Part 3

51. On the first day of his march down from the summit, he came to a bad place where a landslip had destroyed the track for a distance of about 300 yards, and he had to encamp there, as the baggage-animals and elephants could not get past. One day’s repairs made the track passable for the baggage-animals, and these and the cavalry-horses were sent on ahead and turned out to graze on the pastures down below. But three days’ repairs were needed to make the track passable for the elephants, who meanwhile nearly died for want of food.--That is the substance of what Polybios says, iii. 54. 4–7, 55. 6–8, and Livy follows him.

52. The complete skeleton of an elephant was found on the Little St Bernard two centuries ago. It is mentioned by Saint-Simon in the preface to his HISTOIRE DE LA GUERRE DES ALPES. (This was the campaign of 1744, in which he himself took part, and his book came out in 1770.) He says, “On s’est encore plus attaché de nos jours à soutenir qu’Annibal a dû passer par le Petit St Bernard depuis qu’on assure qu’on a trouvé dans cette montagne tous les ossemens d’un éléphant ... dans un pays qu’on appelle dans plusieurs cartes La Grande Route des Romains.” But Hannibal was not the only person who used elephants. For instance, Suetonius mentions (NERO, 2) that Nero’s great-great-great-grandfather went riding about Provence on an elephant when he was there in 121 B.C.

53. The landslip that stopped the animals, did not stop the men: the infantry went on and reached the plain in three days’ march from there. Polybios reckons (iii. 53. 9, 54. 4, 55. 6, 56. 1) that Hannibal reached the summit on the ninth day, camped there for two days, that is, the tenth and eleventh, came to the landslip the next day, that is the twelfth, and reached the plain on the third day from there, that is, the fifteenth day: which agrees with his statement (iii. 56. 3) that Hannibal took fifteen days to cross the Alps. The cavalry were left behind to repair the track for the elephants, Polybios saying (iii. 55. 8) that it was repaired by the Numidians, which is his usual name for Carthaginian cavalry.

54. A landslip might occur on any pass, and almost every pass has places where the track is steep and narrow and running along a cliff, just as Polybios (iii. 54. 5–7) describes the track here. But there are exceptionally bad places just below the summits of the Col du Clapier and of the Col de la Traversette--the Clapier is also known as l’Escalier, the descent being as steep as a staircase for the first 4000 feet, and the Traversette takes its name from a tunnel built in 1480 to avoid a precipitous bit near the top. And both these summits command a wide view of the plain. From each of these two summits the distance to the plain is about 30 English (or 33 Roman) miles--measuring to Avigliana in the one case and to Saluzzo in the other--and this would fully occupy four days, as there was a landslip to be passed and in the earlier part of the descent there was the snow. Polybios says (iii. 54. 5, 55. 1–5) that the new autumn snow was lying loose on the old winter snow which now was frozen hard; and men and animals slipped and fell, when they trod through the new snow on to the icy surface of the old.

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55. From the summits of the other passes the distance to the plain is about 40 English miles for the Argentière, measuring to Borgo San Dalmazzo; about 45 for the Genèvre, to Avigliana; about 55 for the Simplon, to Arona; about 60 for the Great St Bernard, to Ivrea; and about 75 for the Little St Bernard, also to Ivrea. These 75 miles (more than 80 Roman miles) would not be marched in the four days; and even if the 55 or 60 could be marched in that time, there would be a difficulty about the total distance marched. Polybios makes it 2600 stades from the crossing of the Rhone to Italy, and he reckons 8 stades to the mile, thus arriving at a total of 325 Roman miles, or 300 English: see paragraphs 2, 3. Subtracting the 55 or 60, this leaves only 240 or 245 English miles from the crossing of the Rhone to the summits of the Great St Bernard and the Simplon, or roughly 100 and 150 miles too little. And to reach either of those passes, Hannibal would have to march along the lake of Geneva from one end to the other, a distance of 45 miles. Polybios says repeatedly (iii. 39. 9, 47. 1, 50. 1) that Hannibal marched along a river, but says nothing of his marching along a lake.

56. According to Livy, xxi. 38, most people thought (_vulgo credere_) that Hannibal had crossed the Great St Bernard. But this was not unreasonable if they thought that he was coming from Lyons, as Livy and Silius say: see paragraph 14. And if Polybios had not specified the distances, it might be argued that the tributary which he calls the Scôras really was the Saucona, or Saône; and that when he speaks of Hannibal’s marching along a river, he means the Rhone all through. But if Hannibal had got as far as that, he surely would have crossed the Simplon rather than the Great St Bernard, as the Simplon would bring him down into the territory of the Insubres, his allies against Rome.

