THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. IN TWO VOLUMES.THE "ALPS OF HANNIBAL. BY WILLIAM JOHN LAW, M.A. FORMERLY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHUFCTI, OXFORD. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. ^Totttrou; MACMILLAN AND CO. 1866. [The Right of Translation and Reproduetion is reserved. JLONDON: H. CLAY, SOX, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD BTREET HILL.THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF MY REVERED GRANDFATHERS, EDMUND LAW, BISHOP OF CARLISLE, AND WILLIAM MARKHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK ; MEN OP LEARNING AND PIETY, AND SINCERE LOVERS OF TRUTH. W. J. L.PREFACE. Some apology will be expected for treating at large this very old topic of dissension. A few facts must plead my excuse. At the end of July, 1854, I was sent for health to Aix-les-Bains, in Savoy; and I took with me Mr. Ellis's "Treatise on Hannibal's 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 circumstance 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 Frenchviii Preface. and in my Alps, and amused myself during August with some comments, which I printed at Cham-b£ry, on the speculations of M. Keplat. 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 knowledge of the disputed track. In my progress to convalescence at Nice, I found myself without employment; and a resource offered 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 inPreface. ix two numbers of the 4 4 Cambridge Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology;" and I replied promptly to each through the same channel. That warfare was to be excused; I was only criticising a new theory. If now I maintain a theory myself, and strive to overthrow all the rest, it may be asked, why further stir this worn-out controversy; has not too much been said already ? That sentiment would accord with a remark made by the last English writer of eminence who has touched the subject. Dr. Liddell says, " The con-" troversy will probably last for ever: the data " seem insufficient to enable us to form a positive " judgment." This feeling of despair may be alleviated if the inquiry shall enable us to account for the failure of a few marked men, whom the world would have expected to command assent on the question. Such were D'Anville and Gibbon. But improvement has been slow, and error obstinate. Many a year has passed since the very learned Thirlwall, reviewing the efforts of a distinguished commentator, spoke of " the enormous mass of " literature which has been already piled upon " this theme." Mass, indeed, there is; but it isx 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 unanswered ; and reputed difficulties are looked upon with dismay, as if they were real ones. The subject 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 Roman empire, which have been cultivated in various forms to the present time; nourished by men who have adorned the literature of modern Europe. Eew there are who take pains to scrutinise what is plausible, or to sift what is obscure. The laborious effort of novelty, which I have mentioned asPreface. 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 the scruple should be countenanced by men like Schweighseuser, or Gossellin, or Letronne, or Arnold, or Ukert, there is no alternative: the unresisted sanction of such names governs the opinion of the world: and, though an error may in itself seem unworthy of refutation, the friend of truth cannot leave it unassailed. In this controversy there is nothing so extravagant that you may pass it by: the most perverse fancies are found in writers of formidable reputation. All obstacles then must be encountered: we dare not despise what the world esteems: the consequence is, that the subject must not be treated shortly, if it is to be treated safely. Eortunately those very circumstances make the pursuit of it exceedingly entertaining. The strangeness 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. Suchxii Preface. 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. PART I. the controversy. PAGE Chap. I.—The Controversy : Progress and State of it . . . 1 Chap. II.—The Subject proposed, and Method of treating it. . 8 PART II. on the authority of polybius. Chap. I.—His Journey through the Alps .... 15 Chap. II.—Strictures of Dr. Ukert. Italy and the Alps. The Rhone. Direction of the March..............23 Chap. III.—The Polybian Map of M. Gossellin. His reference to Pliny for confirming it. His-Theory on the Stade . 38 Chap. IV.—On the Stade of Polybius, and his Distances ... 48 PART III. polybius interpreted. passage of the rhone. Chap. I.—Introduction. Division of the March. Three points to be fixed: the Passage of the Rhone; the beginning of Alps; the exit into the Plain..........55XIV Contents. faoi; Chap. II.—Passage of the Rhone near Roquemaure indicated by the distance from the Sea ; by the distance from the Island ; by the single Stream..........58 Chap. III.—Theory of Tarascon. Argument of Dr. Ukert. Distance from the Sea. Distance from the Island. Roman measurements in Gaul and Spain. Roads 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 aiips. 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 Isere and then seek the Alps. Five incidents mark the progress to the Alps : ten days ; 800 stadia ; along the river; country for cavalry; country of the Allo-broges ... ....... . ... 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. Whitaker, going through Geneva, finds the Alps at Martigny. Mr. H. L. Long, going through Grenoble, finds them at Fort Barr'aux ... ... . 142 Chap. IV.—Theories of tracks south of Isere 164Contents. xv PART Y. the mountain march. ascent. PAGK Chap. I.—Some theories arc not worked out beyond their first Alps. Those of the Cenis are laboui'ed throughout their 1,200 stadin. Termini and distance. By the Little St. Bernard. By the Cenis. By the Little Cenis. The events of each of the fifteen days . . .185 Chap. II.—Ascent to the Little St. Bernard. The forcing of the Mont dn 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 Roche Blanche. Modern evidence. Melville. Brockcdon. Arnold. Character of conflict. Summit reached on the morrow, being the ninth day of Alps . . 193 Chap. III.—Ascent to the Mont Cenis. Larauza. The Nine Days. Defile and \eujco7terpov . . . . . 215 Chap. IV.—Ascent to the Little Mont Cenis. Mr. Ellis and the Rock of Baune. The Combat. Evasion of the Text. Summaries. How Mr. Ellis shortens the reckoning of time. Two days. . Two days more. His final argument for Baune. His progress from the Battle to the Summit . . 225 PART VI. thk mountain maitch. summit. Chap. I.—Hannibal encamps on the Summit for Two Days. He calls his Troops together and addresses them. Evidence of Italy: miscalled view. The Text considered. The following day he begins the descent . .......251 Chap. II. —No practicable Summit gives a View of Italy. It is claimed for Monte Viso, by St. Simon and the Anonymous of Cambridge 1830 : for Balbotet, by Folard, who is followed by Vaudoncourt and Bande de Lavalette: for the Cenis, by Larauza, the writer in Blackwood's Magazine, and Mr. Ellis 2591XYl Content*. PART VII. the mountain march. descent. tag is Chap. [.—Descent from the Little St. Bernard. The disaster of the first day requires particular examination of circumstances told. The same phenomena still occur in the ravine below La Tuile. Arguments on the Descent from the Cenis. Larauza. Writer in fflackiooocl's Magazine, June, 1845. Mr. Ellis..............279 Chap. II.—Hannibal, having completed the passage of the Alps in Fifteen Days, came down boldly into the plain of the Po, and the nation of 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. ITis scruples on the Salassi. . . .... 308 Chap. IV.—On Passes between Little St. Bernard and the Cenis. Brockedon. Albania Beaumont .... .... 327 Map of the Alps ... To face page V.K RATA. Page 71, liue 29, for "equre" read " nqute." „ 93, „ 3, for" agreement" read " argument," ,, 118, „ 18, for " nom" read " nomme." ,, 122, ,, 33, for " equivocal" read " equivalent." „ 156, „ 29, for "marching" read "reaching." „ 158, ,, 10, "from Valence" to be omitted. „ 221, „ 14, for "husliing" read "hashing." „ 304, „ 2, for " but" read " best." „ 319, „ 24, for " Yin" read " Viu."IcLriiis Laca&t 'Sorim -Ammm COMUM com TV v-'A \ Lnniu LUCDUNUM LYON uwgelr f&c. 'mm aucust/i ^rTBERCUSIUIVf / Bourqpirv IMA ALLOBROCUM IOLANUM MILAN 3REDI VREA lOV^A Tovara la /hx',' el issm m^Sm^r- TU REGION ICU Ml '^Qimacieux 1 les KcLellei LAUS POtflPSJ ZodiVedshiS1 ERCELL/6- 7ERCELLI \ JSVoironL \ # "" ^jyiopciNNUM H f¥ ip (J/jpWi/a^yr mi I .. CINUIYI. FA VIA rasso W'/VOfl Ft. AuCliSTA,: Romans VALENTI ^AST A ASTi DERTO mmm riNKHOLO [ioriol AQU*1 SWI ELI ALBA ''•otiic 'O/VS LUCUS Aucus- / oiC en JJioti \NTKLt)tiirit IStf&ulWis Chateau* rNYONS '//A*//' tm _yA$io Vai son r«E ALPS or 11ANNI BAL MMl/S/^^t jii (.1.1,III* iL.. : Hoqiieuiaure< Roman Roads, across the Alps known to the Itineraries. in, L ,.......... ^ Hanralulls route was frojn Itoquemaure wliere he crossed die Bhone,Ufjto JQenne, by Jiourgoin, MonJb Ou Qiat,-Lemineiim fan/la/us, Jiourg S*Maurice, Aoste, to (he plain, of Italy. Two Road**, according to Peutinger's Table (not in Itinerates) — / Brianvon to Vienna/, through Grenoble. 2 Brian^on to Mioc, suggested as the route i-maguvedL byD'Anville, See Vbl- n,p-T9J. y^^jLfi ^AVENIO AVIGNON APTA JU Jabellio tavailwn ' A R A S C O, Taratfcon UGERNUr Beaueairc, Roman Miles 10 20 Kut» StatMiies A R ELATED/. ES Longitude Kast of Greenwich Stmfcrrd's Geography ~R$txxbP London- Jjvndon/ & Cambridge: MajonvuUarb <£ Cv.THE ALPS OF HANNIBAL. PART 1. THE CONTROVERSY. CHAPTER I. The Controversy: Progress and State of it. Seven cities contended to be the birth-place of Homer. As many mountains contend to be the Alps of Hannibal. Great and good men have toiled to fix the death-hour of Alexander, and the landing-spot of Ceesar 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 and research, the interest which they excite is not regulated 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 question which it hardly imports us to solve may nevertheless be deserving of praise: an examination of evidence, as in the case before us, can vindicate an interest far surpassing that of the thing to be proved; and it is enough to say, that a subject which has engaged Letronne and Ukert and Arnold, bespeaks itself worthy to be explored. When we regard the various matters which such inquiries will embrace, we make better estimate of their value ; and see danger in a doctrine which, condemning them as useless, would confine our exercise of B2 The Controversy: [part i. thinking to the exigencies of the passing day. Efforts of retrospect, even such as these, are conducive to the interests of society. But in our subject is there need of effort ? Remains 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 movements, he hardly reached a firm opinion on this subject, and to the last declared Polybius an unintelligible guide. Letronne and TJkert are among the later lights on geography and history; one invites us to the Genevre, the other to the Cenis: while Arneth, 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^e Blanche, hailing Mont Blanc as the XevKoirerpov; and Mr. Ellis in 1854? proclaims the Eock 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: nec modus est ullus 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 threeCHAP. I.] 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 enumerated in a preface to the work of M. le Comte de Fortia d'Urban, 1821. The earliest of modern 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 suffrage is of no value; for, referring to Polybius, he says that Hannibal passed the Ehone at Lyons. Then, doubting whether the site of that city between the Saone and the Ehone 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 his " 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 * " Bemarks on several parts of Europe," 2 vols, by J. Breval, Esq. late. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Yol. I. 228, and Yol. II. 2. b 24 The Controversy: [part i. remarks of Gibbon on the subject of our inquiry, which he states to be the result of his reading and careful reflection, are dated 1763 : they appear in his miscellaneous works, published since his death, (Vol. iv. pp. 355, 418). No man could be better qualified to solve such a question: he possessed every advantage; nevertheless he made a poor business of it, and is without excuse for his abandonment of the question. It was some years later that General Melville, on an investigation 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 difference 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. Rector of Euan Lanyhorne, Cornwall." 2 vols. 8vo. And in 1812 was produced the work of General Vaudoncourt, " Histoire des Campagnes d'Annibal en Italie. Par FrM^ric Guillaume, General de Brigade," 3 tomes 4to. Milan. I conceive that neither D'Anville in 1760, nor Vaudoncourt in 1812, were aware of the rival pretensions of the Little St. Bernard; but the intermediate writer knew them well. Mr. Whitaker had the advantage of General Melville's notes; but he did not condescend to be a copier ; his taste was to be original, and lie took no benefit from the assistance.CHAP. I.] Progress and State of it. 5 Fortunately the General Imparted his notes also to M. De Luc, of Geneva, who in 1818 laid the matter of them before the world in a very able and convincing manner. " Histoire du Passage des Alpes par Annibal. Par Jean Andr6 De Luc. Geneve, 1818." There was a second edition in 1825. This writer also made a correction of General Melville's line, which is of the utmost importance, and essential to a just view of the subject. General Melville fixed the main pass of Alps. De Luc cleared the way for arriving at it. From the time when M. De Luc's work appeared, this old controversy has been pushed with vigour: the learned in Germany and France, not without auxiliaries in England, have carried on a lively hostility against the Graian Alp, or Little St. Bernard. M. De Luc was first attacked by M. Letronne, in the "Journal des Savans," Janvier, 1819; and the same publication, in the following December, contained an answer from M. De Luc, with M. Letronne's reply to it. The theory was supported in 1820 by the Dissertation of my friends Wickham and Cramer,* who first came forth anonymously 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 Eev. John Antony Cramer, late Dean of Carlisle, and Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford.6 The Controversy: [part i. tion of his text on the progress to the first Alps, which is perhaps the clearest point of any that are litigated, has been blinked by all other writers, without exception. I know not how numerous the hostile list may be. I have myself met with the following :— Criticism by M. Letronne. Journal des Savans. Janvier 1819. P. 22. Do. do. Ddcembre, 1819. P. 783. Dissertation sur le Passage du Rhone et des Alpes par * Aimibal. Par M. le Comte de Portia d'Urban. Paris, 1821. Hannibal's Zug iiber die Alpen : in the Jahrbiicher der Literatur for July, August, September, 1823. By Arneth, 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 Rhone to the Alps. By Henry Lawes Long, Esq. London, 1831 (Author of "A Survey of the Early Geography of Western Europe," 1859). Hannibal's Zug iiber die Alpen. By Dr. Fr. A. Ukert. In the Second Part of Second Volume of his work, Geographic der Grechen und Romer, 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 G&i&al St. Cyr Nugues. 1837. R^cherches sur 1'Histoire du Passage d'Annibal d'Espagne en Italie, k travers les Alpes. Par M. Baud£ de Lavalette. Montpellier, 1838. G^ographie Ancienne des Gaules. Par M. le Baron. Walckenacr. Paris, 1839.chap. i.] Progress and State of it. 7 .Note sur le Passage d'Annibal. Par Jacques Replat, Chamb&y, 1851. A Treatise on Hannibal's Passage of the Alps, in which his Route is traced over the Little Mont Cenis. By Robert Ellis, B.D., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, 1854. Two papers by the same author. Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology. Vols. II. and III. Cambridge, 1856. All these writers disclaim the scheme of march, as corrected by De Luc and the Oxford Dissertation, from the mouth of the Isere 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 geographer 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 Dissertation ; 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 modern commentators wind up8 The Controversy. [part i. their preface. Seventy-two years ago the learned Whitaker proclaimed himself the source of " so clear a sunshine as no mistakes can veil, and no wilfulness can darken for ever again :" and among the newer theorists, my friend who sojourned at Grenoble stands convinced that his proofs " have set this long pending discussion at rest for ever." I am taught to resist the fond delusion. Seeing how the most learned have yielded to 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—rrokvv yjpovov iiria-Koria-delaa, tcXo? avrr) Bt eavTr}<; eTTiKparel, koX Karcuycovi^eTac to yfreCSo?. Polyb. xiii. 5. CHAPTER II. The Subject 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 ItalyCHAP. II.] The Subject: Method of Inquiry. 9 in five days from the summit, we must consider that crisis of the season to have passed, and may place their arrival in the plain at the very end of October. The crossing of the Rhone was performed fully a month before they reached the plain; for the march proceeded on the second day after crossing the river; it lasted fourteen days to the Alps ; and had occupied fifteen days in the Alps when they touched the plain. Accordingly the Rhone 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 contemporaneous 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 informed upon the region which is principally concerned in the controversy, the answer might be this:—Imagine Hannibal with his army about half-way between Orange and Lyons,10 The 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 Yiu. 