3. He says (iii. 39. 8) that he calculated the 1600 from Ampurias
to the crossing of the Rhone by the milestones on the Roman road,
reckoning eight stades to a Roman mile. Thus, in Roman miles his
distances would be 325 to the Ebro, 200 to Ampurias, 200 to the Rhone,
175 along the river, and 150 across the Alps. He also says (iii. 56. 3)
that Hannibal took fifteen days in marching the 1200 stades, and (iii.
50. 1) took ten days in marching 800, part of the 1400. Both cases give
an average of 80 stades or 10 Roman miles a day; and this looks as if
he knew the time employed here but did not know the distance covered,
and therefore calculated the distance from the time. He certainly knew
the time employed upon the march of fifteen days, as he elsewhere gives
the days in detail, iii. 50. 5, 8, 52. 1, 2, 53. 5, 6, 9, 54. 4, 55. 6,
8, 56. 1. But Hannibal would not really have gone at the same pace on
the fifteen days when he was fighting his way through the mountains as
on the ten days when he was marching up the river unopposed. Polybios
must have taken a standard rate, and used it indiscriminately when he
had no help from milestones.
4. After giving distances which amount to 8400 stades or 1050 Roman
miles in iii. 39. 6–10, he goes on in iii. 39. 11 to give their total
as about (_peri_) 9000 stades or 1125 Roman miles. There must be an
error in the total or the items. I fancy the total should be 8000
stades or 1000 Roman miles, as he was more likely to reckon 1050 as
‘about’ 1000 than as ‘about’ 1125. He mentions (iii. 56. 3) that
Hannibal took five months on the march; and 150 days for the 1050 miles
gives an average of 7 Roman miles a day. Large forces could not move
fast. The column would be some miles in length, and the advance-guard
might be close to the new camping-ground before the rear-guard left the
previous camp; and time would have to be allowed for the rear-guard to
come up.
5. Strabo was 150 years junior to Polybios; but the Roman road from
Spain would not have moved, and he says (iv. 1. 3) that it crossed the
Rhone at Tarascon. He goes on to say that it bifurcated there, one
branch going through Aix to Antibes on the Mediterranean coast, while
the other went through Cavaillon and along the Durance to the beginning
of the ascent (_anabasis_) of the Alps, 63 miles from Tarascon, thence
to Embrun, 99 miles further on, and thence through the Briançon
district in 71 miles to Césanne, the first town in Italy. (The road
must thus have crossed the Alps by the pass of Mont Genèvre.) Strabo
here treats the beginning of the ascent of the Alps as a definite
point, marked by a milestone, just as Polybios treats the ascent of
the Alps and the crossing of the Rhone as definite points from which
measurements could be made.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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