57. Livy rejects the Little St Bernard as well as the Great on the ground that it would likewise bring Hannibal down into the territory of the Libici; and it cannot be the pass of which Polybios speaks, as the summit has no view towards the plain, and is too far away for Hannibal to reach the plain in four days’ march from there. But Livy (xxi. 38) quotes Cœlius as saying that Hannibal went that way. Cœlius was a contemporary of Polybios, though perhaps a younger man; and Cicero remarks (DE DIVINATIONE, i. 24) that Cœlius copied from the writings of Silenos, a Greek who was with Hannibal. That being so, Cœlius should be as trustworthy as Polybios himself, yet contradicts him here. Livy, however, may be quoting Cœlius quite correctly as saying that Hannibal crossed the Alps _per Cremonis jugum_--an expression that does not occur elsewhere--but may be wrong in thinking that Cœlius thereby meant the Little St Bernard. He may be making a mistake that Strabo made. There were two rivers called Duria in that part of Italy--Pliny, iii. 16 (20), 118, _Durias duas_--now distinguished as the Dora Riparia, which rises on the Mont Genèvre pass and joins the Po near Turin, and the Dora Baltea, which rises on the Little St Bernard pass, and joins the Po five-and-twenty miles below Turin. Strabo (iv. 6. 5) makes these two rivers into one, with the source of the Dora Riparia and the course of the Dora Baltea. Livy may have made the same mistake and fancied that Hannibal would go down the Dora Baltea into the territory of the Libici, when Cœlius really meant the pass at the source of the Dora Riparia.

58. There is also an ambiguity in the statement of Nepos (HANNIBAL, 3) that Hannibal crossed the Graian Alps. This normally would mean crossing by the Little St Bernard; but it might also mean crossing by the Mont Genèvre, as Ptolemy (iii. i. 35, 36) makes the Graian Alps include Briançon and Embrun. Tacitus (HISTORIÆ, ii. 66) speaks of a legion marching from Turin across the Graian Alps, clearly meaning the Genèvre or Cenis passes, as the Little St Bernard is not accessible from Turin.

59. Servius quotes Varro as mentioning five passes through the Alps, the coast-road, Hannibal’s road, Pompey’s road, Hasdrubal’s road, and the road through the Graian Alps; thus making Hasdrubal and Hannibal cross different passes, though other writers make them cross the same pass: see paragraph 62. Thus, if Servius quotes correctly, Varro seems to have assigned the Cenis route to Hasdrubal. This route, or the St Bernard routes, would suit an army coming from Lyons; and Hasdrubal most probably came from that direction. According to Appian (HISPANIA, 28) Hasdrubal came round the north-west corner of the Pyrenees--Hannibal came round the south-east corner and marched along the coast: see Polybios, iii. 39. 7, 8, 41. 7--and Hasdrubal must have kept a long way from the coast, as Livy (xxvii. 39) speaks of his meeting the Arverni, whose territory answered roughly to Auvergne.

60. Possibly, and I think probably, some of the ancients confused the routes of these two Carthaginian armies, and thus made Hannibal go to Lyons when in reality it was only Hasdrubal who went there. And such confusion might easily arise, as Hannibal’s march was celebrated, whilst Hasdrubal’s was forgotten or ignored: which is not surprising, as his march had no results. It was Trasimene and Cannæ and their other disasters that made the Romans remember Hannibal’s march so well, whereas they might nearly have forgotten it, if he had been defeated and killed at the Trebia, as Hasdrubal was at the Metaurus, immediately on entering Italy.

61. In speaking of Hasdrubal’s march, Livy merely says (xxvii. 39) that after meeting the Arverni, he met other Gallic tribes and Alpine tribes, and crossed the pass that Hannibal had opened up. If he met the Arverni in Auvergne, he might take some such route as Livy (xxi. 31) has assigned to Hannibal, first meeting the Allobriges, then the Tricastini, the Vocontii and the Tricorii, and then crossing the Durance on his way to the pass; and Livy may have had this route in mind when he was writing of Hannibal, though he excludes it by his statement that Hannibal turned to the _left_ to reach the territory of the Tricastini.