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 Nimes, excepting Mr. Whitaker, who carried it through Carcasone, Lodeve, Le Yigan and Anduse, coming upon the Ehone near Loriol, a place about nineteen miles below the influx of the Is&re. 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 Mmes, effected the passage of the Ehone before he marched up to the Is&re ; so that our first business must be with his course from Nimes to the Ehone. The crossing need not, indeed, have been effected from the point where the march first touched the rixter; nor is it quite necessary that the whole force should have proceeded from Nimes to the river in one line. Still the question, where did Hannibal cross the Ehone, is not only interesting inchap, ii.] The Subject: Method of Inquiry. 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 the Carthaginian invasion have come down to us, the point which it is sought to determine necessarily calls upon all who pretend to understand those historians to consider whether they concur in the Pass of Alps by which Hannibal came to Italy : and, if they shall be found not to concur, to say which is entitled to our belief. Modern interpreters of these ancient narratives of Hannibal's march may then be ranked in two classes : those who maintain that the Greek historian and the Latin historian concur on the Pass of Alps by which the invasion was effected, and those who maintain that they do not concur. It is apparent that they who would identify the two tracks are far more numerous than those who insist on their disagreement: and one has to consider whether the former opinion is entitled to respect, by reason that it is the opinion of the majority. I find reason to say that it is not: for, while so many are ready to declare that Polybius and Livy favoured the same line, they rarely agree upon what that line was. What then can have provoked so prevailing a persuasion ? Has a conviction of the identity been arrived at by a separate examination of each, followed by a comparison : or has the identity been presumed, and the effort been an attempt at expedients for smoothing differences and reconciling contradictions ? The latter has been the case; and many authors would h^ye escaped the conclusions which they profess, if they had only examined Polybius as if there were no Livy, and Livy as if there were no Polybius. Instead of this, they embark in the subject, determined to make the two agree.12 The Controversy. [pakt I. M. Letronne tells us, " Polybe et Tite-Live sont nec^ssaires <\ l'explication l'un de 1'autre. Dans Tite-Live, il n'y a pas un seul mot ci changer pour faire coincider son texte avec celui de Polybe." In tlie same spirit, General St. Cyr Nugues writes : " II faut expliquer et concilier ces deux recits : voilA le probl&me." M. Baud6 de Lavalette: " II faut concilier Polybe et Tite-Live : tel est l'ceuvre qui doit, en definitif, etie le but de nos efforts." , M. le Baron Walckenaer: " On a era. qu'il y avoit, entre le r^cit de Tite-Live et celui de Polybe, une contradiction; on a cherch£ & se determiner pour l'un 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 impression that they intend the same track ? I am fully persuaded that this has never happened : no one, on tracing the outlines of the two stories, can be impressed in favour of their geographical coincidence. Whence then the prejudice? I apprehend 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 ta 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 aCHAP. 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. Also, when great modern names are adduced, when we are told of D'Anville, Gibbon, Ukert, and others, let us answer that we will heed their arguments, not their names. No human judgment stands above scrutiny. Labour and learning cannot ensure a freedom from error. Arnold imagined the elephants to be three or four nights above the snow-line; Cramer and De Luc conceived the Carthaginians marching along the Ticino ; Niebuhr asserted that they crossed the Po below Piacenza; and Napoleon III. says that Scipio, landing at the mouth of the Ehone, learned that Hannibal had already entered the Alps. Many writers are seen to confuse the two histories by applying the narrative of the one author to supply the deficiencies of the other. I approve a different principle; that, antecedent to any comparison of the histories, a separate examination must be made of the matter of each; not disturbing the scrutiny of one by blending with it notices Of the other. When this has been fairly done, the similarity or dissimilarity of the results may be viewed : then only shall we be qualified to estimate the practicability of conciliation. But, while it is necessary to keep distinct our examination of the ancient authorities, it is requisite that we should set forth the views of modern commentators together with our own. We are not to presume that the reader is already aware14 The 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 OP HANNIBAL. PAET II. ON THE AUTHORITY OF POLYBIUS. CHAPTER I. His Journey through the Alps. Polybitjs explored in person the Alps of Hannibal. We know not who may have been his companions, and there has been a difference of opinion as to the time when he made the journey. He was born in the fourteenth year of the war: in the vigour of life he was withdrawn from the service of his country, as one of the hostages extorted by the grasping violence of the Roman 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 universal tyranny of Rome : Cato had pronounced the doom of Carthage ; and the downfall of Greece was not to be averted by those few of her citizens who were at the same time wise and honest. Polybius was about thirty-seven years old at the time of the Achaean exile. He had filled important posts in the state of which he was a distinguished member; he had become1G Authority of Polybiws. [part ii. acquainted with Roman 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.1, 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 elsewhere, 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 Rome, 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 promoted that of Demetrius. For himself the Alpine enterprise had its attraction; and, while he was peremptorily cut off from his own country, his duties to her suffered no worse suspension by a wandering into the west of Europe. The time too was favourable: for some years the rage of war was 1 587 u.c. of the Varronian period.CHAP. I.] His J our my 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 Achaeans, urging that Polybius might join him at Lilybseum: accordingly he set out, but receiving intelligence at Corfu, from which he concluded that hostilities were at an end, he returned to Greece.* Some have imagined that the journey was made on the termination of the exile ; and have .conceived the friend and preceptor accompanied by his illustrious pupil Scipio, the younger Africanus. I see great improbability in this. The one, as well as the other, had had better leisure for such an enterprise at an earlier period, whether before or after the death of Scipio's father in 160. I doubt that there is any authority for saying that they ever went through the Alps together. It would no doubt have been agreeable to both, that Polybius should have attended Scipio at the time mentioned ; as afterwards 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 Achseans were permitted by the Senate to return to their country ; when that venerable man settled the matter with his well-known remark, that the dispute was whether a few old Greeks should be carried to their graves * Fast. Hellen. iii. 99. Mr. Clinton quotes Polyb. Fragm. Vatican, p. 447. VOL. I. C18 Authority of Polybius. [part ii. by Roman corpse-bearers or their own * Scipio then went to Spain, to serve under Lucullus : but did he go through the Alps ? In taking the office of Legate he courted a responsibility which others had declined, and had the credit of making a sacrifice to public duty in an unpopular service.")" 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 Roman force had ever then crossed the Rhone : and this young officer, like other servants of the state, must have gone to Spain by sea. M. Gossellin, (Recherches, ii. p. 6) speaks of Scipio and Polybius travelling together from Carthagena to the Rhone, as a fact 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 anywhere. 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 unknown 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. + Polyb. xxxv. 4.CHAP. L] His Journey through the Alps. 19 we assume such an incident in that space of two years, the scene of it would be Spain and ISTumidia, 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 ISTumidia. When we consider that the return of the Greeks was in 151; that Carthage was destroyed in 147, and that the fall of Corinth immediately followed ; and, if we observe the extreme activity of the political interval, that interval cannot be thought a probable time for Polybius's journey through the Alps, or for the facts supposed by M. Gosselin. Still more improbable would be that later time, when the independence 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 efface, and where he might " converse with some of the old men of the country, who had " in their youth either resisted Hannibal's invasion, or followed " his standard." Sixty years after the invasion denotes seven years before the termination of the Achaean exile. Beside the probabilities which rest on the transactions of the times, on the better opportunities for active inquiry and literary employment, which Polybius enjoyed during his domicile at Rome, and the utter disturbance of such advantages 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 220 Authority of Polybius. [part ii. Alps is announced as having been made before he wrote his account of that invasion. Niebuhr says (transl. by Smith and Schmitz, iii. 42), that the first edition of Polybius is to be placed about the beginning of the seventh century; which, (601 u.c.) was before the return of the exiles. He says also (21st Lecture, published by Dr. L. Schmitz, i. 283) that that edition ended with the carrying away of the Achaean hostages, and that a second edition was published afterwards, with the subsequent history. It is curious to notice how the historian incorporated the new matter of his further history with that of the earlier one. He announces his history in the outset as one of fifty-three years, the matter of the two first books not belonging to that period, but containing so much of earlier events as may serve for introduction. He says, at the beginning of the first book, that he has thought it necessary to compose that and the next, in order to prepare his readers for the history : and, at the end of the second, he speaks of having completed the opening and preface of his whole history. In the opening of the third book, the fifty-three years are again announced as beginning with the 140th Olympiad, and ending with the subversion of the Macedonian empire : in fact that period, beginning from 220 b.c. was completed with the defeat of Perseus in 168, and the seizure of the Achaean exiles in 167. As we read on, the next paragraph shows that those 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 begin as it were another history. Pointing out the leading features of this further history, he names the Geltiberian war of Rome, the wars between Carthage and Masinissa, the warschap. i.] His Journey through the Alps. 21 between Attalus and Prusias, the wars of Cappadocia and Syria, the return of the Achaean exiles, the last war between Rome and Carthage, and the events which have consummated 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 Achaean 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—irepl puev Tavrrjv okocr)(epr)p6vT]a-ttoi rcov airdvTw, and that Avrovarioi is a corruption. Kramer has put 'EXoi^rnot in the text. The word Nantuatium. in Caesar's 4th book may perhaps be struck out.32 Authority of Polybius. [part ii. the north-east, among the Alps : more than this was not within his reach. He had no materials by which to speculate on the longitudes of those fountains: no civilised eye had seen the glacier of the Ehone : he conceived its direction, not its place. The Eomans then had no acquaintance with Transalpine Gaul save by the access of Marseille : while he lived, their only military performance between that place and the Pyrenees was in Scipio's few days near the Ehone's mouth. The addition which the researches of Polybius gave to a knowledge of that river may have been limited to the line of the Carthaginian march. It cannot be asserted that he ever visited the lake of Geneva, or the town of Lyons. Some may infer his non-acquaintance with the lake from his silence 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, iii. 56. In the time of Strabo, 140 years later, conquest had made the Ehone a familiar feature in the geography of Gaul: it was known in his earliest days through the efforts of Julius Caesar to purge from obstruction the main route between Italy and the heart of the Helvetian territory. And yet Strabo's Ehone has its errors : speaking of the Ehone, the Doubs, and the Saone, he says, iv. 186, " It happens that each of these three rivers flows in the first instance to the north, and then to the west: and then they all fall into one stream, which by another bend is carried southward to the sea," Thus the Ehone of Strabo begins at Martigny. He could only relate what he had heard. He relates that the Ehone runs into and through the lake of Geneva, and thatCHAP. II.] Strictures of Dr. 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. The direction of the March. Dr. Ukert charges Polybius with making Hannibal to march eastward, when in fact he marched northward. This criticism also asserts the improved knowledge of countries in the days of Augustus; and it would again be enough to answer, that Strabo's north side of Gaul, iv. 177, is from Bayonne to the mouths of the Ehine. The twist which he gives to the countries of the world might well belong in some degree to earlier geography: and Polybius, who deals in general rather than minute instructions, needs little justification if, in dividing his subject, he deemed the march from Carthagena to the Rhone to bear northward, and the march from the Rhone 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 following sentence, iii. 47, which I give from the edition of Schweighseuser. Uepatcodivrcov Be tgov drjpicov, dvaka{3<$ eirl ttjv 'ka> 7T0L0VfJbeV0 belongs to TroLovfjLevos TropeLav. Dr. Ukert desires to annex this idea of eastward to irpoijye.: and he would alter the usual punctuation by removing the stop from 7rorafjuov, and placing it after eco. This may also be inferred from the reviewer's report of the criticism,* where the sentence is badly divided into two parts, for telling the progress: the words Trporjye airo OakaTTT)<; to, the distinction would not have been objected to. The rejection of the comma after iropeiav is also subservient to the error of Dr. Ukert's criticism. The stop is in its proper place. In fact, the sentence was complete with iropeiav, and without the words which follow. The idea which those last words express, serves to enforce the purport of the sentence, by suggesting an object of movement in addition to that which is already expressed; the addition occurring, as is not unusual, to a writer or speaker, just as he is completing his sentence. Some have conceived a low estimate of the early authority of Polybius, on the ground that geographical accuracy must * He had brought his forces from the Pyrenees to the place where they crossed the Rhone, "having the Sardinian Sea on right hand." Lib. iii. c. 41. D 236 Authority of Polybius. [part ii. have been improved in the long interval which followed him, giving to the Komans 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 Caesar. This able and accomplished 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 infallible, the geographer by profession, coming after him, might have corrected his faults. When the latter wrote, there had been opportunity of improving upon the knowledge of Gaul and Britain which had belonged to Caesar. Strabo professes to have read the Commentaries: he observes that Caesar had passed twice into Britain, and soon returned, having done no great things, nor penetrated far into the island; but that in later times some of the British chiefs had cultivated the favour of Augustus, and brought nearly the whole island to be in familiar intimacy with the Romans; that they yielded small duties on exports and imports, but needed not a garrison to control them.* We are entitled to expect some geographical improvement. Note the amount of it. Caesar wrote that of the three sides of Britain the side opposite to Gaul was the shortest: Strabo writes that it is the longest. Caesar wrote that Ireland was to the west of Britain: Strabo writes that it is to the north. * iv. p. 200.CHAP. II.] Strictures of Dr. Ukert. 37 Caesar wrote that the side of Britain opposite to Gaul was in length 500 miles : Strabo writes that it is 5,000 stadia = 625 miles. One is surprised that he did not make it more; considering that he reports the coast of Britain to face the coast of Gaul, with their extreme points corresponding both east and west.