4 Historical 



As to the third condition, the ascent of high mountains, at first 

 glance it seems astonishing to have to state that the ancient authors 

 have left us no precise information permitting us to believe that 

 they noted, during the ascent of lofty mountains, any physiological 

 symptoms worthy of attracting attention. 1 



In fact, in the part of the world known to the ancients, there 

 are mountains of considerable height. At its extreme eastern 

 limits, 2 Mount Ararat and the chief peaks of the Caucasus raise 

 their heads covered with eternal snow more than 5,000 meters 

 above sea level; the chains of Liban and Taurus contain many 

 peaks more than 2,500 or even 3,000 meters high; the famous Mount 

 Argaeus reaches a height of 3,840 meters; among the hills of Hemus 

 and Rhodope, some rise to 3,000 meters; Mount Athos is 1,975 meters 

 high, Parnassus 2,470, Taygetus 2,400, and it is at 2,975 meters, on 

 the towering brow of Olympus, that the poets placed the abode of 

 the gods. Mount Etna (3,310 meters) for two thousand five hun- 

 dred years has been threatening the Greek cities settled at its feet. 

 The Phenicians and the Carthaginians, whose daring had established 

 colonies as far away as the Fortunate Isles, knew the smoking peak 

 of Teneriffe (3,715 meters). Finally, the Pyrenees and the Alps 

 were insufficient barriers against the armies of Carthage and Rome. 



The reason for the silence of the authors is easily found. As 

 von Humboldt very correctly said, the ancients feared mountains 

 much more than they admired them. They spoke of them only with 

 fear, with a secret horror; the magnificent spectacles they offer to 

 the gaze did not affect them; the emotions they arouse, the noble 

 ideas they inspire were unknown to the ancients. Love of the pic- 

 turesque is a very modern sentiment; the ancients, and even our an- 

 cestors up to the last century, would have regarded with an aston- 

 ishment mingled with disdain our intrepid climbers of the Alps. 

 Polybius first passed through the Alpine valleys; the highest moun- 

 tains, Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, the Jungfrau, have no names in 

 the classical languages. 



The only mountain which the ancients climbed without being 

 forced to is Etna. Seneca requests his friend Lucilius Junior to 

 climb to the top of the volcano in his honor (Letter 79) ; these 

 excursions were frequent in the time of Strabo, :i and according to 

 a poem attributed today to this same Lucilius, priests burned in- 

 cense on the edge of the crater to appease the gods; the emperor 

 Hadrian, who was a great traveller, conceived the idea of climbing 

 to the top of Etna to see the sunrise. None of these accounts speak 

 of physiological symptoms; but we shall see that at the height of 



