676 HannihaVs Passage over the Alps. that they need drive us to such desperate expedients. If indeed Hannibal had been without guides or information about the country, there might be room to ask why he did not follow the valley of the Rhone, till he heard of a pass which would lead him into the part of Italy which he desired to reach. But if he had means of learning that by quitting the Rhone at Yenne he could effect his object with less difficulty and danger, the motive required is supplied. Still less weight can be attached to the argument drawn from the words of Polybius which describe Hannibal as crossing from the countries on the Rhone into Italy. This description will surely apply to any one point in the basin of the Rhone between its source and its mouth, or, as Polybius describes it, from the head of the Adriatic to Marseilles (iii. 47.)? ^s to another. The advantage which the pass of the Simplon possesses, of bringing Hannibal immediately into the territory of the Insubres, is of no moment until it is proved that no other answers the same condition : while the distance between Milan and the capital of the Taurini renders the expedition which he undertook against them less intelligible, than if he descended and rested his army on the borders of their territory. But we turn to another view of the subject, which has much higher claims to our attention, both in the name of the author, and in the arguments with which he has supported his opinions. It is contained in an appendix which Uckert has annexed to the third volume of his elaborate work (Geographic der Griechen und Roemer, 1832). He has there defended a hypothesis which had been adopted by many learned men, and within these few years by a French author (Laranza, Histoire critique du Passage des Alpes par Annibal, 1826.) whose book I have not been able to meet with : that Hannibal crossed the Mont Ceni. Uckert has the advantage of coming last to the discussion of this question, with a thorough knowledge of all that has been done by his pre- decessors, and with all the light that profound geographical learning can throw upon it : so that a review of his arguments may exhibit, though not the history of the controversy, yet the latest stage which it has reached. There are it is well known four main points on which
