with AUobroges, not to dis- 
tinguish them from AUobroges : it is appUed 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 the night ; and we read of the attacks made 



136 Polyhum inttrpreted. [PART rv. 

by the barbarians, when in the 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 the 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 their proper name, Allobroges, had 
occurred twenty times before. Ifce 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 Soman, 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 Oripla and eXe^vre?, 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 Mediterranean. Dr. Ukert, 
iil 591, says of the Allobroges : " When in earlier times men- 
" tion is made of wars which they undertook, they appear 
*• (stehend — stand) quite in the most southern part of GauL" 
These references are given : — Polybius, iiL 50; Strabo,iv. 186; 
Livy, xxi. 31 ; Dion Cassius, xxxvii. 47 ; Florus, iii 2 ; Livy, 
Epitome, Ivi. — ciiL 

I do not find a word in these passages referred to that 
warrants the assertion that the Allobroges are spoken of by 
these authors as inhabitants of the south. They are exhibited 



CHAP, il] First Alps. Mmt du Chat 1 37 

fighting for a short tune south of Is^re, but not inhabiting. 
In the year when the Somans, invading Gaul, pushed their 
course up the Rhone, Allobroges are seen fighting a few miles 
above Avignon, " ad oppidum Vindalium ; " and again near the 
confluence of the Is^re and the Rhone. 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 fix 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 moimtains 
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 Rhone 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 lai^e date to their position 
north of Isfere, Larauza had imagined and laid do^^Ti a history 
for the Allobroges, with an outliue of historical fact asserted 
positively and without obscurity. He says, pp. 37, 38 : " C'est 
"en de<^ de Tls^re, et surtout dans la partie la plus m6- 
" ridionale de la Gaule, que Ton voit se passer la plupart des 
" guerres qu'ils eurent & soutcnir centre les Romains depuis 
"la premiere. Tan 630 de Rome, jusqu'i celle qui mit fin 
" ^ leur ind^pendance, I'an 692. Nous serious mSme assez 
" fond^ k croire que ce dut etre vers cette dpoque que, 
" subjugues par les Romains, ils furent repouss(5s au-deli de 
" risire, et forces de se renfermer dans le pays born^ par se 
" fleuve, la Saone, et le Rhone." 

This statement has the one merit of perspicuity : it asserts, 
that a course of warfai'e was sustained by the Allobroges for a 



138 PolyUus interpreted. [part 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 crashed, 
these wars having been carried on by them in the most 
southern parts of Gaul: that, though when Strabo wrote 
they were restricted to the north of Isfere, yet, in the time of 
CsBsar, they had only just been driven within that boundary. 

Now, though M. Larauza was a laborious, zealous, and 
amiable man, and Dr. XJkert enjoys a very high reputation 
for the knowledge of ancient geography, I conceive this 
continuous warfare of the Allobroges with Bome to be an 
unauthorized notion ; a mistake of a few simple facts, which 
are these. At the beginning of the period spoken o^ the 
Allobroges in one campaign lost their independence and 
became subject to Bome: at the end of that period they 
broke into an insurrection, which was presently quelled by 
the Praetor of the Province; and in the intermediate time 
there were no hostilities at aU. 

The first entrance of the Bomans into Gaul by Icmd was 
in the year 154 B.C., when they came to protect the Massilians 
against the Oxybii and Deciatse. Polyb. xxxiii. 4. By this 
interference, which occupied little time, their friends were 
established in the possession of an increased territory. The 
Bomans 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 supported by the Vocontii.* In the next year, 
122, they founded their first colony beyond the Alps, Aquae 
Sextise, Aix en Provence ; subduing the Salluvii, who seem 
to have had some assistance from the Allobroges.t In the 

♦ It appears from the Fasti Capitolini, quoted by Mr. Clinton, 
vol iii. 130, that the Vocontii had fought against Fulvius Flaccus : 
for he is recorded as having a triumph over them. 

t Yelloius Paterculns states that the Allobroges joined the 
Sallyes in resisiing the Bomans under Scxtius, L 15. 



CHAP. II.] First Alps, Mont du Chat, 139 

following year, 121, the proconsul Domitius iEnobarbns de- 
feated the anny of the Allobroges ; and the consul Fabius 
also routed them with prodigious slaughter, together with the 
Arvemi and Euteni, a great force having been brought into 
the field on the part of the Gkiuls. Thus speedily was effected 
the subjugation of the Allobroges. These three campaigns 
led to the erection of the Province: and never did the 
AUobroges 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 Some, 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 Marcellinus, writing 500 years after the trans- 
actions, says this : " Hse regiones, prsecipufe quae confines 
Italicis paulatim levi sudore sub imperium venfire Eo- 
manum : prim6 tentatie per Fidvium, deinde pneliis parvis 
'' quassatse per Sextium, ad ultimum per Fabium Maximum 
** domitae : cui negotii plenus effectus, asperiore Allobrogum 
" gente devictft, hoc indidit cognomen." Lib. xv. 

Such was the first Allobrogian war of M. Larauza. Wliere 
is the next? Having assigned to a particular district "la 
" plupart des guerres depuis la premiere. Tan 630, jusqu'i la 
" demifere. 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, "Tan 692." In that year 
things are recorded, which M. Larauza treats as the climax 
of a continuoas contest : and, becaursO this people is seen for 



u 
u 



140 Polyhius interpreted. [part IV. 

a month or two in arms at the end of that period, he pre- 
sumes that they had been fighting against Eome throughout 
the interval But in truth even that one fact is misrepre- 
sented : it was but an efifort 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 afifect 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 weeks, at the close of that period. If this rebellion 
had been serious enough to require a Roman reinforcement to 
cross the boundary of Italy, which it did not, how stands the 
assumption, that these hostilities concluded a long contest ; 
and that up 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 Allobroges were at that time subjects 
of Eome. Their envoys were at Rome, preferring charges 
against their rulers or magistrates. P. Umbrenus, an agent 
of the pnetor 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 avaritifi, magistra- 
tuum, accusare senatum qu6d eo auxilii nihil esset ; miseriis 
suis remedium mortem expectare : At ego, inquit, vobis, si 
" mod6 viri esse voltis, rationem ostendam quS. tanta ista mala 
" effugiatis." * They pledge themselves to the conspiracy ; and 
afterwards repent of it " Quinto Fabio Sangae, cujus patrocinio 
" civitas plurimum 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.] Fir^ Alps. Mont du Cliat 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 
dependenca 

Thus the alleged probability of the Allobroges having been 
first driven beyond the Is^re in the year 692, vanishes, with all 
the statements on which it is built. They lost their indepen- 
dence in 630 : and, while there is no evidence that they ever 
r^ained 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 — airoKeKkeiKoai ra^ eh ttjv ^l^rfpiav irapoSoif^, ra^ Bid 
7^9 TrapfiKlas:, Strab. iv. 203. While that struggle lasted, 
Home 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 Qidui, she attacks the nearer of the 
transalpine states. The first colony is founded. Aquae Sextise. 
Then is the downfall of the great states, the Vocontii, the 
Arvemi, 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 plimder to 
the plain of Italy. The famous canal is constructed by Marius 
for avoiding the shallows at the Khone's mouth, ofiFensive to 
navigation. Not restricted to maritime communication, the 
Romans now marched to the Pyrenees and Spain through 
countries tliat owned their mastery. Toulouse is garrisoned, 



142 Polybim interpreted. [part iv. 

and a Boman 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 
rash of Soman armies into their Gaulish and Spanish 
provinces. 

- This is the period in which it is assumed that, during such 
progressive movement of Boman power, the Allobroges were 
stemming the torrent and defying a pressure to which their 
neighbours had to yield. The notion put forth by Larauza, 
and assented to by Ukert, as a basis for the migration of 
Allobroges northwards beyond the Is^re in the latter days 
of the Boman 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 imrecorded wars, which, after sixty years, 
were concluded only by the surrender of Ventia and the 
burning of Solonium, told by Dion Cassius. I 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 



CHAPTEE 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 of Martigny. Mr. 
H, L. Long, going through OrenoblCf finds them at Fort 
Barraux. 

I HAVE now to deal with this terminus, the first Alps, as it 
lias been variously fixed in the several theories hostile to my 



CHAP. III.] First Alps : other points K of Isire, 143 

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/3o\i] of each other theory seriatim, 
only not repeating matters already discussed. 

First, let us take the two schemes of march which, as well 
as our own, proceed from the Island without turning back to 
recross the Isfere. 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 Montm^lian. 



March by Lyons and Oeneva to Martigny, Mr. Whitaker. 

Among the English commentators, Mr. Whitaker stands 
forth as the laborious, and 1 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 thought to 
Mr, Whitaker and M. De Luc. In 1794 Mr. Whitaker pub- 
lished a long work 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 work, having become 
acquainted with the General in 1795, and finding his own 
views to correspond with what he learned from hirn . He 
has not failed to speak his opinion of Mr. Whitaker's 
merits — " Anim(5 du diabolique esprit de contradiction, en- 
" train^ par ime imagination desordonn^e, et priv4 du sens 
** commun quoiqu'avec une prodigieuse drudition, il voidut 
" se frayer une route diffdrente de toutes celles qu'on avoit 
" imagindes jusqu'a lui, sans s'embarrasser des absurditds 
" sans nombre dans lesquelles il devait nf^cessairement 
" tomber." 



144 Polybim iriterpreted. [part IV. 

I will deal with 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, Lodfeve, Le Vigan, and Anduse, and so came upon 
the Rhone at a part opposite to the influx of the Drome, and 
crossed to a place called Loriol. Mr. ^Vhitake^ 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 tlie mouth of the Rhone. This fact, 
which also is exclusively his own, removes in favour of his 
hypothesis the length of Rhone 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 Rhone three miles above 
the influx of the Isfere ; so as to have crossed the latter river 
before he comes down to take the enemy in flank. Being 
satisfied that a Suificun^ at Loriol fulfils all the requisites of 
the Greek narrative, Mr. Whitaker conducts the march up 
the Rhone, and in four days brings the Carthaginians to 
Lyons ; where his Island is the groimd now occupied by the 
city and enclosed by the two rivers and tlie hills wliich over- 
hang the place. After settling the affairs of the Segusiani, 
he replaces Hannibal on the left bank of the Rhone, 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 pubUshed a pamphlet in express commendation 
of .Mr. Whitaker's discoveries. When we remember that 
Polybius represents the passage of the Rhone 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 the ])eginning of Alps to the plain of Italy, we 



CHAP, m.] First A Ips : other points N. of Isire. 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, between 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 Polybius 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 Bhone, being attended as far as 
Greneva by the "friendly King of Lyons;" and keeping 
close to the banks of the river, with the stream on his left, 
Mr. Whitaker discovers a blot in the Boman 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 tnith by introducing the river Druentia. 
He represents that the Arve, which falls into the Bhone at 
Geneva, is not navigable, and that the Druentia of Livy is 
"non navium patiens :" that therefore the Arve is the Druentia 
of Livy. Dwelling 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 



146 Polyhivs interpreted. [part IV. 

Druentios, which, rising in the highest summits, runs into the 
Rhone. This Mr. Whitaker declares to be the torrent which, 
rising near the Col du Bonhomme, rushes down the Val de 
Montjoye, and joins the Arve at Passi After quoting 
Strabo on the Druentius rushing 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 ; cmd forms a full demonstration of itself, 
** that the Arve was actually denominated the Druentia or 
" Druentius by the Komans." i. 141 — 150. 

Having still further settled the identity of this river by 
the aid of Silius Italicus, Mr. Whitaker forwards the ex- 
pedition under the auspices of livy, y^ho reports Hannibal 
to have reached the Alps " campestri maximS itinere," which 
he thinks to have peculiar application to a route from 
Greneva to Martigny. i 157 — 160, 

Having travelled some way amicably enough with the two 
ancient authorities, Mr. Whitaker begins to suspect a want 
of harmony between them. Not doubting that Hannibal 
climbed the Great St. Bernard, cmd knowing, from the third 
book of Caesar's Commentaries, that, in order to get there, 
it was expedient to pass through the Nantuates and the 
Yeragri, 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 : — " All 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 himdred miles from Lyons, and instantly 
'' sets him to enter the Alps. Hannibal, he tells us, having 
meu*ched 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 



It 
<t 
it 



tt 

it 



CHAP. III.] First Alps : other points N. of Ishe. 147 

" muBt 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 woidd 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, 
" tmd 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 
" aU, 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 liis brightness, and hardly noticeable in the lustro 
** of his beams, and this false idea has contributed to give 
" a false turn to many parts of the history of Hannibal." 
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 surmnit 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 Orsiferes a conference is held with 
natives, some coming fix)m 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 



148 Folyhius interpreted. [fabt iv. 

This brings the army to the Eock of Luttier * 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, xxL 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 Mends : 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 De Tzeudy or Valsoret, as north or west of Mont 
Noir and Mont Yelan, embarrassing his movements and com- 
pelling him to feel his way. It is said that '' livy is the only 
'* historian supplying 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 
80 lively and so active in livy, concerning the dubious, the 
drcuitousy the retrograde progression of Hannibal in his 
" march fix)m the hill of ambuscade to the crest of the Alps." 
We learn fix)m Mr. Whitaker, that, "moving in a line in 
" which no army ever moved before or since, Hannibal reached 
" the regular road at St. Pierre, which he had left five days 
before at Orzi^res, only about seven miles below." " The 
next day he found himself happily mounted, with aD 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 that 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 
Alpme Club, p. 23. 



it 



t< 
t< 
i< 



« 






CHAP, ra.] First Alps : other points N, of Ishe, 149 

for this error, he falls, pp. 133-4, under the lash of that para- 
moTmt authority which is relied 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- 
*' ceming 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 exercisa" 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 suflTered them to be made by 
others : that they were in hostility with all mankind till the 



150 Polyhim interpreted. [part iv. 

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 all. 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 passaga 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 this coincides in an extraordinary manner with 
" the movements of Hannibal He goes not towards the 
" Alps of Mont Genfevre. He knows there is no formed road 
" over them. He knows that the only formed road is on the 
*' northern side of the mountains, near the rise of the Rhone." 

We certainly read that Caesar was desirous 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 Genfevre 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 march, 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 



CHAP, m.] First Alps : other points N. of Isire, 151 

" customary way from 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 Mont 
" Genfevre 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 Mr. Whitaker ; 
namely, that in Csesar's time there was 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 Boman 
general hurrying to a Boman 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 Csesar 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 13 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 Csesar also applies the word " iter " to his route over the 



152 Polt/bius interpreted. [PART iv. 

western Alps : the 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 Pomptjy, about 
sixteen years before Caesar resolved to patefy the Penine. The 
word " iter " was prominent in Caesar's short account of his 
march through western Alps : indeed, Mr. Whitaker quotes 
every word of that account (pp. 103 — 106), excepting these : 
" qu^ proximimi iter in ulteriorem Gkdliam per Alpes erat, 
•' ire contendit." 

Mr. Whitaker, however, could not be expected to acknow- 
ledge Pompey as an improver of the Grenfevre 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 disclosed 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, patefecL" 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 geo- 
graphy is rather 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 tliat 
line ; a reason which must have been highly satisfactory to 
the Roman Senate. " Pompey declined the more direct route 
" over the we43tem Alps, and took the circuitous road across 
" the northern, because this was Hannibal's, and because he 
" was proud to emulate Hannibal." L 122. 

In sunmiing 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 

* Salhistii Fragmenta. 



CHAP. III.] First Alps : olher points N. of Isire, 153 

what might be expected. He professes to have conducted 
Hannibal from the Rhine 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 modem 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 aU 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 modem 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 Napoleon. The events told excite throughout the 
feelings of the writer ; as in the chastisement which he inflicts 
on the native obstmctors of the Carthaginian progress. The 
inhabitants of the valley 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 witliin, and those who were mounting to the clouds 



154 Polyhim interpreted, [part iv. 

" 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 the rest, still further pursuing the valley of the 
Rhone, — ^M. Ameth, Director of the Museum at Vienna. His 
views on the subject were published in the " Wiener Jahr- 
bticher" 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. Ameth does not pause with 
Mr. Whitaker at Martigny ; but, in order to make sure of a 
descent into the Insubres, and to bring Hannibal to- Milan, 
carries the Carthaginian army over the Simplon. Perhaps in 
an improved edition, Hannibal will explore the Rhone to his 
glacier, eirl ra^ mjydi:, cross the Furca, and lead the invaders 
into Italy over the St. Gothard. 

Through Orcndble to Fort Ban^anx, Mr, Heiuy L, Long, 

The notion of a march up the right bank of the Is^re is likely 
enough to suggest itself to an observer of the map of France. 



CHAP. III.] First Alps : other points N. of lah^e. 155 

But we have to tiy 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 Rhone, 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. 64 : — " The rocks on the northern bank 
" of the Isire came formerly so dose 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 can possibly coma" 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 AUobroges, 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." Now, 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 Rhone ; but not that which 
follows, from the Rhone 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 



156 Polybitis interpreted. [part iv. 

the Ehone, which, as we have seen, he crosses at Tarascon, he 
notices the expression irapa rbv iroTa/jLov, saying that it shows 
the march from the passage to be up the Bhone ; and he 
observes that that expression occurs frequently in Polybius : 
yet somehow he seems to have missed them in the earUer 
chapter, where that expression is applied to the whole march 
from the Bhone to the Alps. Not that he was unacquainted 
with that chapter : 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 Ehona He exhibits the 
component parts of that distance in a way peculiar to him- 
self : he does the 800 as soon as the Shone is crossed ; and, 
as he crosses it lower down than most other interpreters, 
600 would not bring him to the Is^re : 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." 
This 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 efforts of progression ; and that the last of the two 
brings Hannibal 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 Khone 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 his progress to invade the land 
of the Allobroges : with his allies, he entered the Island at 
Komans, and pursued the present line of route to Grenoble : 



« 
« 



CHAP, m.] First Alps : other points K of Isire. 157 

the plain country, 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 SegalaunL 

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 wapii rbv 
TTorafjLov, 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 dvafioXi]. 

I may give quotations of Long's own words to the contraiy. 
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 Rhone 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 Rhone previous to 
" his striking away fix)m 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 
" barbariana" Long had already said, p. 37 : — " In my own 
' mind I have not the slightest doubt but that Valence was 



158 Polybius interpreted, [part iv. 

" the scene of 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 
avafioXij was irpo^ t^v 1^X'^•€i<:, " towards the Alps " — ^not 
T&y "AKweoDv, " of the Alps." Now let us try to imagine some 
practical difference between the expressions : my friend cannot 
profit by it here : he plainly contradicts the history. Long 
says that Hannibal began the ayafioKrj irpo^ from Valence, 
when the ally joined him. Polybius says that Hannibal 
began the apa/3o\^ irpo^ 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 the success with which this theory directs us to 
Grenobla 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 modem 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 Allobroges, told by 
Polybius, was quite unconnected with, and still distant from 
Alps. The 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 Rachais 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 combat with Alps. He exhibits his own appre- 
hension of the history : — " Instead of Alps, we meet with a 



CHAP. III.] First Alps: other points N, of I^rc. 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- 
" 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 TroLelaOai rtjv avaPoXrjv 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 AUobrogian 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 
"walls of precipitous mountains — towering precipices — 
" stupendous crags — clifiFs 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 dvafioXi^ 7rpo9 ra^ "AKirei^ : two 



160 Polyhius interpreted, [part iv, 

days later Hannibal crosses the Is^re (p. 84), then in two 
days more gets to Moirans ; and in two days more assaults 
and captures Grenoble, and halts for a day : then in two days 
more reaches Chapereillan : and, the dvafioXij irpo^ being 
finished, he begins the dvafioXrl r&v "AXTrewv, p. 89. The 
progress is told thus : — " We roll along the post-road through 
" the glorious vale of Gr^sivandan, and meet no obstacle 
" in the shape of hills until we arrive at the village of La 
" Buissiire, lying at the foot of the heights of Fort Barraux — 
" the Isfere 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 coimtiy 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 avafioKri'* 
—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 HannibaFs encampment irpo^ rai^ vir€p/36\ai<: 
" was at Moirans or in its immediate vicinity. It is so 
" clearly just in fix)nt 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 



« 



tt 



CHAP, ni.] First Alps : other paints N. of Ishe. 161 

" to show, that here, along these declivities and rocky 
" heights, are the St;cr;^6>puu, through which the Carthaginians 
" had of necessity to pass. There, at the Bastile, are the 
•* eifxaCpoi ronroi, the advantageous positions, commanding the 
" road across Mont Bachais, daily guarded by the Allobroges. 

And in Grenoble, the ancient Cularo, we 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 with 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 narrativa The result 
was that through Grenoble the march must go: and the 
1,400 stadia will reach farther up the Is^ 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 Alio- 
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. 

YOU r M 



1 ()2 Foli/bius interpreted. [part IV. 

Instead of reaching the summit with Polybius 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. Long 
wrote to correct our common friends the authors of the Dis- 
sertation ; prescribing Tarascon for Roquemaure : . 800 stadia 
as four days' march : Grenoble as the place assaulted. Un- 
happily for me, beyond the summit, he agrees with them in 
the only point on which I think them wrong ; namely, where 
they make the historian to contradict himself, and impute 
eighteen days to his Alps instead of fifteen. 

I cannot suppose 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 wordB of Dr. Thirlwall :— " Polybius contrasts the march 

along the plain with the ascent of the mountains, in a 
*' manner which clearly implies that the latter begins at the 

end of the ten days' march/' Phil, Mus, ii. 675. 



