Part 1

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HANNIBAL CROSSES THE ALPS

Cambridge University Press London: Fetter Lane

New York The Macmillan Co.

Bombay, Calcutta and Madras Macmillan and Co., Ltd.

Toronto The Macmillan Co. of Canada, Ltd.

Tokyo Maruzen-Kabushiki-Kaisha

All rights reserved

HANNIBAL CROSSES THE ALPS

by

CECIL TORR, M.A.

Cambridge: at the University Press MCMXXIV

Printed in Great Britain

PREFACE

I have heard this question discussed ever since I was a child, but have never yet written anything about it except in my _Small Talk at Wreyland_. In the First Series, page 75, I was talking about travelling on the Continent, and I said:

“Plenty of people went to Switzerland at the time when I first went--1869--far more than when my father went there thirty years before, but nothing like the crowds that go there now. They kept more to peaks and passes then; and they were always talking of Hannibal’s passage of the Alps. Junius was talked out: Tichborne and Dreyfus were yet to come; and Hannibal filled the gap. I used to hear them at home as well as there; and they all had their pet routes for Hannibal--Col d’Argentière, Mont Genèvre, Mont Cenis, Little Mont Cenis, Little St Bernard and Great St Bernard, and even Simplon and St Gothard. In 1871 I went looking for traces of the vinegar on the Great St Bernard. My father upheld the Cenis routes as the only passes from which you can look down upon the plains of Italy. I doubt if Hannibal did look down. I think he may have shown his men their line of march upon a map, just as Aristagoras used a map to show the Spartans their line of march 282 years earlier.”

I wrote Anaxagoras by mistake for Aristagoras, and passed it in the proofs; and it was printed in the first impression of the First Series, though corrected in the second impression. I mentioned my mistake in the Second Series, page 102, and this and other instances led me on to say:

“I fancy that the Greek and Latin authors wrote the wrong word now and then, and never noticed it. That is not the view of textual critics and editors: they ascribe all errors to the men who copied out the manuscripts. But this limits them to errors that might arise in copying, and thus restricts the choice of emendations far too much. Take such an emendation as _Isara_ for _Arar_ in Livy, xxi. 31. This makes Livy say that the river was the Isère, not the Saône; but the context requires him to say it was the Durance, otherwise he would be saying ‘right’ instead of ‘left’ a few lines further on. A copyist might easily write _arar_ for _isara_, so this emendation is accepted, although it does not suit.

“Such emendations are deceitful things. In this case they make Livy say the Isère, and make Polybios say it also, iii. 49, though he says something else; and then Members of the Alpine Club go saying that the river must have been the Isère, since Livy and Polybios agree in saying that it was. Other folk may say it does not matter what the river was; but that is a reason for leaving the whole thing alone, not for getting it wrong. If you take it up at all, you should not risk the sort of snubbing that Westbury gave the herald after cross-examination--‘Go away, you silly man: you don’t even understand your own silly science.’”

That brought me letters from Members of the Alpine Club and from a former President who is a champion of the Isère route. And this is my reply.

CECIL TORR.

YONDER WREYLAND, LUSTLEIGH, DEVON.

POSTSCRIPT. I fear there is much repetition in the following pages, but I have a reason for it. The same facts recur in different contexts; and I have sometimes thought it better to re-state a fact than merely give cross-references.

1. Polybios, of course, is far the best authority. He was born in Hannibal’s lifetime; and he mentions (iii. 48. 12) that before he wrote his account of Hannibal’s passage of the Alps, he went over the ground himself to make quite sure.

2. As he writes in Greek, he gives the distances in stades--nine stades make an English mile--and (iii. 39. 6–10) he reckons 2600 stades from Cartagena to the Ebro, 1600 from there to Ampurias, at the Mediterranean end of the Pyrenees, 1600 from there to the crossing (_diabasis_) of the Rhone, 1400 along the river from its crossing to the ascent (_anabolê_) of the Alps, and 1200 across the Alps into Italy.

