How did Hannibal achieve the remarkable feat of crossing the Alps with his army, and elephants? How many of his men survived the treacherous journey? Was it worth sacrificing so much of his army in order to fight the Romans in Italy? And, what unfolded during the first great clash between Hannibal and Rome, at dawn, by the Trebbia River, in 218 BC…? Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss Hannibal’s extraordinary journey over the Alps, and the early stages of his epic war against Rome. The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: How Did Hannibal Cross the Alps?
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Slowly the soldiers moved with lagging steps, dreading that they had crossed the spreading globe only to pass into forbidden realms in defiance of nature and heaven. But Hannibal was having none of it. Not for him any terror of the Alps, not for him any horror at the snows. "'Shame on you!' he cried, to weary of fame and despair of the favour of the gods.
"'Shall we retreat after all we have won, before snow-capped mountains, cowed and beaten by cliffs?' "'No, comrades, no. Onwards we go. Believe me that soon we shall be scaling the walls of Rome, that mightiest power, and the steep hill of Jupiter.' at which all his men cheered and found their courage restored. So that was Silius Italicus. The Punica is the name of that poem.
He wrote it almost 300 years after Hannibal's invasion of Italy in the reign of the Emperor Domitian. Tom, it's the longest surviving Roman poem. It was beautifully read, I thought. I was magnificent. Thank you. That's kind. Yeah, really good. It's a shame I had to prompt it, but I'll take it all the same. Now, it's proof, isn't it, of just how deeply...
The experience of fighting Hannibal and the personality of Hannibal were seared into the Roman imagination. And actually, you get the sense there of their massive respect for Hannibal. You know, he's not a... We talked last time about whether or not they see him as a supervillain. Maybe they do, but they clearly see him as a serious person, as somebody worthy of admiration as well as fear.
Absolutely. And they always acknowledge his supreme genius as a general. And there's kind of certain...
self-serving quality to that because obviously if he's the world's greatest general and they've beaten him that redounds very well to their credit but i think that what you see there and also what you see in that passage from juvenile that you read again very beautifully in the previous episode so you've got an epic poet in the form of cilius italicus you've got a satirist in the form of juvenile
And what they're both fixing on, in particular, as emblematic of everything that makes Hannibal extraordinary, is this feat in crossing the Alps. And it makes Hannibal seem like Hercules, which is part of Hannibal's plan. That was what he was kind of going for. Makes him seem superhuman.
And to climb the Alps, to fend off all the predatory barbarians that lurk in its snowy wastes, to gaze down from a mountain pass at the fields of Italy, impossible. And yet Hannibal wins. has done it. And we left him at the end of our previous episode. He's climbed all the way up the Alps. He's reached the very summit of the pass that he's been aiming for.
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Chapter 2: What Was the Cost of Hannibal's Journey?
And he said of this crossing of the Alps that Hannibal had sacrificed half his army merely to acquire his chosen field of battle, the opportunity to fight where he wished to. And I guess kind of hanging in that comment, perhaps people might think, well, was it worth all the effort that Hannibal went to? Was it worth the loss of over half his army?
And Dominic, you said in the previous episode, you asked, would it have been possible for Hannibal to fight Scipio on the banks of the Rhône?
Yeah.
He could have done that. But that's not actually what Napoleon is saying. Napoleon's comments on Hannibal sacrificing half his army to get where he wanted to, to get his chosen field of battle, is not meant as a criticism. I mean, this is the kind of thing Napoleon did all the time. He'd sacrifice... hundreds of thousands of men to get his army into the position where he wanted to fight.
Because what Napoleon is recognizing and is clearly the case is that by bypassing Scipio, by refusing to meet the Romans on the Rhine, by getting into Italy, Hannibal has kept the initiative.
But Tom, can I jump in and make an observation? Yeah, of course. We compared Hannibal, or you compared him in a previous episode to Charles XII of Sweden. A commander who has a lot in common with Hannibal and with Napoleon. They're swashbuckling, they're charismatic, they captivate all Europe, they take the initiative, they sacrifice a lot of men for an advantage.
And the other thing that all three have in common is they all end up losing. And they do that partly because they throw away men thinking, well, vim and vigor matter more than manpower. But the Romans could have told all three of those people that manpower matters more than anything. And that is exactly the challenge that Hannibal recognizes.
Hannibal absolutely appreciates that it is the manpower that the Romans have that is the huge problem. And that's why he's come to Italy, because his only prospect of defeating Rome is to secure the backing of people in the peninsula of Italy.
Okay, that's interesting. So he's sacrificing men now to gain men later. That's his thinking.
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Chapter 3: How Did Hannibal Use Elephants in His Campaign?