(( 



i< 



Notice of Orenohle by Dr. LidddL 

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 progress 
beyond the Is^re to the dvafioXi], i. 340 : — 

" Hantiibal continued his march up the Ehone, and crossing 
" the Isfere, found himself in the plains of Dauphin^, then 
" inhabited by the Allobrogian Gauls. 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. HannibaFs veterans soon put 



n 



«t 



u 



CHAP, ui.] First Alps: other points K of Isere, 163 

" 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 pointy 
" at which the Is^re issues from the lower range of the Alps, 
" somewhere near the present fortress of Grenobla Up to 
" this point there is little doubt as to the route taken by 
** Hannibal : but after this all is doubtfiiL" 

Up to this point the words of this author seem rather to 
conduct us to Les Echelles : the introduction of the Is^re 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 L p. 34-1. — '* 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 b^an 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 ia 
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 Graiau, 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 

m2 



164 Polybius interpreted, [part iv. 

to Turin." I should not so express his opinions, so far aa 
M. De Luc has reported them. 

Also it is said that " others follow Livy in taking Hannibal 
" from Grenoble up the Eomanche, and so over the Genfevre 
" down to Turin." I am not aware that any but Folard have 
so construed the route of Livy from the Ts^re. It is true that 
all OUT critics speak of Turin (t.e. Augusta Taurinorum) as 
existing in the time of Hannibal : but I am not aware that 
any authority is cited for it. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

Theories of tracks south of Isbre, 

If it has been satisfactorily shown, that the march issued 
from the Island by the Mont du Chat into the vale of 
Chamb^ry, the foundation of all theories of a progress 
south of Is^re bom the confluence of the rivers is shaken. 
Whether the expedition is supposed, on retreating from the 
Island, to move down the Bhone again, or to ascend the 
Is^re, these suppositions can be indulged no longer, if tlie 
Mont du Chat is recognised as the ava/3o\9} reached by the 
vaUey of the Ehona 

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 



CHAP. IT.] First Alps : pahUs S, of Isire. 1 66 

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 Khone : then those which 
go down the Rhone, but not so far : then that which, going 
along the Isire, bends from it to the Drac: then that 
which leaves the Drac for the Bomanche: then that which 
parts from the Isfere between Grenoble and Montm^lian ; 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 mouth 
of the Is^re. 

There will still remain two theories, not brought under this 
arrangement : one in which Hannibal never has bent towards 
the Is^re at all : and one in which he moves still more north, 
and has Mont Blanc for his XevKOTrerpov, 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 warfiEtre shall tell 
its own tale, as I gave it from Chamb^ry in September, 1854 



1. Doum the Rhone again to St PauUtrois-Chdteaux : thence 
across country to the Alps of the Uhaye, The Marquis de 
SL 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 Isire into the Iskuid near St. 



166 Polyhius interpreted. [PABT IV. 

Marcellin, 30 miles above the mouth, he proceeds to Yienne : 
from that place he supposes him to march down the Bhone 
again as far as St. Paul-trois-Ch&teaux, before he bends away 
in search of the ayafioXrj, 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 m M ra^ irrffi^. 
As little does it suit the tenor of the histoiy. The history pre- 
scribes a march of 1,400 stadia from the crossing of the Bhone 
to the Alps, along a river. The progression 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 
Bhone 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 ava^oXff 
"AKiretfv 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 coimtry 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 Allobroges, 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. 



€t 



It 



CHAP. IV.] First Alps : points S. of Is^re. 1 67 

2. From Valence hy Die and Luc to Remollon on the Ihcrance, 
Oeneral Vaudoncmirt, and General St, Cyr Nxigues, 

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. 
Greneral YaudoBOOttTt marks his avafiokt) thus, p. 45 : — " 6tant 
■* arriv^ k Tallard, Annibal s'arrSte au pied des montagnes : il 

s'approche jusqu* aux bords de la Vence, au pied d'un 

d^fil^ qui s'^tend jusqu* 5. pris Eemollon." 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 alt^rd : le genitif k ^t^ chang^ en accusatif 
" par erreur et caprice, des copistes : ainsi il faut lire it 
" Ehodano et non pas propter Ehodanum." General St. Cyr 
Nugues in accordance with this idea substitutes air6 for 
irapa \ so as to express the idea, " en s'^loignant du fleuve." 
Now I cannot think that this exchange of ideas would be 
satisfactory : airo would not instruct you on the direction 
of the march so well as irapa. Also those who propose the 
change ought to make it more largely : irap avrbv rbv 
irorafjLOV describes the march of 1,400 stadia in c. 39, of 
which the 800 is a part ; the prior part (600) being from the 
crossing to the Island. Polybius applies irapa to each part, 
and to the whole. But these generals have not told us to 
change irapd into ano in the other two instances, which seems 
necessary for their consistency. Indeed, if " s'^loignant du 
fleuve " 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 
generals might as well have adopted the theory of M. Fortia 



168 Polyhius inUrpreUd. [part iv. 

dllrban^ who, in order to march through his own estate, 
makes Hannibal go direct from the Eygnes to the Po. But 
in that Greneral St. Cyr Nugues 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 Tls^re." 
We shall see soon, that this £act 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 Isire and the Drac to St, Bonnet. M. Letronne and 

M. Band6 de Lavalette. 

The inventor of this theoiy, which discloses the first Alps 
at St. Bonnet on the Drac, is M. Letronne ; " sani baud 
spemendus 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 dvafioX^ r&v "KKnreti^Vy which he seems to identify with 
" Tentr^eduD^partement desHautes Alpes" — " Annibal arriv^ 
" sur le bord de Tls^re, marcha dix jours le long de ce fleuve, 
" jusqu'ii la mont^e des Alpes. Parvenu au confluent de 
'* risfere avec le Drac (qui dit-on, avoit alors lieu tm peu au 
" dessus de Grenoble, pris de Gi^re,) il ne traversa ni Tls^re 
" ni le Drac, torrent extr^mement large et impetueux h, son 
" embouchure : il remonta ce torrent, que sa largeur dut lui 
" faire prendre pour la m6me riviere que Tls^re. H le suivit 
*' jusqu' au dixi^me jour, dans Tespace de huit cents stades, k 
'* compter du point ou il avoit trouv4 Tile des Allobroges. 
" Cette mesure prise le long de Tls^re et du Drac, porte a 
" Saint Bonnet, k Tentr^e du d^partement des Hautes Alpes. 
" Jusque-1& dit Polybe, Tarm^e s'^toit trouv^e enplaine : alors 
" elle commen9a k gravir les Alpes." It is the distinguished 
writer of these words, who ventured to designate the theory 
of M. De Luc as " une opinion insoutenable jusqu* au point 
d'etre absurde." 



CHAP. IV.] First Alps : poirUs 8. of hire. 169 

Time and Dutance, — ^Time of travelling will depend not 
only on distance, but gn 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 countiy, 
both up the left bank of the Isfere, and the left bank of the 
Drac ; and, though, on arriving at St. Bonnet he says here 
is my dvafiokrj "AXttccov, and proclaims, " Jusque Ik Tarm^e 
s'^toit trouv^e en plaine," some will consider that he plunges 
deep into Alps, to find the beginning of Alps ; and that the 
conformity of lus track requires to be considered imder the 
next head. 

Plain favourable to Cavalry, — ^We know, firom Polybius, that 
the march of the army in company with the ally, after being 
refitted by him, was through plain country, iy iiriirihoi^, 
where the enemy, hovering about and threatening their pro- 
gress, was deterred firom attack by fear of the Carthaginian 
cavalry ; and that this was the case tUl they were near to the 
first ascent. M. Letronne's course of plain is in two parts : 
that which borders the left bank of Isire, 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 Is^re and call it plain, profess that they have ever 
seen it : none have spoken in a way which directly offers 
their personal credit to the advantages of it for cavalry. 
While 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 found 
in the adjacent country for their cavalry to take advantage of. 



170 Polyhim interpreted, [PAUT rv. 

In the Oxford 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 Grenobla There never was any Eoman 
'* road on the south bank of the Is^re, between Valence and 
" Grenoble, and the road which 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 a very large scale." T 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 which is now in pro- 
gress, General St. Cyr Nugues, repudiating this as the line 
of Hannibal, says, " De hautes montagnes escarpdes y bordent 
" risfere, depuis les environs de Pont-en-Eoyaus jusque vers 
** Sassenage ; la dominent et en resserrent le cours, parti- 
" culi^rement vis-Ji-vis Moirans, oii le rocher fait une dnorme 
" 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 M. Band6 de Lavalette, who adopts M. Letronne's 
track, following him to St. Bonnet. M. Larauza's scheme of 
progress had corresponded with theirs, as far as the Drac, and 
he includes the whole line in his description, " riche plaine et 
fertile ;" but, when he escapes from them into the plain of 
Gr^sivaudan, he exposes the roughness of their further march 
to St. Bonnet, saying, p. 53 : — " Lorsque de ce point (Grenoble) 
" Ton prend a droite pour suivre le cours du Drac dans le 

direction de la montagne de Sassenage, on le voit traversant 

la plaine de Grenoble, Jt peine k deux ou trois lieues de la 
" ville, s'enfoncer deja dans les gorges que lui ouvrent les 
" Alpes. Annibal, en se dirigeant de ce cot^, serait done 
" entr^ dans ces montagnes, n'ayant fait au plus que 582 stades 
" le long du fleuva" 

M. de Lavalette protests against the unfairness of this, and 



(( 



tt 



CHAP. IV.] First Alps : points 8, of Ish'e. 171 

says with much candour that, if M. Larauza can be satisfied 
with a march on the south shore of the Is^ below Grenoble, 
he is not the man to object to the valley of the Drac : — " Si, 
" malgr^ les obstacles que parait ofirir le pays situd entre 
" Valence et Grenoble, le savant professeur a cm qu'Annibal 
" avait franchi cette distance, il ne sauroit Stre admis h pre- 
" senter comme impossible le trajet de Tembouchure du Drac 
" k St. Bonnet " — p. 64 This piece of good sense might have 
induced its author to dissent from M. Letronne's doctrine, 
" jusque IJt en plaine ;" a proposition which is applied to the 
Isire 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 Isire. 

Along the River, — Having admired the usefulness of M. 
Letronne's cavalry from Pont-en-Eoyans to Sassenage, and 
seeing how their manoeuvres still surprise us in approaching 
St Bonnet, we may again notice his fulfilment of the re- 
quisite irap^L rhv irorafiiv. In addition to his ingenuity upon 
words, M. Letronnc 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 Isire, 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 Isire ; so 
that, instead of M. Letronne's route by St. Bonnet to the Mont 
Genfevre, 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 Alldbroges, — 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- 



u 
<« 
it 



it 



172 PolyUus interpreted, [pabt IV. 

cuitous route attributed to Hannibal by De Luc, as " un 
" detour bien Strange, quand il pouvoit arriver k Montm^illan 
en suivant Tls^re. Eien ne Temp^choit, puisque las Allo- 
broges, loin de contrarier alors sa marche, lui foumirent de 
vivres, &c. — Quand k ce que Polybe appelle Tile, habitee, 
" dit il, par les Allobroges, on ne pent trouver un canton, &c. 
— Cette lie est done Tinsula Allobrogum." He speaks 
of " Topinion incontestable qui place Tile entre le Rhone et 
Isire: " and explaining his own views of the route, M. 
Letronne says, "C'est a partir des Allobroges que com- 
mencent les grand difficult^s 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 
Is^re, he thus shuffles out of his opinions — " Cette difficult^ 
" repose uniquement sur Topinion qu'on a de T^tendue du 
" pays habits par les Allobroges a une 4poque fort posteri- 
" eure au passage d'Annibal : mais on ignore absolument 
" si les Allobroges, nation puissante, n'avoient point & cet 
" ^poque etendu leur domination sur la plus grande partie 
" du Dauphin^ ; en sorte qu*il a pu avoir toujours a com- 
'* battre les armies 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-i-fait T^tat des choses au tems 
" d'Annibal. Comment se faire une objection de ce qui 
*' n'est pas possible de connottre ! " 

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 Is^re. In December he reconciles himself 



CHAP. IV.] First Alps : paints S. of Isire. 1 73 

to a march up the Drac to St. Bonnet, as the iropela Sea r&v 
^AXXo^plyoyy /ca\ov/Aiv(ov TaXar&y, and proclaims a victory 
gained over that people in the mountains beyond. 



4. By Moirans and Orenoble — up the Drac — dottm the Luis to 
the Durance near Tallard — up to the plain of La Breoule 
and to the defile on the Ubaye, A member of the University 
of Cambridge. 1 83 0. 

This critic takes his dvafioXtf 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 Allobrogian obstruction. He 
recrosses the Isfere 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 Breoide ; and finds the dva^oXfi 
"AXttcgiv 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 coidd 
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' axnov rov 
irorafuov " along the river by its very banks." When, in p. 61, 



174 PolyUus interpretecl, [part iv. 

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 TTora^v is liberal : his text and his red line of 
march disclose 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 Allobrogian 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 beginning 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 
de la Durance, une espice de plaine." The failure of plain, 
and the scene of combat, are thus brought near together : — 
" As long as the Carthaginians continue in the plains leading 
" to La Breoule, 2 019 iv toa9 iirtirihot^ f^aav, 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. (32. 63. 



CUAP. IV.] First Alps ; points S. of Is^re. 17»o 

Through the Allohroges. — In this advanced region, according 
to the anonymous critic, was fought the battle of the Allo- 
hroges, " 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 territory ; 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- 
hroges, 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 Viso. 

5. Up the Is^re and the Roinanclie by Bourg d^Oysans to the 
Mont de Lens and the Lauteret, Chevalier Folard, 

The Chevalier, writing in 1728, sought the Is^re at Romans : 
proceeding up the river, and leaving Grenoble on his left 
hand, he faced the Drac vis-k-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 
Bomancha He says, iv. p. 89 : " Je suis persuade que la route 
" la plus ordinaire et la plus pratiqu^e des Gaulois en Italic, 
" ^toit celle qui conduit du Mont de Lens, du Lautaret, et de 
" Brian9on au Mont Gen^vre." One would infer from this 
that he appreheoded the first Alps at the Mont de Lens : for 
after crossing it, he has the first combat with the natives 
" eeux du pais." One cannot reconcile the landmarks of this 
writer with those of Polybius : for the historian certainly 
places the Allobrogian conflict at the first Alps ; and it is not 
easy to deny the character of Alps to the mountains between 
Bourg D'Oysans and Briangon : but the Chevalier brings the 
Allohroges into action " entre Sezanne et le Mont de Sestrikes." 
—P. 91. 



17C Polyhius interpreted, [part IV. 

This route, by which Folard, in contempt of Polyhius, 
carries Hannibal to the Alps, is now the direct course from 
Grenoble to Briangon, 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 Briancjon is also 
well told by Mr. Weld's " Summer Ramble, 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 knowledge of several tracks qualifies a man for com- 
paring them: but a great familiarity with one may rather 
disqualify him. So it was with Folard : his campaign in the 
Alps of France and Pigment 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 Isire to Le Cheylas. Mr, EUis, 

Distance. — Mr. Ellis, looking along the Is^re 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 jimction of the Rhone and Is^re) to Le 
" Cheylas, is 87i Roman 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 



CHAP. IV.] First A Ips : points S, of Isire. 177 

way along the very " bank," which, below Grenoble, is not 
unimportant. 

River, Plain, Cavalry, — ^We saw, ante, chap. 2, how Mr. Ellis 
acknowledges the river to be the Rhone, but urges that it 
must he the Is^re. That efifort may have distressed him : but, 
having passed Grenoble, he says comfortably, " The vale of 
" Gr^sivaudan 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 Gr^sivaudan. It would have 
been more to the purpose if he could have said, " The south 
" bank of Is^re 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 Cheylew. 

Is it enough, then, that the last 33 kilometres of his march 
to the Alps are suited to cavalry ? The Allobroges of the 
histoiy 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 
bis greatest benefit, by accompanying the march with hia 
force through their country. Did that potentate cross the 
Is^re 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 Gr^sivaudan 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 iVithout a semblance of mountain to begin with. 
He has turned sooner into mountain to provide for the elon- 
gation. He says that he gains 26 J miles by it; so we may be 

VOL. I. N 



178 Pohjhim interpreted, [part I v. 

more indulgent to what he calls the length of his march in 
the Alps. 

Allobroges. — ^We have already examined the reasons which 
make Mr. Ellis to place this people south of Is^re in the time 
of Hannibal. He has an additional reason in thinking that 
Allevard was " the chief town of an Allobrogic district, from 
" its appearing to preserve, in its own name, that of the AUo- 
" broges." Accordingly, Hannibal goes that way to the Mau- 
risne, taking possession of the town of Allevard. Treatise,p. 95. 

K.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 Chavane near tJie Ish'e, opposite to Montm4lian, 

Larauza, Ukert, 

These two commentators are to be taken together, as objects 
of criticism, because their ava^okr} is the same. Though one 
begins the 1,400 stadia at Tarascon, and the other at Roque- 
maure, 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 Alps ; and it happened that, from that point to 
the end. Dr. Ukert took Larauza for his model. 

It is most unreasonable to treat a village standing in the 
plain as a beginning of Alps. There are earlier points in a track 
up the Is^re, where mountain might suggest itself, as between 
St Nazaire and Sassenage, after entering the department of the 
Drdme. But, if a traveller along the south shore of Is^re can 
cross the Drac without encountering mountains, he cannot 
pretend to find one obstructing his journey to Aiguebelle, 
dboner than the defile at that place. There is undulation of 



CHAP, rv.] First A Ips : paints 8, of Isere, 17^ 

surface for the few latter miles. At Planaise, Coize^ Malta- 
veme, Bourgneuf, you are passing through an easy country, 
not mountain ; there is no pretence of ZvaympUu 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 five miles above its confluence with 
the Is^re. Larauza himself writes — " Le chemin va sans cesse 
** montant et descendant h, travers ces riantes collines qui 
" se succ^dent depuis La Chavane jusqu'^ la croix d'Aigue- 
'• beUe." 

AUmg the River. — ^As I hinted in a previous chapter, Dr. 
XJkert was not disposed to compromise himself as a scholar 
by making the word irarafiov to represent two or three rivers 
in succession, or to have grammatical reference to any but the 
Bhone. Nevertheless, while he deems the word to refer to 
'Vohaviv, he manages to march up the Is^re. The word for 
this river being in manuscripts " Icaras," not " Isaras," he 
thinks that Polybius blundered upon both rivers above the 
confluence, taking the Bhone for the Icaras, and the Icaras for 
the Bhone ; that Polybius wrote of the Isire as bearing the 
great name Bhone, and deemed the Bhone to be the tributary 
xmder 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 r^ 
/A^v 7^/9 o 'VoZavo^, if Sk ^Kapa^ (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 \pap6r, 
which led lac. Gronovius, in his edition of Polybius, to this 
comment : ^'r^Zio \p€ip6^ — ^non est hujus fluvii ille cursus 
" ut possit cum Alpibus et Bhodano insulam facere. Optim^, 
" 6 y€ay/pai^iKWTaTO^ Chiverius, lib. I Italiae, cap. 38, Isaras 

n2 



180 PvlyUus interpreted. [part iv. 

"reponit: et acutissimus Holstenius errorem addit natum 
" majusculis literis confusis CKOPAC pro OIKAPAC." Dr. 
Ukert does not yield to this ; and says (ii. 688), " We dare 
" not change the name Scaras, as the thing does not admit of 
" proof, and we find in Gaul many named for the same river." 
What then ? This might famish Polybius with an excuse, if 
he really gave the wrong name Icaras ; but it is not believed 
that he did so. If he had written Scaras, he would have 
vrritten 6 ^tcdptv; : but the manuscripts have rrj Si 2xapa^, a 
noun without its article. There is something, therefore, which 
requires correction, and he who resists the correction of Hol- 
stenius should favour us with a better one. (See Schweig- 
hseuser^s Adnotationes ad Pol. iii.) 

Whatever might be in a manuscript, as the title of the 
second river, the Bhone would still be the Bhone ; the Island, 
which is identified by so many characteristics, would still be 
the Island ; and the second river, xuider any name, must be 
that which we call Is^ro. With all due respect for Dr. Ukert, 
his professed all^iance to manuscripts furnishes no rational 
excuse for his dogma upon 9rora/Aov. We give him credit, as 
a scholar, for repudiating the constructions of the many other 
critics, but the Sailure in their contrivances is in no d^ree 
remedied by his own. 

Ten days. Plain far Cavalry, — M. Larauza seems to apolo- 
gise for the very 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 fonnidable stream of 
the Drac, as if it would be the one cause of a tardy prbotta. 
But the apparently candid confession of this difficulty mitet 
not lead us to blink the other objeotioms to such a course ; it 
should rather call attention to tiiem. M. Larauza gives a 
detailed and forcible history, pp. B8, 89, 90^ of the ravages of 
this torrent ; of the efforts made in the time of Louis XIIL by 
the Mar^chal de Lesdiguiires, and in later times, to turn its 



CHAP. IV.] First Alps : poirUa 8. of Ish^e. 181 

course and compress its inundations ; saying at last, " Est-il 
" n^cessaire 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 iiriwiBa, which is rather kept out of sight by 
M. Larauza, I am ready to concede that, if the Carthaginian 
army had gone up the Is&re, 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 firom the Isire, 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 
XJkert and Larauza tolerate the invaders in their maxch below 
Grenoble, and acquiesce in their passage of the Drac ? Why 
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 
Is^re has been shown from the writings of opponents, Greneral 
Si Cyr Nugues, and M. de Lavalette, as well as from those 
of Imr 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 Polyhius inkrprekd. [pakt iv. 

namely the safe surmounting of such 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 (Drac) ne c'est pas conserve dans la geographic 
" ancienne, et que cette riviere parolt avoir ^t^ trfes pen connu 
" des anciens : ce qui pouvait expliquer la silence de Polybe 
" sur le fait de son passage par Tarm^e Garthaginoise." A 
most indiscreet comment ! It admits that such events were 
events to be told ; but suggests that Polybius 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, when he described 
the passage of the Bhone: 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 
Daupliin^ 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. 