—Csesar de Bell. Gall. v. c. 13. Strab. i. 63—iv. 199. • In the passage last referred to, Strabo thus expresses himself—" Britain is in figure triangular: her longest side is " that which is spread opposite to Gaul, being in extent " neither more nor less: each is as much as 4,300 or 4,400 " stadia; that is to say, the Gallic coast from the mouths of " the Ehine to the northern extremity of the Pyrenees in " Aquitania; and the British coast from the most easterly " point where Kent lies opposite the mouths of the Rhine, to " the western head which is over against Aquitania and the " Pyreneau. This too is the shortest distance from the Pyre-" nees to the Ehine, as the greatest has been called 5,000 " stadia: but there is probably some convergence from the " parallel position of the river and the mountain, a bend " taking place in each line near its termination at the ocean." Thus does the authority of the Augustan day, writing nearly a century and a half after Polybius, instruct the world that the coast from Margate to Penzance is parallel to and of equal length with the coast from the Brill to the Bidassoa; and that this is the shortest way, from the course of the Ehine to the chain of the Pyrenees, by reason that these two lines rather converge as they approach the ocean.38 A uthority of Polybius. [part ii. CHAPTEE III. The Polybian Map of M. Gossellin. His reference to Pliny for confirming it. His theory on the Stade. Nothing can be more injurious to the fame of Polybius than the map of the celebrated French philosopher, M. Gos-sellin, which professes to represent the Mediterranean of Polybius, with the positions of places according to his writings. This map is annexed to M. Gossellin's great work, " Rdcherches sur la Geographie 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 Mediterranean in three instalments: Gibraltar to Tunis : Tunis to Cape Passaro : Cape Passaro to Rosetta at the mouth of the Nile. These four places represent, sufficiently for our purpose, the Pillars of Hercules, Carthage, Pachynus, and Ca-nopus. Now the first distance, from Gibraltar to Tunis, is in fact more than three times as great as the second, from Tunis to Cape Passaro: and the last, from Cape Passaro to Rosetta, is greater than the first. The Polybian chart of M. Gossellin exhibits the second or middle distance as being the greatest of the three: it places Carthage farther from Pachynus than from the Pillars of Hercules; and Pachynus nearly twice 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.CHAP. III.] M. Gossellin's Carte de Polybe. 39 M. Gossellin's map represents Italy with a straight line of Mediterranean coast from Narbonne to Policastro. Now Polybius distinctly recognises the great bend of Italy, when he says that the Tyrrhenian and Sicilian seas bound that side which faces the south and the west—rrjv 7rpo? fiea-^ii^piav /ecu Bvafias rerpafifLivrjv, ii. 14 His apprehension of the bearings appears too in what he says on the chain of the Apennine; he ranges it along the southern border of the great plain. He says that Ligurians dwell on either side of it as far as Pisae on the seaside, and the lands of the Arretini on the side towards the plain ; that you then have the Etrurians on one side and the Umbrians on the other: that the Apennine bears away from the great plain to the right, and through the middle of the rest of Italy reaches to the Sicilian sea. As to the other coast, he speaks of the side of Italy which is bounded by the Adriatic and the Ionian strait as the eastern side—tfjv irpo? avaroXd'? KefcXifievrjv: and he names the promontory of Cocynthus as separating the Ionian strait from the Sicilian sea. Lib. ii. 14, 5. One who is acquainted with Polybius, knowing his Italy, and his position of Sicily in relation to Italy and to Africa, will promptly condemn much of the map we speak of as a delusion. But numbers have seen, and 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 anything found in the works of Polybius. The chief attempt to fix an extravagant measurement on him is by an inference drawn from Strabo, through which M. Gossellin imputes to Polybius an estimate of 18,766 stadia as the length of a direct sea-line from the Pillars of Hercules to the Sicilian strait. If that numeral were found expressed by Strabo, such authority ia surely not safe for what waa40 Authority of Polybius. [part ii. written by one who preceded him by nearly a century and a half: especially when we remember Strabo's own report of the Mediterranean, and that from the entrance at Gibraltar 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 himself 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 (Hannibal's 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 distance from the Pillars than the Altars of the Philseni 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 Carthaginian possessions : j* he knew that the boundary of dominion was far eastward of the district of Carthage herself: I and it was in his time, and before his own eyes, that this empire passed into the hands of the Romans, when his great pupil Scipio brought these very tracts into the condition of a Eoman province. Did he then, of all men, after he had recorded the much longer line, a coast-line too, to be 16,000 stadia, did he wade through a trigonometrical argument for proving the much shorter line to be 18,766? In truth this 16,000 fairly corresponds with other rational estimates made by him, and * Polyb. ii. 19. 2. + Ibid, xxxii. 2. + Ibid, x. 40. 7.CHAP, in.] M. Gossellin's Carte de Polybe. 41 gives a cogent disproof of the extravagant numeral on which M. Gossellin relied. In the same region of the same map is another very palpable misrepresentation, where nothing can be said in mitigation of it. I mean the Polybian distance between Carthage and 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 he Tpfrov (aKpooTyplov) riTpwrrrai yu-ev et? aurrjv ttjv Aifivrjv, lirikc.itat 8e to!? wpotceifievoi5 tt}? Kap^r]86vo<; a/cpcoTrjplois eu/catpto?, 8ie%ov w? %i\iov<; itc6/j,evovo eiclvei Buvajitv etc tov yapatcos eh iropeiav : this was the dva^vyij of the Carthaginians: and Scipio, coming to the place in three days after this, came four days after the fight. But Hannibal did not stay two days behind: Polybius says nothing to authorise that notion. H. Long says justly, that " there is no reason for assigning different days to the departure " of one force and of the other." The narrative imports unambiguously, that Hannibal moved forward with the cavalry and elephants in the course of the same day 011 which he had sent forward the infantry. And why not? He had been engaged in providing for the transport of the elephants (c. 42) during the absence of Hanno. He had selected men for the execution of the work (c. 44) before the conference with the Cisalpine chiefs. The preparations being complete, why should he not bring them over the river the next morning, and proceed with them the same day ? There are no words which import the contrary; none that indicate a continued separation of the forces, or that he passed a night near the place of passage after the infantry had moved. The historian says, that Hannibal at daybreak drew out all his cavalry towards the sea (i. e., below the scene of operations), 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.chap. iv.] Tarascon Theory. H. L. Long. 93 CHAPTER IV. Tarascon Theory. Arguments of H. L. Long. Distance from, the Sea. Distance from Emporium. The single Stream. Strabo and the Thcodosian Table. Mr. Henry Long, as well as Dr. Ukert, has endeavoured to prove that Hannibal crossed the Rhone 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 Rhone to the first Alps, $,re 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 the 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 Rhone. On the distance from the Sea. The question of measurement along the Rhone 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 Rhone, 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,94 Polybius interpreted. [PATCT ITI context as well as proximity, bespeaks the mouth of the Rhone: 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 Rhone; and the historian speaks of vessels used for descending that river to the sea. The reason for notifying the distance from the sea, is to define the latitude of Hannibal's position on the Rhone. Very different words would have been used, if he had desired to give the distance traversed from a past point of the march. Reading forward, we find that, while the elephants are passing over the Rhone, the cavalry is drawn out 777309 QaXarrav. Is 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 arguments 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. Bnt alas ! if my friend gives up Tarascon, what will become of Grenoble! On the distance from Emporium to the passage of the Rhone. Polybius states this distance to be'about 1,600 stadia = 200 miles : an amount which, upon fair examination, is found to accord so nearly with both the rival crossings, that it furnishes no preference to either. From Emporium to Mmes, a space which is common to both these lines, it is agreed to reckon 177 miles: the Oxford Dissertation adds 30 for their continuation to Roquemaure; 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 I,656 best represents "about 1,600?"chap. iv.] Tarascon Theory. H. L. Long. 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 intends to exceed the real distance, he must have means of apprehending what the real distance is. Polybius in expressing the distances of this march, has used 7rep I 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 7repi. My friend is in the common error of supposing that Polybius spoke with knowledge of Roman 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 7repi for qualifying an exaggerated total; when he has enumerated many amounts, which added together would be 960, he will probably say, w Svo ftipr] Kara to 1)9 Trpocrayopevo-" fievow; TpiyaftoXow;, the river flows from its source in a " single stream at first, but is divided into two branches in " the country of the Trigaboli."—P. 18. The illustration is expected to help us in assuming, that the term airkrj pvov<; 777309 ttjv ava/3o\r]v tq)v "AXirecov, ttjv et? 'ITa\tav, TeTpaKoaioc: and from the passage of the Ehone, for those who proceed along this very river, as if to the source, as far as the ascent to the Alps, which leads to Italy, 1,400 stadia. The same progress in the narrative. c. 47. 1. YIepaia)6evT(ov 8e t&v drjpioov, 'Avvifia? Trporjye trapa tov 7totajiov. The elephants having been brought over, Hannibal led forward along the river, c. 49. 5. 'Avvifia? 8e iroLT)o-dfJL€vo? 777309 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 others122 Polybius interpreted. [part iv. are told in c. 39, by naming the termini and the distance between them. But in this instance, the march is further explained, as 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 TTopevofievois is applied only to the 8id/3acrciKov tovto) aXk" eir evdela<; \eyam—ii. 107. Again, reporting Polybius's estimate of the circumference of the Peloponnesus, he says, viii. 335, that he reckoned it firj KaTaKoXiritpvTi, 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 aKoXidofia 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 7rapa rov irorafiov, prescribing it pi) KaraKoXiritpvTi. 4. Through a country where Cavalry could act The correspondence of Northern Dauphine with the country here described by Polybius cannot be disputed: it is an open country of undulating plain; and this character is essentially interwoven with the historical explanation of events. To a certain point the hostile bodies, which were apprehended by the Carthaginians as threatening their advance, were deterred from attack by two things; the native auxiliary force, and the Carthaginian cavalry, that arm of war in which Hannibal was always superior to his enemies. When is this terror said to operate ? so long as they were in the plain country—ecu? ev Tot? iTTtTreSoLs rjavT€?, 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, iii. 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, iii. 50; Strabo, iv. 186; Livy, xxi. 31; Dion Cassius, xxxvii. 47 ; Floras, iii. 2 ; Livy, Epitome, lvi.—ciii 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 exhibitedCHAP. II.] First Alps. Mont du Chat. 137 fighting for a short time south of Is&re, but not inhabiting. In the year when the Romans, 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 Isere 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 mountains not their own to oppose the progress of Caesar through the Alps : and some of these had shortly before descended into the plain of the 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 lajte date to their position north of Isere, Larauza had imagined and laid down a history for the Allobroges, with an outline of historical fact asserted positively and without obscurity. He says, pp. 37, 38 : " C'est " en de9a de l'lsere, et surtout dans la partie la plus m£-" ridionale de la Gaule, que l'on voit se passer la plupart des " guerres qu'ils eurent & soutenir contre les Romains depuis " la premiere, l'an 630 de Rome, jusqu'& celle qui mit fin " a leur ind^pendance, l'an 692. Nous serions meme assez " fond^s ci croire que ce dut etre vers cette ^poque que, " subjugu^s par les Romains, ils furent repousses au-del& de " l'ls&re, 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 warfare was sustained by the Allobroges for a138 "Polybius 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 crushed, 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 Is&re, yet, in the time of Caesar, they had only just been driven within that boundary. Now, though M. Larauza was a laborious, zealous, and amiable man, and Dr. Ukert enjoys a very high reputation for the knowledge of ancient geography, I conceive this continuous warfare of the Allobroges with Rome to be an unauthorized notion : a mistake of a few simple facts, which are these. At the beginning of the period spoken of, the Allobroges in one campaign lost their independence and became subject to Rome: 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 all. The first entrance of the Romans into Gaul by land 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 Romans 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.f In the * It appears from the Fasti Capitolini, quoted by Mr. Clinton, vol. hi. 130, that the Vocontii had fought against Fulvius Flaccus : for he is recorded as having a triumph over them. f Velleius Paterculus states that the Allobroges joined the Sallycs in resisting the Romans under Sextius, i. 15.CHAP. II.] First Alps. Mont du Chat. 139 following year, 121, the proconsul Domitius ^Enobarbus defeated the army of the Allobroges; and the consul Eabius also routed them with prodigious slaughter, together with the Arverni and Euteni, a great force having been brought into the- field on the part of the Gauls. Thus speedily was effected the subjugation of the Allobroges. These three campaigns led to the erection of the Province: and never did the Allobroges regain their independence. The accounts of their subjugation are consistently told by Strabo, Livy, Pliny, and others; and there is no reason to think that, when they became subject to Rome, 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 Marcel! in us, writing 500 years after the transactions, says this: " Hse regiones, prsecipufe quae confines " Italicis paulatim levi sudore sub imperium ventre Ro-" manum: primo tentatce per Fulvium, deinde prseliis parvis " quassatae per Sextium, ad ultimum per Fabium Maximum " domitae: cui negotii plenus effectus, asperiore Allobrogum " gente devicta, hoc indidit cognomen." Lib. xv. Such was the first Allobrogian war of M. Larauza. Where is the next ? Having assigned to a particular district " la " plupart des guerres depuis la premiere, l'an 630, jusqu'^i la " derni&re, l'an 692," he might be expected to bring to our attention something that happened between those two extremes. But he furnishes nothing. Neither in his work, nor elsewhere, is there an act of discord between the Allobroges and the Romans after that first short war of conquest, until the very end of the stated period, " l'an 692." In that year things are recorded, which M. Larauza treats as the climax of a continuous contest: and, because this people is seen for140 Polybius interpreted. [part iv. a month or two in arms at the end of that period, he presumes that they had been fighting against Eome throughout the interval. But in truth even that one fact is misrepresented : it was but an effort of insurrection speedily quelled. The only authorities on the subject seem to be Livy and Dion Cassius. There is an interesting question on the identity of places: but it does not affect our inquiry. There cannot well be a stronger specimen of exaggeration than the sixty-two years' struggle proclaimed by this critic, founded only on a few conflicts, which cannot have occupied many 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 Yentia, 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 Rome. Their envoys were at Rome, preferring charges against their rulers or magistrates. P. Umbrenus, an agent of the praetor Lentulus, who was a chief performer in Catiline's plot, sounds them by entering into a discussion of their grievances. " Postquam illos videt queri de avaritia magistra-" tuum, accusare senatum quod eo auxilii nihil esset; miseriis " suis remedium mortem expectare : At ego, inquit, vobis, si " modo viri esse voltis, rationem ostendam qua tanta ista mala " effugiatis." * They pledge themselves to the conspiracy; and afterwards repent of it. " Quinto Fabio Sangse, 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 Bello Civ. ii. 430.CHAP. II.] First Alps. Mont du Chat. 141 traitors forfeit their lives through the evidence of the Allobroges. The charge against their magistrates, the grumbling at the non-protection of the Senate, the patronage of the Fabii, the very act of assenting to the conspiracy, all show the Allobroges to have been at this period in a state of political dependence. Thus the alleged probability of the Allobroges having been first driven beyond the Isere in the year 692, vanishes, with all the statements on which it is built. They lost their independence in 630 : and, while there is no evidence that they ever regained it, there are ample circumstances tending to satisfy us that they did not. See the progress of events in the south of Gaul during that very period, the sixty years of which we speak. What is it but the continuous progress of Eoman power ? The foundations of it were laid gradually but strongly. We may look back to the eighty years that preceded those sixty years, the time of the Ligurian wars, wars with those who shut up the avenue to Spain with their mountains on the sea—a7ro/ce/c\ei/c6—" etant " arriv^ a Tallard, Annibal s'arrete au pied des montagnes : il " s'approche jusqu' aux bords de la Vence, au pied d'un " defile qui s'etend jusqu' k pr&s Remollon." 