16. No doubt the Saône rises in the Vosges and not in what we call the Alps; but Strabo (iv. 1. 11) and Ptolemy (ii. 10. 3) describe it as rising in the Alps, and Livy is probably taking the same view in saying that it rose there. It seems unwise to argue that he must have meant the Isère because the Isère rises in the Alps.
17. Ammianus says (xv. 11. 17) that the Arar was also known as the Saucona, Ararim, quem Sauconam appellant. He quotes Timagenes by name in xv. 9. 2, and probably quotes him here, as the pseudo-Plutarch (DE FLUVIIS, 6) quotes him for information about the Arar, which information (it says) he copied from Callisthenes. Timagenes was a contemporary of Livy; and I suspect that when Livy was copying Polybios, he took Scôras for Saucona or a variant of that name, but translated it as Arar because this name was better known.
18. The editors of Polybios have also tampered with their text and printed “Isaras” for “Scôras” in iii. 49. 6, as if the river was clearly the Isère. They seem to have forgotten what he says in the next sentence. As already mentioned in paragraph 12, he says that the so-called island between the Scôras and the Rhone was of the same shape as the Delta of the Nile, with these two rivers as the sides and a range of mountains (instead of sea) as the base. But it is a quadrangle, not a triangle, between the Isère and the Rhone: the Isère on the south, the Mont du Chat on the east, and the Rhone on the north as well as on the west, as its course turns round a right-angle at Lyons. When Polybios wanted to say that a place was quadrangular, he said so—he says tetragônos topos in vi. 27. 2—and he would have said so here, if that had been his meaning.
19. Some of the manuscripts have “Scôras” and others have “Scaras”; and this discrepancy is not uncommon in manuscripts of Polybios, as if they all were copied from the writing of a man who made his Alphas and Omegas very much alike. Casaubon altered “Scôras” or “Scaras” into “Araros” to make it agree with Livy. Cluver altered it into “Isaras” to make it agree with the alteration in Livy. Neither of them had any better reason for the change. When editors doubt a reading they ought to query it. These editors should have printed “Arar (? Isara)” and “Scôras (? Isaras),” or printed “Arar” in the text and “Isara” in a footnote, as in Drakenborch’s edition of Livy; but they have printed “Isara” and “Isaras” in the text itself, and in many editions they have not even added footnotes. Readers are thereby misled, and think they have the authority of Livy and Polybios for saying that the Island was at the confluence of the Isère and the Rhone, when in reality they have only the authority of editors who knew no more about the matter than they know themselves.
* * * * *
20. After taking Hannibal up to the confluence of the Saône and the Rhone, Livy says (xxi. 31) that instead of making straight for the Alps, Hannibal then turned to the left, ad lævam. Strabo twice says (iv. 6. 7, 11) that there were two roads from Lyons to Italy, one over the Pennine pass, and the second through the territory of the Centrones, meeting the first in the territory of the Salassi. These clearly were the Great and Little St Bernard routes, meeting at Aosta; and if Hannibal was near Lyons and took the Great instead of the Little, he might fairly be described as turning to his left instead of making straight for the Alps. Livy says (xxi. 38) that many people thought that Hannibal crossed the Pennine pass (the Great St Bernard) as they fancied that the name “Pennine” was derived from “Punic.” He also says that Cœlius thought that Hannibal had crossed the “Cremonis jugum,” and he assumes that this must be the Little St Bernard, as he says that both these routes would have brought Hannibal into the territory of the Libici, and Ptolemy (iii. 1. 30, 32) fixes Aosta and Ivrea as the cities of the Salassi, and Vercelli and Lomello as the cities of the Libici.
21. Livy (xxi. 38) rejects both the St Bernard routes as bringing Hannibal down into the territory of the Libici, whereas everyone agreed (quum inter omnes constet) that Hannibal came down into the territory of the Taurini. This, however, is not exactly what Polybios says. He remarks in iii. 55. 9 that although the higher parts of the Alps were bare and tree-less and covered with perpetual snow, there were trees and shrubs and habitations half-way up the slopes (hypo mesên tên parôreian) on either side; and he says in iii. 56. 3, 60. 2, 8 that Hannibal came down to the plains of the Po in the territory of the Insubres and pitched camp just below the slopes (hyp’ antên tên parôreian) and that he subsequently (meta de tauta) attacked the Taurini who lived near the slopes (pros têi parôreiai) and were hostile to the Insubres. Ptolemy (iii. 1. 29, 31) fixes Novara, Como, Milan and Pavia as the cities of the Insubres, and Voghera, Tortona, Turin and Bene as the cities of the Taurini. Bene is about 35 miles south of Turin; and if it was a city of the Taurini, Hannibal would have come down into their territory if he crossed the Alps by the Col d’Argentière, or by the Col de la Traversette, just as much as if he crossed by Mont Cenis or Mont Genèvre.
22. Of course the boundaries between the territories of the Taurini and the Insubres may not have been the same in Hannibal’s time as in Ptolemy’s time or Livy’s. He may have come down into territory which then belonged to the Insubres but afterwards belonged to the Taurini, and might be described as territory of the Taurini by writers of a later age.
23. Strabo says (iv. 6. 12) that only four passes across the Alps were mentioned by Polybios. The nearest to the Mediterranean went through the territory of the Ligures; the next, “which Hannibal crossed,” through the territory of the Taurini; the next, through the territory of the Salassi; and the fourth, through the territory of the Rhæti. But the important words, “which Hannibal crossed,” are not in all the manuscripts of Strabo, and therefore are suspected as interpolations. Polybios does not mention the Salassi or the Rhæti in the extant portion of his work; but a pass through the territory of the Rhæti might have brought Hannibal into the territory of the Insubres, as Strabo (vii. 1. 5) says that these territories were conterminous, the Rhæti having some territory on the south side of the Alps as well as on the north side. The Rhætian pass might thus have been the Simplon; but it is incredible that Hannibal should have crossed a pass so far eastward as the Simplon or even the Great St Bernard.
24. Varro is quoted by Servius (AD ÆNEIDEM, x. 13) as mentioning five passes across the Alps: one alongside the sea, through the territory of the Ligures; a second, which Hannibal crossed; a third, by which Pompey went to Spain; a fourth, by which Hasdrubal came into Italy; and a fifth in the Graian Alps—presumably the Little St Bernard: see paragraph 58. This agrees with Strabo’s quotation from Polybios in making Hannibal cross the next pass to the coast-road; and if it were Varro’s own statement at first hand, it would have high authority. But similar interpolations may be suspected here, as it makes Hannibal and Hasdrubal cross different passes, whereas Livy (xxvii. 39) and Appian (HANNIBAL, 52) agree in saying that Hasdrubal crossed the same pass that Hannibal had crossed twelve years before.