a war against her than the country of these Gauls, who were of race akin to the Spanish Celts who fought for Hannibal. The way indeed by land was long and rough, and Punic armies had seldom faced the legions except to be defeated, but Hannibal relied on his own genius, and was impatient to begin the struggle anew. He flung defiance in the teeth of Rome by striking down Saguntum her ally, and then in early spring pushed rapidly along the road which was at last to lead him through the Alps to Italy, where for fifteen years he was to spend all the unparalleled resources of his military skill in the vain effort to destroy the power of Rome.

INTRODUCTION. II.

THE AUTHORITIES FOR THE HISTORY OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR'.

THE authorities for the history of the Second Punic war consist not only of the third decade of Livy (book XXI-XXX), but of the third book of Polybius, together with fragments of some later books, of the war of Hannibal by Appian, of some passages of Dion Cassius, preserved or summarized by Zonaras, and also of a long and tedious poem by Silius Italicus.

Of these the history of Polybius is much the earliest in date. Its author, though a Greek, lived long at Rome in intimate relations with the circle of the Scipios, and other ruling families, whose memories of the great struggle were likely to be fresh and vivid; he travelled, as he tells us, to

1 On this subject compare Nissen, Kritische Untersuchungen über die Quellen des Livius. Böttcher, Krit. Unt. in Jahrb. Class. Phil. Suppl. 1864. Nitzsch, Rhein. Mus. 1868.

gain a special knowledge of the scenes of the campaigns, and he possessed, in a high degree, many of the qualifications for the work of an historian. It is important therefore to compare his narrative with that of Livy.

Upon careful scrutiny it may be seen that in many passages of the two writers there is very close resemblance in the language used, more especially in dealing with the first part of the war. The agreement is too minute and circumstantial to be ascribed to chance, or to faithful rendering only of the facts.

At first therefore it was thought, as by Lachmann and by others, that the later author Livy must have copied freely from Polybius, though without acknowledging his debts, or even mentioning him by name until the end (xxx. 45. 4). We can lay little stress indeed upon this silence, for ancient writers had no scruples in using the materials which they found ready to their hands; they borrowed often largely from each other, and had no delicacy of feeling about such debts of honour. But there is good reason for believing that the view just stated is not an adequate explanation of the facts.

1. Even in the passages where Livy seems at first sight to copy Polybius most closely, we may find commonly some incidents, some names of persons or of things, some notices of causes or effects, which form distinct additions to the story of the earlier writer, and which point to some other literary source,

as they would not come within the range of Livy's own thought or observation.

2. It is still more noteworthy that in one place (XXII. 24. 4) we find surprise expressed at a course of action on the part of Hannibal which is sufficiently explained in the corresponding passage of Polybius.

3. At other times we find that Livy gives details without apparent misgivings or defence, although Polybius had already protested or complained of them as silly absurdities and exaggerated tales. Examples of this kind may be found in xxI. 22 and 36.

4. It would seem natural to urge that Livy might have had several authorities before him, and have seen reasons for preferring first one and then another, as he worked up their materials into the course of his own narrative. But before accepting this conclusion, it may be well to turn to the fourth and fifth decades of his work, where by general consent it is admitted that he followed Polybius most closely in all matters which related to Greece or to the East. We may study with advantage his method of procedure in such cases. Careful observation seems to show that in all these he uses Polybius without acknowledgment, translating and abridging lengthy passages, without collating other sources at the time, or changing to any great extent the order and method of the narrative, though he often makes mistakes and alterations from ignorance, or haste, or patriotic

pride. The classical historians of later date, we know, followed the same course, and still more certainly, the chroniclers of the middle ages. For the most part it would seem that they were quite content in each part of their work with following one authority alone, and that they transcribed freely from it for a time, with little effort to balance or correct from other sources, till at length another was taken in its place, to be used for a while with equal freedom. But in the third decade of Livy the elements of the mosaic are much smaller than in the fourth or fifth; the passages are shorter where the agreement with Polybius is most marked, and yet in them the variations are often too minute and numerous to be consistent with such a method of procedure as that which has been stated. If Livy had had the pages of Polybius before him, he would probably have followed him more closely, as the differences are often not improvements.

5. The reasons given, as well as others which arise from a detailed comparison between the two, point to a common use of the same sources, rather than to a direct borrowing of the one historian from the other. But they must have dealt with these in different fashion, Livy keeping close to the early narrative in its fuller form, while the edition which Polybius gives is a summary and corrected one. It remains then to ascertain, if possible, the nature of these common sources.