62. Livy says most distinctly that Hasdrubal used the pass which Hannibal had opened up, xxvii. 39, _per munita pleraque transitu fratris, quæ antea invia fuerant_. Appian (HANNIBAL, 52) says the same thing in Greek, _hôdopoiêmena proteron hypo Annibou_. Thus, if Hasdrubal went over the Little St Bernard or Mont Cenis, Hannibal must have gone that way, and Livy must be wrong in saying that he crossed the Durance in the territory of the Tricorii, that is, above Embrun--he would not cross it there, except in going to passes further south than Mont Genèvre, as the river rises on that pass. On the other hand, if Hannibal crossed it there, and Hasdrubal went over the Little St Bernard or Mont Cenis, Livy (and Appian also) must be wrong in saying that they both used the same pass; and there is Varro’s statement (though only at second hand) that they used different passes: see paragraph 24.

63. The northern passes would best suit Hasdrubal, coming from the Bay of Biscay and Auvergne, whereas the southern passes would be better for Hannibal, coming from the Mediterranean coast. Hasdrubal might gain by going to a southern pass that Hannibal had opened up, but Hannibal would gain nothing by going to a northern pass. And if he went up the Rhone to Lyons, as Livy and Silius say, there is no sense in what Polybios says about the distance marched. To reach Lyons he would have to average 25 Roman miles a day instead of his usual 10 miles--see paragraph 12--and he would then have to march 100 Roman miles along the Rhone to the ascent of the Alps--see paragraph 29--and this 100 miles would bring him to Geneva, whereas the distance is only 50 Roman miles to Yenne, where he presumably would quit the Rhone if he were making for the Little St Bernard or Mont Cenis.

64. There is no difficulty about the distance if the river was the Durance, as Livy states explicitly in xxi. 32 and certainly implies in xxi. 31. Excepting his mention of the Saône in xxi. 31, his statements are consistent with the statements of Polybios as to Hannibal’s route--he only supplements Polybios by quoting some one else about the Vocontii and other tribes and the crossing of the Durance. No doubt, Polybios says nothing of Hannibal’s crossing any river but the Rhone; but he implies that Hannibal crossed a tributary of it--see paragraph 35. If the tributary was the Durance, he must have crossed it a second time a good deal further up, if Livy’s statement is correct. Polybios might ignore a second crossing just as he ignores the first, but Livy represents this second crossing as an operation of great difficulty, the river being then swollen by rain. His description, however, seems inapplicable to the Durance so far up--see paragraph 42--and I suspect that he was copying a description of the Durance much further down its course.

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65. To recapitulate all this. The main difficulty is that Polybios speaks of a tributary of the Rhone as the Scôras, and no other ancient author speaks of any river of that name. The river Saône had two names, Saucona and Arar--see paragraph 17--and I conjecture that the river Durance also had two names, Druentia and Scôras, and that the name of Scôras was current when Polybios wrote, but obsolete when Livy wrote. My reasons are:--

While Polybios (iii. 50. 1) merely says “the river,” Livy (xxi. 32) says “the Durance”; and in this part of his narrative he is copying Polybios almost word for word.

Polybios gives distances for Hannibal’s march along the river which are curiously like the distances that Strabo gives for the Roman road along the Durance from Tarascon to the Alps: see paragraph 29.

Polybios says that Hannibal marched eastward from the crossing of the Rhone, following the river up-stream. As the crossing was at Tarascon (or close by) an eastward march would carry him along the Durance, which here runs from east to west: see paragraph 34.

Livy says that on leaving the so-called Island at the confluence of the tributary and the Rhone, Hannibal turned to the _left_ into the territory of the Tricastini instead of going straight on to the Alps; and Hannibal could not have done this unless he was on the route along the Durance to the Alps. He would turn to the _right_ to reach their territory if he were going along the Isère or any other river further north; see paragraph 32.

66. On the other hand, there is Livy’s statement that the tributary river was the Saône, contradicting his own statement about Hannibal’s turning to the left, and also contradicting the statements of Polybios about the length of Hannibal’s march. But why should Livy contradict himself and also contradict Polybios, whom he usually follows word for word? My suggestion is that he took “Scôras” in Polybios for Saucona or a variant of that name, and called the tributary the Saône without considering what that implied. The error would not be striking, if Hasdrubal went that way, as people would confuse his route with Hannibal’s.

