Note 943 — Chapter I

So say Schiller, (Abfall der Niederlande, s. 363,). Cabrera, (Filipe Segundo, lib. VII. cap. 15,) et auct. al. But every schoolboy knows that nothing is more unsettled than the route taken by Hannibal across the Alps. The two oldest authorities, Livy and Polybius, differ on the point, and it has remained a vexed question ever since,—the criticism of later years, indeed, leaning to still another route, that across the Little St. Bernard. The passage of Hannibal forms the subject of a curious discussion introduced into Gibbon's journal, when the young historian was in training for the mighty task of riper years. His reluctance, even at the close of his argument, to strike the balance, is singularly characteristic of his sceptical mind.