Friday, December 5, 2014

Which war used elephants to cross the Alps?

Carthaginian military general Hannibal crossed the Alps in 218 BC to enter Italy and advance his war against the Roman Republic. The war was called the Second Punic War. During this period, the two superpowers, Rome and Carthage (a city-state in North Africa which would fall under the territory of modern-day Tunisia), were battling each other for supremacy in and around the Mediterranean.


It is difficult to determine the exact route of Hannibal, because no Carthaginian sources seem to have survived, and the Greek and Roman historians (Polybius and Livy, respectively) who wrote 70 and 190 years (respectively) after the crossing offer only vague accounts. Though it seems the army contained a fleet of trained war elephants, historians have often speculated about where these came from, as they do not seem to have existed in Carthage at the time. Some believe that they came from the Atlas Mountains of (present day) Morocco and Algeria.
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/18/science/the-mystery-of-hannibal-s-elephants.html

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