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.