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