When Hannibal reached the summit of the St. Bernard, “the peaks were already beginning to be thickly covered with snow” (Pol. iii. 54), snow lay on the route (Pol. iii. 55), perhaps for the most part snow not freshly fallen, but proceeding from the fall of avalanches.  At the St. Bernard winter begins about Michaelmas, and the falling of snow in September; when the Englishmen already mentioned crossed the mountain at the end of August, they found almost no snow on their road, but the slopes on both sides were covered with it.  Hannibal thus appears to have arrived at the pass in the beginning of September; which is quite compatible with the statement that he arrived there “when the winter was already approaching” —­for —­sunaptein ten tes pleiados dusin—­ (Pol. iii. 54) does not mean anything more than this, least of all, the day of the heliacal setting of the Pleiades (about 26th October); comp.  Ideler, Chronol. i. 241.

If Hannibal reached Italy nine days later, and therefore about the middle of September, there is room for the events that occurred from that time up to the battle of the Trebia towards the end of December (—­peri cheimerinas tropas—­, Pol. iii. 72), and in particular for the transporting of the army destined for Africa from Lilybaeum to Placentia.  This hypothesis further suits the statement that the day of departure was announced at an assembly of the army —­upo ten earinen oran—­ (Pol. iii. 34), and therefore towards the end of March, and that the march lasted five (or, according to App. vii. 4, six) months.  If Hannibal was thus at the St. Bernard in the beginning of September, he must have reached the Rhone at the beginning of August —­for he spent thirty days in making his way from the Rhone thither —­and in that case it is evident that Scipio, who embarked at the beginning of summer (Pol. iii. 41) and so at latest by the commencement of June, must have spent much time on the voyage or remained for a considerable period in singular inaction at Massilia.

Chapter V

The War under Hannibal to the Battle of Cannae

Hannibal and the Italian Celts

The appearance of the Carthaginian army on the Roman side of the Alps changed all at once the situation of affairs, and disconcerted the Roman plan of war.  Of the two principal armies of the Romans, one had landed in Spain and was already engaged with the enemy there:  it was no longer possible to recall it.  The second, which was destined for Africa under the command of the consul Tiberius Sempronius, was fortunately still in Sicily:  in this instance Roman delay for once proved useful.  Of the two Carthaginian squadrons destined for Italy and Sicily, the first was dispersed by a storm, and some of its vessels were captured by the Syracusans near Messana; the second had endeavoured in vain to surprise Lilybaeum, and had thereafter been defeated in a naval engagement off that port.  But the continuance of the enemy’s