With respect to his first objections, however, it may be observed, that the want of space can only apply to the army posted on the mountain, for, on the level country between its base and the village of Guaro, an army of any amount might be drawn up. And as regards the mountain, as I have already stated, its north front offers a strong position, nearly two miles in extent, and one in depth. Now, considering the compact order in which Roman armies were formed; the number of lines in which they were in the habit of being drawn up; and making due allowance for exaggeration[185] in the number of the contending hosts; such a space, I should say, was more than sufficient for Pompey’s army.
In reply to the second objection urged by Mr. Carter, I may, in the first place, observe, that the inscription whereon it is grounded—
* * * * *
A MVNDA ET FLVVIO SIGILA
AD CERTIMAM VSQVE XX M.P.P.S. RESTITVIT.[186]—
seems to have no reference to the actual distance between Munda and Cártama, since, by attaching any such meaning to it—coupled as Munda is with the river Sigila—the inscription, to one acquainted with the country, becomes quite unintelligible.
Thus, if translated: “From Munda and the river Sigila, he (i. e. the Emperor Hadrian) restored the twenty miles of road to Cártama,” any one would naturally conclude that Munda was upon the Sigila, and Cártama at a distance of twenty miles from it; whereas, whatever may have been the situation of Munda, Cártama certainly stood upon the very bank of the river.
It must, therefore, either have been intended to imply that the Emperor restored twenty miles of a road which from Munda and the sources,[187] or upper part of the course of the Sigila, led to Cártama, and various traces of such a Roman road exist to this day on the road to Ronda by Junquera; or, that the road from Munda was conducted along part of the course of the Sigila ere it reached Cártama: and such, from the nature of the ground, undoubtedly was the case, since Cártama stood at the eastern foot of a steep mountain, the northern extremity of which must (in military parlance) have been turned, to reach it from Monda, and the road, in making this détour, would first reach the river Guadaljorce, or Sigila.
In this case it must be admitted that the twenty miles refer to the actual distance between the two towns, and this tends only more firmly to establish modern Monda on the site of the Roman town, since the distance from thence to Cártama, measured with a pair of compasses on a correct map,[188] is fourteen English miles, which are equal to fifteen Roman of seventy-five to a degree, or seventeen of eighty-three and one third to a degree; and considering the hilly nature of the country which the road must unavoidably have traversed, the distance would have been fully increased to twenty miles, either by the ascents and descents if carried in a straight line from place to place, or by describing a very circuitous course if taken along the valley of the Rio Seco.
Carter further remarked upon the foregoing inscription that “it seems to place” Munda to the west of the river Sigila, which ran between that town and Cártama; but this, he said, does not agree with the situation of modern Monda, which is on the same side the river as Cártama.
I suppose for west he meant to say east, but, in either case, his assumed site for Munda, “three leagues to the west of the present town,” is open to this very same objection, and to the yet graver one, of being—even allowing that he meant English leagues—twenty-three English miles in a direct line from the town of Cártama, and in a contracted and secluded valley, to the possession of which, no military importance could possibly have been attached.