He was the leader of the Carthaginian army who invaded Italy in 218 BC. He took an army of 40,000 men and 37 elephants over the Pyrenees and the Alps from Spain to Italy. Hannibal floated his elephants across rivers on huge rafts – but he never conquered Rome!
Such an achievement required careful planning and strategizing, but with little physical evidence of the journey available today and few recorded details of the crossing, uncertainty remains about how it was accomplished.
However, in “Secrets of the Dead: Hannibal in the Alps,” a new documentary airing on PBS tonight (April 10), a team of experts takes a fresh look at Hannibal’s incredible trip across treacherous mountain terrain. Together, they re-create his long-lost route and reveal the latest discoveries about his historic accomplishment — and depict the famous elephants that played a critical part in his victory against the Romans.
In 218 B.C., when the crossing took place, the powerful nations of Carthage and Rome were at each other’s throats. To defeat the Romans, Hannibal did the unthinkable — he led an army through a mountain region spanning about 80,000 square miles (over 207,000 square kilometers) — and descended on Rome from the north, where the nation least expected an attack.
For the documentary, the production team assembled archaeologists, paleontologists, animal trainers and mountaineers, re-creating Hannibal’s route on foot and testing evidence and methods along the way, the filmmakers said in a statement.
Credit : Live Science
Picture Credit : Google
