Hannibal crossing the Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

, in 218 BC, was one of the major achievements of the Second Punic War

Second Punic War

The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...

, and one of the most celebrated achievements of any military force in ancient warfare

Ancient warfare

Ancient warfare is war as conducted from the beginnings of recorded history to the end of the ancient period. In Europe and the Near East, the end of antiquity is often equated with the fall of Rome in 476, and the wars of the Eastern Roman Empire Byzantium in its South Western Asian and North...

.

Background

As the second Punic war erupted, Hannibal, based in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, went on to invade Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. He had to cross the Pyrenees

Pyrenees

The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...

, fight his way across Roman controlled southern Gaul

Gallia Narbonensis

Gallia Narbonensis was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in southern France. It was also known as Gallia Transalpina , which was originally a designation for that part of Gaul lying across the Alps from Italia and it contained a western region known as Septimania...

, then cross the Alps.

The crossing

Not only the mountains were dangerous (the area traversed by the path lies south of the Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc or Monte Bianco , meaning "White Mountain", is the highest mountain in the Alps, Western Europe and the European Union. It rises above sea level and is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence...

, the highest mountain in Western Europe

Western Europe

Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...

), they were also home of several tribes who fought any intruders.

Both accounts by Polybius

Polybius

Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...

 and Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

 conflict about the precise route. Three main routes have been debated among historians and archaeologists:

• The southern route follows the lower Rhône River
  Rhône River
  The Rhone is one of the major rivers of Europe, rising in Switzerland and running from there through southeastern France. At Arles, near its mouth on the Mediterranean Sea, the river divides into two branches, known as the Great Rhone and the Little Rhone...
  
   valley northward to the Drôme River
  Drôme River
  The Drôme , a river in southeastern France, has a length of 110 km long and forms a left tributary of the Rhône River. Its source is in the western foothills of the Alps, near the village Valdrôme...
  
  . It then pass the 1318m Col de Grîmone to the Durance
  Durance
  The Durance is a major river in south-eastern France.Its source is in the south-western Alps, in Montgenèvre ski resort near Briançon and it flows south-west through the following départements and cities:* Hautes-Alpes: Briançon, Embrun.* Alpes-de-Haute-Provence: Sisteron, Manosque.* Vaucluse:...
  
   Basin, through the Queyras
  Queyras
  The Queyras is a valley located in the French Hautes-Alpes, of which the geographical extension is the basin of river Guil, a tributary of the Durance...
  
   (Guil River) to the Col de la Traversette, finally exiting into the upper Po River
  Po River
  The Po |Ligurian]]: Bodincus or Bodencus) is a river that flows either or – considering the length of the Maira, a right bank tributary – eastward across northern Italy, from a spring seeping from a stony hillside at Pian del Re, a flat place at the head of the Val Po under the northwest face...
  
   catchment
• The northern route parallels the Rhône River to the Isère River, past present-day Grenoble along the Arc River to either the Col du Mont Cenis (2083 m) or Col du Clapier (2497 m), finally exiting into the Dora Riparia west of Torino
• The third, intermediary route follows the same initial course as the northern route, then deviates from the Isère River near present-day Grenoble and follows the Drac River southward, west of the Pelvoux Massif, to join the Durance River continuing towards the Col de Montgenèvre (1830 m).

Aftermath

Hannibal arrived in Italy with only 26,000 men and about two dozen elephants. The army being emaciated after the difficult passage, he stopped for a few days to rest, obtaining supplies wherever he could. Hannibal had entered Italy between the Insubres

Insubres

The Insubres were a Gaulish population settled in Insubria, in what is now Lombardy . They were the founders of Milan . Though ethnically Celtic at the time of Roman conquest , they were most likely the result of the fusion of pre-existing Ligurian, Celtic and "Italic" population strata with Gaulish...

 and a tribe of the Ligurians called the Taurini

Taurini

The Taurini were an ancient Celto-Ligurian Alpine people, who occupied the upper valley of the river Po, in the centre of modern Piedmont.In 218 BC, they were attacked by Hannibal since his allies were the Insubres. The Taurini and the Insubres had a long-standing feud. Their chief town was...

. Hostile to Carthage

Carthage

Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

, the latter one refused an offer of peace. Hannibal had then their chief settlement surrounded and leveled, all his opponents being executed. News of this early arrival and massacre surprised the romans, still in their winter quarters, who believed he was still in Spain.