hannibal elephants route

Wednesday, July 6, 2016. Hannibal - Hannibal - The Alpine crossing: Some details of Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps have been preserved, chiefly by Polybius, who is said to have traveled the route himself. In 218 B.C., the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca led an army of more than 30,000 men, 15,000 horses and mules and – famously – about 40 … They make it sound truly harrowing. “I can still see my old Latin teacher pointing his long stick at me.”. Until now, the route … As millennia of merchants, soldiers, and pilgrims crossed Alpine passes, they left cultural footprints in the snowfields and meadows of the Alps. 13:42 CEST. He assembled a massive army of 90,000-foot soldiers, a cavalry of 12,000, and at least 37 war elephants to march on Rome. Top 10 Car-Free Mountain Resorts in Switzerland, Family History and Swiss Genealogy Tours, Packing List – Alps Walking and Sightseeing Tours, Isenfluh: Hidden Hiking Havens in the Bernese Alps. The Secrets You Should Steal From “Highly Empathetic People”. And he knew well the strengths and vulnerabilities of his opponent. The rockfall evidence was pretty suggestive. An illustration of Hannibal crossing the Alps with elephants and horses. This interesting work is an account of the great Carthaginian general, Hannibal, and his campaigns against the Romans. Over the years, as many as 10 different routes have been proposed for Hannibal’s trek over the Alps, but little to no confirmed archaeological evidence has been uncovered along any of the 2,200-year-old routes. Hannibal’s Incredible Route Through the Alps: Experts Delve into the Astonishing Ancient Feat. Minard records Hannibal’s army at a strength of 60,000 when it emerged from the mountains, a loss of 25%. His precise route through the Alps has been debated for years. Found insideIn The Alps, Stephen O’Shea ("a graceful and passionate writer"—Washington Post) takes readers up and down these majestic mountains. “Because of the snow and of the dangers of his route [Hannibal] lost nearly as many men as he had done on the ascent,” wrote Polybius. Carbon isotope analysis dates the deposits to around 200 BC, while the team also found significant evidence of Clostridia microbes, which are commonly found in horse manure. On the trail of Hannibal's army - and elephants - in the Alps. Where Did Hannibal Get The Elephant Idea From Until we do, I will be crossing the Col de la Traversette this summer with Polybius in my backpack and photographing the topography that aligns with his account. Every Alpine pass tells a story. Below, the two main texts about Hannibal 's crossing of the Alps are placed next to each other. The Carthaginian general Hannibal (247-182 BCE) was one of the greatest military leaders in history. This article was featured in the InsideHook newsletter. Whereas Pyrrhus was a Homeric Achilles in combat, Hannibal was a consummate trickster, more of an Odysseus. For the last 2000 years, Western historians have written reams on Hannibal's campaign - and his elephants. Hannibal was born in 247 B.C. It’s one of the few places where Hannibal’s army could have rested after crossing the col, being the only place in the vicinity with rich soil to support the vegetation needed for grazing horses and mules. "To a viewer in the Val di Susa, three passes (Mont-Genevre, Clapier-Savine Coche, and Mont-Cenis) all converge in the Dora Riparia river watershed en route to Torino. But could Mahaney and his team of geologists and biologists find anything more definitive? “Now it looks like we may just have cracked it—all thanks to modern science and a bit of ancient horse poo,” said Chris Allen, a microbiologist at Queen’s University Belfast. Commenting has been disabled at this time but you can still. Brian McGing's accompanying introduction and notes illuminate this remarkable political history. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Hannibal’s victory at this battle convinced the local tribes of Gauls to join the Carthaginians in their war against Rome. Some authorities proposed a northerly path, past present-day Grenoble and through two passes over 2,000 metres high. A larger number was brought to Italy by his brother, Hasdrubal, a few years later, but he and his army were defeated … Hannibal’s Route. Oliver Reed leads his elephant through the foothills of the Alps in a scene from the film 'Hannibal Brooks', 1969. Hannibal's route over the Alps, long contested by historians, has been pinpointed thanks to a load of evidence: preserved poop left behind by the army's horses. Early life. These included substances found in horse dung and the faeces of ruminants. This edition includes a new preface covering recent research on Hannibal's war against Rome. Found insideJohn Hoyte was a student at Cambridge University who realized one day that a grant he might get could provide an interesting and unusual summer vacation. saltum Pȳrēnaeum: in the singular, saltum refers to a mountain pass (compare the plural in 4.3 below). JMW Turner made high drama of it in 1812, a louring snowstorm sending the Carthaginians into wild disarray. 2 J. Edwards, "The Irony of Hannibal's Elephants," Latomus 60 (2001) 900-5: "His decision to bring these animals across the Alps may well have brought him victory in Italy had the elephants not died en route" (905). In his 1955 book Alps and elephants: Hannibal's march, Gavin de Beer lists 12 possible candidates from 30 different books. Hannibal, determined to succeed, decided to march his men and elephants over the Alps in an amazing military campaign. Hannibal’s army comprised 15-20,000 horses, around 70,000 troops, and 37 elephants, so this newly discovered poop may be the clue we need to confirm Hannibal’s route. He understood the complexity of human behavior. The sea route was not an option for Hannibal, as the Romans controlled all the ports and access to the sea from Sicily up to the city of Marseille. And awesome. The crossing will take me the better part of a day and I may never be out of cell range. Hannibal apparently took 37 elephants with him to Italy from his headquarters in Spain, where he was governor of Carthage's empire there. The researchers then took samples of this disturbed mud back to the lab, where they used chemical techniques to identify some of its organic molecules. 