Allobroges. 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- 
tiict just before the time of Strabo. 

There is one auxiliary conmient, the merit of which belongs 
wholly to Dr. Ukert. He writes thus : " Dass diese Volker- 
" schaft friiher ein grosseres Grebiet als spater besass und weiter 



CHAP. IV.] First Alps : points 8. of Iskrc, 183 

"gegen Siiden sich ausdehute, als nachher, darf 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 Eilste 
"nahe Land beschrankt." "That this people possessed a 
" larger domain in earlier than 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 IQvi^Ka, or wepl m\€a>V by Stephanus of By- 
zantium, are these words — ^AXXofiptrye^, idvo^ Swardn-aroy 
VaKariKov, m ^AiroXKoSdpo^. 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 foimded 
the city of Marseille, the reputation of a state which r^'oiced 
in the navigation of the Is^re and the Bhone, 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, 
bom (see Fasti Hellenici, 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 knowledge of the Greeks was confiued 



184 Polybius interpreted. [PAKT iv. 

to the couutiy near the coast?" This iiisinaation of ignorance 
18 surely injudicious. In the time of Apollodorus there was 
full intercourse of knowledge between the great stations on 
the Mediterranean : the plays of Terence, which tell the ways 
of Athens, were acted when Apollodorus was in his cradle. 
As to the Allobroges, whose very existence it is sought to 
mystify, it was fifty years before Apollodorus was bom, 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 clinfax of distress in this desperate appeal 
to Apollodorus. 

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 we reach it, we have taken leave of the 
sovereign of the Island, wishing him a prosperous journey 
home, not through a series of hostile nations, nor through 
the prohibitions of imfavouring nature, but over imdulating 
plains, cultivated by those whom he claims as his subjects. 
We pause with Hannibal at the avafioXri : the avafioXi) wpb<f 
Ta9 "AXttca?, and the dvafioXrf r&v "AXTrcwv ; for they are the 
same thing. We pause with him wpo^ ral^ vwepfioXai^. 
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 Dauphin^ has never 
felt the contiguity of mountain. In approaching the Mont 
du Chat, we recognise, in a way not to be mistaken, the 
beginning or first ascent of Alps. 



THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 



PAET V. 

THE MOUNTAIN MARCH. ASCENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

Same theories are not worked 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. 

Havino crossed the Bhone, and reached the beginning of 
Alps, we look forward to the ultimate terminus, and have to 
trace the march till it brings ns to a country beyond the 
mountains, the plain of Italy. This remainder of the march 
should be about 1 ,200 stadia. Polybius says, 7u>iiral Bi r&v 
"AXirefov virepfioXal wepl ;^iXA>U9 Siaxoalov^ : — ^the heights of 
Alps, being the residue of the march, about twelve himdred 
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 inrepfioki] : — 
'' Hannibal arrived into the Padan plain and the nation of 
'' Insubrians, having performed the whole march from Cartba- 
" 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 Polybius interpreted. [part v. 

The initial event 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 commentators, 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 adverse theory, so minutely as has been done to the 
points at which they severally professed to reach the Alps. 
The advocates of 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 Bhone to the Mont du Chat, the advocates 
of the Mont Gen^vre have broken down irremediably : but it 
is still open to the Cenisians, to confess the error of so soon 
deserting the Bhone, and to try their fortime in the Arc valley 
after a march through Chamb^ry. 

There is this reason for attending to the pretensions of the 
Maurienne : arguments 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 Bhone, and follows Larauza through the 
mountains, is proclaimed by one most eminent as " defendinij; 
" his theory with all the light that profoimd geographical 
" learning can throw upon the question." Dr. Arnold, too^ 
though not adopting the Cenis, has said that it suits the 



CHAP. I.] Tfie Mountain March, 187 

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 sympathise with it. 

Termini and Distance, The Little St Bernard, 

It has been seen how the march up the Bhone, 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, " CTest k St Martin que finit la vall^ d' Aoste, et 
" c'est k une demi-lieue de ce village que Ton d^couvre pour 
'' la premiere fois les plaines de Tltalie. On est sorti tout-i^ 
" fait des montagnes que Ton est encore k une lieue et demie 
" d'Ivr<^e." The Oxford Dissertation places St. Martin twelve 
miles below Yerres : and it is said, p. 118 : '' St Martin may 
'' fairly.be called the entrance of the Alps : for two secondary 
" chains of moimtains, 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 fix)m 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 liberatioi^ 



188 Pclyhiua interpreted, [pakt v. 

into plain. In shoit^ it is reasonable to say, that at or near 
St Martin the Carthaginians hailed their escape from the 
mountains. 

Boman armies nsed 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 modem names. 
See Wesseling's Vet, RomarL Itineraria, and Oxford Dissertate 
tian. Appendix, 

Labisco (Chevelu) to Lemincum XIV Chamberri 

Mantala*. . . . XVI near Pierre d'Albigni 

Ad Publicanost . XVI Conflans 

Oblimum .... Ill La Bfitie 

Darantasia . . • XIII near Moustier 

Bergintrum . . XVIIII Bouig St. Maurice 

Arebrigium} . .XXIV Pr^ St. Didier 

Augusta Prsetoria • XXV Aosta 

Vitricium . . . XXV Verres 



99 
M 

99 



» 



155 
Farther to St Martin about 10 



165 R miles. 



I believe these oflBcial 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 Chamb6ry 
up the Isiie would always be carried by Montm^lian. 

t At Conflans (confluentes) the river Arly, probably the boundary 
of the Allobroges, falls into the Isire. 

X Peutinger's Chart gives XII to the summit, in Alpe Grai& : 
VI to Ariolica (la Tuile), and then XVI to Arebrigium— this X 
must be rejected. 



CHAP. I.] The Mountain March, 189 

distance tlirough 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 fifffiarurrai 
of Some ought to have advantage over the adventurous 
traveUer. 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 
dear 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 livre de j^oste. In the mean time, 
if we carry the measurement to about St. Martin, I expect that 
about 1,200 stadia from the dvafioXii is nearer the truth than 
can be gathered from the Itinerary. 

Termini and Distance, Mont Cents. 

The termini, between which Larauza, followed by Ukert, 
measures 1,200 stadia in the Alps, are La Chavane on the 
Is^re and Bivoll See Larauza, 159, and XJkert, ii. part ii. 606. 
La Chavane not being in the livre de paste, they take the 
measurement from Montmdlian, which is on the opposite side 
of the riyer. 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 maicL Wherever you 
apprdiend 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 Gresivaudan without encountering Alps to cbal- 



190 Polf/hius mferjrreted, [part V. 

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 Bivoli, quoting them from the ''Etat 
g^n^ral des Postes du Eoyaume de France, 1814," and reduce 
them to 25. Also they must undergo a further reduction 
near the other terminus, which is erroneous. I believe that a 
traveller is quite out of the moimtains at AviUano, which is 
If postes short of Rivoll De Saussure, § 1,294, says of 
Avillano, '' C'est k peu pr^s Ik que se termine la chaine 
" des Montagnes qui bordent le cot^ meridional de cette 
** valine : la chaine Septentrionale, de Tautre cote de la Doire, 
** se prolonge un peu davantage. Mais de ]k jusqu'k 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 debouche into the open plain, the feet of the 
mountains being bent back and pared away. If these obser- 
vations are just, 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 B. 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, fop 
" instance, the post-book reckons three posts or fifteen miles 



CHAP, l] The Mountain March. 191 

" (nearer sixteen) from Lanslebouig to the stage on the 
"summit of the pass, whereas the real distance is not ten 
" miles ; and of course the old road, by which we ought ta 
*' make our 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 
mont^e to the Chalet de la Meut. In that mont^e 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 
foimd 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 Is^re and 
Avillano. He deviates from the track of M. Larauza at Le 
Cheylas : there quitting the valley of Gr^sivaudan, 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 Tsfere : by this he professes to reach 
Aiguebelle in 26} Roman 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 Polybius interpreted, [part 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 
avafioK'/i to the plain. Polybius says plainly, in c. 56, that 
the passage of the Alps had been eSected 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 Bock during the night. 

9. He reaches 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 attempt to get round it : encamps, and commences 
the repair of the road : which becomes practicable for horses 
by the morning. 



CHAP, a] Ascent, LiUU 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. 



CHAPTEE II. 

AscctU to the Little St, Bernard, The forcing of the Mont du 
Chat, and occupation of Alldbrogian town. Army rests 
(here one day. On fourth day of marching from the totvn, 
conference with natives, who attend them for two days. 
Bourg St. Maurice and environs. The Reclvs. Ravine 
and Roche Blanche. Modem evident, Melville. Brocke- 
don. Arnold. Character of conflict. Summit reacJud on 
the mjorrow, being the ninth day of Alps. 

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 leads to Chamb^ry, will probably 
acknowledge the scene to admit of the incidents related by 
Folybius.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 Hannibal's track : there is a 
notch in the upper line of the moimtain lidge 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 Bomans, who constructed a military way through 
this natural opening. Very great changes and improvements 
have taken place in our own days. Objects which called 

VOL. I. 



194 Polyhius interpreted. [part v. 

attention in 1819 had ceased to be perceptible in 1854. Just 
before I left Aix, my Mend Wickbam came over to me from 
Geneva for a day or two : we went, a large party, across the 
lake with our donkeys ; and, having passed the Col, turned to 
the left under the brow of the moimtain to a farm called La 
Vacherie, from whence the young and active usually climb to 
the Dent du Chat, and enjoy, if atmosphere is propitious, a 
glorious view of Mont Blanc. My friend was greatly struck 
with the magnificent road made since he had examined the 
pass, by the King of Sardinia, and which, keeping near to the 
precipice above the lake, affords by zigzags a convenient ascent. 
He had made the journey with Cramer in 1819 in a two-horse 
car : and, though it was evident to us where their track must 
have been, it was evident only because it could be nowhere 
else : not a vestige was perceptible to the eye, to show that a 
road ever had been : on the contrary, it seemed impossible. 

The Allobroffian town. 

Commentators have desired to identify some known place 
with the town to which the Allobroges had retired for the 
night, and which after their defeat on the following day was 
occupied by HannibaL H. Long, who fights the battle at 
Grenoble before he comes near to his beginning of Alps, 
suggests La Tronche, which seems almost a part of Grenoble. 
Larauza, p. 103, after entering the defile at Aiguebelle, says : 
" Entre Aigentil et Eypierre on aper9oit divers chemins qui 
" conduisent aux villages jet^ fit et Ui dans les montagnes : 
" la ville prise par Annibal devait Stre situ^e par ]k au milieu 
" des monts qu*on a sur la droite, &c." Mr. Ellis, in his track 
to the Maurienne, fixes upon Allevard. Wickham and Cramer, 
after crossing the Mont du Chat, suggest Bourget K called 
upon to give a name to the town spoken of, I would say the 
village of Bordeau: not because there are habitations there 



CHAP. II.] Asce^it. Little St. Bernard, 195 

now, but because the situation is just below the col of the 
Chat I do not, however, perceiye that we need find any 
modem place for representing the town to which the Allo- 
broges retired; if in that day the Gauls of this district 
resembled those who had already found their way into Italy 
(and why should they have surpassed them in refinement?) : 
" They dwelt in imwalled 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 renewed after a dajfs 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 
Chamb^ry, and by Montm^lian up the Isire,) till 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 obtained after the defeat of the AUobrogian leaders was a 
probable thing in the country near Chamb^ry : 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 Montm^lian to Conflans the road ascends 
through a succession of beautiful scenes ; that the inhabitants 
are numerous, and the valley highly cultivated. The Oxford 

♦ Polyb. ii. 17. 
o2 



t€ 

U 
(i 



196 Polyhius interpreted. [part V. 

Dissertation says : " From ChamMiy to Montm^lian the valley 
is large and very rich ; and from thence to Conflans, though 
not quite so wide aa the valley of Gr&ivaudan, it is still very 
large. 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 com or vines."* 

In this pjuij of the progress there is competition between 
the valley of the Isire above Montm61ian, and the valley of 
the Arc, They who will investigate the characters of these 
two approaches to the main chain, will find along the Is^re 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 suffered 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 barreimess of the 
Val d' Aosta from the population of the Province of that 
name. Treatise, pp. 156-7. 

* M. Eeplat's theory carries the march north-east from Conflans 
to Beaufort, thence to the Bonhomme, and over the Col de la 
Seigne down the All^ Blanche. 



CHAP, u.] Ascent. Little St. Bernard. 197 

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 Uable. 

Conference with Natives, 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 the 52d chapter. 
From that place, now Albertville, we suppose the march to 
proceed up the Isfere by the usual road through Moutiers and 
Ayme to Bourg St. Maurice. Some writers desire to fix 
precisely the point of each 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 march, either 
above or below the great bend of the river at Moutiers. The 
circumstance of an important body of the 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, tDl 
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 
diflficult^ afterwards became the line of the Roman way : the 
Itinerary gives 34 miles from Ad Publicanos (Conflans) to 
Bergintrum (Bourg St Maurice): Darantasia (Tarentaise) is 
about midway between those places. 



198 Pdyhius interpreted, [part V. 

Sourg 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 morrow 
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 &om the closer contractions of the valley of the 
Isire. 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 which has been called the plain of Scez, with the 
Graian Alp beyond in the distance. The oblong-looking sur- 
£etce 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 Is^re, 
whose direction has been changed before it conies to Bourg St. 



CHAP, n.] Ascent. Little St. Bernard. 199 

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 Beclus is making its 
way towards you. In the lower right-hand comer of the 
picture is the village of Scez : in the upper left-hand comer 
is the \ev/e6irerpov 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 Is^re, the Yersoy torrent crosses 
you liom the left, bringing the waters from above Chapiu : and 
presently the Beclus comes in, ranning directly towards you 
from the Little St. Bernard : and being crossed, also falls into 
the Is&re : which river has bent his course towards you, from 
the mountains above Scez, among whom his higher stream is 
lost to the eye. 

Uie Rectus. 

The Beclus 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 lude, 
it has at length to stmggle through large masses of rock, now 
confusedly piled together just under the White Bock, which 
stands erect on the left bank, facing the precipitous ascent to 
St. Germain : it escapes through a bridge : and, flowing on 
under the mountain on its right bank with the plain of Scez 
on the left, faUs, as stated above, into the Is^re. 

The present travelling route from Bourg St Maurice to the 
summit, having crossed the Beclus just above where it falls 
into the Isire, comes to Scez. There you leave the valley of 
the Isire, and proceed diagonally over what I call the plain 

* See, in Oxford Dissertation, sketch of the Passage over the 
Little St Bernard. 



200 PolyUui interpreted. [PART V, 

of Scez, passing northwards through the small village of 
Villars, to the comer where the White Bock overhangs the 
Beclus. The road crosses this river by 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. Grermain on a mule in 1854, 1 
have referred to Brockedon's portrait of the Xevicoirerpoy 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 right beyond the village ; and perhaps the sketch was not 
finished on the spot, but part left to be filled up from memory : 
for I can haixlly 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 scenery which I 
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 right bank of the Eeclus without ever crossing 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 ravine and White Eock, is that to which the contro- 
versy directs our attention; being that which has been brought 
into use by modem art, and which seems recorded as matter 
of history 2,000 years ago. Believing that the army entered 
that plain, and that there the assault of the barbarians took 



f 



CHAP. IL] Aactmi. Little St. Bernard. 201 

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 were 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, ^parf^, 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 Soman road behind 
the rock. 

Neither of these passages has ever received a sufficient 
description in any published work ; no modem 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 who 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, (f>dpafy^ or x^P^P^- ^ ^^'1 advert 
to what has been said by modern writers on the two passages 
alluded to. 

In the Oxford Dissertation, p. 91, the description is 
this : — 
" On the left bank, just above the bridge by which the modem 



iC 
4t 



202 PolybiuB trUerpreted, [past V. 

'* road crosses the Reclus, stands a high white rock of gypsum, 
'' called in the country universally La Boche Blanche. The 
'' Beclus 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 comes down through ViUars to Scez. The 
** remains of the Roman road made by Augustus have been 
" discovered in the neighbourhood of Villars, and it probably 
went up this woody ravine in the manner laid down in the 
plan.* From the words used by Polybius, ^/soyya riyit 
" Svc/Sdroy teal xprffipwSrj, which apply extremely well to the 
" bed of the Beclus, we might be tempted to suppose that the 
** army had marched up this torrent : but this passage would 
'' have been so difficult, that I can hardly conceive it possible 
** to have been accomplished. The Boman 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 Beclus 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 cliff; 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 Passage in that work. 



CHAP. II.] Ascait. Little St. Bernard. 203 

with this ^Aparf^ 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 pf 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 
woidd 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 fix)m one stone to another, without 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, 



204 Pdybiut interpreted. [pakt v. 

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 Bock, 
the sketch, in the Oxford Dissertation, gives the line of it, 
and shows the rounded and worn-out end of the Boche Blanche 
standing into the plain of Scez, and a second similar projection 
into it &om the mountain behind the rock, at some distance 
to the south-east, with a line drawn between them to represent 
the Boman track. Afterwards, p. 95, they say : " It had been 
'* in Bonaparte's contemplation to camry a new road up the 
" ravine where the Boman one passed, and we saw traces of 
" the preparations that had been made for it" When I passed 
through Villars to the bridge, I was wholly unconscious of 
this second promontory, or of any sort of opening in 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 Melville first noticed the White Bock, as illustrating 
the statement of Polybius. His notes have never been pub- 
lished, but M. De Luc, who had them, writes thus :* — " Ces 
circonstances et une autre dont je vais faire mention, firent 
juger au G^n^ral Melville, lorsqu'il traversa cette montagne, 
" que, dans le tems d'Annibal, la route ne traversoit pas le 
" torrent, mais qu'elle montoit le long de sa rive gauche. 
" D'aprte cette opinion, form^e par la lecture de Polybe et 
** rinspection des lieux, le g^n^ral auroit voulu monter par 
" ]k pour examiner cette valine de plus pr^ : mais son guide 
s'y opposa, en disant que c'^toit un vieux chemin tr^ 
mauvais, abandonn^ depuis longtemps, et que les contre- 
** handlers seuls fr^quentaient : il ajouta, que depuis la route 
" actuelle qui suit la rive droite du torrent, il pourroit aisd- 
" ment juger de la nature de Tancienne. Le Gdndral Melville 

• 2d edition. 1825. P. 173. 



€€ 
4€ 



it 
U 



CHAP. II.] Ascent. 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 escarp^e." 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 which face the 
Roche Blanche, and can look back to the exit from the second 
ravine said to be behind that rock. 

Mr. Brockedon has spoken of Hannibal's passage not only in 
his admirable work on the " Passes of the 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 the old 
" Soman road as the intended line." I remember hearing 
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 an^fftcstice of the Beclus 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 modem authors, which seem 
to afiPect the question on the ravine of Polybius. On the 
XevKiireTpov, I should say that, whatever ascent of Alps may 
pretend to be that of Hannibal, it ought to exhibit a rock 
corresponding witli that of Polybius : he rarely notices local 
pecidiarities, 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 XevKthrerpoy : not all. M. Larauza 



206 Polybius interpreted^ [PART v. 

found it in the Bocher de la Barmette between Termignon 
and Lanslebouig. Mr. Ellis found it in the rock of Baune, 
between St Jean de Maurienne and S. Michel ; and we 
accept the whiteness 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 Gems, '' 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 Gen^vre, intimates, Janv. 1819, that he could 
find one for his theory if he tried : '' II n'existe point de 
** passage dans les Alpes oii Ton ne trouv&t quelque roche 
'' blanche, pmsqu'il y a de gypses blanch&tres sur tons les 
" cols de la chaine." M. Larauza says of this assertion : 
" EUe est, je crois, fort hasard^ : 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 Geu^vre, 
''je n'ai remarqu^ nulle part de montagne de gypse dont 
" la blancheur fat sensible." The Little St. Bernard is not 
among M. Larauza's exclusions. 

M. Letronne, however, seems to deny that XevKoirerpov is a 
white rock : he relies on the translation by Schweighaeuser, 
** deserta nudaque petra," and says : " II est ftU^heux pour cette 
" d^uverte du Gr^n^ral Melville, que dans Polybe le mot 
XevKoirerpov, qui revient plusieurs fois, soit pris comme le 
Ti^etyrrhpa des autres auteurs, pour Xelo^ Xl0o^, et ne signifie 
rien autre chose que roche nue, escarp^e : c'est ce qui est 
prouv^ surtout par un passage du livre X." "Eevient 
plusieurs fois " is a very rash expression : the followers of 
M. Letronne are welcome to conceive that Xevtco^ may mean 
" smooth ; " but, whatever it means, it recurs in Poly bins, 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 



ti 



CHAP, n.] Ascent, Little St. Bernard. 207 

were obliged to proceed along the bottom of the valley, an 
ascent S$* avrSv r&v \evKoir'Tp<Dv was not impracticable to 
the light-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 Xevsco^ 
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 Xevk6<; ; the primary sense is " conspicuous," 
from Xao», video. The meanings " bright " and " wliite " are 
not fjftr removed : those terms represent the efiPect 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 XevAcc&Xevo^ ; but we 
do not construe XevivcuXevo^ *'llpv» bare-armed Juno. 

