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can not be denied that there are some difficulties attending this line, especially in regard to the descent into Italy. 2. That Caelius Antipater certainly represented him as taking this route (Liv., xxi., 38); and as he is known to have followed the Greek history of Silenus, who is said to have accompanied Hannibal in many of his campaigns, his authority is of the greatest weight. 3. That Livy and Strabo, on the contrary, both suppose him to have crossed the Cottian Alps, or _Mont Genevre_. But the main argument that appears to have weighed with Livy, as it has done with several modern writers on the subject, is the assumption that Hannibal descended in the first instance into the country of the Taurinians, which is opposed to the direct testimony of Polybius, who says expressly that he descended among the Insubrians, and _subsequently_ mentions his attack on the Taurinians. 4. That, as according to Livy himself (xxi., 29), the Gaulish emissaries who acted as Hannibal's guides were Boians, it was natural that these should conduct him by the passage that led directly into the territory of their allies and brothers-in-arms, the Insubrians, rather than into that of the Taurinians, a Ligurian tribe, who were at this very time in a state of hostility with the Insubrians. And this remark will serve to explain why Hannibal chose apparently a longer route, instead of the more direct one of Mont Genevre. Lastly, it is remarkable that Polybius, though he censures the exaggerations and absurdities with which earlier writers had encumbered their narrative, does not intimate that any doubt was entertained as to the line of march; and Pompey, in a letter to the Senate, written in 73 B.C., alludes to the route of Hannibal across the Alps as something well known. Hence it appears clear that the passage by which he crossed them must have been one of those frequented in subsequent times by the Romans. This argument seems decisive against the claims of _Mont Cenis_, which have been advocated by some modern writers, that pass having apparently never been used till the Middle Ages--See _Dict. of Greek and Roman Biography_, vol. ii., p. 334, 335. [Illustration: Plain of Cannae.] CHAPTER XIII. SECOND PUNIC WAR: SECOND PERIOD, FROM THE REVOLT OF CAPUA TO THE BATTLE OF THE METAURUS. B.C. 215-207. Capua was celebrated for its wealth and luxury, and the enervating effect which these produced upon the army of Hannibal became a fav
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