52. The complete skeleton of an elephant was found on the Little St Bernard two centuries ago. It is mentioned by Saint-Simon in the preface to his HISTOIRE DE LA GUERRE DES ALPES. (This was the campaign of 1744, in which he himself took part, and his book came out in 1770.) He says, “On s’est encore plus attaché de nos jours à soutenir qu’Annibal a dû passer par le Petit St Bernard depuis qu’on assure qu’on a trouvé dans cette montagne tous les ossemens d’un éléphant ... dans un pays qu’on appelle dans plusieurs cartes La Grande Route des Romains.” But Hannibal was not the only person who used elephants. For instance, Suetonius mentions (NERO, 2) that Nero’s great-great-great-grandfather went riding about Provence on an elephant when he was there in 121 B.C. 53. The landslip that stopped the animals, did not stop the men: the infantry went on and reached the plain in three days’ march from there. Polybios reckons (iii. 53. 9, 54. 4, 55. 6, 56. 1) that Hannibal reached the summit on the ninth day, camped there for two days, that is, the tenth and eleventh, came to the landslip the next day, that is the twelfth, and reached the plain on the third day from there, that is, the fifteenth day: which agrees with his statement (iii. 56. 3) that Hannibal took fifteen days to cross the Alps. The cavalry were left behind to repair the track for the elephants, Polybios saying (iii. 55. 8) that it was repaired by the Numidians, which is his usual name for Carthaginian cavalry. 54. A landslip might occur on any pass, and almost every pass has places where the track is steep and narrow and running along a cliff, just as Polybios (iii. 54. 5–7) describes the track here. But there are exceptionally bad places just below the summits of the Col du Clapier and of the Col de la Traversette--the Clapier is also known as l’Escalier, the descent being as steep as a staircase for the first 4000 feet, and the Traversette takes its name from a tunnel built in 1480 to avoid a precipitous bit near the top. And both these summits command a wide view of the plain. From each of these two summits the distance to the plain is about 30 English (or 33 Roman) miles--measuring to Avigliana in the one case and to Saluzzo in the other--and this would fully occupy four days, as there was a landslip to be passed and in the earlier part of the descent there was the snow. Polybios says (iii. 54. 5, 55. 1–5) that the new autumn snow was lying loose on the old winter snow which now was frozen hard; and men and animals slipped and fell, when they trod through the new snow on to the icy surface of the old. * * * * *