I believe that the word XevKmerpov, 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 Xev/iATrerpa on the coast of 
Italy, of which Strabo says, p. 269, dwb Bi rou 'Friylov wXiovri 
7r/>09 &» AjevKoirirpav KoXovaiy axpav dirb 7^9 XP^^* " They 
" call the promontory, which you approach coasting southward 
** irom Bhegium, Leucopetra from its colour." So \evKcL 6fyrf 
in Crete are reputed to have their name from their constant 
covering of snow. Theophrastus says, iv. 1, iv Kpi^nf yovv 
^octIf iv Toh ^iBaloi^ Spea^ Kal roU AevKoU tcoKovfUroi^, 
oSirep aifSiiroTe iKkelwe^ %ifli>r, tcvirdpirrov eiyeu, " 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 in the same way — 



208 Poli/bius interpreted. [part v. 

" Quos Albos vocant, unde nives nunquam absunt." If 
Polybius had lived a century later, and had been the friend 
of Csesar instead of Scipio, he might have applied XevKoirerpov 
to the Dover clifiP, and we should have construed Xeuxo^ white. 
For the same sufficient reason the rock in question has been 
called Eoche Blanche. 



Dr. Arnold 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. Arnold must not be left imnoticed ; 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 the marcL His feeling towards them is told in 
avWTreKpldff rlOeaOai <f>i\lay wpo<; avrov^. iii c. 52. 

Some may infer from the word xadrjyefiSa'iy, 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 M Kadrffi^ovreu 



CHAP, a] Ascent. Little St. Bernard. 209 

Sut rinrmv roiovTioVy &c. The useful spies, who ascertained 
the enemy's plans at the first Alps, also called guides, 
xaOf/yovfUvoi, were in a trust superior to that of the bar- 
barians of the Is&re : 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 Is^re. 

Dr. Arnold may be considered as assenting to our march 
till it ultimately quits the Is^re, though he is not prepaid so 
to construe Polybius. He had examined these scenes more 
than once : and it woidd 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 cUff," but " cliff overhanging 
the defile " rather accords with Eoche Blanche and the Eeclus. 

Dr. Arnold does not otherwise favour our XevKOTrerpov : he 
says, iiL 480, note M. : — '* I lay no stress upon the Eoche 
" Blanche : it did not strike me, when I saw it, as at all con- 
" spicuous : nor does \6VK07rerpov 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 

vou I. P 



210 Polyhim interpreted, [part v. 

follows SchweighsBuser and Letronne. But the rock is not 
limestone: I am assured that it is common plaster-stone; 
gypsum ; hydrated sidphate of lime. I have had opportunity 
to get one for myself, and have specimens from H. Long and 
Brockedon. When broken, it has the whiteness of fine loaf 
sugar : and though the brilliancy will not be sustained under 
exposure to climate, we may think that a lengthened precipice 
of such material was well 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 the 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 Beclus, 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 
accoimt. 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 pi-eparations for overwhelming 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 groimd through both ravines, he may throw con- 
clusive light on these diflaculties. 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.] A scent Little St. Bermrd. 211 

Character of the Conflict 

Having collected some statements of modem 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 tho 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 sav^d 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 — lorcfai/ rffv iiri^pay r&v 
/3apl3dp<op. It seems that, before the colimin 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 deliberately prepared themselves for 
handling their weapons, rocks and stones. It became then 
essential that Hannibal's 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 Eeclus. If the mass of the 
barbarians had not thus been kept back, the artillery which 
molested the advance in the defile would have received 

p 2 



212 Polyhms irUerpreUd. [PABT V. 

continual reinforcements, and the passage would not easily 
have been purged of their harassing assaults. 

It is clear that the natives never attacked front to front : if 
the dwellers on the Is^re 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 valley 
of the Is^re, 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, the 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. 
Still 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, il] Asce^U. LUtte St. Bernard. 213 

open mountain. This sketch of the engagement will be found 
warranted by the words of the history : 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, &a"if dyoffKocrO^yai roy 
'Avplfiav fiera r^v ^fiia-ela^ Swdfiefio^ WKrepeva-cu Trepl rl 
Xevtcmerpoy oxypiv %a>/>l9 r&v Xmrfov ivol r&v inro^vytc^y, 
i<f>ehp€vovTa tovtoi^ — " 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 
att£U)k on the van with which the conflict had begun. I 
conceive that those first aggressors must have been rooted out 
from their positions of ofiTence 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 wepi XevK&ireTpov occurs, seems to 
have been accepted, as showing that Hannibal, by his occupa- 
tion of the summit of a clifiT, protected the passage of the 
army during the night. In the Oxford Dissertation it is said : 
" The position of the Boche 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 overhanging 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 



214 Polybius 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 probable that, after the struggle by which the 
ravine must have been purged of its barbarian occupants, a 
sufficient number 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 avarfKoaSrivat w/crepevaai irepX XevKSirerpov convey 
to me is this : that Hannibal .kept possession, through 
the night, of the surrounding groimd to which this cliff 
belonged, the ground 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. There 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 free to pursue their onward course to the summit. 
It may be that the epithet oxypSv, tenable, has inclined 
some to think chiefly 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 vvKTepeva-ai irepl 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 that some centuries ago it must have extended far 



CHAP, iil] Ascent, Mont Cents, 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 Bock may have 
been subject to the daily spoU of house-decorators and others, 
ever since its neighbourhood came to have a human popida- 
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 difTerent points : they quit 
it at different points: the XevKoirerpov of one is in special 
contradiction of the Ti^evKATrerpov of the other : and they 
move over different summits. 

Larauza placed the dva/3o\if \'\m'€<op at La Chavane : and^ 
in doing so, desired to gain three posies 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 dvafiokff "AXireayv, He says himself (p. 66) of all the pre- 
vious ground from La Chavane, — " L'on n'est pas dans les 
Alpes." 



216 Polybius interpreted. [PART V. 

But when M. Larauza gets to the defile of Aiguebelle as a 
beginning of Alps, there is a question whether he finds such a 
mountain as corresponds with that which the Allobroges had 
to defend. We say that the Carthaginians fought their way 
over a mountaixL This M. Larauza denies : he calls it, p. 98: 
'* entree des Alpes, et non la montde des Alpes.'' ^ Si le mot 
** avafioKri d^igne quelquefois Taction de traverser en montant, 
" il pent aussi designer celle de traverser en p^n^trant/' He 
hardly tolerates the word as connected with the idea of ascent ; 
saying, — " Polybe se sert en g^ndral pr^f^rablement du mot 
virep^oXri (yid. cap. 53) pour d^igner la mont^e des Alpes." 
This is a mistake : the word vTrepfioKi^ is used twice in that 
chapter, and in both instances means imequivocally the 
heights themselves. 

M. Larauza would have been more prudent, had he been 
content with the metaphor by which dvafioXi]. 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 dvafioK^ : when we speak of " striking up" as 
the beginning of a musical performance, we translate dvajSoki^. 
In relating a fox-chase, if we had to find a Greek word for the 
throwing ofiT, it would be dvafioXi] : listening to the leading 
hound one might say, as of the minstrel, ave/SaXXero koKov 
delSet^y. 

M. Larauza might thus have had a pretence for b^inning 
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 Montm^lian. 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 Allobroges 
was the first day of moimtain, not the third. Larauza objects 
hci*e to the term " mountain," saying, — " II s'agit non d'une 



CHAP, m.] Ascent, MoiU Cenis. 217 

montagne, mais d'un d^fil^/' When he reads that the Allo- 
brogiaii chiefis were occupying roif^ tvicalpov^ rovov^ Si &v 
&€V Toi>^ wepl TOP ^Avvlfiay kut dvaryicrfv iroitlaOai t^f 
dvafioXijv, 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 avafioKi) "kXiretiiv, 
disclaim mountain. My fiiend Henry Long translates tto^mt^cu 
r^v avo^oXif V "* to make a passage." M. Larauza also finds hi 
theory of level ground to be strengthened by hirjkBe ra arevii 
and Siijwe rd^ Sva^mpla^. 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 arepd of 
the Polybian description are not on the flat level plain of a 
river : the very contrast with the plain which they had quitted, 
?o>9 ydp, &C. shows that they were now in mountain instead of 
plain ; and we read that the army, after pervading the oTcvd, 
continued its progress 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^dwrea-ffai 7^9 iropeia^), 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 
assault 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 wounded and affrighted 
animals. 

This tale is not well fitted to the pass above Aiguebelle. 
According to Polybius, the occupation of the pass was gained 
in the absence of the enemy, who had withdi'awn to their 
town. That success was achieved in the night ; and at Aigue- 
beUe the moniing would have found the army in free meadow 



218 Polj^nMB itUarpfdei. [faict T. 

ground. M. de Saussure observes, § 1191, that, if M. Abauzit 
was right in thinking that Hannibal went up the Arc, his 
battle with the Allobroges was probably between Aiguebelle 
and St. Jean de Manrienne. He says, § 1187 : " Aiguebelle 
" est un joli bourg, situ6 au milieu d'un terre-plein assez 
*' dtendu." § 1191 : "La partie inf^rieure de la valine de TArc, 
" jusqu'k Aiguebelle, est large et h, peu prfes droite. Presqu' 
" en sortant d' Aiguebelle, on rencontre un grand rocher qui 
'' remplit k peu pr^s toute la largeur de la vallee. Au-delit 
" 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, h, une demi-lieue d' Aiguebelle, le 
'* chemin est de nouveau serr^ entre montagne et la riviere, au 
*' point qu'on a ^t^ 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 i^ virephe^Uov, to put an end to the struggle : 
and the combat into which he came down was itself carried 
on at a great elevation ; for the damage which ensued was 
mainly from precipice on the edge of which it was carried on. 
Even when the 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 of 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 proceeded to the occupation of the enemy's 
town : the army there rested for the whole of the next day. 
Nature then became propitious to the advance of the invaders. 
They could not have enjoyed that acr^aXeui in the valley of 
the Arc. De Saussure, having mentioned the second gorge, 
proceeds thus: "A cet dtranglement succMe une seconde 



CHAP, in.] Ascent, Mont Cents, 219 

" plaine, apris laquelle la valine se resserre pour la troisi^me 
" fois : mais il seroit trop long de d^tailler les nombreiix d^- 
" fil^s que Ton passe dans cette route, et de noter combien 
'* de fois les ^tranglemens de la valine, et les sinuositds de 
" r Arc forcent k passer d'une rive k 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 k y comprendre la seconde 
" gorge que Ton traverse k une demi-lieue plus loin, et qui 
" ofiFre k peu pr&3 les mSmes caract^res que la prdc^dente." 
Now there is an inconvenience: not that it is difl&cult 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 imderstand 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 laterally, 
as it imwound 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 itranylement, would have done 
their best to make use of the second, or the third, or the 
fourth. The route to Chamb^ry ofiered them no such re- 
sources : resistance had ceased from the Mont du Chat. 

The Nine Days. 

M. Larauza in his computation of time produces confusion 
by a ^^Tong use of the numeral adjective, third, fourth, fifth, 
<kc. I have in a previous chapter of this Part assigned to 



220 Polybius inUrprtteJi [PART V. 

each of the fifteen days of moimtain 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 
snccess at the Pass, pushed on to the enemy's town beyond, 
and occupied it The second day he remained encamped 
there. He marched on firom the town on the third day of 
Alp& 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 peace, 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 quatri^me depuis son 
entree dans les Alpes.** According to Polybius, it was their 
second day of Alps. Then he says, '' Le jour suivant, le 
'* cinqui&me depuis son entree dans les Alpes, il l^ve le camp, 
** et se porte en avant" This was obviously his third day, 
not the fifth of Alps. Then he says, p. 104 : " H marche 
^ tranquille pendant trois jours ; mais au quatri^me (le 
" huitiime depuis son entr^ dans les Alpes) il se vit expose 
" aux grands dangers." — eh; Kivhvvov^ irapeyivero fAeyoKov^. 

This is a deceptive statement : the fourth day fix)m 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- 
holding 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 which is introductory to the incidents which are 
coming, and insinuates the misconstruction of Polybius on 
KivSvvovf;, which has since been handled in a bolder way by 
Mr. Ellis. The day which Polybius designates as TerafnaSos, 



CHAP, in.] Ascent. Mont Cknis. 221 

is the day of the conference and treaty, the supplies and the 
hostages ; and, as Laraoza makes this his eighth of Alps, he 
really leaves out <^ his reckoning the two in which the 
natives followed the march before the assault was made ; for 
on the ninth day of Alps, which followed 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, oinits, 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 stiU 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 huiti&ne jour, c'est-k- 
'* dire le quatri^me depms le depart de St Jean-de-Maurienne 
" Tarm^ se sera trouv^e," &c. Here he gives account of the 
two days, which he has already excluded from his computa- 
tion. K.B. — ^Dr. Ukert accepts Larauza's results : but has the 
discretion not to exhibit the reasonings on which they are 
founded. 

TJie Assault and the XevKoirerpov. 

M. Larauza suggests a rival XevKinrerpov 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 XevKcnrerpov of the history. 

The hypothesis is set forth in these words, p. 115 : — " I 



222 Polyhius interpreted. [PART V. 



« 
ti 



€t 



« 






est impossible de n'etre pas frapp^ de Tideutitd des lieux, 
lorsqu'aprfes avoir pass^ Braman et Tennignon, Ton arrive 
" au d^fil^ que Ton traverse h, trois quarts d'heure de marche 
" de ce dernier village, une demi-lieue en avant de Lans- 
" le-bourg. Les divers details de locality, foumis par 
" rhistorien, se trouvent rassembl^s de mani^re k ne laisser 
" aucnn doute. La vallte se resserrant en cet endroit y forme 
" nne gorge ^troite et profonde : le chemin se trouve bord6 
" sur la droite par le pr^ipice, au fond duquel coule le tor- 
rent de TArc : sur la gauche, par d*^normes rochers nuds 
et arides, souvent escarpes et roides, d'oii les Barbares 
" pouvaient ^eraser les Carthaginois obliges de passer im- 
** m^diatement au-dessous. A droite de la route, et de Tautre 
*' c6t4 de TArc, se voit le XevKowerpoy, 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 
" ^clatante dans toute sa partie sup^rieure enti^rement nue et 
*' ddcouverte, tandis qu'au dessous, il est convert de sapins, 
*' et pr^sente, depuis le milieu jusqu'i sa base, sur un plan 
l^girement incline, une espfece de talus qui se prolonge 
jusqu'i Thermignon, et oil Ton fait venir du bled, du 
" seigle et de Tavoine. H est probable qu'Annibal remonta 
" cette petite plaine pour venir se porter sur le rocher blanc, 
" qui la termine et la surmonte. La partie sup^rieure de ce 
" rocher offre un plateau assez ^tendu. Des gens du pays 
" me dirent que Napoleon y avait fait passer im chemin 
" practicable pour Tartillerie. Annibal auroit done pu se 
" porter li avec \me partie de son corps d'armde, le reste 
*' s*4tendant si Ton veut, soit sur le glacis qui se trouve en 
" dessous, prot^gd par les bois de sapins qui couvrent cette 
'' partie de la montagne, soit encore sur la petite plaine qui 
" descend du cot^ de Termignoa On voit que c'etait 1^ 






CHAP, iil] Ascent. Mont Cents. 223 

" pour lui Tine position forte et sftre, de laquelle il pouvait 
" prot^er la marche de son ann^e, et atteindre facilement, k 
" coups de flSches et de pierres, les Barbares qui se montraient 
" sur les hauteurs oppos^es." — Histoire 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 parallel 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'arm^e 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 arfcilleiy, 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 imder 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, all 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*armde, which he separates, I presume, at Ter* 
mignon, could meet again till they got beyond Lanslebourg. 



22|t PolyUus interpreted, [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 
^(upl^ T&v tmrc^v, i^eSpevoyra, en'uf>opdy, and other expres- 
sions, that they had come to close quarters with the enemy, 
and that the continuity of their line of march was broken, so 
as to cause an interval between the van and the rear of the 
column. 

I get no information concerning such a track on the left 
bank of 'the Aic from friends who have crossed the Cenis, or 
from any source besides the conmient 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 modem artillery : — ^his means of reference 
might have induced him to search out the occasion when such 
thing had or might have taken place. K 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 
Kapoleon, when this approach to Italy was the object of his 
care, would have so established it. 

M. Larauza looked out for a piece of gypsum within a mo- 
derate distance from the summit of the Cenis : and no one will 
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 Folybian 
narrative, whether by obscure insinuations of modem events 



CHAP. IV.] Ascent. Little Moiit Cents. 225 

or unexplained conjectures upon ancient ones, does not in- 
cline one to believe that this plcUeau de gypse ever bore the 
standard either of Hannibal or Napoleon. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Ascent to the Little Mont Cenis. Mr. Ellis and the Bock of 
Bawne. The CombcU. Evasion of the Text. Swm/maries, 
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 inarch is, as we have seen, from Le 
Cheylas on the Is^re, by Allevard and La Rochette, 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 XevKOTrerpov 
of Polybius. It has generally been understood, that the 
XevtcoTrerpov 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. Q 



226 Polyhius iKterprekd, [PABT V. 

in niouutains, before he allows mountain march to begin. 
Striking fi'om the la^ 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 the White Kock, 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 contiivances for sub- 
verting the generally received chronology of the march, 
requiring five days, instead of a fraction of one, b^ween tlie 
XevKoirerpop 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) : " Ko 
" danger was now to be apprehended on the rear : the heavy 
" infantiy there held the Gauls in check, and Hannibal was 
** enabled to devote liis personal efforts to the safety of the 
** van. For this purpose it must have been necessary to gain 
" possession of the heights above the slopes, where the 
'' Carthaginians had suffered so severely from rocks and stones. 
*' One half of the Carthaginian aimy, tliat is to say, about 
" 20,000 men, were led on by Hannibal in person against the 
*' Gauls on the mountains, and succeeded eithe>r in driving 
" them back, or in manoeuvring 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 ofT 
*' 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 raWne,** 



CHAP. IV.] Ascent. Little MorU Cents. 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 having 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. Ellis thinks 
that the protection which the word i<l>eSp€voyra 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 i<f>€SpeAoyra>y 
in 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 in 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 Hannibal's 20,000 
men are seen posted on the heights, and above them six 
substantial bodies of the enemy commanding their position 
from still loftier heights. The plan is drawn in much detail : 
but Polybius is not to be recognised either in the plan or the 
Treatise. The idea of wtcrepevaai irepl XevK6ireTpov is ex- 
cluded 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 
from west to east below the end of the rock. It must be two 
miles further to the north, where Mr. ElUs's 20,000 men are 

g2 



€t 



it 



228 Polybivs inUrpreUd. [PABT V. 

drawn ap on the heights, and the enemy above them. If this 
plan is to be regarded, it results that Hannibal, instead of 
passing the night itepX XevKowerpov, marched away firom it 
two miles and more, in time to pass the night somewhere elsa 
Nevertheless Mr. Ellis thinks (p. 41) that the rock was 
noticed as a natural monument of the battle fought around it : 
that Hannibal remained encamped near the rock during the 
fourth night, and arrived on the summit of the pass ou the 
ninth morning. 

Evasion of the Text of Polyhms. 

Mr. Ellis announces in his Preface, that he *' conducts the 
" investigation on the principle of trying the claims of every 
" pass by the text 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 c. 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 Bbone 6a>9 7rpo9 rifv avafioXriv 
T&v "AKirewy ; 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, rjp^aro t^9 7rpo9 ra^ 
'!\X7r€*9 dya^oXrj^, 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 Ehone ; 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 Mmt Cents. 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 dvafioXi^ 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, rrjv avafioXrjv t&v "AXiretov r^v eh 

The reader is then informed, that the narrative will be given 
in full firom the passage of the Bhone 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 dvafioKii 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 dvafioXrj of the history. He makes that 
very important point of the march to be, not the dvafioXi} 
r&v iWircoii/, but a town within the Alps, — ^the town to which 
the enemy retreated in the night from their custody of the 
ev/calpoi riiroi, 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 
modem one." 



230 Polybius interpreted, [pakt T; 

afterwards dispenses with two more. He is meditating to 
construct an argument in which that change will be of im- 
portance. Not that Mr. Ellis writes in avowed correction of 
Polybius : he hardly informs the reader that he is making an 
alteration. But he does make it ; the cause being, that his 
respect for the historian is superseded by his own theory of 
the Bock of Baune, and by a fancy on the Polybian style 
invented for aiding it The variation itself is to make ''a 
certain town " the terminus at the first Alps instead of the 
avafioKfj : and the object of the change is to produce a five 
days' march instead of one of a few hours between the 
\€viciiiFerpw and the summit. 

