570. Hannibal: The Invasion of Italy (Part 3)
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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. And he's telling his men, it's brilliant. Here we are. There's nothing to worry about. Italy lies below us. Let's get down there and take the fight to the Romans.
Exciting. So we're in 218 BC, aren't we? Second Punic War. Hannibal, his great strategy is that he's not going to wait for the Romans to attack him. He's going to go for it. He's going to get into Italy. He's going to separate them from the Allies. And his aim is Rome itself. An amazing ambition. for a Carthaginian general.
And so his men, who are very kind of demoralized, they've all got frostbite, they get hungry, they've been attacked by ghouls all the time, all a bit miserable. When they get to this pass, Hannibal, according to Livy, gives his men a very positive briefing. And he says, it will be very easy going from this point on. There are no more hills to climb, a battle or two, and we will have Rome in the palm of our hands. But of course, Dominic, anyone who has climbed a very steep hill will know that actually going down can sometimes be as tough on the legs as going up.
This is a great act of imagination by you, which all great historians have, because you, of course, have never been to the Alps. And yet you can imagine that it's very difficult to go down them. Yes. And particularly with an elephant. And that's the power of imagination, Dominic. Well, it's not just imagination. It's about your sifting of the sources, isn't it? For sure.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
How Did Hannibal Cross the Alps?
0:00–10:02
2
What Was the Cost of Hannibal's Journey?
10:02–18:03
3
How Did Hannibal Use Elephants in His Campaign?
18:03–25:40
4
What Strategy Did Hannibal Employ Against the Romans?
25:40–34:20
5
How Did Hannibal's Arrival Affect the Gauls?
34:20–43:14
6
What Was the Significance of the Battle of the Trebia?
43:14–52:55
Speakers
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