He and his colleagues have just revealed surprising new evidence supporting their claim to have uncovered Hannibal’s path.Īn illustration of Hannibal crossing the Alps with elephants and horses. Its leader, geomorphologist Bill Mahaney of York University in Toronto, began pondering the question almost two decades ago by looking at geographical and environmental references in the classical texts. The answer makes not a blind bit of difference to the historical outcome, but there’s clearly something about that image of elephants on snowy peaks that makes experts care deeply about where exactly they went.Īn international team of scientists now thinks the puzzle is largely solved. Much ink, if not blood, has been spilled in furious arguments between historians over the precise route that Hannibal took across the Alps. The battles didn’t end with Scipio’s victory, though. The 1959 sword-and-sandals epic movie, with Victor Mature in the eponymous title role, made Hannibal’s “crazed elephant army” look more like the polite zoo creatures they obviously were. JMW Turner made high drama of it in 1812, a louring snowstorm sending the Carthaginians into wild disarray. Hannibal’s alpine crossing has been celebrated in myth, art and film. So ended the second Punic war, with Rome the victor. But when he faced the Roman general Scipio Africanus at Zama in north Africa in 202BC, his strategic genius met its match. For 15 years he ravaged the land, killing or wounding over a million citizens but without taking Rome. Many of the animals died of cold or disease the following winter, but Hannibal fought his way down through Italy. In December he smashed apart the Roman forces in the north, assisted by his awesome elephants, the tanks of classical warfare. They hadn’t reckoned with Hannibal’s boldness. The Romans had presumed that the Alps created a secure natural barrier against invasion of their homeland. It was one of the greatest military feats in history.
Their commander Hannibal marched his troops, including cavalry and African war elephants, across a high pass in the Alps to strike at Rome itself from the north of the Italian peninsula. H aving battled their deadly rivals the Romans in Spain, in 218BC the Carthaginian army made a move that no one expected.
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