# Strabo, Geography 4.6 (Alps), English: H. L. Jones, Loeb (1923), from LacusCurtius https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/4F*.html (fetched 2026-09-14).
# 4.6.12 = Polybius 34.10.15-21 (Büttner-Wobst). Greek of 34.10.18 is in texts/polybius_34_10_greek.txt (Perseus/Büttner-Wobst).

4.6.5  After the Vocontii come the Iconii and the Tricorii; and after them the Medulli, who hold the loftiest peaks. At any rate, the steepest height of these peaks is said to involve an ascent of a hundred stadia, and an equal number the descent thence to the boundaries of Italy. And up in a certain hollowed-out region stands a large lake, and also two springs which are not far from one another. One of these springs is the source of the Druentia, a torrential river which dashes down towards the Rhodanus, and also of the Durias, which takes the opposite direction, since it first courses down through the country of the Salassi into Cisalpine Celtica and then mingles with the Padus;184 while from the other spring there issues forth, considerably lower than the region p273 above-mentioned, the Padus itself, large and swift, although as it proceeds it becomes larger and more gentle in its flow; 204for from the time it reaches the plains it is increased from many streams and is thus widened out; and so, because of the spreading out of its waters, the force of its current is dispersed and blunted; then it empties into the Adriatic Sea, becoming the largest of all the rivers in Europe except the Ister. The situation of the Medulli is, to put it in a general way, above the confluence of the Isar and the Rhodanus.

4.6.6  Towards the other parts (I mean the parts which slope towards Italy) of the aforesaid mountainous country dwell both the Taurini, a Ligurian tribe, and other Ligures; to these latter belongs what is called the land of Donnus185 and Cottius.186 And after these peoples and the Padus187 come the Salassi; and above them, on the mountain-crests, the Ceutrones, Catoriges, Varagri, Nantuates, Lake Lemenna (through which the Rhodanus courses), and the source of the Rhodanus. And not far from these are also the sources of the Rhenus, and Mount Adula, whence flows not only, towards the north, the Rhenus, but also, in the opposite direction, the Addua, emptying into Lake Larius, which is near Comum. And beyond Comum, which is situated near the base of the Alps, lie, on the one side, with its slope towards the east, the land of the Rhaeti and the Vennones, and, on the other, the land of the Lepontii, Tridentini, Stoni, and several other small p275 tribes, brigandish and resourceless, which in former times held the upper hand in Italy; but as it is, some of the tribes have been wholly destroyed, while the others have been so completely subdued that the passes which lead through their territory over the mountain, though formerly few and hard to get through, are now numerous, and safe from harm on the part of the people, and easily passable — so far as human device can make them so. For in addition to his putting down the brigands Augustus Caesar built up the roads as much as he possibly could; for it was not everywhere possible to overcome nature by forcing a way through masses of rock and enormous beetling cliffs, which sometimes lay above the road and sometimes fell away beneath it, and consequently, if one made even a slight misstep out of the road, the peril was one from which there was no escape, since the fall reached to chasms abysmal. And at some places the road there is so narrow that it brings dizziness to all who travel it afoot — not only to men, but also to all beasts of burden that are unfamiliar with it; the native beasts, however, carry the burdens with sureness of foot. Accordingly, these places are beyond remedy; and so are the layers of ice that slide down from above — enormous layers, capable of intercepting a whole caravan or of thrusting them all together into the chasms that yawn below; for there are numerous layers resting upon another, because there are congelations upon congelations of snow that have become ice-like, and the congelations that are on the surface are from time to time easily released from those beneath before they are completely dissolved in the rays of the sun. p277