These consequences of Mr. Ellis's injurious meddling vdtb 
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, which 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 first says that there is a peculiarity in the style 
of Polybius : that, before entering into the details of an events 
he gives a short statement or summary of the occurrences, and 
then narrates the circumstances at length : that the short 
summary serves 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 simimaries, which he 
shall distinguish by printing them in capital letters. He 
notifies the change which he makes in dividing the subject, 
thus : *' The first division will consist of the march from the 

* The portion which Mr. Elhs translates be^ns after crossing 
the Rhone, and, omitting some parts, ends with the assault on the 
TaurinL 



CHAP. IV.] Ascent Little Moiit Cents. 231 

*' passage of the Khonc to the island : the second, the march 
" firom the island to a certain defile and town at the com- 
" mencement of the Alps : the third, the march from the town 
** to the neighbourhood of a certain XevKoirerpoy ixypov, 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 h 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 
Deed 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 i " 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 Bhone and the 
Alps in c. 49 and 60 : 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 t It seems to me, that what 



232 Polybiu$ interpreted. [PAKT V. 

is called Summary, 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, irpo^ fjv a^iKOfieyo^, &c., give fects 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. Ellis 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 out 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, Polybius 
" arrests the march of the army at the confluence of the Is^re 
" with the Bhone, measuring the distance up to that point." 
Polybius does nothing of the kind. Hannibal's distances have 
not been measured since he left Spain ; and Polybius never 
measures the march up to the confluence at all. If we desire 
to measure it for 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 Ehone 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 Bcdfiaai<: to the island. 
The statement that Polybius, before relating the transactions 
at the island, arrests 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 the Ehone to the arrival in the plain, will see 



CHAP. IV.] Ascent Little Mont Ceuis. 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 on 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 
Sunmiaries 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, lus 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 " fjx)m 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 evxalpoi rinoi ; 
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 Poli/bius intei'jyreted, [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 Is^re, must be taken as terminating, 
'* not at the point where Hannibal left the Isire (Mr. Ellis's 
" 7r<nafi6si)f but at the town of the Allobroges, which he cap- 
" tured after passing through the defile at the commencement 
" of the Alpine ascent." He proves this, by saying, " The 
fifteen days of Alps are dearly reckoned from the towa" I 
say, on the other hand, that Polybius calls the terminus 
avafioXrj ; 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 critic 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 Isire to the plains of Italy ; stating 
it thus, in two parts : I. The ten days* march to the town 
of the Allobroges, including the halt at that place. II. The 
fifteen days' march across the Alps, front the tovm 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 constmcted. In the chapters where 
Mr. Ellis discusses 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.] Asc€7iL Little Mmit Genis. 233 

the end of the fifth chapter, following the journal ; which is 
firamed according to Mr. Ellis's improvements on the text, or, 
as he expresses it, "elicited from Polybins." 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 
primd facte 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 Taunni : 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 Soman miles from 
" the junction of the Bhone and Is^re, 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 
Bock of Baune into so much favour with him who discovered 
it. It is this : " The White Bock 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 Cheylaa* 

* It IB right to say that some have approved of these oonditioot. 



236 Polylnus interpreted. [part v. 

It is now to be shown, bj what series of contrivances 
Mr. Ellis makes the Bock of Baune to be the XevKinr^pov of 
Folybius. I will then attend him to the summit His fifth 
Sommaiy, which he calls *^ Ciicumstances which took place 
while the armj remained on the summit^* will belong to 
another head of mj subject 

Two First Days of Alps removed hy Mr, EUis. 

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 work 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 dav, it means the 
ninth of the fifteen : this is required by the context of the 
nairative. 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 the fifteen days of Alps, by beginning with the 
day of storming the defile and forcing the passage along the 
edge of the precipices, and afterwards occupying the enemy's 
town. Hannibal stayed an entire day encamped at the town : 
this was his second 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 two days before they made attack. The attack 
therefore was on the eighth day of Alps. 

Mr. EUis 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, who is also a member of the Alpine Club. 



CHAP. IV.] Ascmt. LitUe 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, which 
was the eightL Mr. Ellis's ninth day is the fifth day after 
that of the assault B^inning 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 rerapram 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 
fjp^aTo T§9 'Tpb^ Ta9 "AXTTCi? dpafioX^^. 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 
deemed the previous day, in the night of which Hannibal with a 
select body occupied posts in the absence of the enemy. In that 
case, Mr. Ellis has omitted one day more than I charge him with. 



238 Polyhius inUrpreted, [PART T. 

** the confluence of the Bhone and Is^re, that Haonibtil 
^ encamped before the heights occupied by the Allobroges : 
*' on the same night he seized the abandoned hei^itB : on the 
** ninth the defile was passed, and the town captuied : on the 
'' tenth the Carthaginians remained in the neighbourhood of 
'' the town.** Thus Mr. Ellis ekes out his ten days of irapa 
voTOfioy with forcing the heights of Alps, and enjoying a 
well^eamed 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 the Alps, &om the point where Hannibal left 
"* the Is^ (the irorafiSy of Mr. EUis) ; so that it might be 
" natural to expect that the fifteen days occupied in that 
" passage would be reckoned &om the same point" How- 
ever, Mr. EUis finds something still more natural : he pro- 
ceeds — ''But from the rest of the narrative, it seems plain 
'* 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, ifp^aro t^9 irpos rat; 
"'AXireifi avafioXrh; ; and this accords with the division made 
in c. 3U, between the fourth and fifth sections of the entire 
march. 

Having ratified his doctrine by his three assertions, — 1, 
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 sayB (p. 33) : " This town no doubt was near 
** to the Isfere, 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. 9L 



CHAP. IV.] AseetU. Little Mont Cents. 239 

what things were to be done : they stonned the mountain : 
tliey achieved their victory after a severe encounter above 
the precipices, and then occupied the enemy's town on the 
other sida It required a day to perform this work : what 
matters the distance? It was mountain work, not river work : 
Alps, not iirlireha : 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 by Mr. Ellis's reckoning. 

Mr. Ellis proceeds to dismiss two more days of Polybius, 
in order to acconmiodate the Bock of Baime. 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 reraprcuo^ represents the day of tlie attack near 
the \€VK(nr€Tpov. 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 Pblybius 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 peace. 
They make plausible representations, furmsh 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 



€t 
it 
€t 



240 Polybius interpreted. [part v. 

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 the 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 — rjBtf Sk rerapraio^ &v, ai0i^ ek klvBuvov^ 
wapeyivero fieyakov^. 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 the 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 encoimter, or 
" such weapons." 

Had Mr. Ellis so read Polybius 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 ovm translation. 

The evident object is to shorten the march to the Xcv/co- 
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, which was two 
days later. In short, he does not recognise that a man can 
be in danger of being killed till he is killed. So, as soon as 
the word icLvhivo^ appears in the t^xt, he deems the conflict 



CHAP, rv.] Ascent Little Mont Oenis. 241 

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 meaning of the narrative, with clearness, simply, and 
vnthotU confusion; and to show that the interpretation usually 
received is lax, strained, and without foundaiion, — 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 difii- 
" culties of the way, above and below the rock; must be 
" taken into account. Aru)ther condition for the determina- 
" tion of Hannibal's route is thus obtained !" 

Mr. Ellis, in his zeal for applying Ki,vivvov^ to produce the 
battle in his third summary, appeals for illustration to the 
use of Ki,vivvoL^ 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 this ' 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 armSi 
VOL. I. R 



242 Polybius interpreted. [part v. 

** him at the commenoement of the ascent of Alps." This is 
quite a mistaka No attack had been made. The situation 
of danger in which he found himself is explained by Polybius 
to be in the changing character of the country, by which the 
cavalry lost its terrors ; in the departure of the allied force, 
and in the enemy'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 the day of 
danger to which he appeals in the plain of Dauphin^, were 
both exempt &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. ElUs might 
acknowledge that the fifteen days occupied in the passage of 
the Alps should be reckoned from the dvafioXr}, or beginning 
of Alps. I showed him that Terapraio^ was not the fourth 
of Alps ; was to be reckoned from the town, and that it could 
not be the day of the battla In his defence (Joum. of PhiL 
No. vL 317), he puts his blunder on ivvaTaioq into a new 
shape, as follows : — 

" After the halt at the town, the first period mentioned is 
" one of four days (rerapTalos:). At the termination of this 
" period Hannibal feU into great peril (The battle of the 
*' Bock, according to my view ; a conference with some Grauls, 
" according to Mr. Law's view.) The point from which this 
" rerapToio^ is reckoned is not stated." 

" The next date mentioned by Polybius gives a period of 
" nine days {iwaralosi). 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 iwaralof: is reckoned." 



tt 



CHAP. IV.] Ascent. Little Mont Cents. 243 

It is not safe to lead 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 rerapralo^ is plainly reckoned 
** bom the town." Camb. Joum. of PhiloL iL 317. 

Never was a bolder specimen of the petitio pHncipii. Our 
assent is begged to two miserable errors, without an attempt 
to substantiate them : — 1. " The term of nine days mrist be 
" reckoned either from the banning or end of the term of 
" the four days." 2. " It mttst 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 ewaraio^ has no relation to the reckoning 
of rerapTcuo^. The fifteen days stated by Polybius as the 
sum of the mountain march, comprehend the whole of that 
march, beginning with the dvafioKi] : 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 rerapraio^ 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, avOt^ 
&PP41 ; and therefore it would be the sixth of the fifteen. So 

r2 



244« Polyhius intejyreted, [part v. 

in the descent, the word TptraJo? is a reckoning fix)m the 
broken way, and expresses no fraction of the fifteen. But 
iwarcuo^ 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 avafioXtj. If common sense, exercised upon the mean- 
ing of words, did not interpret iwaraio^, we might appeal to 
the translation of such ideas by Livy : nono die in jugum 
Alpium perventum est — quinto decimo 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 dvafioXif 
''AKvetov, 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 
other. 

If any should be misled by reraprcuo^ being called the 
first period, and iwaralo^ the second period, and should fail 
to detect the fedlacy of the dogma, that the term of nine days 
must be reckoned either fix)m 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 b^in with renewing the 
march on leaving the town ; and, if you reckon the term of 



CHAP. IV.] Ascent LiUle Mont Cenis. 245 

nine days from the beginning of the four days, the four 
become included in the nine, and the whole gives a reckoning 
only from leaving the town (adOi^ &p/ia). 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 ia 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 reraprcufyi, I objected (p. 22) to lus not reckoning the two 
first days of Alps, which preceded those four days. I charged 
him with knowing the word reraprdio^ 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 Bock. I called upon him to 
meet that question. What is his answer? He does not 
surrender the fatal error of reraprcuo^ 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 
— " rerapraio^ ia plainly reckoned fix)m 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 this admission" If Mr. Ellis should 
truly state the consequences of rerapraSo^ 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. 



246 Polybius interpreted. [part V*~ 

Mr, Ellis* s Progress from the \evK6irerpov to the Summit 

Let us now attend this critic to the end of his nine day& 
After the battle of Baune, fought on the fourth day of Alps, 
he makes Hannibal encamp for the night near the Sock, 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 XsvkS^ 
TFerpov and the summit. I will give them as they appear 
with their details in Mr. Ellis's translation : — 

Part of Chapter 63, shotving Fifth and Sixth Summaries, Se, 

Hannibal having on the following day, when the 
enemy had retired, rejoined his cavalry and baggage- 
animals, led on his army to the highest summits of the 
Alps, vhthout 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 ofif the 
U^ Jl., «JL, &0M the «». «.d «„etoe. ftom 
the van of the line of march. Upon these occasions, the ele- 
phants were of very great service : for the barbarians were 
80 much alarmed at the extraordinary appearance of these 
animals, that they 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 Litth Mont Cents. 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 XevKOTrerpov, Mr. EUis, 
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 : t§ 8' iwavpiov, r&v iroKefiUav ytopia- 
" OevTtoVy awdylra^ T0t9 iwirevai koX rot? viro^vyloi^, irporjye 
" vpd^ tA9 virepfioXci^ Ta^: dvwrdrm r&v lAXiremv, In this 
" passage it has been supposed that the words if S' hraipiov 
" are connected with irpoijye : 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. Ellis 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 
r§ S* inavpiov. But he is quite mistaken as to the Greek 
narrative. 2vya^a9 does not monopolise the note of time. 
T§ 8* hravpiov belongs to the verb, irporffe ; a word which 
tells what Hannibal did on the morrow, after he had reunited 
the parts of his forca In the same way, that term in the 
44th chapter belonged to i^airiareCKe : 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 ; natnely, that 
his own construction is most natural and clear. He would 
have done better not to meddle with r§ 8' hravpiov ; but to 



248 PolyUus interpreted, [part V. 

have explained what are the places on his map at which he 
supposes Hannibal to have halted between St Jolien and 
Granges de Dervieux .♦ 

Mr. Ellis makes one very true observation : — " The portion 
" of Polybius's narrative relating to the march from the neigh- 
" bourhood of the Sock to the summit of the 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 through which the army successively passed, 
" who seized any favourable opportunity of plundering that 
*^ occurred, without ofifering any organized resistance to the 
" Carthaginians. It is by no means natural to suppose that 
'* hravpiov is the same day as that indicated subsequently in 
" the word ivvaToto^ ; 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 of repeated attacks, and in different localities, 
" which are recorded to have been made between the neigh- 
" bourhood of the Eock and the summit of the Pass. The 
" predatory attacks which the Carthaginians suflFered were in 
" all probability made by the inhoMtants of the several districts 
" through which they passed ; and the immediate neighbour- 
'* hood of the summits of the Alpine passes was not inhabited 
" in the time of Polybius." 

The last proposition is tme : and therefore the several 

* Places in Mr. Ellis's map ; one on the Arc, the other on the 
Little Cents, as the Durotineum of Pentinger^s chart. 



CHAP. IT.] Ascent. Little Mont Cents, 249 

inhabited district-s 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 firom the assailant mass of 
, yesterday : the different recorded localities were the van, the 
middle, and the rear of a long colunm of march : and the 
series of repeated attacks which the Carthaginians suffered 
firom 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 Avisdom, 

stayed back about the White Bock, 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 imder 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 
tS 8* iwavpiov, is applied expressly to the morrow of the as- 
sault : we then read, 'Evparaio^ Si Biavvaa^ ct9 Ta9 virepfioXd^, 
airrov KareoTpaTOiriSevae koX Bvo fipApa^ wpoaifieive. 



250 Polybius interpreted, [PABT v. 

N.B. — If any should be surprised at the amount of con- 
fusion which we 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 
rerafnaio^ represents the day of the attack, he says : *' The 
" difference of the two views arises firom this cause : that, 
** while we have taken Polybius's narrative in this place to 
*' consist, first of a summary statement of the events of four 
*' days, and then of an explanation and a detailed 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 Gktuls refers to the three days preceding 
** the fourth day indicated by rerapralo^" Treatise, p. 35. 
The statement is a fan* one. The question of credit lies 
between Polybius M^alopolitanus, grave historian, on the one 
side, and an inventor of Summaries, on the other. 



THE ALPS OF HANNIBAIj. 

PAET VI. 

THE MOUNTAIN MAECH. SUMMIT. 



CHAPTER I. 

Hannibal encamps on the Svmmiifor Two Days, He calls his 
Troops together, and addresses them. Evidence of Italy : 
miscalled view. The Text considered. The folloiving day 
he begins the descent. 

PoLTBius says that [Haonibal reached the snmmit 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 
aUowing time for those who were missing to come np. 

De Saussure, speaking of the Little St. Bernard, s. 2,229, 
&c., says : — " L'hospice, on convent, est sitn4 dans im vallon 
" en herceau, dirig^ du Nord-Est au Sud-Ouest, large de 
" trois k quatre cents toises dans le has, partout verd, mais 
" sans arbres ni arbrisseaux. La moyenne entre denx observa- 
** tions du barom^tre m'a donn^ 1,125 toises pour son 41eva* 
" tion au-dessus de la mer. Du c6t^ du Sud-Est^ le vallon 
*' qui renferme THospice est divis^, suivant sa longueur, par 
'* une arr^te ^troite qui se prolonge du c6ti du Nord, Ji 3 ou 
400 toises au-dessous de THospice. Gette arr^te produit 
un second vallon assez profond, parall^e k celui oi!l est 
" THospice. En partant de THospice pour descendre dans la 



it 

it 



it 



« 



252 Polybiibs interpreted, [part VI. 

" valine d'Aoste, on commence par monter une peute douce, 
" qui aboutit an plus haut point du vallon de THospice, mais 
" ce point n'est que de quelques toises plus flev^ que 
" I'Hospice. n est signal^, ou du moins il T^toit alors par 
" une belle colonne de marbre cipolin, vein6 en zigzag et 
" tir^ sans doute des montagnes du voisinaga On voit 
" ensuite, au-dessous de soi, sur la gauche, un petit lac ren- 
" ferm^ dans un chanpant bassin de verdure.'^ 

In the Oxford Dissertation, p. 96, 1 read this : — " The plain 
** is about two miles 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 
** Vemai, 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 CoV The extent of this plain 
on the summit is well known, and defies the jealousy of 
M. Larauza, who has ventured (p. 1 85) to pronounce it impos- 
sible for Hannibal to have encamped there, li comparison 
be necessaiy, I believe that it has the advantage of being 
soimder 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 coromenced the descent on the^ 
eleventh day. Some might remark that, when he stayed two 
nights at the captured town, the time was told by the words 
filav hre^Lva^ ^fiepav; and that here we read Svo ^fiipa^ 
wpocrifi€ive. But in the two cases there was much difference 
in the time for resting. 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 



U 



CHAP. I.] Summit Eindenee of licdy, 253 

over a very rough precipitous mountain, impeded by very 
hard fighting : he could not fail to rest after it ; and if the 
words fiiav fifiipav 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 Itcdy. 

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 befora 

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 



254 PolybitLS interpreted. [part VL 

instruction of Polybius, 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 theoiy to enjoy a 
special advantage for exhibiting it. 

The Text considered. 

Now what is the statement ? Not that Hannibal in march 
halted his disheartened men at an eminence to enjoy a distant 
view in bad weather : but that, during the day of repose, he 
assembled them, and addressed them, having this resource or 
argument, the evidence, the manifestation, the assurance of 
Italy — riiv 7^9 'iraX/a? evafyyeiap. This word, ivdpyeia, 
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 proper 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 evafyyeta 
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, rj rfj^ irapovala^ evafyye'ia r&v hri^nrfo- 
^kvtov : the 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 Ehone, this was the first topic of encouragement 
in his address to the soldiers. If ivdpyeia signified 
" view," 1% irapovaiw: would be superfluous. 

Lib. iii c. iii. 3, iravnov Bk rb fyrjOkv einarffirfvafiiywp Sia 
Tffv ivdpyciav : all signifying their approbation of 
what was spoken, because of its manifest truth. 



CHAP. I.] Summit Evidence of Italy. 255 

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 ivdpyeui is not a view 
of what he spoke, but the obvious truth of it. 

lib. iv. 0. xvii 2, roi^ XAyoi^ eirLKpv^crdai ra^ r&v 
irpa/yfLdTioy ivapyela^: to obscure by words the 
evidences of things dona 

Lib. vi c. XV. 8, S*' ^v tJ^ro r^v iy^iv dyercu roh iroKlrai^ 
xnro r&v arparrff&v fj r&v Kareipyaa^ivrnv irparf^ 
fidrtov ivapyeia: through which (triumphs) the clear 
evidence of deeds performed by their generals is 
brought Tmder the view of the citizens. The idea 
of view is expressed in S^tv, not in ivctpyela. 

lib. xvL c. xxiii. 2, Std 7^9 r&y elaar/ofiipwp ivapyeia^ 
fiifiVfjaKOfievoi rwv Trpoyeyovormv k^vSvvwp : 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 ivapyela^y instead of the previous reading 
ivepyela^i, 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 ipdpyeia 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 haul been placed. 



256 Polybius irUerpreted, [PART VI. 

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 waUs 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 firom Bome, 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 Sc^ntum, 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 assurances 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 them 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 was the descending stream to Italy. Nothing 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, 



CHAP, l] Summit, Evidence of Italy, 257 

it is not necessary to have crossed the Alps. Let him, who 
has only walked from Llanrwst to Bangor, reflect how he has 
watched 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 geogi'aphical 
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 Eome 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 which they were about to descend ; the 
favour of the inhabitants among whom they would arrive ; the 
further object of their hopes, Rome. It will probably be 
admitted, that two of these subjects were not represented as 
objects of sight; and that we m^y translate virofiifii/i^aKcov 
'* reminding," and vTroSeiKvvov " suggesting." Mr. Ellis says 
nothing on those woixls : but takes his stand on ipBeiKvv- 
fievo^ ra irepl rov Uahov irehla ; saying ; " This is of course 
" the expression on which I relied to prove the fact of those 
" plains being visible." — Journal of Philology, iL 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 ivBei/cvifievo^ ? 

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 Boman capital : and we find in his works six 
other instances of evhelicvvfMu besides thi& In one of them, 
it signifies to point out so as to induce ocular observation : ia 

VOL. T. s 



258 Polybius irUerpreied. [pa&t 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. iL c. iv. 3, rr}^ tv;^?, &<rjrep eTrlnjSe^ koX toJ? 
oXXow avOpdiiroi^ hrl r&v itcelvoi^ av^/Stuvovrmv 
ivBei/cwfJiiyry: Tt)v avrf}^ BvvafiLV : 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, wepl rj^ iv dpxo2^ ivehei^aficOa : 
on which I have given explanation in the early 
part of my work. 

Lib. V. c. xvi 7, irdyra ravra ficr diroSei^em^ ivSeix- 
vv^ivov Kol fiaprvpcDV : having pointed out all 
these things by demonstration and witnesses. 

Lib. xi c. ix. 8, iveSeUvvvro tov^ KeKaWormo'fLipov^ : 
they marked out those who were finely dressed. 

Lib. xviii c. vi 2. ivapyw viro rifv o^tv ivBencyvfjuevo^ : 
pointing them out as clearly within view. 

Lib. XXV. c. iv. 11, fiov\6^€voi<: ivBeUwaOai toi^ 'Vtofialot,^, 
on iC airrov SvvaTO^ iarl tov ^apvaKr)v dfivvaaOaL 
Kcu KaTairoXefielv : wishing to show the Bomans, 
that he is able of himself to repel and subdue Phar- 
naces. 

