678 HannibaVs Passage over the Alps. narrative out of statements which were irreconcilably dis- cordant. We now proceed to notice the author's views on the four abovementioned questions. 1. The passage of the Rhone. Instead of Pont St Esprit, or Roquemaure, the point selected by De Luc and his fol- lowers, Uckert conceives that Hannibal crossed the river considerably lower down, near Beaucaire. Polybius indeed says that the passage took place at about the distance of four days journey from the sea (iii. 42. cryeoov rj^epotyv TeTTCipoov ooov (XTre'^cojj GTparoTreoM TrJ9 OaXacratj^' There is no reason for rendering this four days march. According to the other meaning the distance will be somewhat greater; but this will suit the actual distance between Roquemaure and the mouth of the river perhaps better than the four days march.) Still this agreement can afford no safe criterion until we have ascertained the point from which Polybius began his measurement of the distance from the sea, which, as the mouths of the Rhone have experienced great changes, cannot now be determined, and also the direction in which he measured it : and this may have depended on the road which the state of the waters near the mouth of the river left practicable. When allowance is made for these con- siderations, Uckert thinks that Beaucaire might not be too near the sea to be so described. The motive for preferring it to other points higher up is, that it lay on the Roman road from Spain, which passed through Ruscino and Illiberis, two points, as we learn from Livy, in Hannibars march. (Strabo, iv. p. 187. Ne/xai/cjos' lopvTai Kara ttjv €k T-iy? Ifirjpias els Trjv IraXiai^ o^e^et o' f) ^efxavao^ tov ^ev ]^ooavov irepi ekutov GTamovs KaOo ev Tt] Trepaia ttoKl'^vlov earl Tapao-Kcov.) According to the present text of Polybius (hi. 39.)? there was already in his time a measured and marked Roman road from Carthagena, or even from Gades, to the passage of the Rhone: for after stating the distance, he adds: rat/ra ycip vvp (iefirj^xaTiGTaL kol aecrfjineiooTaL KaTct cTTacLOvs OKTW cia Pw^aicov eTrifxeXcos. But Uckert gives some strong reasons for suspecting that these words are a marginal note, which has been introduced into the text. The fact they state is itself, for the time of Polybius, highly improbable ; and if it had been so he would not have qualified