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 accompaniment of the march of 800 stadia to the first Alps, General Vaudoncourt dispenses with it thus:—" Le passage " est &videmment alt^re : le genitif & £te chang£ en accusatif " par erreur et caprice, des copistes: ainsi il faut lire & " Rhodano et non pas propter Rhodanum." General St. Cyr Nugues in accordance with this idea substitutes airo for wapa; so as to express the idea, " en s'eloignant du fieuve." 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 irapd. Also those who propose the change ought to make it more largely: irap' avrov tov 7TorajMov 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 irapa, into airo in the other two instances, which seems necessary for their consistency. Indeed, if " s'eloignant du fieuve" should become the amendment of the earlier part of the 1,400, Hannibal should strike away across country to the Alps as soon as he has crossed the Rhone : and the two generals might as well have adopted the theory of M. Fortia168 Polybius interpreted. [PAKT IV. d'Urban, who, in order to march through his own estate, makes Hannibal go direct from the Eygues to the Po. But in that General 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 l'lskre." We shall see soon, that this fact has some value : it makes the general a sound witness on the banks of that stream, though it does not make him an authority on manuscripts. 3. Up the I sire and the Brae to St. Bonnet. M. Letronne and M. Band6 de Lavalette. The inventor of this theory, which discloses the first Alps at St. Bonnet on the Drac, is M. Letronne; " san& haud spernendus auctor:" a man of literary eminence, and the first assailant of M. De Luc. In two papers of the Journal des Savans, 1819, he thus explains the Carthaginian progress to the ava/3o\r) rwv Wirewv, which he seems to identify with " l'entrde duDepartement desHautes Alpes"—" Annibal arrive " sur le bord de l'ls&re, marcha dix jours le long de ce fieuve, " jusqu'& la mont^e des Alpes. Parvenu au confluent de " l'lsfere avec le Drac (qui dit-on, avoit alors lieu un peu au " dessus de Grenoble, prks de Gi&re,) il ne traversa ni l'ls&re " ni le Drac, torrent extremement large et impetueux a son " embouchure: il remonta ce torrent, que sa largeur dut lui " faire prendre pour la meme riviere que l'lsere. II le suivit " jusqu' au dixi&me jour, dans l'espace de huit cents stades, " compter du point ou il avoit trouve l'ile des Allobroges. " Cette mesure prise le long de l'ls&re et du Drac, porte a " Saint Bonnet, k 1'entree du d&partement des Hautes Alpes. " Jusque-1& dit Polybe, l'armee s'^toit trouvde en plaine : 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: points S. of Isb'e. 169 Time and Distance.—Time of travelling will depend not only on distance, but on character of country, on impediments, whether of nature or art. Much of M. Letronne's track, though he calls it all plain, is through a difficult country, both up the left bank of the Is6re, and the left bank of the Drac; and, though, on arriving at St. Bonnet he says here is my ava/3o\r] 'AX7re(av, and proclaims, " Jusque la l'armee s etoit trouvee en plaine," some will consider that he plunges deep into Alps, to find the beginning of Alps ; and that the conformity of his track requires to be considered under the next head. Plain favourable to Cavalry.—We know, from Polybius, that the march of the army in company with the ally, after being refitted by him, was through plain country, iv eVMreStH?, where the enemy, hovering about and threatening their progress, was deterred from attack by fear of the Carthaginian cavalry; and that this was the case till they were near to the first ascent. M. Letronne's course of plain is in two parts : that which borders the left bank of Iskre, 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 litI will allow their valleys the scope which belongs to them, though none is allowed to our valley of the Ehone ; my doubt is whether any scope can be found in the adjacent country for their cavalry to take advantage of.170 Polybius interpreted. [PAllT IV. 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 Grenoble. There never was any Roman " road on the south bank of the Isere, 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." I have referred to Cassini's map, where it is not laid down at all: a route will probably be given in the great map of France which is now in progress, General St. Cyr Nugues, repudiating this as the line of Hannibal, says, " De hautes montagnes escarpees y bordent " l'lsere, depuis les environs de Pont-en-Eoyaus j usque vers " Sassenage; la dominent et en resserrent le cours, parti-" culierement vis-k-vis Moirans, ou le rocher fait une ^norme " 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. Band£ 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 Gresivaudan, he exposes the roughness of their further march to St. Bonnet, saying, p. 53 :—" Lorsque de ce point (Grenoble) " l'on prend k droite pour suivre le cours du Drac dans le " direction de la montagne de Sassenage, on le voit traversant " la plaine de Grenoble, h 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 cote, serait done " ,entr£ dans ces montagnes, n'ayant fait au plus que 582 stades " le long du fleuve." M. de Lavalette protests against the unfairness of this, andCHAP. IV.] First Alps: points S. of I sire. 171 says with much candour that, if M. Larauza can be satisfied with a march on the south shore of the Is&re below Grenoble, he is not the man to object to the valley of the Drac:—" Si, " malgr4 les obstacles que parait offrir le pays situe entre " Valence et Grenoble, le savant professeur a cru qu'Annibal " avait franchi cette distance, il ne sauroit etre admis k pre-" senter comme impossible le trajet de Tembouchure du Drac " ii St. Bonnet"—p. 64. This piece of good sense might have induced its author to dissent from M. Letronne's doctrine, " j usque lk en plaine a proposition which is applied to the Is6re 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 Is&re. Along the River.—Having admired the usefulness of M. Letronne's cavalry from Pont-en-Koyans to Sassenage, and seeing how their manoeuvres still surprise us in approaching St. Bonnet, we may again notice his fulfilment of the requisite irapa tov 7rora/x6v. In addition to his ingenuity upon words, M. Letronne gives a moral explanation of the turn up the Drac. He has found the cause to be that, when Hannibal came to that river, he took it for the Is6re, and so followed it. He has not told us where he picked up this anecdote: but, if it were true, it would show that Hannibal's intention had been to proceed along the Isere ; so that, instead of M. Letronne's route by St. Bonnet to the Mont Genkvre, 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 Allobroges.—M. Letronne insisted on the position of the Allobroges as occupants of the Island, in the Journal des Savans, Janv. 1819 : but objected to the cir-172 Polybius interpreted. [part iv. cuitous route attributed to Hannibal by De Luc, as " un " detour bien etrange, quand il pouvoit arriver a Montmeillan " en suivant l'lsere. Rien ne l'empechoit, puisque les Allo-" broges, loin de contrarier alors sa marcbe, lui fournirent de " vivres, &c.—Quand a ce que Polybe appelle l'ile, habitee, " dit il, par les Allobroges, on ne peut trouver un canton, &c. " —Cette ile est done l'insula Allobrogum." He speaks of " l'opinion incontestable qui place l'ile entre le Rhone et Isere: " and explaining his own views of the route, M. Letronne says, " C'est a partir des Allobroges que com-mencent les grand difficult^ 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 l'opinion qu'on a de l'etendue du " pays habits par les Allobroges a une dpoque fort posteri-" eure au passage d'Annibal: mais on ignore absolument " si les Allobroges, nation puissante, n'avoient point a cet " epoque etendu leur domination sur la plus grande partie " du Dauphine ; en sorte qu'il a pu avoir toujours a com-" battre les armees Allobroges. La circonscription du " territoire de la plupart de la Gaule, au temps de Cesar " d'Auguste, est encore fort incertaine: mais on peut assurer " que nous ignorons tout-&-fait l'^tat des choses au tems " d'Annibal. Comment se faire une objection de ce qui " n'est pas possible de connoitre!" "We may be satisfied, that such an antagonist has no better consolation against the evidence of Caesar, Cicero, and Strabo, to which in his simplicity he lately subscribed, than that these writers were not coeval with Hannibal. In January he pronounced in a tone of some decision, that the island which Polybius describes as the country of the Allobroges, was on the north of the Isere. In December he reconciles himselfCHAP. IV.] First Alps: points 8. of I she. 173 to a march up the Drac to St. Bonnet, as the Trope ia, Sia twv 'AXkofiplryoDV Kakov(A€VG>v TakaT&v, and proclaims a victory gained over that people in the mountains beyond. 4. By Moirans and Grenoble—up the Drac—down the Luie to the Durance near Tallard—up to the plain of La Breoule and to the defile on the JJbaye. A member of the University of Cambridge. 1830. 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, Hannibal arrived at the Island," he conducts the army through Moirans to Grenoble, without Allobrogian obstruction. He recrosses the Is&re at Grenoble and proceeds along the Drac and by Gap to the Durance—then across the latter river near Tallard, and for some miles along it, to the valley of the Ubaye and the village of La Breoule ; and finds the avaftokrj "AXiretov in a defile above that place. Time and Distance.—As this author wrote a book to show that Polybius's distances are wholly without value, one could hardly expect him to give to time a respect which he denies to space. His march is singularly favoured by fortune. Unlike 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 avrov tov iroraybov " along the river by its very banks." When, in p. 61,174 Polybius interpreted. [part iy. he applies the irora/jbov 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 interpretation of Trorafiov 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 Khone, 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 espkce 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, e&>9 iv toZ? eiruTrehoL^ rjcrav, and the escort " from the island remains to protect them, they are un-" molested ; but, on the departure of their guards, when they " begin to push forward to the defiles, they find them pre-" occupied and closed against them by the enemy. Hannibal, " entering the pass by night, seizes on the heights. In the " morning the barbarians attack as they move slowly out of " the defile. Hannibal makes a descent on the enemy with " entire success, and captures their town," &c.—Pp. 62. 63.chap, iv.] First Alps; points S. oj lsere. 175 Through the Allobroges.—In this advanced region, according to the anonymous critic, was fought the battle of the Allobroges, " who, on the departure of the island guards, commenced 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 Yocontii at the mouth of the Drac, and is now tending to Barcelonette. However, he sustains the current of Allobroges, like many other critics, till he has passed his chosen spot for fighting with them. We leave him now, proceeding by the Chemin Royal; but shall hear of him again on the Col de Yiso. 5. Up the lsere and the Romanche by Bourg dC 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-a-vis Vizelle. But, when he had got over it, and found himself in a practicable country, he did not profit by this advantage : he declined the " large et belle vallee," and encountered the arduous defiles of the Romanche. He says, iv. p. 89 : " Je suis persuade que la route " la plus ordinaire et la plus pratiqu^e des Gaulois en Italie, " £toit celle qui conduit du Mont de Lens, du Lautaret, et de " Brianqon au Mont Gen&vre." One would infer from this that he apprehended the first Alps at the Mont de Lens : for after crossing it, he has the first combat with the natives " ceux du pais." One cannot reconcile the landmarks of this writer with those of Polybius : for the historian certainly places the 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 Brianpiai 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 k travers ces riantes collines qui " se succedent depuis La Chavane jusqu'k la croix d'Aigue-" belle." Along the River.—As I hinted in a previous chapter, Dr. Ukert was not disposed to compromise himself as a scholar by making the word Trora/jLov to represent two or three rivers in succession, or to have grammatical reference to any but the Rhone. Nevertheless, while he deems the word to refer to fPoSavov, 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 Rhone for the Icaras, and the Icaras for the Rhone; that Polybius wrote of the Is&re as bearing the great name Rhone, and deemed the Rhone to be the tributary under the name of Scaras. Such is the discovery of Dr. Ukert; but I think there can be few, if any other, who do not acquiesce in the good sense which has accounted for Scaras being found in manuscripts. When Holstenius met with tt} fiev yap o 'PoSavo?, tt) Se hcapas (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 four^d in 'ApapoTaTov vnTepj3o\al ire pi j(Cklovapay{[■ or xapdBpa. I will 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 modern202 Polybius interpreted. [part v. " road crosses the Reclus, stands a liigli white rock of gypsum, " called in the country universally La Roche Blanche. The " Reclus 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 Yillars to Scez. The " remains of the Eoman road made by Augustus have been " discovered in the neighbourhood of Yillars, and it probably " went up this woody ravine in the manner laid down in the " plan.* From the words used by Polybius, (f>dpajya nva " hvcrftarov /cal fcprjfivcbSr), which apply extremely well to the " bed of the Eeclus, we might be tempted to suppose that the " army had marched up this torrent: but this passage would " have been so difficult, that I can hardly conceive it possible " to have been accomplished. The Roman 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 Reclus is, I conceive, at the present day not only extremely difficult, but utterly impossible : 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. G-ermain, 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.] Ascent. Little St. Bernard. 203 with this (fidpayi; is limited to the fact that there is now no entrance to it. But this does not conclude the subject of inquiry: two thousand years ago the passage may have been free from the masses of rock by which it is now blocked up ; these deposits may not at that time have been detached from the mountains and brought into their present position, where they are arrested by the narrowness of the channel between two precipitous sides. When these obstructions did not exist, the shape of this trough and the character of its banks onwards may have permitted the operations which the history describes: the immediate banks of the stream higher up may not be very steep ; and the onward tread of man and beast need not have been limited to the soil which is covered by the waters. I would observe also, that the sides which were pre-occupied by the assailants must have been practicable: if very steep, they would not themselves have moved so nimbly along them : and, if very rugged, there would not have been due freedom for the rolling of rocks and the hurling of stones, which are the acts of hostility recorded. On the 19th September, 1854, as I looked on the stream just below the bridge, it seemed, that one might have stepped across from one stone to another, 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 November, 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 Polybius 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 Rock, the sketch, in the Oxford Dissertation, gives the line of it, and shows the rounded and worn-out end of the Eoche Blanche standing into the plain of Scez, and a second similar projection into it from the mountain behind the rock, at some distance to the south-east, with a line drawn between them to represent the Eoman track. Afterwards, p. 95, they say: " It had been " in Bonaparte's contemplation to carry a new road up the " ravine where the Eoman one passed, and we saw traces of " the preparations that had been made for it." When I passed through 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 Rock, as illustrating the statement of Polybius. His notes have never been published, but M. De Luc, who had them, writes thus :*—" Ces " circonstances et une autre dont je vais faire mention, firent " juger au Gdn^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'aprks cette opinion, formee par la lecture de Polybe et " l'inspection des lieux, le general auroit voulu monter par " lk pour examiner cette vallee de plus prfes : mais son guide " s'y opposa, en disant que c'dtoit un vieux chemin tr&s " mauvais, abandonn^ depuis longtemps, et que les contre-" bandiers seuls frequentaient: il ajouta, que depuis la route " actuelle qui suit la rive droite du torrent, il pourroit aise-" ment juger de la nature de l'ancienne. Le General Melville * 2d edition. 1825. P. 173.CHAP. II.] Ascent. Little St. Bernard. 205 " remarqua, qu'en effet le local repondoit parfaitement k la " description que fait Polybe d'un passage difficile au pied " d'une montagne escarpee." 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 Roche 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 " Roman 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 angustice of the Reclus itself, all I know with certainty is, that it is impenetrable now. A man might, I apprehend, go forward and climb down to it, and make examination of it. A day devoted to this task would be a day well spent. Such are statements made by modern authors, which seem to affect the question on the ravine of Polybius. On the XevKOTrerpov, I should say that, whatever ascent of Alps may pretend to be that of Hannibal, it ought to exhibit a rock corresponding with that of Polybius : he rarely notices local peculiarities, and, when he has pointedly marked an object like this, we may expect it to admit of recognition at the present day. Some theories exhibit a XevtcoTrerpov : not all. M. Laraiiza21)6 Polybius interpreted. [part v. found it in the Rocher de la Barmette between Termignon and Lanslebourg. 