ans. It took four months to surmount their
resistance, during which he lost one-fourth of his army. As it was his
great object to gain time before the Romans could occupy the passes of the
Alps, he made this sacrifice of his men. When he readied the Pyrenees, he
sent home a part of his army, and crossed those mountains with only fifty
thousand infantry and nine thousand cavalry; but these were veteran
troops. He took the coast route by Narbonne and Nimes, through the Celtic
territory, and encountered no serious resistance till he reached the
Rhone, opposite to Avignon, about the end of July. The passage was
disputed by Scipio, assisted by friendly Gauls, but Hannibal outflanked
his enemies by sending a detachment across the river, on rafts, two days'
march higher up, and thus easily forced the passage, and was three days'
march beyond the river before Scipio was aware that he had crossed. Scipio
then sailed back to Pisa, and aided his colleague to meet the invader in
Cisalpine Gaul.

(M854) Hannibal, now on Celtic territory on the Roman side of the Rhone,
could not be prevented from reaching the Alps. Two passes then led from
the lower Rhone across the Alps--the one by the Cottian Alps (Mount
Geneva); and the other, the higher pass of the Grain Alps (Mount St.
Bernard), and this was selected by Hannibal. The task of transporting a
large army over even this easier pass was a work of great difficulty, with
baggage, cavalry, and elephants, when the autumn snows were falling,
resisted by the mountaineers, against whom they had to fight to the very
summit of the pass. The descent, though free from enemies, was still more
dangerous, and it required, at one place, three days' labor to make the
road practicable for the elephants. The army arrived, the middle of
September, in the plain of Ivrea, where his exhausted troops were
quartered in friendly villages. Had the Romans met him near Turin with
only thirty thousand men, and at once forced a battle, the prospects of
Hannibal would have been doubtful. But no army appeared; the object was
attained, but with the loss of half his troops, and the rest so
demoralized by fatigue, that a long rest was required.

(M855) The great talents by which Scipio atoned for his previous errors
now extricated his army from destruction. He retreated across the Ticinio
and the Po, refusing a pitched battle on the plains, and fell back upon a
strong position on the hills. The united consular armies,