67. There is really nothing in the argument that Hannibal would not venture to march along the Durance as the Romans might attack him on the flank. In the first place, there were no Romans there. As soon as Scipio found he was too late to defend the crossing of the Rhone, he went straight back to the coast, re-embarked his army, and sailed off: he was not ashore for more than about a week--see paragraph 41. In the second place, Hannibal had no reason to fear the Romans. He was in superior force, and could have crushed Scipio then as easily as he crushed him at the Trebia two months later on, but he did not want to fight just then, as he saw that victories in Provence would not produce the same effect at Rome as victories in Italy itself: see paragraph 13.

68. Supposing that Hannibal followed the Durance to some point near Embrun, one wonders why he did not follow it to its source at Mont Genèvre and cross that easy pass. But the summit of the pass is less than ten miles from the river, and Polybios says that Hannibal took nine days in going from the river to the summit--Livy says nine days from the Durance. Nine days, I think, are not inconsistent with the distance from the Durance at Mont Dauphin to the Col de la Traversette, or from the Durance at La Bréole to the Col d’Argentière; see paragraphs 46, 47. I think Mont Dauphin the more likely point, partly because Hannibal would have to go through the territory of the Tricorii (as Livy says he did) in order to reach it, but not to reach La Bréole; and partly because there is only a mountain torrent (the Guil) coming down the valley there, but a river (the Ubaye) coming down the valley at La Bréole, and Polybios might regard a march along the Ubaye as a march along “the river.”

69. Whatever pass it was that Hannibal crossed, the summit must have commanded a wide view of the plain of the Po, else he would not have made his speech there. There is such a view from the Col de la Traversette, but not from the summit of the Mont Genèvre pass or from the Col d’Argentière; or in fact from any other pass southward of the Little Mont Cenis and the adjacent Col du Clapier. And those two passes are unlikely, as Hannibal had no motive for going so far north.

70. The points that I have mentioned hitherto are only details of the route, and are subordinate to one main point affecting the entire route. The autumn was advancing; and it was a matter of life or death for Hannibal to complete his march before the snows had made the Alps impassable. He would therefore take the very shortest route with no more digression than was really needed for getting supplies or avoiding Scipio’s army during the week it was ashore. And the shortest routes are by the Col de la Traversette and the Col d’Argentière.

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71. On questions of this sort no certainty can be attained, but I think the balance of probability inclines to some such route as I suggest for Hannibal. The earliest Roman road from Spain to Italy crossed the Rhone at Tarascon and crossed the Durance at (or near) Cavaillon, and then followed the Durance to its source on the pass of Mont Genèvre. I think that Hannibal took this route from Spain as far as Tarascon, but instead of going straight across country (as the road did) from Tarascon to Cavaillon, he followed the Rhone to its confluence with the Durance and then followed the Durance to Cavaillon or somewhere near there. Then he went out of his way, going a little to the north, either to avoid Scipio or obtain supplies; but he returned to the Durance somewhere near Mirabeau and followed it as far as Mont Dauphin--but not as far as Mont Genèvre, for that was Pompey’s pass, and Pompey’s was a different pass from Hannibal’s. Leaving the Durance at Mont Dauphin, he went up the valley of the Guil, seized the gorge below the Château de Queyras on the second night and camped near Ville Vieille on the third and fourth nights; camped near Aiguilles on the fifth night, near La Monta on the sixth and somewhere above Les Chalps on the seventh; went astray into a gorge next day, but reached the summit the day after, and camped there on the ninth, tenth and eleventh nights. On beginning the descent he was stopped by a landslip, and camped there on the twelfth night; camped near Crissolo on the thirteenth night, near Paesana on the fourteenth and near Saluzzo on the fifteenth, but without his elephants, as the landslip stopped them for three days.

72. In speaking of the battle of Raphia, the year after Hannibal’s passage of the Alps, Polybios says (v. 84. 5, 6) that Antiochos had Indian elephants and Ptolemy had African elephants, and that the African gave way before the Indian, being no match for it in size or strength. African elephants might be expected in an army coming from Africa, yet Polybios speaks of the mahouts as Indians (i. 40. 15, iii. 46. 7, xi. 1. 12) not only in Hannibal’s army but in other armies coming from there. The elephants, however, are clearly African (as shown by their large ears) on the coins the Carthaginians struck at Cartagena while they were in possession of Spain. The elephant here, and the other at the beginning, are taken from two of these coins which are nearly contemporary with Hannibal.

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY W. LEWIS AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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Transcriber’s note:

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected.

Extra blank lines between some sections are indicated by rows of five spaced asterisks.

The first uncaptioned illustration is the Publisher’s logo; the two other uncaptioned illustrations are elephants.