18 Votes) Hannibal's crossing of the Alps. This is not the case. by Mary Caperton Morton . 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. 2020 44min TV-PG. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images). Spain, Italy & France. The three Punic wars were a struggle for dominance of the Mediterranean region by the two great trading and military powers of the third and second centuries BC: Carthage and Rome. Get InsideHook in your inbox. The Carthaginians reveals the complex culture, society and achievements of a famous, yet misunderstood, ancient people. But details of the greatest Alps adventure in history— Hannibal crossing the Alps with his war elephants, horses, mules, and thousands of soldiers—remains shrouded in mystery. Yes. “My sniffer tells me some will turn up,” he says – “coins, belt buckles, sabres, you name it.”, Unless they do, other experts may reserve judgment. It’s free. The study of preserved poop is so widespread that researchers have their own name for it: coprolite. Patrick Hunt, an archaeologist who leads the Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project, which has been investigating Hannibal’s route since 1994, says that the answer to the puzzle “remains hauntingly elusive”. “This may be the first tangible, if unusual, evidence of human/animal activity at the time of Hannibal’s invasion of Italia,” the scientists wrote in the journal Archaeometry. Where exactly Hannibal crossed the Alps was a point of contention even in the days of Polybius and Livy. John Hoyte was a proponent of the central Mont Cenis – Clapier route. An international team of scientists may have just solved the mystery of the Alpine route taken by the Carthaginian general Hannibal, with Switzerland not on the suggested route. But the details of the journey are a mystery – what route did he take and how did he manage to conquer the treacherous mountain terrain? Or possibly not. How Hannibal managed to get thousands of men, horses and mules, and 37 elephants over the Alps is one magnificent feat.” • This article was … “There is even the possibility of finding an elephant tapeworm egg,” says Mahaney’s long-term collaborator, microbiologist Chris Allen of Queen’s University Belfast. Attacking Rome in a sea invasion was risky. An exceptionally high pass, a narrow gorge, white or bare rock, a clearing near the pass with year-round snow where 25,000 soldiers could have camped, and a steep slippery descent on the Italian side. The southern route was advocated in the 1950s-60s by Sir Gavin de Beer, director of the British Museum (natural history), who published no fewer than five books on the subject. A painting of Hannibal and his army on the wall of the Capitoline Museum, Rome. Tour History – Hannibal and his Elephants…over the Alps…. More than 15,000 horses and 37 elephants accompanied the 30,000-strong Carthaginian army in a march on the Roman Republic in 218 BC, […] Hannibal in the Alps. Hanninbal’s feat in leading some 30,000 troops, 15,000 horses and 37 elephants over the Alps to invade Rome is the stuff of legend. Elephants have fought in human armies for more than three thousand years. This is the largely forgotten tale of the credit they deserve and the sacrifices they endured. In this groundbreaking biography, Eve MacDonald employs archaeological findings and documentary sources to expand the memory of Hannibal beyond his military career. The Carthaginian general Hannibal (247-182 BCE) was one of the greatest military leaders in history. This monumental work charts the entirety of Carthage's history, from its origins among the Phoenician settlements of Lebanon to its apotheosis as a Mediterranean empire whose epic land-and-sea clash with Rome made a legend of Hannibal and ... Found insideThe book was seen as a watershed in military theory and was widely read across the world; to ensure that the ideas were disseminated to their students the American Army translated it into English. The controversy was still raging a hundred years later. They hadn’t reckoned with Hannibal’s boldness. "Toute personne qui mourait en route durant la pire partie de l'ascension alpine aurait été dépouillée presque immédiatement", avance-t-il. In 218 BC, Hannibal marched an army consisting of soldiers, mules, horses and elephants from Spain, over the Alps, and into Italy to attack the Romans at the start of the Second Punic War. How to overcome altitude sickness in Switzerland, The most famous mountain in the Alps — the Matterhorn. Consult Our Whiskey Release Schedule. —Relaxnews. Documentary from the BBC charting the rise and fall of Hannibal, the Carthage Warrior. In 218 BC, 28-year old Hannibal, his soldiers, and his 37 African battle elephants marched from southern Spain to the plains of northern Italy – but took an unexpected route. Found insideThis biography by Cornelius Nepos (c. 100-27 BC) sketches Hannibal's life from the time he began traveling with his father's army as a young boy, through his sixteen-year invasion of Italy and his tumultuous political career in Carthage, to ... A Treatise on Hannibal's Passage of the Alps In Which his Route Is Traced over the Little Mont Cenis Carthage is located in modern-day Tunisia, near the capital city of Tunis. Dragging so many men and animals across the Alps was no easy task, and historians and classicists have long argued over the exact route Hannibal took. “At this point the soldiers once more lost their nerve and came close to despair.”