uld not have been content to withdraw from it; and--which was the
main point--had the Romans been able to delay his departure from Spain
for but a few weeks, winter would have closed the passes of the Alps
before Hannibal reached them, and the African expedition would have
departed without hindrance for its destination.

Hannibal in Gaul
Scipio at Massilia
Passage of the Rhone

Arrived at the Pyrenees, Hannibal sent home a portion of his troops;
a measure which he had resolved on from the first with the view of
showing to the soldiers how confident their general was of success,
and of checking the feeling that his enterprise was one of those from
which there is no return home. With an army of 50,000 infantry and
9000 cavalry, entirely veteran soldiers, he crossed the Pyrenees
without difficulty, and then took the coast route by Narbonne and
Nimes through the Celtic territory, which was opened to the army
partly by the connections previously formed, partly by Carthaginian
gold, partly by arms. It was not till it arrived in the end of July
at the Rhone opposite Avignon, that a serious resistance appeared to
await it. The consul Scipio, who on his voyage to Spain had landed at
Massilia (about the end of June), had there been informed that he had
come too late and that Hannibal had crossed not only the Ebro but the
Pyrenees. On receiving these accounts, which appear to have first
opened the eyes of the Romans to the course and the object of
Hannibal, the consul had temporarily given up his expedition to Spain,
and had resolved in connection with the Celtic tribes of that region,
who were under the influence of the Massiliots and thereby under that
of Rome, to receive the Phoenicians on the Rhone, and to obstruct
their passage of the river and their march into Italy. Fortunately
for Hannibal, opposite to the point at which he meant to cross, there
lay at the moment only the general levy of the Celts, while the consul
himself with his army of 22,000 infantry and 2000 horse was still in
Massilia, four days' march farther down the stream. The messengers of
the Gallic levy hastened to inform him. It was the object of Hannibal
to convey his army with its numerous cavalry and elephants across the
rapid stream under the eyes of the enemy, and before the arrival of
Scipio; and he possessed not a single boat. Immediately by his
directions all the boats belonging to the numerous navigators of
the Rhone in the neighbourhood