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 Cenis, " of magnitude to be a place of night refuge to Hannibal" ! Some see no occasion to point out a white rock: M. Letronne, on behalf of Mont 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 ou l'on ne trouv&t quelque roche " blanche, puisqu'il y a de gypses blanch&tres sur tous les " cols de la chaine." M. Larauza says of this assertion: " Elle est, je crois, fort hasarde : j'avoue, pour mon compte, " que sur les points que j'ai parcouru en traversant soit le " Simplon, soit le Grand St. Bernard, soit le Mont Gen&vre, " je n'ai remarque nulle part de montagne de gypse dont " la blancheur fut 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 Schweighseuser, " deserta nudaque petra," and says : " II est facheux pour cette " decouverte du General Melville, que dans Polybe le mot " Xevfcoirerpov, qui revient plusieurs fois, soit pris comme le " Xecoirerpa des autr'es auteurs, pour A,etoaalv iv to?? 'i&wws opecri zeal rols Aev/coi<; /caXovfievoa, ovirep ovSewore eicXelirei KV7rdpirrov elvai, " 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 Polybius interpreted. [part v. " Quos Albos vocant, unde nives nunquam absunt." If Polybius had lived a century later, and had been the friend of Caesar instead of Scipio, he might have applied XevKoirerpov to the Dover cliff, and we should have construed Xevtcos white. For the same sufficient reason the rock in question has been called Roche 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 Isere and was pushing on to the summit, the views of Dr. Arnold must not be left unnoticed; for he has expressed them on this latter part of the ascent. He prefaces them with a fact which does not appear in Polybius, saying, Hist. iii. p. 87 : " It appears that the barbarians persuaded " Hannibal to pass through one of these defiles instead of " going round it; and, while his whole army was involved in " it, they suddenly, and without a provocation, as we are told, " attacked him." Now there is nothing in Polybius on Hannibal's getting into a wrong course, or of his wavering as to the line of march, or of the natives obtaining his confidence and guiding the march. His feeling towards them is told in avvvTretcpiOr) rlOecrdai opav twv fiapfidpcov. It seems that, before the column of march had arrived at the defile, a certain multitude of the barbarians had already occupied it, and taken post on the lateral slopes, so as to be able to inflict injury in the way described: these, who so got forward, had 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 Reclus. If the mass of the barbarians had not thus been kept back, the artillery which molested the advance in the defile would have received p 2212 Polybius interpreted. [PAET Y. 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 Iskre, 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 bad 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 theCHAP, ii.] Ascent Little 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, wtrr' ava^KaaBr\vai tov 'Avvifiav fiera Tr}<; rjfALcrelas 8vvdfietav, ie8pevovTa tovtois—" so that Hannibal was obliged to pass " the night, with half his force, about a certain white rock, a tenable post, away from his horses and baggage cattle, in " reserve for their protection." My notion is that Hannibal so stayed back to withstand the weight and bulk of the enemy, which was always on his rear; and to prevent them from making their way round and reinforcing that system of attack on the van with which the conflict had begun. I conceive that those first aggressors must have been rooted out from their positions of offence before the night came on; and that the great business was to prevent a recruiting of that force from the multitude in the rear, where the enemy was most formidable in numbers. The sentence in which 7rep I XevfcoTrerpov occurs, seems to have been accepted, as showing that Hannibal, by his occupation of the summit of a cliff, protected the passage of the army during the night. In the Oxford Dissertation it is said : " The position of the Eoche Blanche was eminently cal-" culated for the defence of this march : from hence Hannibal " commanded the whole plain of Scez, and was able to act " against the enemy, on the heights above St. Germain, as " well as upon those on the flanks of the road." Dr. Arnold writes : " At last Hannibal with his infantry forced his way to " the summit of one of the bare cliffs 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 is214 Polylius 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 dvaryKaadrjvai vvKrepevcrac irepl XevKoirerpov convey to me is this: that Hannibal kept possession, through the night, of the surrounding ground 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 continuing 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 communications 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 o^vpov, 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 WKTepevaat 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 farCHAP. III.] Ascent. Mont Cenis. 215 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 Rock may have been subject to the daily spoil of house-decorators and others, ever since its neighbourhood came to have a human population, in the early Christian times when a Church was planted on the heights of St. Germain. CHAPTEK III. Ascent to the Mont Cenis. Larauza. The Nine Bays. Defile and XevKOTrerpov. Two theories only can here be said to challenge consideration : for, on the line of march through the mountains, Dr. Ukert is but a disciple of Larauza, translating him and his Itinerary. Larauza and Ellis must be controverted separately. They reach the valley of the Arc at different points : they quit it at different points: the XevKoirerpov of one is in special contradiction of the XevKoireTpov of the other : and they move over different summits. Larauza placed the dvafioXr) "AXirewv at La Chavane : and, in doing so, desired to gain three postes 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 mountains. The defile at Aiguebelle is the first point which, to M. Larauza coming up the valley of Graisivaudan, could represent the ava/3o\r) "AX-jretov. He says, himself (p. 66) of all the previous ground from La Chavane,—" L'on n'est pas dans les Alpes."21G 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 mountain. This M. Larauza denies : he calls it, p. 98: " entree des Alpes, et non la montee des Alpes." " Si le mot " avafBoXrj d^signe quelquefois Taction de traverser en montant, " il peut aussi designer celle de traverser en pdn^trant." He hardly tolerates the word as connected with the idea of ascent; saying,—" Polybe se sert en g^n^ral pref^rablement du mot virepfioXq (vid. cap. 53) pour designer la montee des Alpes." This is a mistake: the word vTrepfiokrf is used twice in that chapter, and in both instances means unequivocally the heights themselves. M. Larauza would have been more prudent, had he been content with the metaphor by which dvafioXrj 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 ava/3o\ij: when we speak of " striking up " as the beginning of a musical performance, we translate avafioXrj. In relating a fox-chase, if we had to find a Greek word for the throwing off, it would be avaftokrj: listening to the leading hound one might say, as of the minstrel, aveftaXkero nakov deiSetv. M. Larauza might thus have had a pretence for beginning his course of mountain march at Aiguebelle. But he strains for more. Under the pretence of Hannibal preparing himself for the mountain attack when he got to La Chavane, he measures the mountain march from that place; that is, by the road back from 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 mountain, not the third. Larauza objects here to the term " mountain," saying,—" II s'agit non d'uneCHAP. III.] Ascent. Mont Cenis. 217 montagne, mais d'un ddfild." When he reads that the Allo-brogian chiefs were occupying toue8pevovTa, e7ri,(f)opdv, and other expressions, 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 Arc from friends who have crossed the Cenis, or from any source besides the comment of M. Larauza. He did not himself pursue it, nor does he give description that shows it practicable : but he reports that he picked up a story from some gens du pays, that the route which he imagines, had given passage to modern artillery:—his means of reference might have induced him to search out the occasion when such thing had or might have taken place. If that mountain brow was ever chosen for the transit of French artillery to the Cenis in preference to the usual track on the right bank of the Arc, it ought to be the better line of the two: in which case Napoleon, when this approach to Italy was the object of his care, would have so established it. M. Larauza looked out for a piece of gypsum within a moderate 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 Polybian narrative, whether by obscure insinuations of modern eventschap. iv.] Ascent. Little Mont Cenis. 225 or unexplained conjectures upon ancient ones, does not incline one to believe that this plateau de gypse ever bore the standard either of Hannibal or Napoleon. CHAPTER IV. Ascent to the Little Mont Cenis. Mr. Ellis and the Rock of Baune. The Combat. Evasion of the Text. Summaries. How Mr. Ellis shortens the reckoning of time. Two days. Two days more. His final argument for Baune. His 'progress from the Battle to the Summit. Mr. Ellis's mountain march is, as we have seen, from Le Cheylas on the Iskre, by Allevard and La Kochette, 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 XevtcoireTpov of Polybius. It has generally been understood, that the XevKOTrerpov 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. q226 Polybius interpreted. [part v. in mountains, before he allows mountain march to begin. Striking from the Is&re 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 Eock, beyond his own statement and his own engraved plan. I therefore take his rock of Baune to be white, and his plan of the ground about it to be correct: I will first shortly notice his explanation of the character and circumstances of the engagement, as told in the history. It will then be necessary to explore his contrivances for subverting the generally received chronology of the march, requiring five days, instead of a fraction of one, between the \evK07rerpov and the summit. The Combat. Having related the first onset with missiles by the barbarians posted in the ravine, Mr. Ellis says (Treatise, p. 45): " No " danger was now to be apprehended on the rear: the heavy " infantry there held the Gauls in check, and Hannibal was " enabled to devote his personal efforts to the safety of the " van. For this purpose it must have been necessary to gain " possession of the heights above the slopes, where the " Carthaginians had suffered so severely from rocks and stones. " One half of the Carthaginian army, that is to say, about " 20,000 men, were led on by Hannibal in person against the " Gauls on the mountains, and succeeded either in driving " them back, or in 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 off " better from the Gauls in the rear. During all the night he " remained in position, separated from the rest of the army, " as it defiled through the ravine."chap, iv.] Ascent. Little Mont Cenis. 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 reinforcement coming to the enemy from the rear. Mr. Ellis thinks that the protection which the word i(f>eBpevovra 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 ifeSpevovraiv 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 vvKTepcvacu ire pi XevKoirerpov is excluded 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. Ellis's 20,000 men are Q2228 Polybius interpreted. [part v. drawn up on the heights, and the enemy above them. If this plan is to be regarded, it results that Hannibal, instead of passing the night irepl XevKoirerpov, marched away from it two miles and more, in time to pass the night somewhere else. Nevertheless Mr. Ellis thinks (p. 41) that the rock was noticed as a natural monument of the battle fought around it: that Hannibal remained encamped near the rock during the fourth night, and arrived on the summit of the pass on the ninth morning. Evasion of the Text of Polybius. Mr. Ellis announces in his Preface, that he " conducts the " investigation on the principle of tiying the claims of every " pass by the text of the narrative of Polybius." His Introduction, 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 fundamental matter of the chronology of the march, by making a new division of the greater part of it, changing the most important 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 Rhone eeo? 777309 rrjv ava(3okr)i> t&v "axireaiv; 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, tfpgaro 7% 7rpov \\irecov, but a town within the Alps,—the town to which the enemy retreated in the night from their custody of the evtcaipoi roirot, and which Hannibal occupied after his successful conflict on the mountain* The variation must be a studied, not an accidental variation. If it were without consequences, it would not be worth noticing. It suits Mr. Ellis's special theory to fix his terminus two days more forward than that of Polybius, which he has approved before. We shall see presently that he drops two days out of the reckoning, and * If we read on to p. 91, we shall learn the very town, " now a place of importance, and whose ancient name is traced in the modern one."230 Polybius interpreted. [part y. afterwards dispenses with two more. He is meditating to construct an argument in which that change will be of importance. 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 Eock 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 avafioXr): and the object of the change is to produce a five days' march instead of one of a few hours between the XevKo'Trerpov and the summit. These consequences of Mr. Ellis's injurious meddling with the text—viz. the curtailment of four days in the earlier Alpine march—I will presently explain. I have fairly given the substance of his Introduction to some extent: the rest of the matter, which concerns Mr. Ellis's substituted arrangement, 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 event, 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 summaries, 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. Ellis translates begins after crossing the Rhone, and, omitting some parts, ends with the assault on the Taurini.GHAP. iv.] Ascent. Little Mont Genis. 231 " passage of the Rhone to the island: the second, the march " from 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 XevtcoTrzrpov o^vpov, 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-" niained on the summit: the sixth, the descent from the " summit of the Alps to the commencement of the plains of " Italy : and the seventh (all of which will not be given), " the march from the foot of the Alps to the country of the " Insubrians."—Pp. 6, 7. Having thus exhibited a division of his own in his own terms, Mr. Ellis says: " These form the seven parts, into which the narrative seems to be divided." As there is no doubt how the narrative has been divided by Polybius, we 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 historian. He says : " The correctness of the supposition, that " this mode of narrative was adopted by Polybius, will be " best seen by an inspection of the historian's own words." I have inspected the historian's own words, together with Mr. Ellis's translation of them, and have observed those which he puts in capital letters as summaries, and the succeeding words which he calls the more detailed accounts. I perceive two summaries marked between the passage of the Ehone and the Alps in c. 49 and 50 : those for the ascent and summit in c. 52 and 53 : two for the descent in c. 54 and 56. Let any reasonable man give attention to the first of these, which Mr. Ellis takes from c. 49 of the 3d book. I ask, how do the first words give a summary of events, explained and detailed by the rest of the chapter 1 It seems to me, that what232 Polybius 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, 7J-/009 rjv aifc6/j,evo<;, &c., give facts which occurred in his progress through the island, as he approached the Alps. Besides the display of capital letters to give importance to his summaries, Mr. 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 proceeding 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 8idfiacri<; 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 Rhone to the arrival in the plain, will seeCHAP. IV.] Ascent. Little Mont Cents. 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 designation " Summary;" and sometimes a striking unfitness. A careful reading of his Introduction, annulling the promise of his Preface, which was " to try all by the narrative of Poly-bius," suggests no other object in the new division of matter made by this explainer of Polybius, than to disfigure Polybius and explain him in his disfigured state. The invention of Summaries is chiefly subservient to the perversion of dates. I am surprised that so marked and decided an interference with the text should not have been distinctly avowed by its author : and that it should be noticed only at the end of his introductory chapter, the tenor of which is contradicted by it. Though Polybius is thus slighted, his terms are nevertheless used in the titles of Mr. Ellis's chapters : as,—" to the commencement of the ascent of Alps; " and " from the commencement of the ascent of Alps." We do not there read " to the town;" and " from the town." And, in the discussion where the town has first to be mentioned, it is only insinuated, that it looked down upon the Carthaginian encampment;—which is in order to give it an early position in the Alps. For my own part, I think it is to be inferred from the context of the narrative, that the town was quite beyond the evicalpoi tottol ; 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 Polybius interpreted. [part v. Mr. Ellis does not speak out as impeaching the Polybian march, till he says (p. 32) : " The ten days' march from the "junction of the Ehone and Isere, must be taken as terminating, " not at the point where Hannibal left the Is&re (Mr. Ellis's " 7rora/jb6 appears in the text, he deems the conflictCHAP. IV.] Ascent. Little Mont Cenis. 