Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/124

 108 ALPES. mountain near SLiHdier. Plinj (zi. 42. s. 97) tenns them Alpes Centronicab fhrni the Gaulish tribe of the Centrones, who occupied their western s]q)es. 4. Alpes Pennxmae, or Pobninae, the Pennine Alpe, was the appellation by which the Bomans de- signated the loftiest and most central part of the chain, extending firom the Mont Blanc on the W., to the MotUe Rosa on the £. The first form of the name is evidently the msst correct, and was derived from the Celtic " Pen" or " Ben" a height or sum- mit; but the opinion having gained ground that the pass of the Great SL Bema^ over these mountains was the rouie pursued by Hannibal, the name was considered to be connected with that of the Carthar- ginians (Poeni), and hence the form Pomnae is frequently adopted by later writers. Livy himself points out the error, and adds that the name was really derived, according to the testimony of the in- habitants, from a deity to whom an altar was conse- crated on the summit of the pass, probably the same who was afterwards worshipped by the Bomans thraaselves as Jupiter Penninus. (Liv. xxL 38 ; Ptin. ill. 17. s. 21 ; Strab. p. 205; Tac. Hist i. 61, 87; Amm. Marc xv. 10; Serv. ad Virg. Aen, x. 13; OrelL Inscr, vol. i. p. 104.) The limits of the Pennine Alps are nowhere very clearly designated; but it seems that the whole upper valley of the Rhone, the modem Valais, was called Vallis Poenina (see Orell. Inscr. 211), and Ammianus expressly places the sources of the Rhone in iha Pennine Alps (xv. 11. § 16), so that the term must have been frequently applied to the whole extent of the moxm- taln chain from the Mont Blanc eastward as far as the SL Gothard. The name of Alpes Leponttab from the Gaulish tribe of the Lepontii, is frequently applied by modem geographers to the part of the range inhabited by them between the Monte Rosa and the Mont St, Gothardj but there is no ancient autliority for the nunc The *^ Alpes Graiae et Poenmae," during the later periods of the Roman empire, constituted a separate province, which was united with Transalpine Gaul. Its chief towns were Darantasia and Octudurus. (Amm. Marc. xv. 11, § 12; Orell. Inscr. 3888; Not, Dign. ii. p. 72; Booking, <id he. p. 472.) Connected with these we find mentioned the Alpes Atractianae or Atrecti- anae, a name otherwise wholly unknown. 5. T&e Alpes Rhaeticae, or Rhaetian Alps,may bo considered as adjoining the Pennine Alps on the east, and including the greater part of the countries now called the Grtsons and the TyroL Under this more general appellation appears to have been com- prised the mountain mass called Mons Adula, in which both Strabo and Ptolemy place the sources of the Rhine [Adula Mons], while Tacitus expressly tells us that that river rises in one of the most inac- cessible and lofly mountains of the Rhaetian Alps. {Germ. 1.) The more eastern portion of the Rliae- tian Alps, in which the Athesis and Atagis have their sources, is called by Pliny and by various other writers the Alpes TKioENTiNAE,from the important city of Tridentum in the Southern Tyrol. (Plin. iii. 16. s. 20; Dion Cass. liv. 22; Flor. iii. 4.) 6. The eastern portion of the Alps from the valley of the Athesis and the pass of the Brenner to the plains of Pannonia and the sources of the Save appear to have been known by various appellations, of which it is not easy to detemiine the precise extent or ap- plication. The northern arm of the chain, which extends through Noricum to the neighbourhood of Vienna, was known as the Alfks Noricae (Flor. ^ '^ / y^ y v /*■- ^: // ALPES. ill. 4; Plin. iii. 25. s. 28), while the more aonthent range, which bounds the plains of Venetia, and corrcs round the modem FriotU to the neighbourhood of Trieste^ was variously known as the Alpes Cak- NiCAE and JuLiAE. The former designation, on- ployed by Pliny (/. c), they derived from tiie Carai who inhabited their mountain fiistnesses: the latter, which appears to have become customary in later times (Tac. ffisL iiL 8 ; Amm. Marc. xxi. 9, xxxl 16; Itin. Hier. p. 560; Sex. Ruf. Breoiar. 7), from Julius Caesar, who first reduced the Cam to subjection, and founded in their territory the toninis of Julium Camicum and Forum Julii, of which the latter has given to the province its modem name of the Frioul, We find also thb part oi the Alps some- times termed Alpes Venetae (Amm. Marc. xxxL 16. § 7) from their bordering on the pnnince of Venetia. The mountain ridge immediately above Trieste, which separates the watera of the Adriatic from the valley of the Save, and connects the Alps, properly so called, with the mountains of Dahnatia and Dlyricum, was known to the Romans as Moss OcBA (Oirpa, Strab. p. 207; Ptol. iii. 1. §1^ from whence one of the petty tribes in the neigh- bourhood of Teigeste was called the SubooinL (Plin. iii. 20. s. 24.) Strabo justly observes that this is the lowest part of the whde Alpine range : in consequence of which it was from a very early period traversed by a much firequented pass, that became the mediom of active commercial intercourse from the Roman colony of Aquileia with the valleys of the Saee and Drove, and by means of those rivers with the plains on the banks of the Danube 7. We also find, as already mentSoncd, the name of the Alps sometimes extended to the moontam ranges of Illyricum and Dalmatia: thus Pliny (si. 42. 8. 97) speaks of the Alpes Dalmaticae, and Tacitus of the Alpes Pannonicae {Hist. ii. 98, iii. 1), by which however he perhaps means httle more than the Julian Alps. But this extensive use of the term does not seem to have ever been generally adopted. The physical charactera of the Alps, and those natural phenomena which, though not peculiar to them, they yet exhibit on a greater scale than any other mountains of Europe, must have early attracted the attention of travellers and geographera: and thfr difficulties and dangera of the passes over them were, as was natural, greatly exaggerated. Polybius was the first to give a rati(mal account of them, and has described their characteristic features on occasion of the passage of Hannibal in a manner of which the accuracy has been attested by all modem writers. Strabo also gives a very good account of them, noticing particularly the danger arising from the awUandies or sudden falls of snow and ice, which detached themselves from the vast frozen masses above, and hurried the traveller over the side of the precipice (p. 204). Few attempts appear to have been made to estimate their actual height; but Polybius remarks that it greatly exceeds that of the highest mountainsof Greece and Thrace,OIympus,Ossa,Athos, &c : for that almost any of these mountains might be ascended by an active walker in a single day, while he would scarcely ascend the Alps in five: a statement greatly exaggerated. (Polyb. ap. SfnA. p. 209.) Strabo on the contrary tells us, that the direct ascent of the highest summits of the mountains in the territory of the Medulli, did not exceed 100 stadia, and the same distance for the descent on tho other aide mto Italy (p. 203), while PUny '^f^