3. He says (iii. 39. 8) that he calculated the 1600 from Ampurias to the crossing of the Rhone by the milestones on the Roman road, reckoning eight stades to a Roman mile. Thus, in Roman miles his distances would be 325 to the Ebro, 200 to Ampurias, 200 to the Rhone, 175 along the river, and 150 across the Alps. He also says (iii. 56. 3) that Hannibal took fifteen days in marching the 1200 stades, and (iii. 50. 1) took ten days in marching 800, part of the 1400. Both cases give an average of 80 stades or 10 Roman miles a day; and this looks as if he knew the time employed here but did not know the distance covered, and therefore calculated the distance from the time. He certainly knew the time employed upon the march of fifteen days, as he elsewhere gives the days in detail, iii. 50. 5, 8, 52. 1, 2, 53. 5, 6, 9, 54. 4, 55. 6, 8, 56. 1. But Hannibal would not really have gone at the same pace on the fifteen days when he was fighting his way through the mountains as on the ten days when he was marching up the river unopposed. Polybios must have taken a standard rate, and used it indiscriminately when he had no help from milestones.

4. After giving distances which amount to 8400 stades or 1050 Roman miles in iii. 39. 6–10, he goes on in iii. 39. 11 to give their total as about (_peri_) 9000 stades or 1125 Roman miles. There must be an error in the total or the items. I fancy the total should be 8000 stades or 1000 Roman miles, as he was more likely to reckon 1050 as ‘about’ 1000 than as ‘about’ 1125. He mentions (iii. 56. 3) that Hannibal took five months on the march; and 150 days for the 1050 miles gives an average of 7 Roman miles a day. Large forces could not move fast. The column would be some miles in length, and the advance-guard might be close to the new camping-ground before the rear-guard left the previous camp; and time would have to be allowed for the rear-guard to come up.

5. Strabo was 150 years junior to Polybios; but the Roman road from Spain would not have moved, and he says (iv. 1. 3) that it crossed the Rhone at Tarascon. He goes on to say that it bifurcated there, one branch going through Aix to Antibes on the Mediterranean coast, while the other went through Cavaillon and along the Durance to the beginning of the ascent (_anabasis_) of the Alps, 63 miles from Tarascon, thence to Embrun, 99 miles further on, and thence through the Briançon district in 71 miles to Césanne, the first town in Italy. (The road must thus have crossed the Alps by the pass of Mont Genèvre.) Strabo here treats the beginning of the ascent of the Alps as a definite point, marked by a milestone, just as Polybios treats the ascent of the Alps and the crossing of the Rhone as definite points from which measurements could be made.

6. Roman roads were not built capriciously; and the road from Spain would not have crossed the Rhone at Tarascon unless there was some substantial reason for crossing it just there rather than a little higher up or a little lower down. This reason must have existed at the time when Hannibal crossed the Rhone a few years before the road was made; and by reckoning Hannibal’s march according to the Roman milestones, Polybios rather implies that Hannibal came that way. In any case Hannibal cannot have deviated greatly from the Roman road, as that ran near the coast, and Polybios says (iii. 41. 7) that Hannibal kept the sea upon his right hand (_dexion echôn_) as he marched.

7. After mentioning (iii. 37. 8) that the Rhone entered the sea by several mouths, Polybios says (iii. 42. 1) that Hannibal crossed it where it was a single stream, about four days’ march from the sea. It ceases to be a single stream at Arles, and divides there into branches leading to the mouths; and Arles is eight English miles below Tarascon and five-and-twenty from the sea. Four days at ten miles a day--see paragraph 3--would give 40 Roman miles, or 37 English, for the distance from Tarascon to the sea. But as Hannibal was coming from the west, he would have to turn inland at the westernmost mouth of the Rhone, somewhere near Aigues Mortes, whence the distance would be fully forty miles. No doubt, there were many crossing-places on the Rhone, and any of them might be known as a Diabasis--see paragraph 2--as this is merely the Greek for crossing. But there were many crossing-places on the Rhine, yet there was only one Trajectum, and many on the Euphrates, but only one Zeugma; and Polybios always speaks of the Diabasis of the Rhone as if there were no other.