Such being the use of ipSeUvvfiai by Polybius, I think we 
may be satisfied that in the sentence 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 
rijy ofy^iv might have been added, as in the passage hei*e cited 
from the 18th book, and that cited before from the 6 th book. 
We may render ivi€i,Kvvp,evo^ "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 



CHAP, n.] Summits, which claim a view, 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 allies. All this could be in a scene shut 
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. 



CHAPTER II. 

No 2>racticable Summit gives a Vietv of Italy. It is claimed 
for Monte Viso by St, Simon and the Anonymoiis of Gam- 
bridge 1830 : for Balbotet, by Folard, wJio is followed by 
Vaudoncourt and Band4 de Lavalette: for the Cenis, 
by Larauza, the writer 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 
ivdpyeut 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 anecdota 
He had no experience fipom 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 

R 2 



26Q Polybius interpreted. [PAKT VI. 

surrounding country, as from the Malvern hills, or the tower 
of Lincoln Cathedral, and those who believe that from the 
summit of every Alpine 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 Pigment 
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 mountain 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 performances 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 searching for it during the last two centuries. 
Though the discovery has not been made, instances may be 
adverted to, in which 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 Gen^vre 
also show no pretension to it. Three passes only are to be 
noticed, as put forward to assert the enjoyment of a view. 



CHAP. II J Summits, which claim a view. 2G1 

Vief/^. Monte Visa. St Simon. 

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 
Tallard on the Durance ; and that this comes to a beginning 
of the Alps in the valley of the XJbaye. 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 d'Argenti^re, 
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 place the Marquis goes "jusqu'au col d'Argenti^re." 
Then, instead of letting Hannibal go down into Italy, he makes 
him to wander northwards upon heights of the main chain of 
Alps, till 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 
" preciscSment quelle route Annibal s'est ouverte pour arriver 
" k la sommit(5 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 I'entr^e duquel 11 Ta con- 



262 Polyhius interjpreUd. [paht VI. 

*' duite : il ne la voit plus, mais il Tentend au loin^ et la 
" rejoint aussitot qu'eUe quitte les fonds. II me retrouve de 
" mSme avec Annibal sur le Monte Viso, sans m'inqni^ter de 
" tons les detours od la fraude des ses guides, son peu de 
'* eonfiance en eux, et son manque de connaissance de Tin- 
" t^rieur des montagnes, ont dii le faire errer pendant neuf 
** jom*s." 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 Pigment was io 
be seen ; but he was unlucky in his day : " On me la 
" montr^ comme on fait k tous les voyageui-s ; mais je suis 
" force k 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 
" auprte du Monte Viso, devient tout-^oup un amateur 
" ardent des montagnes. U monta jusqu'^ la sommit^ de ce 
** pic inaccessible, pour jouir de la vue des plaines du Pie- 
" mont, et pour les montrer a ses soldats. II s'elfeve pour 
" cela jusqu'Ji une hauteur que Ton croit etre de 2,500 toises, 
'* et par consequent supdrieure k celle de Mont Blanc." One 
is inclined to ask, how much of his speech was heard by his 
troops ? 

View. Monte Viso. Cambridge Anonyinous. 

The Englishman 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 
ill the valley of the Ubaye, he writes thus, p. 64 : — " After 
** encamping at the town for a day, the aimy proceeds by the 
" Chemin Royal 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, il] Svmmits, which claim a view. 268 



« 



guidance through the rest of the passage. He is conducted 

by them from the valley of the XJbaye 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 wpo^ ra^ vircp^oXa^ rct^ 
** dvcDTaroD rwv "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 noith-west of the 
Col de Viso, flows south-west, making its course to Mont 
Dauphin, and so into the Durance. The valley of the XJbaye 
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 XJbaye 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 
XJbaye 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 
Cambriclge anonymous did not. 

View from Balbotet. Folard. 

The Chevalier Folard, in his elucidations of Polybius, 
invented this summit with its view. After coming over the 



(( 



264 Polybim interpreted. [PART VI. 

Mont Gen^vre to C^saiine, he studies the scene for Hannibal's 
engagement with the barbarian enemy : he finds it near the 
ascent of the Col de Sestrifere ; and calls it " le combat contre 
les Allobroges des Alpes Cottiennes." He says, "II est 
difficile de pouvoir bien d^tenniner Tendroit oil se passa 
" cette grande action entre Amiibal et les Allobroges. La 
" connaissance que j'ai des lieux me feroit croire que ce g^n^ral 
" fut attaqu^ entre Sezanne et le mont de Sestriferes. Le rocher 
" oil Polybe dit qu'Annibal passa une nuit si triste, se trouve 
" Ik comme fait expr^s, et existe encore." But the writer looks 
beyond the Sestri^re for Hannibal's summit : the march is 
carried further forward along mountain tops, to make sure of 
the best view. " II gagna enfin le col de la Fenetre qu'il avoit 
" k sa gauche, par le haut des montagnes. C'est sur le plateau 
" de cette montagne, oil est aujourd'hui le village de Barbottet, 
" qu'Annibal dut camper. C'est dans ce camp de Barbottet, 
" qu'Annibal fit remarquer k ses soldats toute la plaine du 
** Pigment, jusqu'au pais des lusubriens. II n'y a que le seul 
" endroit au plus haut du col de la Fenetre d'oii Ton puisse 
« decouvrir Tltalie." Tom. iv. pp. 90, 91. 

The translation of Polybius by Dom Vincent Thuiller w^as 
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 
" apr6s le texte, qui se perd k eliaque moment dans un abime 
" de Notes et de E^flexions." These remarks are complained 
of in a preface to the fourth volume : but the criticism was 
lenient, dealing only with material proportions. Other merits 
might have been questioned, beginning with the title-page, 
where the annotations are recommended for the improvement 
of general officers. If all are equivalent to those which con- 
cern the ii/dpyeta of Hannibal, no subaltern could be the 
better for them. 



OHAP. II.] Summits, which claim a v^iew. 265 

View from Balbotet Vandoncourt M. de Lavalefte. 

Though Chevalier Folard, as I believe, stands alone for the 
site of the first conflict with barbarians, and for the track in 
which he places it, yet before he brings Hannibal over the 
Genfevre, he is joined by other commentators, who, in the desire 
of a view, sanction the latter part of his labours with their 
concurrence. Two, who have tracked Hannibal up the 
Durance, and join the Chevalier at Briancjon to cross the 
Gen^vre with him to C^sanne, 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. Band^ 
de Lavalette. The general says (tom. i. p. 50): " Le neuvifeme 
"jour Tarm^e vint camper sur les hauteurs de TAssiette:" 
and (p. 53) : *' M. de Folard est le seul qui a saisi le vrai point 
" du passage d'Annibal. II remonta le col de Sestri^res et 
" suivit la Crete des montagnes jusqu'au col de la FenStra 
" C'est du plateau qui domine le village de Balbotet, et qui 
*' est en face de Tembouchure de la valk^e de Pragelas, 
" qu'Annibal fit voir k ses soldats les plaines du Pidmont : 
c*est effectivement le seul endroit oii Ton puisse avoir une 
vue semblable : tous les autres sont masques." 
^L de Lavalette, unable to dispense with a view, says : — 
" Si, au lieu de s*enfon9er dans le valine de la Doire au-dessous 
" de Cezanne, le voyageur franchit h. droite le col de Sestriferes, 
" il arrive bientot sur le plateau de Balbotet : et Ik les plaines 
" du Po se ddvoilent k ses regards. II n'y a que ce point sur 
" toutes les routes des Alpes, d'oii Ton puisse k une telle 
" hauteur ddcouvrir et montrer Tltalie." 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 Ik" he says, " une veritable difi&cultd ;" how- 
ever, as no other point in the Alps shows the plain so well, he 



<( 



tt 



266 Polyhius vnterpreted. [pakt vi. 

is content to have his view in a wrong place^ rather than not 
have it at all. 

View from the Cents. 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 Balbotet, he says, p. 188: "Qu'est ce qu' 
" Annibal serait all^ faire au sommet de cette montagne ?" 
May we not ask the same question concerning his own 
eminence " au sommet du Cenis ?" He proceeded fipom 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 fix)m the study of Lady 
Morgan's "Italy:" but after a little discussion, he arrives at 
this : " C'est done au sommet du Cenis, et pr^3 du plateau 
" oh. campa I'armee, qu'il faut chercher ce promontorium d'oA 
" elle vit les plaines qu'arrose le Po." Hereupon he quotes 
fix)m a work of 1764, by two Swedish gentlemen, saying : — 
" Or, voici ce que dit Grosley qui, comme nous, fait passer 
" par Ik le g^n^ral Carthaginois. L'esp^ce de coupe que 
" forme le plateau du Mont Cenis, est bordde de falaises tr^s 
*' ^lev^es, et ainsi il n'occupe pas, au pied de la lettre, le 
" sommet de la montagne. C'est k mi-c6te d'une de ces 
" falaises, k la hauteur du Prieur^, qu'on d^couvre les plaines 
" de Piemont, et c'est de ]k qu' Annibal put les montrer k son 
" arm^e." 

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 petit Mont Cenis, formant la partie supdrieure 
" de la montagne de Jaillon, et situee comme elle dans la 
*' direction de la valine de Suse, k travers laquelle la vue 
" d(5bouche sur la plaine de Turin. Je le c8toyai k partir 
*' du petit hameau qui lui doune son nom, Tayant eon- 



CHAP, u.] Summits, which claim a view, 207 

" tinftment sur ma gauche, et arxiv^ k la plaine du Mout 
** Cenis, au-delJi de I'auberge de la Grand-Croix, vers le 
•' quatorzifeme refuge, elle ne me paraissait plus que comme 
*' une colline tr^s peu ^lev^e au-dessus du soL D'aprJs la 
" position de cette montagne, situ^e tout k fait en face de la 
" valine de Suse, et n'ayant devant elle aucune autre montagne 
" qui intercepte la vue, je conjecturais qu'en montant au 
•' sommet on devait d^couvrir la plaine ; ce qui me fut con- 
" firm^ k plusieurs reprises par des gens du pays avec qui je 
" faiaais route, et qui m'afl&rm^rent que du haut d'un rocher 
" qu'ils appellent Coma Eossa, et qui se pr^sente solitaire et 
" d^tach^ k la partie sup^rieure de la montagne de Saint 
" Martin, on d^couvre Turin et toute la plaine. En me 
" montrant la gorge qui sdpare la cime de cette montagne de 
" celle du petit Mont Cenis, ils me dis'aient que leurs anciens 
" leur avaient racont^ qu*un fameux g^n^ral nomm^ Annibal 
" 6tait passe par 12k il y a bien long tems. Nous pouvons 
" done supposer tr^s naturellement que ce fut ]k ce promon- 
" torium d'oii ce grand capitaine montra lltalie k son 
" arm^e." 

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 Coma £ossa. De 
Saussure, telling the observations which he made from the 
Boche Michel, says: *'Au couchant du Boche 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 Fraise,* vis Jt vis duquel il paroit 
" situ6, mais je le crois moins ^levd. De la Eoche Michel 
" nous le voyons abaiss^ de 68 minutes au dessous de notre 
" horizon : ce glacier se nomme Come-Rottssc" iii c. 7, s. 
1265. As this glacier was in view to De Saussure looking 

* La Fraise is south of the Kocher de la Ronche, in tho same 
chain, and east of the southern end of the lake. 



268 Polyhius interpreted. [part vi. 

westward from the Soche 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 Novalfese, 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 Coma Eossa, 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 Blackwood's Magazine, of May 1836, p. 643. He 
left the VieiUe Poste on the Cenis, attended by his guide 
fitienne, in the morning, not in the best weather ; and, cross- 
ing the summit of the Little Mont Cenis, soon turned off to 
the left. Leaving the Val 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 says 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 Eouges, 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 
" Noval^se, 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 very 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, which claim, a view, 2G9 

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 Coma Bossa 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 Piemont 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 Coma Eossa, as the view from that is intercepted by 
the Bois Noir, the mountain which flanks the Boche Melon, 
Same work, Aug. 1836, p. 246. 

Such is the information which offers itself on the Coma 
Eossa. With M. Larauza, all geographical and optical diffi- 
culties are sunnounted 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 : " — " Nous pourrons 
" done supposer tres naturellement, que ce fut 1^ ce promon- 
" torium, d'oi ce grand capitaine montra Tltalie k son arm^." 
" Ainsi " (says the amiable enthusiast) " tout se d^brouille 
" et s'^claircit h, mesure que nous avan9ons ! " 

How susceptible of proof is he who is resolved to believe ! 
What ! Hannibal and his army, after ascending from Lansle- 
bourg, to find themselves in a gorge between the Petit Mont 
Cenis and the Coma Eossa ! What 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 extrd, viam, made from their 
encampment on the plateau of the Cenis, an expedition made 



270 Polyhiu8 mterpreied. [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 between the Pyrenees and the Po. Tlie notion of 
the general mutilating the short repose of the summit, even 
by the trudge of half 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 yoimg 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 stimidus, 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, Anonymovs, 

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, but the Apennines beyond them can be seen. 
" To settle tliis 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 hsts a vii-tue 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, 



CHAP, il] Summits, which 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 aTropfxo^, 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 frosty and lose their usual freedom. The cherished land- 
scape has probably adorned the wall of his drawing-room, 
smiling under the title of ivdpyeia, and ha^dng, as a pendant, 
the still more curious XevKOTrerpov. 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 sununit of the Pasa 

Mr. Ellis, in the " Journal of Philology," ii. 325, defends this 
imknown writer, as well as himself, and designates my notice 
of him as " uncourteoua" 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 Cems. 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 
\ev/c6'7r€Tpov on the summit of the Cenis ; the other, when 
he reached the Cenis, had left his XevKiireTpov five days' 
march behind. 

View from the Cenis. Mr. Ellis. 

Mr. Ellis's theory of a view, like his theory of a T^vko- 
irerpov, is contrived by taking great liberties with time and 
space. From the Bock 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 



272 PdyhiuB interpreted. [PABT Vi. 

encampment wliich 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 encampment, 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 march 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 cdl 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 what it was on the ninth day." Indeed, after the 
view he finds it not worth while to return towards the 
Col : so, having retmced 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 



CHAP. II.] Summits, v)hich 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 own view is to be found : and I should expect that a tra- 
veller might walk to the spot 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 
" will 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 
" farther. 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 



« 



fC 



274 Polybiua interpreted. [pakt vl 

" slope towards La Grande Croix, and terminates, as before 
" mentioned, above the plain of St Nicholas, in a veiy 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 farther 
— ^ridge of about half a mila The labour here depicted would 
not be distressing to him, although it would require the 
impleasing 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 
eneigies 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 aU 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-r-one of which may be discerned from the 



CHAP. II.] Summits, which claim a view, 275 

" point of view on the Mont Cenis, even after tlie 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 oflfered 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 ivBeiKVVfievoi:, 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 ivBeacvvfievoi;, 
" 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 motmtains 
'* were about to terminate, and that the plains of Italy were 
*' almost gained." — P. 116. 

T 2 



276 Pdyhiua inierpreUd. [pabt vl 

Here at last it is admitted, that Hannibal's object in 
addressing his troops was, to demonstrate to them that their 
extrication from the Alps was at hand Polybius 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 object : 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 have unsettled their faith, it would be the senseless 
iutemiption of that descent, and carrying them iip 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 prospect 
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 attribute of the Carthaginian leader, that he should 
impose a task, which would have quenched, not enlivened, 
the nascent hope of emancipation. 

In the narrative 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 



CHAP. II.] Summits, u^hich claim a view. 277 

abstract of events, j). 50, — " Hanuibal at length gained the 
" summit of the pass : here he remauied during the greater 
" part of the ninth and cUl the terUh 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 drc^cmstaTices 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. 



THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. 

PAET VII. 

THE MOUNTAIN MARCH. DESCENT. 



CHAPTER I. 

Descent from the Little 8t, Bernard. The disaster ofe th first 
day requires particular examination of circumstances told. 
The same phenomena still occur in the ravine below La 
Tuile. A rgurrunts on the Descent from the Cents. Larauza, 
Writer in " Blackwood^s Magazine** June, 1845. Mr. Ellis. 

By the recent snow, which concealed the irregularities 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 accoimt of this calamity is 
given in detail, and affords the hope that we may be able to 



280 PolyUus interpreted, [pabt VII. 

ideutify the scene of obstruction : for the description shows 
a local character, likely to be permanent, and still capable of 
recognition. Let us, then, with this view, examine the early 
descent from the Little St Bernard, that we may be able to 
compare its characteristics with the incidents described in the 
narrative. 



Descent from the Little St. Bernard, 

The 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 has accompanied your descent 
on the right hand, and presently falls into a larger stream, 
which has come from the glacier of the Ruitor. This river I 
take to be rightly called the Baltea, throughout its course to 
Pr^ 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 would compel those who had advanced so far 
to retrace their steps for some way, before they could turn 
down to the torrent along which I*olybius intends that they 
had the hope to proceed. 



CHAP. I.] DescenL L. St. Bernard. Genis. L. Cenis. 281 

Below the part where the path was broken away, the river 
nins 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 
ti-avelled 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 ixmd 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 labour 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 Mridth of three yards, the third yard will claim far more 
labour than the second. Accordingly we read that a horse- 

* Tlie mothod staled 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 : ho saw 
fragments of an old terrace-wall near Xoval^se, " such as Hannibal 
must have raised.' Treatise, pp. 5() and 121. 



282 Polybius vUerpreUd, [part vil 

path was soon accomplished : but much labour was required 
to make it capable of an elephant. If indeed in the 218 
B.O. the mountain-path in question had received no parti- 
cular injury to make it worse than usual, some improvement 
of it might still have been required for the passage of these 
extraordinary visitors. It was an exigency never known 
before on these mountains. 

Those who were already in the mountain-side path, must 
have returned to the sloping plain where it b^an, and where 
presently the recampment was mada From this groimd 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 fallen. Hannibal 
hoped that by this course the army might be able to get 
forward for the short distance to which the injuiy 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, falls into a lower part 
of the valley of Aosta, opposite to Morg^s, below Prd St. 
Didier. Nothing 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 
details are given in explanation of the failure to circumvent 
that broken part. After stating the great injury which the 



CHAP, l] Descent, L, St. Bernard. Cents. L, Cenis. 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 
coiQd where it was not destroyed. The only ditour 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 lighter 
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 on the opposite side of the chasm. But it is interesting 
to 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 himself trod in the footsteps of Hannibal 
on that perilous mountain side. M. De Luc (p. 200), having 
before him the notes of General Melville, writes thus: — 
Apvhs que le (r^n^ral Melville eut pass£ le village de la 
Tuile, son guide lui dit : A pr^ent nous approchons d'un 
endroit irks mauvais, qui nous donne beaucoup de i)eine 
** pour le r^parer toutes les ann^es, parcequ'il est emport^ au 
** printemps par des avalanches de neiga — ^Lorsque le G^n^ral 
" 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 pClt 
" reposer de plat Ce fut sur ces troncs d'arbre que le 
"^ g^n^ral, son domestique et ses mulcts furent obliges de 
** passer. Dans cet endroit le chemin suivoit i^ec une peute 
'' douce le cdt^ escarp^ d'une montagne, compost de rochers 
" ddsunis et pouvant s'dbouler facilement" 

Not long after this journey of Gen. Melville, the new road 



« 



t€ 



U 



284 Polyhius iiUerp*cted, [part vn. 

was made by the Sardinian Government. De Saussure went 
over these Alps on 8th August, 1792, and states that, 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 vient 
" cStoyer le pied d*une montagne dont les conches couples in 
" pie sont d*une belle calcaire grenue, souvent recouverte de 
'' mica. Le chemin est bon et assez large, mais sur une 
** comiche tr^s ^lev^e au-dessus de la Tuile. On voit I^ sous 
" ses pieds, des amas de neige qui se sont conserves depuis 
" rhiver, et qui forment des ponts sur ce torrent." iv. 
8. 2,232. 