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 without confusion; and to show that the interpretation usually received is lax, strained, and without foundation.—Pp. 40, 41. Having thus condemned our construction of the text, Mr. Ellis gives his own opinion :—" The only satisfactory view " that can be taken of the Greek narrative is, that Hannibal " was attacked near ' the strong white rock,' on the fourth " day of his march from the town of the Allobroges." He presently clenches his argument, by showing that Hannibal passed that night in camp, and took five days more to reach the summit. "As therefore Hannibal remained encamped* " near the rock during the fourth night, and as he arrived at " the summit of the pass on the ninth morning, the rock " must be situated nearly half-way between the town and " the summit of the pass ; nearly half-way, that is to say, in " point of time, for, in point of distance, the respective diffi-" culties of the way, above and below the rock, must be " taken into account. Another condition for the determina-" tion of Hannibal's route is thus obtained!" Mr. Ellis, in his zeal for applying kivBvvovs to produce the battle in his third summary, appeals for illustration to the use of Kivhvvoa 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 arms. VOL. I. K242 Polybius interpreted. [paet v. " him at the commencement of the ascent of Alps." This is quite a mistake. No attack had been made. The situation of danger in which he found himself is explained by Polybius to be in the 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. Hannibal 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 prematurely assigns the assault near the rock, and the day of danger to which he appeals in the plain of Dauphine, were both exempt from actual conflict—one as much as the other. Final Argument for Baune. In my first criticism, written at Nice, I dwelt at some length on these things, not without hope that Mr. Ellis might acknowledge that the fifteen days occupied in the passage of the Alps should be reckoned from the ava^oXtj, or beginning of Alps. I showed him that rerapralo5 was not the fourth of Alps ; was to be reckoned from the town, and that it could not be the day of the battle. In his defence (Journ. of Phil. No. vi. 317), he puts his blunder on evvaralo*} into a new shape, as follows :— " After the halt at the town, the first period mentioned is " one of four days (Terapraio9). At the termination of this " period Hannibal fell into great peril. (The battle of the " Rock, according to my view; a conference with some Gauls, " according to Mr. Law's view.) The point from which this " rerapralo to>v "AXirecov. In this " passage it has been supposed that the words rfj 8' iiravpiov " are connected with irporj^e: 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 Trj S' iiravpiov. But he is quite mistaken as to the Greek narrative. Swa^a? does not monopolise the note of time. rfj S* irravptov belongs to the verb, irporjye; a word which tells what Hannibal did on the morrow, after he had reunited the parts of his force. In the same way, that term in the 44th chapter belonged to e^airecrTeiXe: and will, in the next coming chapter, 54th, belong to ivijpxero. Mr. Ellis, however, finds his grammatical perception strengthened by the reasons which have been so effective on other occasions ; namely, that his own construction is most natural and clear. He would have done better not to meddle with rfj 8' bnavpiov; but to248 Polybius interpreted. [part v. have explained what are the places on his map at which he supposes Hannibal to have halted between St. Julien 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 Rock 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 tilings 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 offering any organized resistance to the " Carthaginians. It is by no means natural to suppose that " eiravpiov is the same day as that indicated subsequently in " the word ivvaralov i/ceivois cv/AfiaLvovTcov ev8eifcvvfiev7)<; avTrjs hvvapLiv: fortune, pur- posely as it were, showing her power to the rest of mankind, by the things which happen to those. Lib. iv. c. xxviii. 4, irepl rfc iv appals iveSeigafieda : on which I have given explanation in the early part of my work. Lib. v. c. xvi. 7, 7Tavra ravra fier airoheL^ewi ivSei/c-vv/xevov teal fiaprvpcov : having pointed out all these things by demonstration and witnesses. Lib. xi. c. ix. 8, iveSeLKWVTO tou? /ce/cawcotrmrfaevows : they marked out those who were finely dressed. Lib. xviii. c. vi. 2. ivapapvaicT)V afivvaadai koX karattoxefielv : wishing to show the Eomans, that he is able of himself to repel and subdue Phar-naces. Such being the use of ivSei/cvvfiat 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 rrjv otytv might have been added, as in the passage here cited from the 18th book, and that cited before from the 6th book. We may render ivSei/cvvpevos " pointing out," or " pointing to," without implying a vision of the object by the persons assembled and addressed. Action probably accompanied the words: the chief was encircled by his troops, seeing only those whom(jha.f. ii.] 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 practicable Summit gives a View of Italy. It is claimed for Monte Viso by St. Simon and the Anonymous of Cambridge 1830 : for Balbotet, by Folard, who is followed by Vaudoncourt and Band6 de Lavalctte: for the Cenis, by Larauza, the ivriter 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 ivapyeia 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 conclusive of fact, as to warrant him in rejecting a current anecdote. He had no experience from which he could assert, that there is no practicable summit which gives a view of Italy. The probability of finding a view is differently estimated by two classes of persons; those who assume that Alpine elevation must necessarily give to the eye the command of all k 2260 Polybius interpreted. [part 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 enjoyment is unattainable. By a pass of Alps one must understand a way not incredible for the passage of an army : there may be parts of the main ridge so narrow that the eye may almost from the same spot command a Savoy valley and a Piemont valley: such places are accessible to the natives, and may occasionally be penetrated by an adventurous traveller: but no part which is so depressed as to be useful for armies or merchandise can furnish a prospect which is not broken by some course of 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 riot many. The Great St. Bernard confesses not to see the plain of Italy. The Little St. Bernard and Mont Genkvre 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.] Summits, which claim a view. 201 View. Monte Viso. 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 Ubaye. One would think that any body of men, once touching the Durance, and on their way up that river to Italy and Viso, would make their way, not by ascending the river Ubaye. It is otherwise with these two writers : each conducts Hannibal south-west to Barcelon-nette. Now, supposing a man to have got to Barcelonnette, his onward way to Italy would be by the Col d'Argentiere, 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'Argentiere." 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 " precisement quelle route Annibal s'est ouverte pour arriver " k la sommit^ 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 l'entree duquel il l'a con-262 Polybius inter pi ■clcd. [PART VI. " duite: il ne la voit plus, mais il 1'entend au loin, et la " rejoint aussitot qu'elle quitte les fonds. II me retrouve de " meme avec Annibal sur le Monte Yiso, sans m'inquieter de " tous les detours ou la fraude des ses guides, son peu de " confiance en eux, et son manque de connaissance de l'in-" terieur des montagnes, ont du le faire errer pendant neuf " jours." Perhaps the Marquis was not so long about it: but lie did not accomplish his object. He had been assured, that from the summit the plain of Piemont was to be seen ; but he was unlucky in his day: " On me l a " montr^ comme on fait a tous les voyageurs; mais je suis " force a convenir que je n'ai pu la voir qu'en imagination." He consoles himself with describing how far the Carthaginian adventurer had been more fortunate: " Annibal, en arrivant " aupres du Monte Yiso, devient tout-a-coup un amateur " ardent des montagnes. II monta jusqu'a la sommite de ce " pic inaccessible, pour jouir de la vue des plaines du Pie-" mont, et pour les montrer a ses soldats. II s'eleve pour " cela jusqu'a une hauteur que l'on croit etre de 2,500 toises, " et par consequent sup^rieure a celle de Mont Blanc." One is inclined to ask, how much of his speech was heard by his troops ? Viav. Monte Viso. Cambridge Anonymous. The Englishman who has adopted Yiso as the summit for a view, finds a way to it for Hannibal not more happy than that of the Marquis St. Simon. Having performed the first Alps in the valley of the Ubaye, he writes thus, p. 64:—" After " encamping at the toAvn for a day, the army 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 theirCHAT. II.] Summits, ■which claim a view. 263 " guidance through the rest of the passage. He is conducted " by them from the valley of the Ubaye up the deep gorges " of the river Guil away from the right path. The Cartha-" ginians follow their guides into the difficult and dangerous " ravine of the Guil, which proves fatal to a great part of the " army. In the morning 7rporj5 View from Balbotet. Vandoncourt. M. de Lavalette. 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 Genevre, he is joined by other commentators, who, in the desire of a view, sanction the latter part of his labours with their coDcurrence. Two, who have tracked Hannibal up the Durance, and join the Chevalier at Brian (^on to cross the Genevre 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. Bande de Lavalette. The general says (torn. i. p. 50): " Le neuvi&me " jour l'arm^e vint camper sur les hauteurs de l'Assiette:" and (p. 53): "M. de Folard est le seul qui a saisi le vrai point " du passage d'Annibal. II remonta le col de Sestri&res et " suivit la crete des montagnes jusqu'au col de la Fenetre. " C'est du plateau qui domine le village de Balbotet, et qui " est en face de l'embouchure de la vallee de Pragelas, " qu'Annibal fit voir k ses soldats les plaines du Pi^mont : " c'est effectivement le seul endroit ou l'on puisse avoir une " vue semblable : tous les autres sont masques." M. de Lavalette, unable to dispense with a view, says:— " Si, aii lieu de s'enfo^er dans le vallee de la Doire au-dessous " de Cezanne, le voyageur fianchit a droite le col de Sestri&res, " il arrive bientot sur le plateau de Balbotet: et 1&, les plaines " du Po se d&voilent a ses regards. II n'y a que ce point sur " toutes les routes des Alpes, d'ou l'on puisse une telle " hauteur d^couvrir et montrer l'ltalie." This writer is, as I had occasion to show before, a conscientious critic: accordingly, 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 IV' he says, " une veritable difficult^;" however, as no other point in the Alps shows the plain so well, he266 Polybius interpreted. [PAKT VI. is content to have his view in a wrong place, rather than not have it at all. View from the Cenis. Larauza. The ingenious Larauza, in his effort to establish a view, has said enough to show that there is none. In criticising the plateau of 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 from Susa by the new road before day-break; and walking through Jaillon and St. Martin, was for some time in expectation of a view which he had conceived from the study of Lady Morgan's " Italy:" but after a little discussion, he arrives at this : " C'est done au sommet du Cenis, et pres du plateau " ou campa l'armee, qu'il faut chercher ce promontorium d'ou " elle vit les plaines qu'arrose le Po." Hereupon he quotes from a work of 1764, by two Swedish gentlemen, saying :— " Or, voici ce que dit Grosley qui, comme nous, fait passer " par la le general Carthaginois. L'espece de coupe que " forme le plateau du Mont Cenis, est bordee de falaises tres " (Slevees, et ainsi il n'occupe pas, au pied de la lettre, le " sommet de la montagne. C'est k mi-cote d'une de ces " falaises, & la hauteur du Prieure, qu'on decouvre les plaines " de Piemont, et c'est de lei qu'Annibal put les montrer & son " armee." To this M. Larauza adds his own comment:—" II est " probable que cette Falaise que Grosley ne designe pas " autrement, est la montagne de Saint-Martin, qui se trouve " en avant du petit Mont Cenis, formant la partie sup^rieure " de la montagne de Jaillon, et situee comme elle dans la " direction de la valine de Suse, a travers laquelle la vue " d^bouche sur la plaine de Turin. Je le cotoyai a partir " du p^t hameau qui lui donne son nom, 1'avant con-CHAP. II.] Summits, which claim a view. 267 " tinument sur ma gauche, et arrive a la plaine du Mont " Cenis, au-del& de l'auberge de la Grand-Croix, vers le " quatorzieme refuge, elle ne me paraissait plus que comme " une colline tr&s peu dlev^e au-dessus du sol. D'apres la " position de cette montagne, situ^e tout & fait en face de la " vallee de Suse, et n'ayant devant elle aucune autre montagne " qui intercepte lp, vue, je conjecturais qu'en montant au " sommet on devait decouvrir la plaine; ce qui me fut con-" firme a plusieurs reprises par des gens du pays avec qui je " faisais route, et qui m'affirmerent que du haut d'un rocher " qu'ils appellent Coma Eossa, et qui se pr^sente solitaire et " detach^ & la partie superieure de la montagne de Saint Martin, on d^couvre Turin et toute la plaine. En me " montrant la gorge qui separe la cime de cette montagne de " celle du petit Mont Cenis, ils me disaient que leurs anciens " leur avaient racont£ qu'un faineux general nomra^ Annibal " etait pass^ par lk il y a bien long tems. Nous pouvons " done supposer tr&s naturellement que ce fut la ce promon-" toriuin d'ou ce grand capitaine montra l'ltalie & son " armee." We liave here come to M. Larauza's own evidence touching what he gathered from the gens clu pays; and I will add what appears from other writers concerning the Corna Eossa. De Saussure, telling the observations which he made from the Eoche Michel, says : " Au coucliant du Eoche Michel, au " dessus du village de la grande Croix, on voit un grand " glacier, qui de la poste du Mont Cenis paroit le disputer " en hauteur au rocher de la Praise,* vis a vis duquel il paroit " situe, mais je le crois moins De la Eoche Michel " nous le voyons abaiss^ de 68 minutes au dessous de notre " horizon: ce glacier se nomme Corne-Rousse" iii. c. 7, s. 1265. As this glacier was in view to De Saussure looking * La liaise is south of the Rocher de la Ronche, in the same chain, and east of the southern end of the lake.268 Polybiiis interpreted. [PAllT VI. westward from the Roche 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 Noval&se, not by the heights of Bard or St. Martin, p. 137. He can only bring Hannibal to such a spot by supposing a special excursion for the purpose. There is further evidence on the Corna Rossa, and more recent. They are mentioned by Brockedon, whose investigations 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 Vieille Poste on the Cenis, attended by his guide Etienne, in the morning, not in the best weather ; and, crossing the summit of the Little Mont Cenis, soon turned off to the left. Leaving the Yal d'Ambin to the right, he went up the valley of Savines, and came to the Lac Blanc. Here he speaks of looking towards the Mont d'Ambin to the right, and the mountain of Bard to the left; and 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 " Roches Rouges, 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 Roches Rouges, when the Roche 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 subsequent journey in not visiting the Corna Rossa, as heCHAP. II.] Summits, which claim a view. 269 intended. He says : " I looked out at five o'clock, and before six every object was concealed in mist and cloud." He proceeds : " Whilst I was at breakfast, I obtained information " from a respectable old guide, who had twice ascended " to the Corna Eossa with botanists and engineers : he denied " that the plains of Italy could be seen thence." The state of the weather having impelled Mr. Brockedon direct to Susa, he here speaks of a gentleman of his acquaintance, who had been for fourteen years engaged upon a survey of the Alps, especially of those which divide Pi^mont from Savoy; these duties had led him to the mountains above Bard : and he said that from its glaciers the plain could be seen, but not from the Corna Eossa, as the view from that is intercepted by the Bois Noir, the mountain which flanks the Eoche Melon. Same work, Aug. 1836, p. 246. Such is the information which offers itself on the Corna Eossa. With M. Larauza, all geographical and optical difficulties are surmounted to his satisfaction by the traditional knowledge of the gens du pays whom he fell in with on his way, and who pointed out the gorge between the mountain of St. Martin and that of the Little Mont Cenis as the passage of this famous general " il y a bien long tems :"—" Nous pourrons " done supposer tres naturellement, que ce fut lti ce promon-" torium, d'ou ce grand capitaine montra l'ltalie k son arm^e." " Ainsi" (says the amiable enthusiast) " tout se d^brouille " et s'^claircit & mesure que nous avancjons !" 