8. According to Polybios (iii. 41. 2, 4–9, 44. 3, 45. 1–6, 47. 1, 49. 1) Scipio was taking a Roman army from Italy to Spain by sea, but stopped at the easternmost mouth of the Rhone and disembarked the army there, on hearing that Hannibal had already reached the crossing of the Rhone. He sent out cavalry to scout, and Hannibal likewise sent out cavalry, having heard of the arrival of the Roman ships. These two forces met: Scipio’s drove Hannibal’s back and pushed on far enough to see his camp, and then returned with information. Scipio forthwith (_parautica_) re-embarked the baggage and then marched up along the river with his whole force, as he was eager (_speudôn_) to attack the enemy. But on reaching the crossing, he found that the enemy had left their camp three days before, having started the morning after the encounter of the cavalry.

9. If the camp was at Tarascon, Scipio’s cavalry had a ride of sixty or seventy English miles, there and back, besides some fighting on the way; and after their return there was the embarcation of the baggage; so that Scipio could hardly have begun his march till the next morning or next afternoon. He may have been marching on three days, though not a full day’s march on the first day and perhaps not on the third; and he would entrench his camp each night with extra care, as the enemy were not far off. Even so, his progress seems a little slow; but had he gone ten miles further in the time, there would have been a serious check.

10. Ten miles above Tarascon the river Durance flows into the Rhone. Livy (xxi. 31) says that, of all the rivers of Gaul, the Durance was far the most difficult to cross, _longe difficillimus transitu_; and he mentions that it happened to be swollen by rains (_forte imbribus auctus_) at the time when Hannibal was there. If Hannibal had crossed the Rhone more than ten miles above Tarascon, he would have had the Durance between Scipio’s forces and his own; and Polybios says nothing to suggest that there was any obstacle between.

11. At this period the Romans had only a militia; and Scipio’s marches must not be calculated on the scale of marches by the regular army that Marius created a century later on. Still less should they be calculated from statements by Vegetius, who lived six centuries later and dealt with marches along Roman roads to established forts and towns. At this period a Roman force entrenched itself each night, and the entrenching took some time.

12. According to Polybios (iii. 49. 5–7) Hannibal marched up along the river after leaving his camp at the crossing of the Rhone, and arrived in four days at the Island, a populous and fertile place with the Rhone running along one side of it and the Scôras along the other. It was not strictly an island, but was (Polybios says) of the shape and size of the Delta of the Nile, with river on two sides and a range of mountains instead of the sea for the third side. Livy (xxi. 31) follows Polybios almost word for word in saying that Hannibal marched up along the Rhone to a district called the Island, where another river flowed into the Rhone. But he calls the other river the Arar, which is the Saône, and thus brings Hannibal up to Lyons, 200 miles from the sea. This would mean an average of 25 miles a day, the confluence being four days from the crossing and the crossing being four days from the sea, whereas Polybios gives an average of only 7 miles a day for the whole march and 10 miles a day for 250 miles out of the final 325 after the crossing of the Rhone: see paragraphs 3, 4.

13. As a reason for Hannibal’s going so far inland, Livy says (xxi. 31) that Hannibal did not wish to fight a battle against the Romans till he was actually in Italy, and the further he kept away from the sea, the less was the risk of meeting the enemy. But this is not borne out by what he says just afterwards (xxi. 32) where he is copying from Polybios, iii. 49. 2, 3. He says there that Scipio marched back to his ships on finding that the enemy had quitted their camp at the crossing of the Rhone, re-embarked the army and sent the bulk of it on to Spain, and returned to Italy himself to take command there if Hannibal got through the Alps. The march-back and the embarcation must have been as brisk as the march-up, Polybios using the same term for both, _speudôn_, iii. 45. 4, 49. 4. Hannibal had good information: he soon knew of the arrival of the Roman ships at the mouth of the Rhone--see paragraph 8--and would soon know of their departure; and he would not go 200 miles inland to avoid the enemy if he knew they were not there.