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 was 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 : — " Tlie 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. 109 : — " After 
*' La Tuile, the modem road crosses from the left to the right 
" bank of the river, and recrosses it about three miles lower 
" down. The old road remained constantly on the left bank, 
" and was obliged to be abandoned in consequence of the 
" numerous avalanches, which always fall from a pointed rock 
" that overlian;4:^ it, and which in the winter frequently carried 



ti 



CHAP. I.] Descent. L, St. Bernard. Cenis. L. Cents. 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 imder one of the highest points of the 
** Cramont and that chain of mountains which forms the 
" south-east side of the AM&e Blanche. From 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 i^eports 
" 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 siunmer, 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 1 823. I took great 
** pains to asceitain 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 moimtains on both sidea" 

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 



286 Polyhvus interpreted, [PART vil 

by avalanches is proved as a fact It is proved that, they 
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 exhibiting this phenomenon as it ofiered 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 ia to be 
inferred firom 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 ha :e aflforded a path at alL 

Descent from the Mont Cents, Larauza, 

M. Larauza cites with some approbation a notion of Le- 
tronne, whicli 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 was about the 26th October, and to have 
acquired a consistency; inasmuch as the early snow of 
autumn is the most ready to freeze. His conclusion is tliis : 



CHAP. I.] Descent L. St Bernard, Cents. L.Cenis. 287 

" Lorsque cette neige dej^ ancienne eat 6t& recouverte par 
" de la neige toute r^nte, ainsi que le dit Polybe, les Car- 
" thaginois purent la prendre pour de la vieille neige, rest^e 
"IJi depuis Tannte prfc^dente." — Journal des Savans, Dec. 
1819. Larauza, however, diffident of the value of this con- 
jecture, finds for himself 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 phdnom^ne accidentel, singulier, extraordinaire, et non 
'' pas propre de ces montagnes : ce n'^tait pas un fait habituel 
"et caract^ristique du lieu." Now the words of Polybius 
are, to ffAp ovfAJSalvov IBiov ^v /cal irapriKKarfiitvov : peculiar 
to the place, and now to an unusual degree: XBiov fully 
imports that which M. Larauza says it does not — " caract^r- 
istique et propre : " it does not mean " accidentel " or " singulier : " 
and TrapfiKKarfiihov 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. Nicolas, followed the 
old route, now abandoned, which attended the left bank of 
the Cenise by La Ferriire and La Novaltee : 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 nofc explore. The higher part of it between 
that plain and La Ferri^re is liable to the visitation of violent 
avalanches ; so much so that, more than a century ago, a 



fc."! Piimu-a^ j^flT^rw^. [paKT til 



t:T i£ie «l£^ ""Y izzTtij£s GL ^^ Ti^n htnJL e£ the sLieaai, 
bcfh -arhc. koI izsfciccrr. aaid Rflcfliot; iar si^^ie discanoe 
ftlrjc;? tL& ^saeo 3kjcni*ia aie. Wasi its via made, is 
tupisseAtd itr: pricT tnck, viueh lud cee& oa the left fauiL 
De .Suisu?^ viM was there in IT'yX ssr^ after y^^ring the 
plam of S. SKfihki ^nd tiefoK cfxiinq ^ La FoiKfe, — ^^ On 
^hisee k drAze nne gm^ie galkrie. ctxcFene fane foite 
''et 3oIi»ie To6te: cette gaDaie a enTiroa 300 pieds de 
^ kiDgiieiir snr 15 de kigenr: oa Fa oonslniite poor serrir 
"dk p&'ssage &XLX Toraiigeins, loiSi^ue le chonxn eomble par 
"les avalanches devient impiaticableL* HL & 1250. Ihe 
aame accoiint is giren by Alb. Beaoincmt: and Me. Brockedoa 
degcribes the rains of that once nsefol work, wliieh was 
blown up on the completion of the new road by Napoleon. 

iL Laranza, fancying that these facts tend to identify the 
Carthaginian track, exclaims : '^ Les aTalanches, ai oommunes 
" et si considerables en cet endroit, cette longne To&te con- 
''struite pour en garantir, nexpliqnent-elles pas cet eboule- 
'^ment de terres qui avait interrompn le passage?" The 
answer is, that this covered way 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 sliape of the ground above it is such as to conduct 
volumes of snow towards it But a place the most subject 
to Ixj so \'isited, need not be subject to an endurance of the 
snow throughout the year : this will depend upon aspect and 
exiKisure to the sun*s influence. The "voflte" makes us believe 
in the avalanche against which it was to give protection : 
it does not make us believe, that the snowy masses continued 
U) defy the ordinary action of a summer's warmth. 

One who confidently asserts, in the descent from the Cenis 
or any other pass, the scene of so great calamity to the Car- 



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 do\niward 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, while such evidence is 
utterly wanting between the plain of St. Nicholas and La 
Noval^se. 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 Noval^e 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 went along the new road, and retails the nonsense which 
they amused him with, about Hannibal cutting down trees 
" pour combler la valine." 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. V 



290 Polybius interpreted. [part til 

circumvent the " mauvais pas " by carrying man and beast 
higher up the mountain; they saw, at leasts that the old 
snow was " au fond de la gorge." One invents for the Car- 
thaginians a blunder on the age of the snow, and the other 
fails in his translation 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 valley of Susa, corresponds perfectly to the famous 
" places mentioned both by livy and Polybius, where the 
** path had been torn away by a recent avalanche. This 
" place in Mont 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 
" l)elow 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, whereas that on the Little St. Bernard is much below 

it, and far beneath any avalanches.** June, 1845. P. 758. 

This is not a happy edition of Polybiua The history^ 



CHAP. I.] Descent, L. St, Bernard, Cents, L, Cents. 291 

speaking only of the way by which Hannibal tried to get 
round the broken path, says of the snow, ravvqv aZvvarov 
TTOiovai]^ rt/v iropeiavi the translator writes, "the way on 
every side was impassable." In the history, the circumstance 
noted as the cause was peculiar, ffitov, 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 fonner season; the translation changes a particular 
thing into a general one, telling us, that the snows of the 
former years had remained immelted 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 wiroppd^ 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 the rest of that day and 

v2 



•^,-f 



PJnh\mg uim<r^T^Ud^ [PAST TH 



'f.V vui yrt,vf^. 5.r?3€ ni& eo^tssnseDt, and tnmeti the tenth into 
& iij c-^ b&ri v-jrk fTi:*tr*i1 of re{i«:jise. li'e proceed through 
IT : !!.•;«? «T- — »Ai^«^ : ^zki lii^i \[r. Ellis per6»ziixiig the task 
o: rxplorii:^ li^ oU Eae of descent by the coarse of the 
C^zj^r: 'orrtzLZ iroc;iK La Fcrri^re and La Xormlese to Sosi. 
Hrr -Irsr^izil^ tLc tHick OQ the kft bank of that torrent, whidi 
Was «'oai>l'.ii«e«i a •:x:L.:;irT &20. when a new znnle-road with 
pr»'/tiri:ti3;Z iiia5»>niT was constructed on the rig^ht bank under 
yrr,-r^:^r. i^\ UL This, tox ia now obsolete : the traveller to 
ScL^^ Uses only iLe sifer roodl through Bard, Molaret, St 
^I^iTtin and J^IjIjIl which diverges from the old one in the 
f'lain of St. NicLoIas, below La Grande Croix. In the old 
tnvik llr. Ellis proftrss^ to have ascertained bv inspection the 
ver}' so^ne of Hannil-al*s disaster, and to have foond the 
pLc'.' when: the path was broken awav from the precipitous 
mountain side, on the north of the hollow that holds the 
river about a mile below La Ferriere. 

Tlie calamity' of the path, wliich all understand to have 
W.n along a steep mountain-side, and the rupture of it which 
arn--5te<l the march, present the same topics to all inquirers. 
All must try to explain the attempt made to circumvent the 
part whiclj, for a stadium and a half, had become impassable; 
and Uj say where the snow of a former season was still 
remaining ; and to understand the causes wliich prevented 
the anny from proceeding on the surface of it ; and whether 
the attempt at circuit was made by first moving in one 
direction or another from the point where those in advance 
wore brought to a standstill -^Ul know too that, in this 
irj(|uiry, a question has been made on change of climate. Mr. 
KUi.s gives a portrait or plan of the scene, to aid us in under- 
Htanding the movements as he apprehends them. 

Th(i words which most claim explanation are, irpSyrov 
e7rc/3a\€To TrepieXffelu Tci'i Bva'^oypia^. AMiat was this ex- 
periment if How did they get to the place of it from where 



CHAP. I.] Descent. L. St, Bernard. Cents, L, Cents. 293 

the rupture of tlie 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 begim ; 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 airoppd)^, 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 the mfrom 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 whole 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 
" TTcpl rfjv pdxtv — ^back of a ridge — * dorsum montis.' " 

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 which includes more than the extent of the stadium 



(I 



294 Poli/bius interpreted, [PAltT TU. 

and a half for which the usual path had become impTacticabla 
One would expect 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 &7roppm( 
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. Ellis not marking them, is that he was undeter- 
mined where to 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 is 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, fix)ra 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 : " The accoimt naturally leads us to look immediately 
" above the broken path for an encampment partly extending 
" over a ridge-back." We may look for it ; but it is not to be 
^een. Then, in p. 125, Mr. Ellis states it to be probable, that 
the pd^i^ of Polybius is about half a mile to the south of 
the Cenise, where 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, Cents, L, Cents, 295 

to east. And when this has been put forth as the (>dxt^, 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 
theoiy of the anoppd^. He criticizes the historian (p. 59) for 
using the article r^v with pax^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 irep^ekOelv 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 : we 
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 brough 
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. ElUs 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 MelviUe, 
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- 
tatioa Nevertheless Us Treatise did not contain a hint that 



296 Polybius into-preted, [PABT vil. 

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 writers, 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 pretejisions of 
the broken way, 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. il 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 permanent 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 easUy 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 w^ord of 
" Gibbon and Evelyn, and but a slight remark (p. 59) about 
" Dr. Arnold." 

If I had cared for their evidence, I could not have dealt 
with 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 j and I gave it to the printer immediately on my 



CHAP. I.] Descent, L, Si. BcDiard, Cenis, L. Cents. 297 

return to England in Aprils 1855. But let us see what 
Mr. Ellis's witnesses have to say. 

Mr. Evelyn reports the Simplou, 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," L p. 220) is this : " Tliat 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 
Simplou 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 Eui-ope was 
much colder formerly than it is at present." He admits that 
two circumstances tend to confirm their theory : 1. That the 
Bhine 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 figur&" of 
Caesar, ** cujus k medid fronte inter aures unum comu existit" 
Gibbon adds, "The modem improvements suflSciently 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 



a 



« 



298 Polyhivs interpreted, [pabt vii. 

^ 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 others, 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 Mr. 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. Ajmold 
placed the airoppd^ of Polybius above the snow-line. Mr. 
Ellis says that there is no reason for imagining it. Having 
so brought their opinions into contrast, I may say this. 
Thinking Dr. Arnold wrong on the snow-line, I must think 
Mr. Ellis right in differing from him. But in the application 
of their opinions, I do not think Mr. Ellis has the advantage. 
Both resist our theory, in which the permanence of the old 
snow is accoimted for by its lying in a deep ravine, not 
exposed to the sun: both disallow that argument Dr. 
Arnold has the better excuse : he disr^arded it, being under 
a delusion on the snow-line. Mr. EUis has not that delusion 
to palliate the blunder. His "isolated patch" flourished 
through a summer under exposure to a southern sim, 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 and precipice. A rapid stream cannot be quite 
a dead level : but it is opposed to precipice. Mr. Ellis does 
not seem aUve 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 



CHAP. II.] Into the Plain and Insuhres. 299 

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 iirnroXd Karto^ep&v 6vt<ov r&v x^P^^^> 
" for the declivity was one of excessive steepness." Karco^epif 9 
signifies "declined," not " precipitous : " and iinirol^ KaTOiHf>€pii^ 
is not " excessively steep : " hrvtroXv signifies " mostly " — " for 
the most part." There may be declivity in a line of railroad ; 
not precipice : it may be /eaTw<l>€pii^, but not Kfyijfivol>Si^. 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. 



CHAPTEE IL 

Hannibal, Tuiving completed the passage of the Alps in Fifteen 
Days, came dovm boldly into the plain of the Po and the 
nation oflnsubres. c. 56. 

tear^pe £t9 — came down into. 

Otjb opponents, unable to say that a man, entering Italy by 
the route of Susa or of Pinerolo, would come down into the 

* Cambridge Joomal of Classical and Sacred Philology. YoL iL 
p. 327. 



300 PolyUas interpreted. [part vii. 

Insubres, struggle against the words of the history : and first 
they pretend tliat Karfjpe 6t9 does not signify " came down 
into :" they have discovered, that this expression does not 
import the arrival 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 ^videm- 
ment fausse :" and he adds, "Nous nous bornerons k remarquer 
" que le Grec ne dit nullement qu'Annibal entra dans le pays 
" des Insubres, mais qu'il se dirigea vers ce pays, eh to r&v 
^la6fjL/3pa)v eOvo*;," One who could so translate, has very 
naturally the additional merit of making an imperfect quota- 
tion. The term xar^pe eU 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 him. 

Other critics, since M. Larauza, have tried to misconstrue 
this simple expression. In the work of 1830 on Hannibal's 
passage by " A Member of the University of Cambridge," the 
author objects to the translation " descended into," and says 
this (p. 77) : " The word Karfjpe must here, as it frequently 
" does in Polybius, simply mean * he marched ;' and the entire 
" passage must refer to the ulterior and eventful circuni- 
" stance of his bold movement into the plains of the Po, 
" and his first encampment in front of the Roman army in 
" the territory of the Insubrians. Should there be any surprise 
" at the peculiarity of this arrangement of matter, the follow- 
" ing passage will show that in Polybius it is not unexampled. 
" In the 35th chapter of the 3d book Hannibal is described as 



CHAP. II.] Into tlie Plain and Tfisubrcs. 301 

" crossing the Ebro, and there parting with some of his troops 
" — T^v Si Xoiw^v OTparlav dva\a/3a}v rfye Sta r&v Ilvprfva^v 
" \€yofjL€V(ov op&v €7rl T^v Tov 'PoSaKov Sidl3aaiv. 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 : Karalpw is never so used. The passage cited as ana- 
logous occurs thus : Polybius, having explained Hannibal's 
proceedings 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 aimy 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 fj^e in this place, and xai^pe 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 ijye Bid is applied. 

''Hye Sid tells an initial proceeding ; and for that reason it 
is wholly unlike xarppe ek. 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 Rhone — ^kc fierd Svvdfietov iirl rffv 
" TOV 'FoSavov Sid/3a<riv" Here his error exposes itself: it is 
this expression '^xe lirl, which is analogous to Kar^pe el^;, not 
the words of the 35th chapter. Each of those expressions 
tells an accomplished fact; one bringing Hannibal to the 

* iv€\iip€k reus Sujc/SoXoiS rwv Hvp-qvaiiw opiov. 






302 Polyhiiis interpreted, [PABT VIL 

Khone, the other bringing him to the plain and the 
Insubres. 

Another patron 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 Kar^pe cfc " descended 
into." But two years afterwards, on defending himself in the 
" Journal of Philology," iL 329, he condescended deliberately 
to adopt the error of his Cambridge predecessor, and borrowed 
his false illustration, saying this : — " The words, Kar§p€ 
" TokfMipW €t9 T^ irepl Tov TLahov irehia Koi to rmv ^laofjLfipmv 
€0vo^, may be compared with ijye But r&v Uvpffvalmy 
Xeyofiiv^y op&v eirl r^v tov ^Votavov /caXovfiivov TroTa/ioy 
'* Sidfiaaiv, XXXV. 7. Tet Hannibal does not actually pass 
** the Pyrenees or reach the Rhone 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 rjye eirl of chapter 35, when 
Hannibal had crossed the Ebro, and it is told by the words 
fJK€ iirl of chapter 41. Mr. Ellis must be aware that Karaipto 
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 Budaeus aptly quotes from the 5th 
book of Polybius, KaTfjpe ficTct tov otoXov ircan-o^ ek 
Kopivdov, illustrating the effect of the words with " Hue ubi 
delati portus intravimus." 

Ta TTcpl TOV UdSov ireSia — th^ plain of the Po, 

Some advocates 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 by Hannibal 



CHAP. II.] IrUo ihe Plain and Inmbres, 803 

could be traced to that site, which it is not, this expression 
would not help to place it there. The meaning of tA wepl 
Tov ndBov veBia 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, 
boimded by the Alps, the Apennine, and the Adriatic. When 
we read that the potentates, Boo-iXAr/coi, who waited upon 
Hannibal after his passage of the Bhone, had come €k t&v 
irepl TOV UdBov ireZlmVy we recognise the large application of 
the term. The weS/a, so often named by Polybius, comprised 
not only Cisalpine Gaul, but a large portion of Liguria and of 
the Venetian States, districts quite Itway from the stream of 
the great river, whose course divided the plain and gave its de- 
nomination. Senigaglia is said to be irapd, tov \hplav hr\ r^ 
iripaTi KeiaOai, t&v irepl tov UaBov irehUov. Polyb. iL 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 Gen^vre, 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 P6. Ce fleuve, sorti du Mont Viso, 
'' coule du midi au nord jusqu'^ Turin. Nous lisons qu' 
'' Annibal fut oblig^ de faire reposer plusieurs jours son 
" arm^ ; qu'il ne put (Sviter de prendre la capitale des Taurini. 
'' n est naturel de conclure de \k qu'il descendit sur les bords 
*' du Po h, quelque distance de Turin.* 

A still more curious conception of the plains is that of M. 
le Comte de Portia D*Urban, whose singular theory will be 
noticed in Part X. He writes, p. 14 : " Aprte avoir franchi 
" le Tesin, Annibal fut entr^ dans les plaines du P8 : c'est 
'* encore la verity." Many others, among them M. Larauza, 
when they have occasion to express the idea of the Plain, 
say "plaines qui bordent le P6;" or, "plaines qu'arrose 



304 Polyhius interpreted, [PART VIL 

le Po." For avoiding the risk of error in giving too narTOw 
a construction, it is but to say simply plain, or plains of 
the Po. 

The InsuhrianS'—^b t&v ^laofi^pwv edvo9. 

It is well that Polybius 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, whose friendship and co-operation 
welcomed the approach of the invaders. He promised in 
c. 36, that he would make known iroOev opfujaa^ ^Awlfia^f 
Kol tIv(k Kot iroaov^ SieXOoiv rairov^, €t9 irola f^ipri Karppe 
r^9 *lTaX^9 : he now annoimces into what nation of Italy 
Hannibal came down ; namely, among the Insubres. Unless 
this statement is rejected as unmeaning, it results that he 
came down the valley of the Doria ; for neither the people 
of the Cenis nor of the Gtenfevre can be reconciled with it 

Our adversaries, however, though not pretending to re- 
concile Polybius with their own schemes, find a geographical 
difficulty in ours. Polybius has said (hb. 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 veiy true that, if we want to bring him down upon 
Milan, we must suppose him to have crossed the Simplon or 
the St. Gothard. 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 has related that Hannibal came down into the nation 
of Insubrea Those who profess to swear by Polybius, and 



CHAP, n.] Into the Plain and Ins^dres. 305 

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 Ganls, prominent in their resistance to Boman 
encroachment ? In the record of the first irruption, Polybins 
says of them 8 fieyurrov eOvo^ ^v avr&v : 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 Hannibal's 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 Romans, 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 fiom the Pyrenees, should now, on reaching 
Italy, select, as fittest to be named, the great leading State of 
the confederacy against Bome, 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 &ct 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 Oauls, 
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. L X 



806 PolyUui interpreted, [part vil 

It is obvious that among the Gaulish adyersaries of Bomep 
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 c^ituiies 
become subordinate to a greater State, whose forces were firee 
to watch the coming of their expected deliverer, whether on 
the banks of the Dona, 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 have them in mind as the prevailing power in the 
r^on 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 Boma But no exploits are celebrated 
under their nama In the details of Boman aggression, the 
smaller tribes of the original settlers are not among the 
recorded victims. The names of surrounding nations appear 
in the annals of Boman conquest ; triumphs are celebrated 
over Ligonans ; over Cisalpine Salassians; Comensians; over 
Insubrian Gauls. Lai, libui, Lebecii, have no rank as enemies 
of Boma They belong to the history of Italy ; because they 
made part of the tale of the great iiTuption. Names of no 
importance are just mentioned by Polybius and livy : they 
find a place in 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 Boman posses- 
sions, without record of their annihilation to teiJl that Aey 
had been. 

. The supremacy of the Insubrians vindicates the scar^pe 
of Polybius without mora Whether the same small tribes 
which squatted in that district two centuries before, were 



CHAP. II.] Into the Plain and Insvbrea. -307 

still tenants of the ground wbere 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 supi*emacy of the Insubres. But 
it is a point which he has never noticed* He lays down 
peremptorily the identity of the Insubres with the modem 
Milanese, and trumpets upon it thus : " That the country of 
''the Insubres corresponded to the modem 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 Mediolanum of the Insubres 
became the capital of Lombardy ; and he may believe that^ 
from before Hannibal to the late expxdsion 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 tumed back from 
the Milanese to besi^ 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 mistaka The order of 
events was this: Hannibal arrived among his Mends on 
the Doria, whom Polybius rightly calls ^Wofifipmv iffpo^i 

x2 



SOB Pdybim trUerpreied. [part YIL 

among friends the army lecovered its condition. This done, 
they attacked the adjoining people, the Taurini, divided only 
by the Oreo or the Po. Having chastised them, Hannihal 
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 suxnmary 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 that 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, that 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 Sunmiary 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. 



4€ 



CHAPTEK HL 

On the Time employed in Descent, Many, and among them the 
Oxford Dissertation, differ from De Luc, who supports 
Polybius. Dr. Arnold on the Snoto-line : his scruples on the 
Saiassi. 

Dr. Liddell on the Time. 

DiSTiNGxnsHED writers have blamed Polybius for his allotment 
of time in telling the march through the mountains. Dr. 
liddell writes thus : — " In seven days after Hannibal began 
''the ascent he reached the summit Polybius says nine 
*' CiiL 53, 9). But this must include the two days' halt at the 
'' top of the pass. For the descent occupied at lisast six days 



CHAP, m.] Time in DBScenl Snow4ine. Saiassi 809^ 

** (compare iii, 55, 8, with 56, 1) ; and the whole passage took 

I abide by Polybius : his ninth day of ascent is as clear, as 
words can make it. Hannibal was two nights on the snmmit, 
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 tha 
eleventh day, and touched the plain on the fifteenth. The 
eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth days represent rpial in. 
C. 55, 8, and the fifteenth day represents rpnaXo^ airh /efyrjpv&v 
in c. 56, 1. See ante, part v. c. 1, for the employment of each 
day. 

Dr. Arnold an 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 Hannibal's march up the 
** Tarentaise ; but the val d' Aosta puzzles mc 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 firom the Little St Bernard to the plains 
of Ivrea. TpiraSo^ signifies ** on the third day " of the pro- 
gress made on liberation of the elephants firom 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. 