. We know that Hannibal’s army went along the Rhône river in southern France, passed Avignon, and after crossing the Alps, battled near the Ticinus River, before they continued to the south of Italy. No Carthaginian documents about this have survived. For Hannibal, he chose a high Pass in the European Alps with 90,000 men, 12,000 horses and 37 elephants in 218 BC. Found insideWith extensive text describing each piece, this collection offers an ideal introduction to the subject of warfare in the ancient world spanning from 800 BC to 450 AD. Incorporating new archaeological research and the contributions of other ... 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The story of the Carthaginian general Hannibal’s epic crossing of the Alps with an army of 40,000 men, 9,000 cavalry and - most famously of all - 37 elephants is one of the greatest legends in human history. Join a unique cycling holiday in Europe and cycle across Hannibal’s legendary marching ground, and experience some of the most incredible European vistas, including Catalonia, Provence, the Alps and the Apennines, across which his elephants were led in 218 BC. An approximate overlay of Hannibal’s route on a modern-day map from Google Earth. During the descent the Carthaginians were mostly unmolested, but now the mountains themselves threatened mortal danger. In 2004 Mahaney found from field trips and aerial and satellite photography that, of the various passes along the proposed routes, only the Col de Traversette had enough large rockfalls above the snowline to account for such an obstruction. Originally published in 1888, this book contains the Latin text of the 21st book of the monumental history of Rome by Titus Livius, dealing with the beginning of the Second Punic War and Hannibal's crossing of the Alps. His most famous campaign took place during the Second Punic War (218-202), when he caught the Romans off guard by crossing the Alps. There’s some of this stuff throughout the mire mud, but significantly more in the churned-up layer. How exactly did the Carthaginian general and his elephants reach Italy? Here is the finest kind of history, sure to appeal to readers of Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire: alive with grand strategy, the clash of empires, fabulous courage, and the towering figure of Hannibal Barca. Hannibal continued his march southwards, and scored another victory at … News, advice and insights for the most interesting man in the room. “This would really be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” It’s just a shame, he adds, that “the pot of gold is actually a layer of horse manure”. Copyright © 2021 InsideHook. Junbo, elephant who crossed the Alps on the Hannibal route, dancing for crowd in village. This soil can be radiocarbon-dated – and the age comes out almost spookily close to the date of 218BC attested by historical records as the time of Hannibal’s crossing. The study of preserved poop is so widespread that researchers have their own name for it: coprolite. As you might have anticipated, there’s no clear consensus on whether Hasdrubal took the exact same path, so finding an elephant tapeworm wouldn’t definitively prove the route was Hannibal’s. But Rome considered the Alps as a secure natural barrier and Hannibal’s invasion from the north was the perfect starting point for a surprise attack. Here, John Peddie provides a challenging re-evaluation of the Carthaginian's generalship, and asks how was it that a man so often described by historians as a military genius and a brilliant tactician could have plunged so deeply into a ... Instead of following the coastline or going by sea, he crossed the Alps, to the surprise of the Roman Empire army. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *. Hannibal’s kid brother Hasdrubal followed him 11 years later and brought war elephants along, too. So instead he set his troops to construct a road from the rubble, and after backbreaking labour he got the men, horses and mules down the slope and below the snowline. The elephants were another matter – it took three days to make a road wide enough. The route taken by Hannibal over the Alps to invade Italy has been a matter of debate for 2,000 years, but scientists may now have an answer, thanks to some ancient horse manure. Taking an army of tens of thousands, with horses and elephants, over the Alps would have left one heck of a mess. A best-selling and award-winning author, he lives most of the year in the Swiss Alps, near the border of France and Italy. I’ll be traveling lighter than Hannibal’s troops. Finding elephant dung on the pass would be the smoking gun. The elephant army of the ancient world. The result is a page-turning adventure tale, a compelling human drama, and an insightful guide to understanding behavior. This is essential reading for anyone who seeks to transform misfortune into success at work, at home, and in life. Hannibal tried a detour on the terrifying slopes to the side of the path, but the snow and mud were too slippery. He proclaimed to his troops: “You will have the capital of Italy, the citadel of Rome in the hollow of your hands.”. Here is the finest kind of history, sure to appeal to readers of Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire: alive with grand strategy, the clash of empires, fabulous courage, and the towering figure of Hannibal Barca. At the time, such passage of the apparently impenetrable barrier of the Alps was regarded as impossible, but Hannibal accomplished it, true to the dictum most often attributed to him, “We will find a way, and if there is no way, we will make a way!” But that hasn’t happened yet. Based on consulations with geologists, climatologists, philologists, astronomers, and ancient texts, presents the classic study of the route taken by Hannibal and his Carthaginian army from Spain across the Alps to the plains of Italy in ... Men, horses and 37 elephants in 218 B.C., assembled in Spain where. 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