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 Corna 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 extra viam, made from their encampment on the plateau of the Cenis, an expedition made270 Polybius interjrreted. [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. The 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 young man and an enthusiast goes from Paris to the Cenis in the very purpose of ratifying the fact of a view ; he finds himself on the plateau in a season which was not the end of October : he has faith in the gorges and the falaises: there is every stimulus, and no impediment to the process of ratification, save only the difficulty 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. Anonymous. 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 Magazine " 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 this important point, the author made a sketch of " both on the spot, on the 24th October, the very time of " Hannibal's passage, which is still in his possession." If this sketch has a virtue that can settle a point of so much interest, the owner should not enjoy it alone: in compassion to the literary world, let him, through Mr. Colnaghi,CHAP. II.] 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 aTroppa>was within the circle of perpetual snow; and, as the artist exercised his pencil on the anniversary in front of the summit, his lingers would be touched with frost, and lose their usual freedom. The cherished landscape has probably adorned the wall of his drawing-room, smiling under the title of ivapyeta, and having, as a pendant, the still more curious XevKoirerpov. That, too, would be an instructive novelty : for, amidst the variety of Cenisian discovery, this critic alone has found that landmark of Polybius on the summit of the Pass. Mr. Ellis, in the " Journal of Philology," ii. 325, defends this unknown writer, as well as himself, and designates my notice of him as " uncourteous." Now, I did not doubt that he sketched what he saw; but I did doubt that he saw the plain of Italy and the Apennine from the front of the summit of the Cenis. If Mr. Ellis knows the spot, it is not through the article in " Blackwood." But it was generous in him to sympathise with one whose ideas are so opposite to his own. Their geography can hardly be the same: one discovers the XevtciTrerpov on the summit of the Cenis ; the other, when he reached the Cenis, had left his XevKoirerpov five days' march behind. View from the Cenis. Mr. Ellis. Mr. Ellis's theory of a view, like his theory of a \evKo-7rerpov, is contrived by taking great liberties with time and space. From the Rock 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 an272 Polybius interpreted. [part vi. encampment which should occupy the requisite extent of ground about the Col of the Little Mont Cenis, and within which the rest of a short two days, so much needed, might be enjoyed. But Mr. Ellis finds his summit to be capable of a second 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, 7§ Roman miles. From Col to Grand Croix, 7 Roman miles." In the Treatise, summit sometimes means Col, sometimes Grand Croix. Mr. Ellis says, p. 50 :—" On the morning of the ninth " day Hannibal at length gained the summit of the Pass. " Here he encamped, and remained during the greater part of " the ninth and all the tenth day, waiting for stragglers who " had been left behind, and giving repose to his men after " the toils and dangers of the ascent.". Here summit seems to mean the Col. When he says, p. 54, " On the eleventh day the Carthaginians began their descent," Grand Croix is the summit which they descend from. Now certainly the notion of " encamping on the ninth day, " and remaining all the tenth for repose and to wait for strag-" glers," is not consistent with the army marching that very day more than seven miles, besides making a lateral excursion for a view. Mr. Ellis makes light of it; only admitting that, " by this movement to obtain the prospect of Italy, the position " of the Carthaginian encampment would be a little altered " from what it was on the ninth day." Indeed, after the view he finds it not worth while to return towards the Col: so, having retraced their steps through a depression in the mountains, they turn round and walk on, in time to make a new encampment around Grand Croix. This additional encampment, told in p. 118, is not only omitted byCHAP. II.] Summits, which 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 history, 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 traveller 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 " further. The part of the hilly range from whence this " prospect is gained, and which lies to the south of the de-" pression through which the path runs, forms a ridge about " half a mile in length, without any definite head rising above " the general level of its summit. It presents a very steep VOL. I. T274 Polybius interpreted. [part vi. " slope towards La Grande Croix, and terminates, as before " mentioned, above the plain of St. Nicholas, in a very lofty " precipice. From the crest of this ridge it may be conjectured that Hannibal t pointed out Italy to his army." Treatise, p. 115. Thus instructed, we try to realize what a capital view Mr. .Ellis must have had, and how much Hannibal would have lost if he had not wandered to it. Taking these indicia of distance as affecting Mr. Ellis himself on a walking tour in summer, this ascent of the ridge would not be serious—ascent out of the hollow—some five minutes—a few minutes further —ridge of about half a mile. The labour here depicted would not be distressing to him, although it would require the unpleasing change from descent to ascent: indeed the whole half mile of ridge might not be wanted for a tourist, though it would for an army : but in either case, whatever the distance may be, it would have to be retraced from the ridge to the point of depression, where the track emerged into the Toute for La Grande Croix. But we are not estimating the excursive energies of a tourist, but a superfluous effort exacted from an exhausted army, and said to have been imposed for their comfort, on the one day when all was rest and repose. The severity of the snow is told by Polybius : the length of the little walk is told by Mr. Ellis: the pleasure of the extra viarn we must imagine for ourselves. And now, what was the display of Italy that rewarded the soldiers when they got to it ? Mr. Ellis is the relator as an eye-witness: and we would readily receive his testimony on its merits, if he had plainly given it. He tells us what the Carthaginians would have seen ; saying,—" The country seen " would be the district to the east of the Po, and the south " of the Tanaro, where the cities of Alba and Acqui are " situated. This part of the plains is intersected by several ranges of hills—one of which may be discerned from theCHAr. II.] Summits, which claim a view. 275 " point of view on tlie Mont Cenis, even after the hazes, so " prevalent in the plains of the Po during a great part of the " day, especially in summer, have effaced the prospect of the " flat country. In the extreme distance the chain of the " Apennines closes the view, and would have offered to Han-" nibalthe means of indicating the position of Rome."—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 perceptible of itself, he would not have taken the trouble to make a speech about it: accordingly it is suggested that the action intimated by ivSeucvvfievo<;, 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 ev8ei/cvvfievo<;, " to have been a natural, and not merely an oratorical gesture, " we should be led to imagine that only a small part of the " plains was visible: for to any very large expanse it would " have been superfluous to direct attention. Besides, any " prospect of Italy, however limited, would have been suf-" ficient for Hannibal's purpose. It would have proved to " the Carthaginians, by visible demonstration, that their ex-" trication from the Alps was at hand, that the mountains " were about to terminate, and that the plains of Italy were " almost gained."—P. 116. t 2276 Polybius interpreted. [PAKT VI. 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 interruption of that descent, and carrying them up to an eminence foreign from their route. By this process the demonstration would have been imperilled : 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 precarious 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 ownCHAP. II.] Summits, 'which claim a view. 277 abstract of events, p. 50,—" Hannibal at length gained tlie " summit of the pass: here he remained during the greater " part of the ninth and all the tenth day; waiting for stragglers " who had been left behind, and giving some repose to his " men after the toils and dangers of the ascent." But when Mr. Ellis's circumstances are detailed, they make his contradiction 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. PART VII. THE MOUNTAIN MARCH. DESCENT. CHAPTER I. Descent from the Little St. Bernard. The disaster ofe th first day requires particular examination of circumstances told. The same phenomena still occur in the ravine below La Tuile. Arguments on the Descent from the Genis. 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 account of this calamity is given in detail, and affords the hope that we may be able to280 Polybius interpreted. [part YII. identify 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 eompare 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 1 take to be rightly called the Baltea, throughout its course to Pr6 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 desceut 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 Polybius intends that they had the hope to proceed.chap. i.] Descent. L. St. Bernard. Cents. L. Cenis. 281 Below the part where the path was broken away, the river runs in a deep narrow chasm, mountain rising on either side. The present road onward from La Tuile was made about eighty years ago : it never rises to the mountain-side on the left bank, but proceeds close along the river till it crosses the stream by a bridge, and is then carried up high along a rocky brow on the right bank, as related by De Saussure, who travelled it in 1792. At the time of General Melville's visit in 1775, the old track was still in use, keeping the left bank, and not crossing the Baltea. That old path was to the last liable to be broken away and destroyed by massive volumes of snow sweeping down from the heights. Now, as before, the avalanches are, in some years, arrested at the bottom of the ravine, and the snow sometimes remains there through a whole season, covering the bed of the torrent. The tale as told of the labours of repair seems to indicate such a path: and one would say that, for the passage of the Carthaginian armament, not only was reparation required, but some improvement on what the path had been before. A road in such a place may be made by cutting a continued notch in the mountain side: the horizontal cutting gives a floor: the perpendicular cutting gives a wall.* If you make a path a yard wide, and then increase it to two yards, the 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 width of three yards, the third yard will claim far more labour than the second. Accordingly we read that a horse- * The method stated by Mr. Ellis is not of this rude kind : he supposes that the natural slope was not broken into; but that the Carthaginians built up terraces outside of it from below; and he says that this is still the mode of construction in the Alps : he saw fragments of an old terrace-wall near Novalese, " such as Hannibal must have raised." Treatise, pp. 56 and 121.282 Polybius interpreted. [part vii. path was soon accomplished : but much labour was required to make it capable of an elephant; If indeed in the 218 B.C. the mountain-path in question had received no particular 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 began, and where presently the recampment was made. From this ground the men and beasts were sent at first upon the masses of snow which lay choking up the ravine itself. Here was the accumulation of solid snow which had survived from the previous 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 injury of the regular path extended. This hope failed in the way which Polybius explains. The Oxford Dissertation (p. 112) finds a difficulty in understanding what were the perplexities caused by the old snow, saying,—" It does not appear quite " certain to which of the roads the difficulties occasioned by " the new snow falling upon the old are to be referred:" and it is suggested as possible, that Hannibal may have endeavoured to turn the ravine altogether, by some road which runs at the back of the rocks on the right bank, and after crossing a chain of mountains, falls into a lower part of the valley of Aosta, opposite to Morges, below Pr£ 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 impracticable ; 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 thechap. i.] Descent. L. St. Bernard. Cenis. L. Cenis. 283 road had received, Polybius says that Hannibal attempted " to go Tound the bad places;" evidently limiting the contemplated deviation to the necessity of it; that is, that they should avoid the stadium and a half to which extent the path was destroyed, and get into it again as soon as they could where it was not destroyed. The only detour which suits these ideas and makes the incidents intelligible, would be by the bottom of the ravine : and here only would be the peculiar phenomenon which the narrative exhibits ; the under floor of old snow, with its fatal slipperiness for the 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:— " Apr&s que le General Melville eut pass6 le village de la " Tuile, son guide lui dit: A present nous approchons d'un " endroit tr&s mauvais, qui nous donne beaucoup de peine " pour le Sparer toutes les ann^es, parcequ'il est emporte au " printemps par des avalanches de neige.—Lorsque le General " Melville traversa cette montagne en 1775, le chemin etoit " fait de troncs de sapin places deux k deux, suivant leur " longueur, et applanis k la surface pour que le pied put " reposer de plat. Ce fut sur ces troncs d'arbre que le " general, son domestique et ses mulets furent obliges de " passer. Dans cet endroit le chemin suivoit avec une peute " douce le cote escarpe d'une montagne, compose de rochers " desunis et pouvant s'ebouler facilement." Not long after this journey of Gen. Melville, the new road284 Polybius interpreted. [part vit. 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 " cotoyer le pied d'une montagne dont les conches coupees pla%. He criticizes the historian (p. 59) for using the article rrjv with payiv the first time he employs the word, and attributes the inadvertence to Polybius being personally 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 irepteXdelv 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 brought to notice in his Treatise: nor did he disclose, that evidence had ever been brought forward on the " mauvais pas " of the Little St. Bernard. Mr. Ellis took pains to wield his own deductions : but declined to measure them with the facts of a rival theory. That other hypothesis had been long before the world. Mr. Ellis was aware of the evidence of General Melville, reported by De Luc ; of the facts of De Saussure and others to the same point, viz., the accumulation of the snow in the bed of the torrent below La Tuile, which still from time to time occurs; and the pointed comments of the Oxford Dissertation. Nevertheless his Treatise did not contain a hint that296 Polybius interpreted. [pakt vii. 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 pretensions 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 " Cambridge Journal of Philology," vol. ii. 327. He reluctantly admitted the fact, that the Baltea torrent is sometimes filled up by the snow of a former winter. On this fact, verified by so many eye-witnesses, his words are: " I am ready to acknow-" ledge, that the circumstance which Mr. Law mentions has " sometimes occurred." Then, instead of excusing himself in his defence, for having shirked these facts, he blames me for not dealing with the old snow more largely; saying this : " That no 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 easily explained by the " change of climate in the Alps, a fact supported by the " authority of Gibbon and Arnold, and proved by the " testimony of an eye-witness, that of Evelyn. Of these " witnesses Mr. Law takes no notice: there is not a word of " Gibbon and Evelyn, and but a slight remark (p. 59) about " Dr. Arnold." If 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; and I gave it to the printer immediately on mychap. i.] Descent. L. St. Bernard. Cenis. L. Cenis. 