14. In order to reduce the distance, the editors of Livy have tampered with the text, and have printed “Isara” in place of “Arar,” thus changing the Saône into the Isère. They seem to have forgotten Silius Italicus, iii. 442–476. He was almost a contemporary of Livy--born only eight years after Livy’s death--and in his description of Hannibal’s march he not only speaks of the confluence of the Arar and the Rhone, but contrasts the rapidity of the Rhone with the quiet flow of the Arar; and that is just the difference between the Rhone and the Saône at Lyons, a difference remarked by Seneca (LUDUS, 7) and other ancient writers. Silius goes on to speak of the Tricastini and the Vocontii and the river Durance exactly as Livy (xxi. 31) goes on to speak of them, and in almost the same words. It seems clear that Silius had Livy’s words before him when he wrote, and that he found “Arar” there, not “Isara,” and had no doubts about the river being the Saône. That really is decisive for the text of Livy. The only pretext of the editors is that there is a mark like an _s_ between the words _ibi_ and _Arar_ in one of the manuscripts of Livy.

15. These editors were very unwise in making Livy say “Isara,” as he would not have mentioned the confluence of the Isère and the Rhone without saying a good deal more. The monuments of the victory of 8 August 121 B.C. were at the confluence of the Isère and the Rhone. Strabo mentions them (iv. 1. 11) and Livy, who was his contemporary, must have known that they were there. (Livy described the victory in one of his lost books, lxi, the contents of which are known from the epitome.) Livy says (xxi. 31) that as soon as Hannibal reached the confluence of the Saône and the Rhone, he secured the support of the Allobriges. If this had happened at the confluence of the Isère and the Rhone, Livy would have made a telling point of the contrast between Hannibal’s securing the support of the Allobriges for his onslaught on Rome, and their subjugation by the Romans at the very same place a century later on.

16. No doubt the Saône rises in the Vosges and not in what we call the Alps; but Strabo (iv. 1. 11) and Ptolemy (ii. 10. 3) describe it as rising in the Alps, and Livy is probably taking the same view in saying that it rose there. It seems unwise to argue that he must have meant the Isère because the Isère rises in the Alps.

17. Ammianus says (xv. 11. 17) that the Arar was also known as the Saucona, _Ararim, quem Sauconam appellant_. He quotes Timagenes by name in xv. 9. 2, and probably quotes him here, as the pseudo-Plutarch (DE FLUVIIS, 6) quotes him for information about the Arar, which information (it says) he copied from Callisthenes. Timagenes was a contemporary of Livy; and I suspect that when Livy was copying Polybios, he took Scôras for Saucona or a variant of that name, but translated it as Arar because this name was better known.

18. The editors of Polybios have also tampered with their text and printed “Isaras” for “Scôras” in iii. 49. 6, as if the river was clearly the Isère. They seem to have forgotten what he says in the next sentence. As already mentioned in paragraph 12, he says that the so-called island between the Scôras and the Rhone was of the same shape as the Delta of the Nile, with these two rivers as the sides and a range of mountains (instead of sea) as the base. But it is a quadrangle, not a triangle, between the Isère and the Rhone: the Isère on the south, the Mont du Chat on the east, and the Rhone on the north as well as on the west, as its course turns round a right-angle at Lyons. When Polybios wanted to say that a place was quadrangular, he said so--he says _tetragônos topos_ in vi. 27. 2--and he would have said so here, if that had been his meaning.

19. Some of the manuscripts have “Scôras” and others have “Scaras”; and this discrepancy is not uncommon in manuscripts of Polybios, as if they all were copied from the writing of a man who made his Alphas and Omegas very much alike. Casaubon altered “Scôras” or “Scaras” into “Araros” to make it agree with Livy. Cluver altered it into “Isaras” to make it agree with the alteration in Livy. Neither of them had any better reason for the change. When editors doubt a reading they ought to query it. These editors should have printed “Arar (? Isara)” and “Scôras (? Isaras),” or printed “Arar” in the text and “Isara” in a footnote, as in Drakenborch’s edition of Livy; but they have printed “Isara” and “Isaras” in the text itself, and in many editions they have not even added footnotes. Readers are thereby misled, and think they have the authority of Livy and Polybios for saying that the Island was at the confluence of the Isère and the Rhone, when in reality they have only the authority of editors who knew no more about the matter than they know themselves.