4.6.7  205Most of the country of the Salassi lies in a deep glen, the district being shut in by both mountains, whereas a certain part of their territory stretches up to the mountain-crests that lie above. Accordingly, the road for all who pass over the mountains from Italy runs through the aforesaid glen. Then the road forks; and one fork runs through what is called Poeninus188 (a road which, for wagons, is impassable near the summits of the Alps), while the other runs more to the west, through the country of the Ceutrones. The country of the Salassi has gold mines also, which in former times, when the Salassi were powerful, they kept possession of, just as they were also masters of the passes. The Durias River was of the greatest aid to them in their mining — I mean in washing the gold; and therefore, in making the water branch off to numerous places, they used to empty the common bed completely. But although this was helpful to the Salassi in their hunt for the gold, it distressed the people who farmed the plains below them, because their country was deprived of irrigation; for, since its bed was on favourable ground higher up, the river could give the country water. And for this reason both tribes were continually at war with each other. But after the Romans got the mastery, the Salassi were thrown out of their gold-works and country too; however, since they still held possession of the mountains, they sold water to the publicans who had contracted to work the gold mines; but on account of the greediness of the publicans189 Salassi were always in disagreement p279 with them too. And in this way it resulted that those of the Romans who from time to time wished to lead armies and were sent to the regions in question were well provided with pretexts for war. Until quite recently, indeed, although at one time they were being warred upon by the Romans and at another were trying to bring to an end their war against the Romans, they were still powerful, and, in accordance with their custom of brigandage, inflicted much damage upon those who passed through their country over the mountains; at any rate, they exacted even from Decimus Brutus, on his flight from Mutina,190 a toll of a drachma191 per man; and when Messala was wintering near their country, he had to pay for wood, cash down, not only for his fire-wood but also for the elm-wood used for javelins and the wood used for gymnastic purposes.192 And once these men robbed even Caesar of money and threw crags upon his legions under the pretext that they were making roads or bridging rivers. Later on, however, Augustus completely overthrew them, and sold all of them as booty, after carrying them to Eporedia,193 a Roman colony; and although the Romans had colonised this city194 because they wished it to be a garrison against the Salassi, the people there were able to offer only slight opposition until the tribe, as such, was wiped out. Now although the number of the other persons195 captured proved to be thirty-six thousand 206and, of the fighting men, eight thousand, Terentius Varro, the general who overthrew them, sold all p281 of them under the spear.196 And Caesar sent three thousand Romans and founded the city of Augusta197 in the place where Varro had pitched his camp, and at the present time peace is kept by all the neighbouring country as far as the highest parts of the passes which lead over the mountain.

4.6.11  Among the passes which lead over from Italy to the outer — or northerly — Celtica, is the one that leads through the country of the Salassi, to Lugdunum; it is a double pass, one branch, that through the Ceutrones, being practicable for wagons through the greater part of its length, while the other, that through the Poeninus, is steep and narrow, but a short cut.215 Lugdunum is in the centre of the country — an acropolis, as it were, not only because the rivers meet there, but also because it is near all parts of the country. And it was on this account, also, that Agrippa began at Lugdunum when he cut his roads — that which passes through p291 the Cemmenus Mountains as far as the Santoni and Aquitania, and that which leads to the Rhenus, and, a third, that which leads to the ocean (the one that runs by the Bellovaci and the Ambiani); and, a fourth, that which leads to Narbonitis and the Massilian seaboard. And there is also, again, in the Poeninus itself (if you leave on your left Lugdunum and the country that lies above it), a bye-road which, after you cross the Rhodanus or Lake Lemenna,216 leads into the plains of the Helvetii;217 and thence there is a pass through the Jura Mountain over to the country of the Sequani and also to that of the Lingones; moreover, the thoroughfares through these countries branch off both ways — both towards the Rhenus and towards the ocean.