297 return to England in April, 1855. But let us see what Mr. Ellis's witnesses have to say. Mr. Evelyn reports the Simplon, one of the lowest passes, as covered with snow in September, 1626 : to this fact, which may happen in any year, he was an eye-witness. His account (" Memoirs," i. p. 220) is this: " That there were on " the summit a few huts and a chapel; and population " enough to bully his party on their spaniel killing a goat. " He says that a multitude came and disarmed them, and " kept them prisoners till masse was ended : then came half a " score of grim Suisse, on which they were glad to make " payment and escape; being told that their way onward had " been covered with snow since the Creation." Such is the philosophy of the snow-line: and yet my credulity does not accept, even on the testimony of the eye-witness, that the Simplon in 1626 was. with its chapel and congregation, on a summit of perpetual snow. Gibbon says, in Chapter ix., to which Mr. Ellis refers, " Some ingenious writers have suspected that Europe was " much colder formerly than it is at present." He admits that two circumstances tend to confirm their theory: 1. That the Rhine 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 supposition that the reindeer was the " bos cervi figura" of Caesar, " cujus & media fronte inter aures unum cornu existit." Gibbon adds, "The modern improvements sufficiently ex-" plain the causes of the diminution of the cold: these " immense woods have been gradually cleared, which inter-" cepted from the earth the rays of the sun." Surely this has no bearing on the Alpine snow-line. Mr. Ellis appears surprised that I made but a slight remark upon Dr. Arnold : and I am surprised that Mr. Ellis alluded to him at all. My remark was this : " Though I298 Polybius interpreted. [part 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. Arnold placed the airoppdi^ 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 accounted for by its lying in a deep ravine, not exposed to the sun: both disallow that argument. Dr. Arnold has the better excuse : he disregarded it, being under a delusion on the snow-line. Mr. Ellis has not that delusion to palliate the blunder. His "isolated patch" flourished through a summer under exposure to a southern sun, not having perpetual snow to protect it. The question between our old snow which occupies the trough in which a stream is used to run, and Mr. Ellis's old snow which is an isolated patch half-way up a mountain, is almost a question between horizontal and perpendicular; between level and precipice. A rapid stream cannot be quite a dead level: but it is opposed to precipice. Mr. Ellis does not seem alive to the difference. His phenomenon displays itself in an erect gully, where man and horse can acquire no footing, and must roll down the mountain: ours lies in achap. II.] Into the Plain and Insuh'es. 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 exclamation : " 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!" 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 iirvjroXi) KaT(oep(ov ovtcov t&v ycoptav, " for the declivity was one of excessive steepness." KaTcocpep^ signifies "declined," not " precipitous:" and iirnroXv Karaxpeprjq is not " excessively steep :" eirnrokv signifies " mostly "—" for the most part." There may be declivity in a line of railroad; not precipice : it may be Karoxftep^, hut not Kprjfivoihr}^. Mr. Ellis's notion is somewhat akin to that of Livy, for which he is so roughly handled by Niebuhr; namely, for turning the three half-stades of length into three half-stades of height. Lect. ix. vol. i. p. 173. CHAPTER II. Hannibal, having completed the passage of the Alps in Fifteen Days, came down boldly into the plain of the Po and the nation of Insubres. c. 56. Karfjpe et?—came down into. Our opponents, unable to say that a man, entering Italy by the route of Susa or of Pinerolo, would come down into the * Cambridge Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology. Yol. ii. p. 327.300 Polybius interpreted. [pakt vii. Insubres, struggle against the words of the history : and first they pretend that Karfjpe ek 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 evidem-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, etv opa>v enrl rrjv tov fPoBavov Biafiacriv. 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 : /caratpco is never so used. The passage cited as analogous occurs thus : Polybius, having explained Hannibal's proceedings after crossing the Ebro, having told how he discharged a portion of the troops, and committed another portion to the command of the general who was to remain in that country, says of Hannibal: " Taking with him the rest " of the army lightly equipped, he led them on through the " Pyrenean mountains for the passage of the river called the " Rhone." Now see the weakness of imagining an analogy between rjye in this place, and Karfjpe 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 Rhone is the notice of an ulterior event, which will be long after that to which rjye Bid is applied. "Hye Bod tells an initial proceeding ; and for that reason it is wholly unlike Karype eh. But the want of prudence in this anonymous critic is equal to his want of discernment: he not only exhibits, as corresponding expressions, those which have no correspondence, but he proves that they have none, by adding these words : " For in the 40th chapter he " is again crossing * the Pyrenees: and in the 41st he arrives " at the passage of the Rhone—r/ke peta Bvvajiecov eirl ttjv " tov fPoBavov Btdfiacriv." Here his error exposes itself: it is this expression 77/ee eirl, which is analogous to Karfjpe ek, not the words of the 35th chapter. Each of those expressions tells an accomplished fact; one bringing Hannibal to the * tVe^cipet Tats Sie/c/JoAats twv Hvprjvaiwv oplLv.302 Polybius interpreted. [PART VII. Rhone, 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 anonymous of 1830 : he prudently rendered /caTrjpe efc " descended into." But two years afterwards, on defending himself in the " Journal of Philology," ii. 329, he condescended deliberately to adopt the error of his Cambridge predecessor, and borrowed his false illustration, saying this :—" The words, fcaT-rjpe " To\fi7jpoo<; els ra irepl tov IlaSov 7reSt'a koX to tcov 'lco/Afipcov " edvos, may be compared with t} Trepan tcelcrOai t&v^Trepl tov IIdSov ireSioov. Polyb. ii. 19,13. General St. Cyr Nugues limits the scope of this large term to the very banks of the Po itself. Being an advocate for the Mont 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 Po. Ce fleuve, sorti du Mont Yiso, " coule du midi au nord jusqu'k Turin. Nous lisons qu' " Annibal fut oblig^ de faire reposer plusieurs jours son " arm^e ; qu'il ne put ^viter de prendre la capitale des Taurini. " II est naturel de conclure de lk qu'il descendit sur les bords " du Po k quelque distance de Turin." A still more curious conception of the plains is that of M. le Comte de Fortia D'Urban, whose singular theory will be noticed in Part X. He writes, p. 14 : " Apr&s avoir franchi " le Tesin, Annibal fut entre dans les plaines du Po : 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 Po;" oj, "plaines qu'arrose304 Poli/bius interpreted. [part vii. " le Po." Tor avoiding the risk of error in giving too narrow . a construction, it is but to say simply plain, or plains of the Po. The Insubrians—to tcov 'icrofifipcov edvos. 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 irodev op^o-a*; 'Avi>Lj3ay, confirms the activity which I am supposing; namely, that so much success must have attended the exertions of that first day, that the pass would be ready for all but elephants the next morning. This view of the subject accords with all probability, as it does with the text. The difficulty which seemed to defy the progress of the expedition, must have offered itself to the head of the line of march within two or three hours from the time when the army was put in motion, which we may presume to have been, as on other occasions, at daybreak—afia rw (f>a>n. The plain of the summit is about two miles in length: and the first movement of the column is to be dated from near the brink of the descent. From thence they would reach the place of obstruction in about four miles. The attempt to proceed along the bottom, where the new snow lay upon the snow of the previous winter, and so to circumvent the stadium ' and a 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 fail in that promptitude under314 Polybius interpreted. [paht vn. circumstances which placed in immediate peril the existence of his army. The narrative in terms exhibits instant action, not idle postponement to another day. After describing the attempt to get round, how it failed by the slipperiness of the older surface when stepped upon through the soft fresh snow, and how the weight of the cattle made them to break in and become fixed, Polybius says, not that Hannibal pitched his camp and went to sleep, but that he pitched his camp and then set to work in earnest with all hands. A small portion only of the army can have got down to the scene of difficulties, when Hannibal commenced the effort to vanquish them. If the text had spoken less plainly, one would still ask—why presume delay in such a crisis ? Every man in the army had become accustomed to apply himself at a moment's notice to the encountering, by all personal labour, of rocks, rivers, ravines, and every natural obstacle. If the night of this first day was not such as to prohibit all operations, we may be sure that relays of men were digging and clearing throughout that night, and that not day only was devoted to this vital struggle. As to the actual transit of the cavalry, the words of the history best consist with the notion that they went through 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 reparation : and the next note of time is, that the elephants were got through with difficulty in three days of hard work and suffering. But why three days moref The work done in favour of the horse was work done in favour of the elephant. It was a continuous process : igtpicoSofiet and al/coSo/Aia, are terms equally applying to all parts of it. The hardships signified in KaKoiradrjcras, and predicted of the three days, belonged as much to the earlier labour which availed for theCHAP. III.] Time in Descent. Snow-line. Salassi. 315 horses as to the further exertions which were to liberate the elephants. Hannibal did not, after making a narrow road for the smaller animal, begin another road for the larger animaL It was the same path made wider. The first day's work gave a horse-path: the work of the second and third days gave it width foT an elephant. I insist therefore that the terms fiia and rpial, introduced as they are into this narrative of the descent, do not warrant the addition of one and three to the day of starting, so as to make five spent in vanquishing the obstruction. And I claim of those, to whom the author's meaning may seem doubtfully expressed, that they will lean to a construction that shall make him consistent with himself. I certainly think, that you best consult the context of the narrative, if you believe that the labour which liberated the elephants, being the labour of three days, was undergone on the eleventh, the twelfth, and the thirteenth days of Alps. If the descent began on a Monday, the leprj/xvoi 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 rpiTalo<;, as if the word signified " in three days :" but such is not the force of the word : the expression of Polybius is, Tpiralov Sca(f)r}K€ .Trpbs rat v6/xa<;; and he conceives, not that the cavalry were sent down by Hannibal to the valley, but that " he turned out " the tired cattle to pasture, of course under cover of the " entrenchments, where they would be as safe as by the walls " of a fortified city."* Hannibal had better care of his horses than to send them to graze in the fresh mountain snow, when a rich valley promised provender at a few miles' distance. As to their shivering under the favour of Alpine entrenchments, I doubt that the mountain regions witnessed any 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 there was no whole army in the plain. Those who have been startled with the extraordinary speed of a great axmy transferring itself from the summit or from La Tuile into the plain of Italy in three days, must be told that the words of the history do not contain such an idea : they do not exhibit 26,000 men disgorged from the Alps ; they represent rather those who 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, ill.] Time in Descent. Snow-line. Salassi. 319 touched the plain. "Anrrofiai 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 airTo/nai. Hannibal won his race and defeated the Alps, when his foremost banner waved in the Dorian plain. This notice of time may be thought tedious and minute. I have desired to show, that Polybius is free from the contradiction which is imputed to him : his words may not be clearly apprehended on a first reading. But, after reasonable attention, they cease to be obscure. To my mind they import that the Carthaginian armament commenced the descent at daybreak on the eleventh day of Alps, and met with an obstruction that same morning; one day's labour enabled all but the elephants to proceed on their march; three days' labour, not three days more, was required before these could move on with the force which had remained with them. On the third day of their liberation, being the fifteenth day of Alps, the invaders hailed the plain of Italy. Dr. Arnold on the Snow-line. The bold writer, who ventured to suggest the pass of Hannibal to have been one by which you may pass from the higher Arc into the Yale of 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 theory. If Hannibal transgressed the snow-line, & fortiori the earlier Gaulish invaders, who trod the Great St. Bernard, must have done so. But, after studying the perils of the snowy regions in the tales of modern adventurers, moving two, three, or four320 Polybius interpreted. [part vii. 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 Rome," iii. c. 43, we read as follows :—" Hannibal was on the summit of the Alps about " the end of October: the first winter snows had already " fallen; but two hundred years before the Christian era, " when all Germany was one vast forest, the climate of the " Alps was far colder than at present, and the snow lay on " the passes all through the year." He says further in the note : " It is clear, either that Hannibal passed by some " much higher point than the present roads over the Little " St. Bernard or Mont Cehis; 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 patch, 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 vegeta-" 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 seems to me, that we need not desire any higher point than the present track affords over this mountain, nor assume a change of climate for reconciling that track with the history. I do not understand that Polybius describes the passage of the main chain, or any part of it, as within the limit of perpetualCHAP, hi.] Time in Descent. Snow-line. 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 impression 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—atevZpa /cai ijri\d. 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 strictness cruve^co? iirifievetv is to be received. If, in a philosophic discussion of the temperature and measurement of mountains by De Saussure or Forbes, we should find it laid down that snow remains constantly on a particular summit, our thoughts would advert to the snow-line. But Polybius was not so employed : what he says of bareness and barrenness, and the cause of it, is introduced only as accounting for the fact that the elephants were in a very bad plight by the time when they escaped from their detention. Those beasts might well be out of condition, without being above the snow-line : the last possible day on which any supply of provender can have been obtained, was before that of the barbarian attack : if any had been got then, still five days at least elapsed, in which their stock of food received no reinforcement. We may well believe that the Graian Alp in 218 B.C. pro- VOL. I. Y322 Poli/bius interj)retcd. [part vn. duced 110 store for their supply. The same is true of that mountain at this day, and, I should think, of all the rival passes, though they too do not reach the snow-line, and some are far milder than the Little St. Bernard. This fact is quite consistent with the sheep and shepherds that delight the eye of the summer traveller, the cow pasturing by the waters of the blue lake, and the gentians and rhododendrons known to smile on the margin of glaciers. In Hannibal's time there were probably no residents between Bourg St. Maurice and La Tuile, perhaps not higher than Pre St. Didier; and, if the elephants at La Tuile had to rely on provisions grown in the country above that place, their lives were unquestionably in danger. The cause imputed is climate: passes of Alps, Grimsel, or Graian, have at no season a sure vacation from snow : hence barrenness and bareness of surface ; hence the risk of starvation to a large animal coming from a milder region. Such cause and such effect the historian imparts in the words under consideration. Knowing something of the Alps, and writing for those who knew nothing, he meant to tell that the cold and snow, to which those higher regions are always subject, prohibit a vegetation that will meet an unusual demand for the support of animal life : but he had no intention to describe the full incident of perpetual 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 fall is much steeper on the Pi^mont side than on the Savoy side. If there was perpetual snow at this part of the descent, there must have been perpetual snow for a considerable tract of the ascent: if the diroppw£ was within the snow-line, the Xgvko-chap, hi.] Time in Descent. Snow-line. Salassi. 323 TrcTpov can hardly have been out of it. And yet snow is not commemorated in the ascent: the arrival of the army at the summit, their encampment, and the waiting for stragglers to come up, has all been told before ever the idea of snow is introduced into the story: it is mentioned then, as a new cause of gloom and dejection to the suffering soldiers: " Snow " having by this time become collected about the tops of 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, nrepl tov<; anpovs. In the descent we read of it as a special and grievous embarrassment: it is put in contrast with the perils of the ascent. The history says that they hardly fell in with an enemy; but that the loss was nevertheless almost equal to that of the ascent, from the bad ground and the snow which concealed the stepping-place from view. He who wrote thus, cannot have conceived any portion of the track of ascent to lie above the snowline. 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 portion of it, including the elephants, for a longer period : it fairly raises the question, whether the old snow of Polybius y 2324 Polybius interpreted. [paht vn. 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 obstruction to the march, the extent of which is defined. The phenomenon was purely local; and, when Hannibal was compelled to desist from 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 interfere 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 tov a part beyond the 300 yards of injury, which had escaped the snows altogether— 7repl tov