* * * * *

20. After taking Hannibal up to the confluence of the Saône and the Rhone, Livy says (xxi. 31) that instead of making straight for the Alps, Hannibal then turned to the left, _ad lævam_. Strabo twice says (iv. 6. 7, 11) that there were two roads from Lyons to Italy, one over the Pennine pass, and the second through the territory of the Centrones, meeting the first in the territory of the Salassi. These clearly were the Great and Little St Bernard routes, meeting at Aosta; and if Hannibal was near Lyons and took the Great instead of the Little, he might fairly be described as turning to his left instead of making straight for the Alps. Livy says (xxi. 38) that many people thought that Hannibal crossed the Pennine pass (the Great St Bernard) as they fancied that the name “Pennine” was derived from “Punic.” He also says that Cœlius thought that Hannibal had crossed the “Cremonis jugum,” and he assumes that this must be the Little St Bernard, as he says that both these routes would have brought Hannibal into the territory of the Libici, and Ptolemy (iii. 1. 30, 32) fixes Aosta and Ivrea as the cities of the Salassi, and Vercelli and Lomello as the cities of the Libici.

21. Livy (xxi. 38) rejects both the St Bernard routes as bringing Hannibal down into the territory of the Libici, whereas everyone agreed (_quum inter omnes constet_) that Hannibal came down into the territory of the Taurini. This, however, is not exactly what Polybios says. He remarks in iii. 55. 9 that although the higher parts of the Alps were bare and tree-less and covered with perpetual snow, there were trees and shrubs and habitations half-way up the slopes (_hypo mesên tên parôreian_) on either side; and he says in iii. 56. 3, 60. 2, 8 that Hannibal came down to the plains of the Po in the territory of the Insubres and pitched camp just below the slopes (_hyp’ antên tên parôreian_) and that he subsequently (_meta de tauta_) attacked the Taurini who lived near the slopes (_pros têi parôreiai_) and were hostile to the Insubres. Ptolemy (iii. 1. 29, 31) fixes Novara, Como, Milan and Pavia as the cities of the Insubres, and Voghera, Tortona, Turin and Bene as the cities of the Taurini. Bene is about 35 miles south of Turin; and if it was a city of the Taurini, Hannibal would have come down into their territory if he crossed the Alps by the Col d’Argentière, or by the Col de la Traversette, just as much as if he crossed by Mont Cenis or Mont Genèvre.

22. Of course the boundaries between the territories of the Taurini and the Insubres may not have been the same in Hannibal’s time as in Ptolemy’s time or Livy’s. He may have come down into territory which then belonged to the Insubres but afterwards belonged to the Taurini, and might be described as territory of the Taurini by writers of a later age.

23. Strabo says (iv. 6. 12) that only four passes across the Alps were mentioned by Polybios. The nearest to the Mediterranean went through the territory of the Ligures; the next, “which Hannibal crossed,” through the territory of the Taurini; the next, through the territory of the Salassi; and the fourth, through the territory of the Rhæti. But the important words, “which Hannibal crossed,” are not in all the manuscripts of Strabo, and therefore are suspected as interpolations. Polybios does not mention the Salassi or the Rhæti in the extant portion of his work; but a pass through the territory of the Rhæti might have brought Hannibal into the territory of the Insubres, as Strabo (vii. 1. 5) says that these territories were conterminous, the Rhæti having some territory on the south side of the Alps as well as on the north side. The Rhætian pass might thus have been the Simplon; but it is incredible that Hannibal should have crossed a pass so far eastward as the Simplon or even the Great St Bernard.

24. Varro is quoted by Servius (AD ÆNEIDEM, x. 13) as mentioning five passes across the Alps: one alongside the sea, through the territory of the Ligures; a second, which Hannibal crossed; a third, by which Pompey went to Spain; a fourth, by which Hasdrubal came into Italy; and a fifth in the Graian Alps--presumably the Little St Bernard: see paragraph 58. This agrees with Strabo’s quotation from Polybios in making Hannibal cross the next pass to the coast-road; and if it were Varro’s own statement at first hand, it would have high authority. But similar interpolations may be suspected here, as it makes Hannibal and Hasdrubal cross different passes, whereas Livy (xxvii. 39) and Appian (HANNIBAL, 52) agree in saying that Hasdrubal crossed the same pass that Hannibal had crossed twelve years before.