Yeah, and even the news of the skirmish at the Tequinas, where Hannibal has won, wins him huge plaudits among the local Gauls. And now that the Romans have retreated from their path, lots of them can come and join Hannibal's cause. Within a very short time of Hannibal's arrival in Italy and his victory at the Tequinas, He came with 20,000 infantry.
He's now up to about 28,000, 30,000 infantry with the Gauls coming in. He's up to about 10,000 cavalry. So again, this sense that the Gauls are swelling his numbers. And this is a huge problem, obviously, for the Romans, because it means now that Scipio wants to force a battle as quickly as possible to try and stop the Gauls from misbehaving. But he needs to wait for Sempronius to arrive.
And Sopranos finally pitches up from Sicily, doesn't he? He's sent his men on this kind of forced march. And now the Romans have far more infantry than Hannibal. So I'm looking at the notes, 38,000 to Hannibal's 28,000, although Hannibal has more cavalry and the Romans are always a little bit deficient in cavalry.
But interestingly, Sempronius is also under pressure to force a battle because his consulship is coming to an end and he wants a victory to round off his time in office. So there you have the kind of political pressures of Rome you know, acting to, to, to sort of force the issue.
Yeah. So Polybius says that Scipio doesn't want to force the battle. Scipio has been wounded in the Tequinas and this has invalided him out. So Sempronius is going to command, you know, against Hannibal now. And Polybius says, oh, Scipio thought it was a bad idea to have a battle.
This, I think, is because Polybius ends up a member of the household of the Scipios, and so he's always looking to cast them in the best possible light. It's clear, I think, that both consuls want a victory for the same reason, that it will redound to their glory before they have to lay down their office at the end of the year.
But also, as we've been saying, they need to stamp Hannibal out quickly before the whole of Gallic North Italy rises up to his banner. So I think Polybius is wrong there. I think it's absolutely the Roman battle plan that they are going to force a battle. And Hannibal is fully aware of this.
He knows that the Romans essentially spoiling for a fight because we've talked before about how he has an incredible mastery of intelligence. And how the Romans see this as somehow cheating. And so they end up so spooked by Hannibal's ability seemingly to read their minds that they claim that he's been going around undercover disguised with wigs of various colours and changes of clothing.
Isn't that a classic battle narrative, though, that the enemy king or commander disguised himself, you know, as a troubadour or something? And like Alfred the Great did this and so-and-so did this. Yeah, but Romans wouldn't do that.
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Chapter 4: What Strategy Did Hannibal Employ Against the Romans?
Well, yeah, because I suppose we have, you know, thermal underwear and things, waterproofs, which they probably didn't have. But if you didn't, maybe you could use oil. Anyway, this is what we're told. They look good. They're glowing. They're warm. They're well breakfasted. And so when the battle is joined, you might think the Romans are already defeated. Not a bit of it.
Because they're just the best heavy infantry in the world. And also, of course, they outnumber the Carthaginian infantry. So they press forwards. And they start doing their stuff. They start stabbing and eviscerating and slicing open the guts of the Spaniards and the Libyans and the Gauls who were facing them.
And so guts start to spill out and it mingles with the mud and the slush and it becomes ever more slippery. I mean, a hideous sight, both sides fighting increasingly desperately. But meanwhile, on the wings, first the elephants and then the Carthaginian cavalry have rolled back the Roman cavalry, who were always outnumbered, but just find it impossible to fight against elephants and Numidians.
And then they wheel in and start to attack the flanks of the Roman infantry. So there's a slight sense in which the Romans are... Well, I mean, three sides of their formation is now kind of surrounded by Carthaginian forces. And then Dominic suddenly... In the Romans' rear, a terrible cry. And it is coming from the watercourse. You remember? With those brambles.
And it's not just infantry that's been hidden there by Hannibal. It's horses as well. So the men have been lying there with their horses lying down. Some 2,000 Numidians, half of them cavalry, half infantry. And they've been stationed there under the command of Mago, who is Hannibal's younger brother. So in the film by Vin Diesel, I don't know who'd play him. He's a kind of hip young gun.
Maybe Tom Holland. I don't know. Tom Holland.
You'd hate that though, wouldn't you? No, I'd love it. You'd absolutely hate that if Tom Holland was in a film about Carthage and Rome.
Anyway, Mago is brilliant, tremendous commander. The Numidians think it's hilarious that they've totally outsmarted the Romans. They go crashing into the rear of the Roman infantry, who are now basically surrounded. Unsurprisingly, the Roman line... It wavers, buckles, and then it collapses. All discipline is gone.
And you have thousands of men fleeing back to the Trebia any way that they can, trying to weave their way past the force of Numidians in their rear. And as they retreat, this is always when armies really suffer casualties. The elephants are trampling them down. The cavalry are galloping after them. hacking them down. And the slaughter is really terrible.
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Chapter 5: How Did Hannibal's Arrival Affect the Gauls?