4.6.12  Polybius further says that in his own time there was found, about opposite Aquileia in the country of the Noric Taurisci,218 a gold mine so well-suited for mining that, if one scraped away the surface-soil for a depth of only two feet, he found forthwith dug-gold,219 and that the diggings were never deeper than fifteen feet; and he goes on to say that part of the gold is immediately pure, in sizes of a bean or a lupine, when only the eighth part is boiled away, and that although the rest needs more smelting, the smelting is very profitable; and that two months after the Italiotes joined them in working the mine, the price of gold suddenly p293 became a third less throughout the whole of Italy, but when the Taurisci learned this they cast out their fellow-workers and carried on a monopoly. Now, however, all220 the gold mines are under the control of the Romans. And here, too, just as in Iberia,221 in addition to the dug-gold, gold-dust is brought down by the rivers — not, however, in such quantities as there. The same man, in telling about the size and the height of the Alps, contrasts with them the greatest mountains among the Greeks: Taygetus, Lycaeus, Parnassus, Olympus, Pelion, Ossa; 209and in Thrace: Haemus, Rhodope, Dunax; and he says it is possible for people who are unencumbered to ascend any one of them on the same day, whereas one cannot ascend the Alps even in five days; and their length is two thousand two hundred stadia,222 that is, their length at the side, along the plains.223 But he only names four passes over the mountains: the pass through the Ligures (the one that is nearest the Tyrrhenian Sea), then that through the Taurini, which Hannibal crossed,224 then that through the Salassi, and the fourth, that through the Rhaeti, — all of them precipitous passes.c1 And as for lakes, he says that there are several in the mountains, but that only three are large: one of these, Lake Benacus,225 has a length of five hundred stadia and a breadth of thirty,226 from which flows the Mincius227 River; the next, lake p295 Verbanus,228 four hundred in length, and narrower in breadth than the former, which sends forth the River Addua;229 and, third, Lake Larius,230 in length nearly three hundred stadia, and in breadth thirty,231 which sends forth a large river, the Ticinus;232 and all three rivers flow into the Padus. This, then, is what I have to say about the Alpine Mountains. The Editor's Notes: 169 Also called Vada Sabatia (now Vado). ❦ 170 "Alpionian," is now known only as the name of an Etrurian gens. ❦ 171 Mt. Velika. Cp. 7.5.4. ❦ 172 Cp. 17.3.4; Revelation, 18.12; Pliny (Nat. Hist. 13.29‑31), who discusses at length wood for tables, and tells of the "mania" of the Romans for large ones of beautiful wood. ❦ 173 Dioscuridesº (5.48) gave a formula for the mixture; one or two ounces of pitch to about six gallons of new wine. It is the resinated wine still used in Greece. ❦ 174 Aristotle (Hist. An. 6.24) and Pliny (Nat. Hist. 8.69) define the "ginnus" as the stunted foal of a mare by a mule. But here the term is simply colloquial for a stunted animal, whether horse or mule. The Latin word is "hinnus." Cp. English "ginny" and "flying-jenny." ❦ 175 The sagus was a kind of coarse cloak. Cp. 4.4.3. Thayer's Note: Usually sagum, but Strabo does have σάγοι. For details, see the article Sagum in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. ❦ 176 Literally, "lingurium" (cp. page 259, footnote 1). ❦ 177 "Monoecus" (of which the "Monaco" of to‑day is a corruption) means "the Solitary." The epithet was given to Heracles, according to Servius (note on Aeneid 6.829), either because Heracles drove out the inhabitants of Liguria and remained sole possessor of the land, or because it was not the custom to associate other divinities with him in the temples dedicated to him; but according to Prof. Freeman's suggestion to Tozer (Selections from Strabo, p138), the epithet probably refers to the solitary position of the place, as being the