Hannibal’s route across the Alps (2016) | Hacker News Reader

Hannibal’s route across the Alps (2016)

theguardian.com

69 pointscurtis15 comments

The article is sorely in need of a map. It would be much easier for readers to visualize the different possible routes if they were marked on a map with various geological and/or man-made features highlighted along the way.

Agreed. For what it's worth there is an image on Wikipedia in the associated article [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal%27s_crossing_of_the_A...

It's perhaps worth noting that the subspecies of elephants used, the North African Elephant, was driven to extinction during Roman times...

There would have been wild lions in southern Europe at the time too. Now they're all gone. Though, at least they live on in Africa.

This answer is a good write-up to why Hannibal couldn't take Rome despite his massive wins in Italy:

https://www.quora.com/Why-didnt-Hannibal-take-Rome-after-vir...

The odds were against him from the beginning, with one of the most important factors being that Rome had a large conscriptable population while Carthage relied mostly on mercenaries.

Obligatory shout out to hardcore history:

https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-punic-nig...

PBS's Secrets of the Dead has a nice episode about finding his actual route through the alps. Looks like this article and episode is about the same research.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/hannibal-alps-full-episode/3...

TL;DR:

Nothing permanent, but yet another interesting possible route.

"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”. It’s all too easy, he says, for fellow experts to adduce evidence for their favoured route – his team argues for a more northerly path – but until the same methods and rigour are brought to bear on all the alternatives, none can be ruled out. All the same, he adds, Mahaney is one of the best geo-archaeologists working on the question."

Why wouldn't there be horse or elephant bones to find?

Strange never heard about him before. Any book, documentary, movie recommendations about him or the era in general?

Guessing you've not read about / learned much about ancient Rome have you? Fighting Carthage is what gave Rome its navy, and Carthage had the best ships in the world:

It is pretty interesting to see what happened there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GH1c50zcYc

Look up Battle of Lake Trasimene or the Battle of Cannae. Hannibal was one of the best strategic generals the world has ever seen!

Yes I really dont know much about Roman history. Thanks for the suggestion.

Randomly, one of the most brazen and successful ambushes was actually from the Germanic tribes. Lookup the battle of Teutoberg Forest.

Romans had a habit of taking the sons of the kings/chiefs of conquered people, shipping them back to rome, and raising them as Roman Aristocracy. This Germanic prince, Arminius, was one of those children. He decided to join the Roman military and learned their ways and entirely immersed himself in all things Roman. He became quite established himself and gained the trust of Quintillius Varus, the local Roman governor / general. Arminius brought a fake report of a Germanic tribe rebellion on the opposite side of the Teutoberg Forest, to which Varus decided three Roman Legions could put down. Little did he know that Arminius had been plotting with the Germanic tribes to setup a massive ambush in the forest, where Roman military tactics would prove little advantage. Arminius left early to "convince the germanic tribes to support the Romans" but secretly lead them into setting up several ambushes. The Roman line was almost 15-20km long per recovered artifacts from the actual scene as the passage was narrow and hard to move through. So the Germanic tribes (3 of them if memory serves) trapped the Romans in from the front and rear while raining javelins down from both sides and then moving in for the close kill. It was an utter bloodbath and virtually all of three entire Roman Legions were obliterated (estimated 15-20k casualties).

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Wow fascinating story. Gotta read more on Roman history.

He’s a national hero where I’m from (Tunisia). Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that he’s a known figure in African American culture.

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