It's quite tough and demanding. But, you know, by this point, his men are used to going up mountains. He then advances through this very kind of marshy swampland around the river that no army had ever thought to cross. And it takes Hannibal's men four days to do it.
And Hannibal himself, who rides through the swamps on Cyrus's elephant, he gets an eye infection and it can't be healed because they're in the middle of a swamp. And so he ends up losing it.
That's a hell of an eye infection. My God.
Yeah. It was clearly pretty serious. And so from this point on, you know, he's like Nelson. He's only got one eye. Always a good sign. And I think in a commander. Right. As with Nelson. So with Hannibal, it undoubtedly adds to his allure. And there were Romans who kind of draw up lists of the generals and enemies that they faced who had one eye. There's actually a surprisingly large number.
But they all agree that Hannibal is the top one-eyed enemy that they've had. It's like an early episode of The Rest is History. History's greatest one-eyed people. So anyway, Flaminius, he has no idea what's going on. Hannibal is taking roads that no one... had ever thought that he would. And so by the time that he clocks, the Carthaginians have made it into Etruria.
They have passed him and are heading south towards Rome. And again, to quote Polybius, the Carthaginians began to ravage the countryside. And as columns of smoke rose on all sides, bearing witness to the devastation. So the consul became ever more indignant.
And the wasting of the land is obviously, it's positive because it means that Hannibal can strip it bare of all its riches and its corn and its livestock and things. But it's also deliberately trying to provoke Flaminius, who is the kind of guy who is very liable to be provoked. You know, he doesn't take kindly to this kind of stuff. So Flaminius doesn't hesitate.
He sends word to his colleague saying, you know, cross over the Apennines and we'll catch the Carthaginians in a pincer movement. And he then sets off in hot pursuit. He's not at this moment aiming to force battle. He's only got two legions. He's outnumbered pretty much two to one by the Carthaginians.
But as I say, the aim is that hopefully once the other consul has crossed the Apennines, then they can squeeze Hannibal and kind of get him, surround him. So for this to work, Flaminius can't afford to lose track of the Carthaginians. So Flaminius and his men are tagging the Carthaginian army. And this is the scene with which you opened in the late afternoon of the 20th of June.
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Chapter 6: What Was the Significance of the Battle of the Trebia?
Yeah, so he's celebrated for kind of qualities of prudence and moderation. But you're right, he's certainly not a dove. He's actually a very formidable general. He, again, is a very seasoned gall fighter. He brought a lot of the tribes in the foothills of the Alps under Rome's rule. He'd celebrated a triumph for it. So he's seen as... Ideally suited. He's not going to rush into an ambush.
He's a proficient general. But more than that, he is emblematic of everything that the Romans admire in a statesman. So he comes from a very distinguished family, unlike poor Flaminius. His own grandfather had served as a dictator in a previous crisis and come out of it very well. He himself is 58 years old.
And to the Romans, people in their late 50s, I'm delighted to say, are seen as excellent people to entrust the future of the country to. So basically he's a man who can be trusted to steady the ship. So this is agreed. Fabius is inaugurated as dictator in a weird midnight ceremony that's so secret that no one really knows what's going on apart from those who actually officiate.
And from that moment on, Fabius is in command of Rome and he spends his first day making sure that no ritual or ceremony or sacrifice to the gods has been neglected because the assumption is that the gods are angry, so they need to get the gods on side. Next, he orders the walls of Rome to be repaired and the bridges over the Tiber to be pulled down, so to make the city itself secure.
He then sets about recruiting two new legions. So Flaminius' two legions have been wiped out. They need to be replaced. And he joins them with the two legions of the other consul. So now there's a field army of four legions, maybe 40,000 men. So about the number that Hannibal has.
But he is not intending to engage Hannibal in battle because he realizes that his men are, they're not sufficiently trained. They're not sufficiently battle hardened. They need to buy time.
to give these legions time to kind of become sufficiently hardened to fight with the carthaginians so instead his policy is always to shadow hannibal's men and i'll quote plutarch plutarch the great greek biographer who pairs famous greeks with famous romans and fabius is one of the famous romans he writes the biography of and in that biography he describes how fabius shadows hannibal if the carthaginians kept their position then he did as well
But the moment they moved, he would descend from the heights and draw up his men just far enough away to avoid being drawn into a battle that he had no wish to fight, yet near enough to inspire in Hannibal a fear that he was going to fight at last. And these are obviously very unglamorous tactics, but they're effective. So they can start cutting down enemy foraging parties, picking them off.
They can menace Italian cities that might be kind of wavering, might be thinking, oh, yeah, we should sign up to... to Hannibal. And of course, all the time he's able to drill and train his raw recruits and to give them experience of being on campaign. So definitely, you know, there are a number of successes being chalked up.
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