last of the Greek cities on this coast. ❦ 178 The name is Greek. ❦ 179 Strabo means that the Port of Monoecus probably came under the influence of Massilia. He has already said that Nicaea, which is only a few miles west of Monoecus, belongs to Massilia (4.1.9). ❦ 180 The Latin form is "Ligures." ❦ 181 Not from the coastline; we should say that the Romans secured a "right of way." ❦ 182 See 4.1.12, and cp. 4.2.2 and footnote 3. ❦ 183 i.e., are autonomous with "Latin right" (see 3.2.15, 4.1.9, 5.1.1). ❦ 184 There were two Durias Rivers, namely, the Durias Major (now Dora Baltea) and Durias Minor (now Dora Riparia), both of which emptied into the Padus (Po). The Durias Major passed through the country of the Salassi, who lived round about Augusta Praetoria Salassorum (now Aosta), while the Durias Minor rose near the Druentia (Durance) and emptied into the Padus at what is now Turin, •some twenty miles west of the mouth of the Durias Major. Strabo, it appears, confuses the two rivers, for he is obviously talking about the Durias Minor. ❦ 185 The father of Cottius. ❦ 186 Cp. 4.1.3. ❦ 187 The words "and the Padus" have perplexed some of the commentators. They are added, apparently, for the purpose of definitely pla­cing all the Salassi north of the Padus; the Taurini lived on both sides of the river. ❦ 188 That is, through the Pennine Alps, by Mt. Great Bernard. ❦ 189 Cp. the greed of the New Testament publicans (e.g. Luke 3.13). ❦ 190 43 B.C. ❦ 191 About sixteen American cents, with far greater purchasing power. ❦ 192 Perhaps for "wooden swords" and the like, used in "sham battles," as described by Polybius 10.20. ❦ 193 Now Ivrea. ❦ 194 Thus making it a "Roman colony." This was done in 100 B.C. by order of the Sibylline Books (Pliny 3.21). ❦ 195 The non-combatants. ❦ 196 The Greek is a translation of the Latin sub hasta. Thayer's Note: And the explanation of that little bit of Latin can be found in Smith's Dictionary, s.v. Auctio. ❦ 197 Augusta Praetoria, about 24 B.C. ❦ 198 The Breuni and Genauni were defeated by Drusus in 17 B.C. Cp. Odes, Book 4'+Lat2+LatSearch+'Drusus',WIDTH,195)" onMouseOut="nd();">Horace Carmina 4.14.10 ff. ❦ 199 By "the Apennine Mountain" (both here and a few lines below) Strabo cannot mean the Apennine Range. Whatever the mountain may be, it must lie above both the Carni and the Vindelici; and, except in a very loose sense, no one mountain can fulfil both conditions. To emend to "Poeninus" (the Pennine Alps; see 4.6.7), as do Casaubon, Corais, and others, does not help matters at all. In fact, the context seems to show that Strabo has in mind the Carnic (Julian) Alps. But both this and the names of rivers, as the MSS. stand, are almost helplessly inconsistent. ❦ 200 But the "Isaras" (Isar) empties into the Ister (Danube), not the Adrias (Adriatic); and it is in no sense connected with the Atagis. It is altogether probable that Strabo wrote "Isarkas" (or "Isargas") — that is, the Latin "Isarcus" (or "Isargus") — which is now the "Eisach." ❦ 201 By "Atagis" (the Greek for the "Adige" of to‑day) Strabo must refer to one or the other of the two source-rivers — the Etsch (or Adige) and Eisach — which meet at Botzen, and from there on constitute what is also called the Etsch (or Adige), the Eisach losing its identity. But if Strabo wrote "Isarkas" (Eisach) instead of "Isaras," he made the other source-river its tributary; hence, since it is the "Atagis," and not the Eisach, that traverses the lake (or rather, to‑day, three lakes — Reschen See, Mitter See, and Heider See), we may assume that the copyists have exchanged the positions of "Isarkas" and "Atagis" in the Greek text (Groskurd and others read accordingly), or else, what is more likely, Strabo himself confused the two, just as he confused the Durias Major and Durias Minor in 4.6.5 (see also footnote). ❦ 202 The "Atesinus" certainly cannot be identified with the "Atesis" (Hülsen so identifies it, Pauly-Wissowa, p1924) if it empties into the Ister. According to C. Müller (whom A. Jacob follows, Revue de Philologie 36, p167), the "Atesinus" is the "Aenus" (the Inn); in this case, says Jacob, the "Stille Bach," which has its source very near the lakes traversed by the Etsch, was formerly taken for the source-stream of the Inn. ❦ 203 This ridge is that which traverses Suabia from south to north, east of, and parallel to, the Rhine; "the lake" appears to be Lake Constance. ❦ 204 The Black Forest. ❦ 205 Also spelled "Iapydes." ❦ 206 Cp. 7.5.2. ❦ 207 Cp. 4.6.1. ❦ 208 Strabo is not clear here. He means (1) by "mountain," not "Ocra," but "Albius," and (2) by "both sides" (of the Albius, on which the Iapodes lived), (a) the side towards the Pannonii and the Danube, and (b) the side towards the Adriatic (see 4.6.1 and specially 7.5.4). ❦ 209 The Save. ❦ 210 The Corcoras (Gurk); see 7.5.2. ❦ 211 "Taurisci" is probably an error of copyists for "Scordisci" (see 7.5.2). ❦ 212 The Kulpa. ❦ 213 Segestica. ❦ 214 Polybius seems to refer to the European elk (cervus alces), which is no longer to be found in the Alps; or possibly to the Alpine ibex (capra ibex), which is almost extinct. ❦ 215 Cp. 4.6.7. ❦ 216 The Lake of Geneva, which is traversed by the Rhone. ❦ 217 Strabo's brevity is again confusing. He suddenly shifts his standpoint from Lugdunum to the Poeninus. He has in mind two roads: (1) The road which ran through the Poeninus to the Rhodanus (at the eastern end of Lake Geneva), crossed the river, circled round the lake, crossed again at the other end and then followed the Rhodanus to Lugdunum; and (2) a road that branched off from the same at some point north of the lake into the plains of the Helvetii. ❦ 218 Cp. § 9 above. ❦ 219 Strabo here, as elsewhere (e.g. 3.2.8‑10), carefully distinguishes between (1) metals that have to be dug up from beneath the surface-soil, (2) those in the surface-soil itself, and (3) those washed down by the rivers. ❦ 220 Cp. 3.2.10. ❦ 221 See 3.2.8. ❦ 222 Polybius 2.14. ❦ 223 The plains of Italy (as Polybius says). ❦ 224 Polybius (3.56) does not say where Hannibal crossed the Alps, although he says that Hannibal, after crossing the Alps, "entered the valley of the Padus and the territory of the Insubres." Both the ancient writers and modern scholars differ as to where Hannibal crossed. The reader is referred to the article in Encyc. Brit. s.v. "Hannibal," by Caspari, who inclines to the Mt. Genèvre Pass; and to that in Pauly-Wissowa Real-Encyc. s.v. "Hannibal," by Lenschau, who thinks "probability decidedly favours the Little St. Bernard." Thayer's Note: A question endlessly discussed and never resolved; see also, for example, my note below.(c2) ❦ 225 Lago di Garda. ❦ 226 Some MSS. read "fifty." ❦ 227 The Mincio. ❦ 228 Lago Maggiore. ❦ 229 The Adda. ❦ 230 Polybius, if correctly quoted, has made the mistake of exchanging the positions of "Larius" and "Verbanus." Certainly Strabo himself knew that it was from Larius (Lago di Como) that the Addua (Adda) flowed (4.3.3, 4.6.6, and 5.1.6), and he also knew the course of the Ticinus (5.1.11). Yet Strabo himself (4.3.3) blundered greatly in making the Addua flow from Mt. Adula. ❦ 231 Some MSS. read "fifty." ❦ 232 The Ticino. Thayer's Notes: a III.9. ❦ b See the article Electrum in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. ❦ c1 c2 For identification of these passes and a discussion, especially with respect to Hannibal's crossing of the Alps, see W. H. Hall, The Romans on the Riviera and the Rhone, pp30‑32. ◂ previous next ▸ Images with borders lead to more information. The thicker the border, the more information. (Details here.) UP TO: Strabo Latin & Greek Texts LacusCurtius Home A page or image on this site is in the public domain ONLY if its URL has a total of one *asterisk. If the URL has two **asterisks, the item is copyright someone else, and used by permission or fair use. If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer. See my copyright page for details and contact information. Page updated: 23 Sep 12 Accessibility