The Oxford DisaertcUion 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. Second 
edition, 1825. 



310 Polybius interpreted. [past til 

A few extracts will give his notion of this cbronolog^, 
pp. 212, 213 :— 

*' Le 11® jour fdt employ^ k descendre au village de la 
Toile, k tenter de passer snr la vieille neige qui couvroit le 
torrent de la Tuile, et k commencer la reparation du chemin 
eboul($. Une partie de Tinfanterie traversa ce mativais pas le 
mSme jonr. 

*' Le 12® jour la cavalerie et les b^tes de somme passirent 
et se distribu^rent dans les lieux qui leur offroient des pAtu- 
rages et des fourrages ; les plus avanc^ durent arriver 
jusqu'i la ville d'Aoste. 

'' Le 13® jour au soir, le cbemin d^grad^ fat adxeY^ pour 
les eidphans qui arriv^rent k Prd-Saint-Didier. Pendant le 
mSme temps Tavant-garde de I'infanterie et une partie airi* 
Y^nt k Nuz, qui est k huit miUes d'Aoste. 

'' Le 14® jour cette ayant-garde se trouva an village de 
Montjoie et k Verrex. 

"Le 15® jour entre Saint-Martin et Ivrfe. — On est sorti 
tout-^-fait des montagnes que Ton est encore k une lieue et 
demi dlvrde." 

Thus De Luc supports the fifteen of Polybius. The O. 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 daya 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, in.] Time in Descent. Snovhline. Salam. Sit 



€( 
U 
4€ 



elephants fifteen : and this is the number of days which, 
according to Polybius, he employed in passing the Alps. 
Having perfonned 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, which 
'' 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 tiU 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 placa 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 spacer 
must begin together and end together. If it is time 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. 



it 



312 Polybius interpreted. t^ABTYH. 

znisapprehended : Polybius does not say, as imputed, Hiat 
" the difficult piece of load delayed HannihaT 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 ; " neither does it express, as my Mends report^ *" He 
^ reached the plains in three days' march from the Inoken 
*' ground." The cause of error is, that they accept eveiy 
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 constmcted one for the 
elephants in three days mare, and that he brought the whole 
army into the plain in three days mare, I propose to show, 
that not one of these propositions is expressed by or justly 
deducible from Polybius ; and that his notices of time, &irly 
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 way the attempt to turn the pass was made, the 
'* troops were finally obliged to encamp at the entrance of it, 
'' and, in all probability, in the plain on which La Toile 
" itself is situated. The next day was employed in mfllring 
" a road good enough for the passage of the cavalry, and 
" three days more in constructing one for the elephants." 
This imports, that nothing more, besides encamping, was done 
on that first day, 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 following 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 (tA irXtjOfj) 
reconstructed the path along the precipice with much 



it 



* Probably where the ground begins to swell towards the 

Crauiunt 



CHAP, ul] Time in Deseeni. SmmAvns. Salassi S13^ 

^ painful toil ; and 80 in one day made good a passage fit 
*' for horses and baggage-cattia Wherefore, carrying thes» 
** through at once, and having pitched his camp about those 
^ parts which had as yet escaped the snow, he forwarded 
'' them away to the pastorea He brought up the Nuniidiana 
^ in successive gangs to the building of the road ; and it was 
^with difiBculty^ and after severe work» that he got the 
** elephants through in three days." 

From this narrative it appears to me, that the most vigo* 
Tous application of strength for dearing 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 horn eudiw^ Su^ayo^v, 
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 
J>robability, as it does with the text. The difficulty which 
seemed to defy the progress of the expedition, must have 
offered itsdf to the head of the line of march within two or 
three hours from the time when the army was put in motion, 
which we may presume to have been, as on other occasions, 
at daybreak — 2^ r^ (t>&rr$. The plain of the summit is 
about two miles in length : and the first movemtot 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 half 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 ML in that promptitude under 



314 PolglriMM imierpnUd. [PABT Tn. 

ebeimistaiioeB which plaeed in immfdintp peril fhe ^^^^"^^r^ 
of his azmy. The n maiiie in teons exhibitB inalaiit action, 
not idle postpononent to moUier daj. Afker deacrilH]^ tlie 
attempt to gei round, hem itfuled by^ the alqiperinees of the 
older 80z£Ke when stepped iqpon throng^ the soft freeh snow; 
and how the wei^bt of the cattle made them to bteak in and 
become fixed, Polybins says, not that Hannihal pitched his 
camp and went to sleep, bat that he |Htched his camp and 
thensetto wodcin earnest with all handa 

A small portion onlj of the mmtf can have got down to 
the aeene ct fifficntties, when Hannihal commenced the effort 
to vanqoish them. If the text had spoken less plainty^ ooe 
would still ask — ^why {sesame delay in such a crisLs ? Evmy 
man in the anny had become accostomed to a]^y bimaAlf at a 
moment's notice to the encountering, by all personal labour, of 
rocks, rivers, lavines, and every natural obstacle. If the night 
of this first day was not such as to prohibit all operations, we 
may be sore that relays of men were digging and f^lAftWng 
tbrooghoat that ni^t, and that not day only was devoted to 
this vital straggle. As to the actoal transit of the cavalry, 
the words of the history best consist with the notion that they 
went through early 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 with difficulty in three days of hard work and 
sufiTering. But why three days maref The work done in 
favour of the horse was work done in favour of the elephant. 
It was a continuous process : i^<pKoB6fi€i and oucoSo^la are 
terms equally applying to all parts of it The hardships 
signified in /eoKOTraOija'a^, and predicted of the three days, 
belonged as much to the earlier labour which availed for the 



CHAP, m.] Time in Descent. Snow4ine. Salasai. 315 

horses as to the farther 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 dajr's work gave 
a horse-path : the work of the second and third days gave 
it width for an elephant. 

I insist ibeieiore that the terms fiiS and rpiai, introduced 
as they are into this nanmtive 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 shall 
make him consistent with himsel£ 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 scprjfivol 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 
eight : this is by virtue of the word rpiraSo^, as if the word 
signified " in three days :" but such is not the force of the 
word : the expression of Polybius is, rpirata^ aw6 /cprffiv&v 
H^To T&y hniriStap — ^in the third day from the precipices 
Hannibal touched the plain. Those who require ** three days 
more," exclude the day on which the repair was fimshed, 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 
rpvroM^ avo London, in my third day from London, on the 
Friday : and this is so, whether I b^an my journey at day- 



816 Pclybius inUrprUed. [pabt vn: 

break or in the aftemooit In the 52d chapter all under- 
stand in rerafyraio^ the fourth day of movement from the 
town. If Polybius had there filled up the expression as he 
has the one before us, a.nd had written r€Ta/yraSo9 ami 
9r6X€fl»9, you would not have understood four days more 
besides the day of quitting the town. Ue^iirrdm cnro 
Uur&p imports the fifth day of navigation from PIssbl So 
tpiToSo^ airh Kfrqfiv&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 progress of the beasts would not be delayed fisr 
one unnecessary moment, and the day which overcame the 
fcpfffivol must be deemed the first dwo xpfffAP&v, the day of 
escape from thenu 

The first day from the precipice being thus the thirteenth 
of Alps, it follows that Hannibal was rpiraSo^ iirh Kpffi^vmv 
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 ffyfraro r&v iwiniSoDvl 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 plcLce of precipice pn 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 



€HAP. m.] Time in Descent Snow-line. Salassu 317 

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. 
T/>*raib9 gives date to an event by its distance from a prior 
event We leam 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, awadpolaa^ ifiov waaav rrjp Bvyafjuv Korefiaive, 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. ^vvaOpoLaa^ certainly suggestis 
the idea of bringing bodies of men &om 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 mountam. 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 2wa0polaa^, 
&C., the leading squadrons may have been as near to the 
plain which they sought as to the summit which they had left 



u 
•ii 



318 Poli/biu8 interpreted. [pake til 

There is one critic who seems to think that the horses and 
smaller beasts remained on the mountain, nntil the elephants 
were released from their detention. The anonymous of Cam- 
bridge (p. 17)> in one of his efforts to correct others, nndertakes 
to interpret the words ravra fihf ev6im^ Butyayi^ iun^m 
wph^ ra9 vofLo^ ; and he conceiyes, not that the <»tva]i7 wtate 
sent down by Hannibal to the valley, but that ** he tamed out 

the tired cattle to pasture, of course nnder cofyer of the 

entrenchments, where they would be as safe as by the walls 
^ of a fortified city.** Hannibal had better caie of his 
horses than to send them to graze in the firesh mountain 
snow, when a rich valley promised provender at a fewmiW 
distance. As to their shivering xmder the fiavoar of Alpine 
entrenchments, I doubt that the mountain regions witnessed 
any entrenchments 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 theie 
was no whole army in the plain. Those who have been 
startled with the extraordinary speed of a great army trans- 
ferring itself from the summit or &om 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 firom the Alps ; they represent rather 
those who were 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 credible, that in three days more the armament 
was encamped in the plain, they would report more truly, 
if they said that on the third day of that liberation, Hannibal 

• Dissertation by a member of the University of Cambridge. 
1830. P. 17. 



CHAP, m.] Time in Descent. Snotv-line. Salassi. 319 

touched the plain. "Airrofiai 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 &irTOfun. 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 &om 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. 



J)r. Arnold on the Snow-line. 

The bold writer, who ventured to suggest the pass of 
Hannibal to have been one by which you may pass &om 
the higher Arc into the Yale of Yin, 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 theoiy. K 
Hannibal transgressed the snow-line, d 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 modem adventurers, moving two, three, or four 



320 Polyhiua interpreted. ]]hiBT Vlt. 

together, with the complement of professional guides, one 
listens with distrust to an invasion of these solitudes by 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 Home," 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 
.^ fedlen ; but two hundred years before the Christian era, 
when all Germany was one vast forest, the climate of the 
Alps was fieir 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 Genis ; 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 chain is described as wholly within this limit ; 
" and the ' old snow ' which Polybius speaks of was no acci- 
dental i>atch, such as will linger through the summer at a 
very low level in crevices or sunless ravines ; but it was 
the general covering of the pass, which forbade all v^eta- 
** tion, and remained alike in summer as in winter. How 
great a contrast to the blue lake, the green turf, the sheep 
and cattle freely feeding on every side, tended by their 
shepherds, and the bright hues of the thousand flowers, 
^ which now delight the summer traveller on the Col of the 
"Little St. Bernard!" 

I believe these notions to be erroneous. It seema 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 T^iam 
chain, or any part of it, as within the limit of perpetual 



u 

At 

n 

U 

u 



it 



At 
it 



CHAP. III.] Time in Descent Snauhline. Salassi, 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 all 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 — aSepSpa koI '^iXd. 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 avvex^^ iirifUveiv 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 ac. pro- 

vou I. T 



322 Pohjhim interpreted. [part vii. 

duced no store for their supply. The same is true of that 
mountaia 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 &ct 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 Hannibals 
time there were probably no residents between Boaig St 
Maurice and La Tuile, perhaps not higher than Pr^ 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 dimate: 
passes of Alps, Grimsel, or Graian, have at no season a sure 
vacation from snow : hence barrenness and bareness of sur£BM» ; 
hence the risk of starvation to a lai^e 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, proliibit' a vegetation that 
will meet an unusual demand for the suppoi-t 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 which 
.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 below that of the summit. We know that the fiJl 
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 dnroppto^ was within the snow-line, the Xcvico- 



CHAP. III.] Time in Desce^it. SrwW'line. Salassi. 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, lias 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 the 
'* 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, irepl rov^ uKpov^. In the descent we 
read of it as a special and grievous embarrassment : it is put 
in contrast with the perils of the ascentf. 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 wliich concealed the stepping- 
place from view. He who wrote thus, cannot have conceived 
any portion of the track of ascent to lie above the snow- 
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 Carthaginian armament must have 
been for three days and nights above the snow-line, and a 
l)ortion of it, including the elephants, for a longer period : it 
fairly raises the question, whether the old snow of Polybius 

y2 



324 Polybivs interpreted, [part vu 

was an accidental patch or the general covering of the 
pass. 

Can there be doubt on such a question ? The 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 only 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 obstructioii to the march, 
the extent of which is defined. The phenomenon was purely 
local ; and, when Hannibal was compelled to desist firom his 
experiment, he 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— 
irepX Toiff; iK<l>€vyoyTa^ ijSff rify yUi^^ riwou^* Polybiua 
says that, straightway carrying those through, evOie^ Bta- 
ya/ydv (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 : ** wheo 
*' these were immediately led down to the plains which were free 
''from snow, and sent to pasture." The freedom friim snow ii 
predicated by Polybius, not of the pastures, but of the scene a 
encampment. 



CHAP, ni.] Time in Descent Snow-line. SaUuei S25 

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 roxuid 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, which would have been a change bom 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 yeaf s snow under it, which was IBiov koI TrofyriKKaryfUvov ; 
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 ISiov, 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 
with 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 






326 Polyhim iiiterpnUd. [pakt 

below La Tiiile : and from time to time, in tbese our days, 
place continues to tell its own tale. 

Dr. Anwld on tlie Salaasi. 
The non-resistance of this people contributed to make 
Arnold incredulous of the little St Bernard. He a 
p, 90 : " After the two days' rest the descent began. Hai 
" 1»il experienced no more open hostility from the barbarii 
" only some petty attempts here and there to plunder : a I 
" strange in itself, but doubly so, if be was really descend 
" the valley of the Dona Baltea, throngh the country of 
" Salassi, the most untanieable robbers of all the Alpine 1 
" barians." In the note II. we read : " The Salassians of t 
" valley were such untameable robbers, that they once e 
" plundered Cassar's baggage, and Augustus at last extirpa 
" tbem by wholesale. And yet Hannibal on the Italian e 
" of the main chain sustains little or no annoyance," 
Arnold might safely have credited this freedom from ann 
ance in the Val d'Aosta. Strabo, indeed, reports the plun 
of Cicsar's baggage by tbe Salassi. This people held ■ 
bravely against the domination of Home. Why should tl 
at any time have been unwilling witnesses of the advance 
an enemy to Eome? Some Gauls on the outer side, s 
Inalpine nations whose countiy was invaded, had b« 
hostile to this strange force, having no sympathy with, a 
not comprehending tlie object of tlie expedition. But 
the valley of the Doria Hannibal found himself in wl 
nmy be called the great Gaulish duct into Italy. Niebu 
speaking from a quotation of Cato by Pliny, classes 1 
Siilaasi among those who composed the great irruption 
Gauls through the Alps ; and supposes tliem to have 
inained in those mountnins anil mountain valleys when oth 
advanced through the last barrier onward to the plai 
* TraDsIation. Hare and Thirlwall, li. 335. 



CHAP. IV.] Passes bettoeen L. St Bernard and Cents. 327 

Why sliould 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 
Some, and, at the time we speak of, to that which was ripened 
under the auspices of Hannibal. 



CHAPTER IV. 

On Passes between Little St. Bernard and the Cents. 
Brockedon. Albanis Beauviont. 

When Dr. Arnold expressed his disbelief of the speed 
>vhich he understood to belong to the descent as told by 
Poly bins, he was waiting to learn, whether by further ascend- 
ing the Is^re 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 te 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 Is^re, by 
" Mont Isferan, and descends by Usseglio,* not exactly on 
" Turin, but nearly at Cliivasso, where the Po, from running 

* Ussoglio hero is a mistake : this place is on the Cluara above 
Viu. 



32B Pofybttw iHtnpreUd. [past ti 

" v. and 8., tiirns to nm E. and w." TLis accorda with wbat 1 
had said in July, 1830 : " The Little St. Bernard is not at tl 
" source of the Is^re, hut some miles below it. If Cramei 
" statement fail anywhere, I have alwaya im^ined that 
" was here, and that the army might possibly have foUowi 
" the Is^re higher up than he im^ines, and descended into 
" valley which would take them more directly down npi 
" Turin. The passes between the Little St. Bernard and Mo 
" C«ni8 are almost the only points which I believe have s 
" been examined." — StanUy'H Life, lett«r 18. 

That note may have beeu written long before the histo 
to which it is appended. The curiosity expressed concemii 
intermediate tracks was reasonable, especially in one who hi 
a distrust of the pretensions of the Little St. Bernard. Hi 
curiosity would have been satisfied with information given i 
Blackwooda Magazine of January, March, April, May, ai 
August, 1836, as " Extracts from the.Joumals of an AI|H] 
Traveller." That traveller was Mr. Brockedon, one who, as 
resolute and persevering explorer of Alpine tracks, had \ 
equal. I heard of Ida death when I was at Aix in 185- 
and deeply did I, with many, deplore his loss : he was a nu 
as much respected for his talents and varied attainments, . 
he was beloved for his amiable and friendly nature. I a 
not aware that the iustniction contained in those extracts 
to be found in any of the works pubUshed with his nan 
Many passes over the main chain are there explaine 
between the Little St. Bernard aud the Mont Cems : and th 
which is particularly pointed to by Dr. Arnold, as going 1 
the actual head of the Is^re, receives an ample notice, such i 
if read, woulil have erased that pass, the Gal&se, from the li 
of possibles, to Dr. Arnold's mind. 

There are many passes into Piemont, both from the vail 
of the Is^re above Scez, aud from the valley of the Arc abo 
T^nslebourg. From the former, there are the Col du Ma 



CHAP. IV.] Passes between L. St Bernard and Cenis. 329 

known to Mr. Brockedon, and the Col de Clou, both carrying 
you into the Val 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 Isfere, 
you may turn over the Col de E^me, fjx)m whence the Val 
Eemy takes you into the Val d'Aosta at Villeneuve. 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 brmg you by Courgne 
to Chivasso. This is called the Gal^e : Mr. Brockedon 
knew it well : that glacier lay before him. when he turned 
from La Val to cross the Mont Is^ran, which stands on the 
Savoy side, having at its south-eastern base the early stream 
of the Arc. On the Pigment 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 Beale and the FenStre de Cogne to Aosta : on another, 
after surveying Mont Is^ran 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 Val Savaranche to Villeneuve. 
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 Gkd^ 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'Amas and the Col du Colarin, are mentioned in the 
Extracts I have spoken of : one higher up I see in the maps 
as Col dlnsea : and the highest of all. Col Girard, is sane- 



330 Polybiut interpreUd. [part yn. 

tioned by the authority of Mr. Brockedon in " Selectious 
from the Diary of a Traveller in the Alps," given in Frasei^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 explored by 
himself; the Col du Lautaret. For reaching this pass, as 
well as that by the Col d'Amas (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 Is^n. These two passes send you 
into one track on the Pigment 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 contribuent to the Stura, and down the valley of Ala 
to Lanzo. Higher up the Arc, from Vellet according to 
Baymond's map, a pass over the Col d'lnsea takes you to 
another source of the Stura, and down the Val Fomo to 
Lanzo. And at the very glacier of the Arc there is a pass, 
called by Mr. Brockedon 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 p^n^troit dans le 
pays des Centrons," he proceeds thus : " L'autre se dirigeoit 
" vers Lans-le-Bourg, Lans-le-Villard, et Bessan ; li elle 
" commen9oit k s'dlever au-dessus de la chaine primitive des 
" Alpes, qu'elle traversoit et venoit aboutir dans la valine de 
" Viu en Pi(5mont, et ensuite h, Turin : cette voie, qui n'est 
" gufere connue maintenant que par les contrebandiers, m'a 
" parue, lorsqiic Je Vai parcouru en 1782, avoir m celle 



CHAP. IV.] Passes hetween L. 8t Bernard and Cents. 331 

" qu'avoit dft suivre Annibal pour pen^trer dans les plaines 
" de Lombardie. La situation topographique de cette mSme 
" voie, sa direction, la distance du sommet de cette chaine de 
" montagnes des vastes plaines de la Lombardie, un peu avant 
" d'arriver k Eoche-Melon, semblent venir h Tappui de ma 
" supposition. Comme aucun historien n'a encore, h, ma 
" connaissance, fait mention de ce passage, il servit k ddsirer 
" que ceux qui s'occupent de ces sortes de recherches, visitas- 
" sent cette partie des Alpes, ce qui ne sauroit que tourner k 
" Tavantage de I'histoire, et jeter des nouvelles lumiferes sur 
" un sujet qui a occupd jusqu'i prdsent plusieurs hommes de 
" lettres trfes distingu^s.'* 

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 accoimt 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 GaJfese: 
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 coidd hardly happen to the Gal^se. 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 PolyhivM interprtied. [past YU. 

imagination for bringing upon that scene 30,000 men and a 
troop of elephants, and weigh well, how fieur this route may 
pretend to an improved accordance with the i>ostu]ates of 
Polybius. 

I have taken 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 Cems: 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 Isire to Bourg St. 
Maurice, he took for his onward course that which alone is 
known to Mstoiy. The couise over the Graian Alp is the 
recorded line from the Po to the Isire 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 the Alps, De Saussure, as the easiest pass of aU 
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 fix)m one 
very fertile vaUey 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 conmients 
concerning the first movements made by Hannibal against 
the Bomans, 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 been maintained : the work of De Luc and the 
Oxford Dissertation. In that question our agreement is 



CHAP. IV.] Passes between L. St Bernard and Cenis. 333 

substantially unbroken. And yet, on the first conflict with a 
Itoman 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 &r as the Ticinus and the Trebia. 



END OF VOL, I, 



LONDON : 

K. CI.AY. HON, AlfD TAYLOR, PIUNTF.R5, 

BRKAD HTBKKT HILL.