Hannibal crossed the Alps with his army and war elephants, catching the Romans completely by surprise and launching one of the most daring military campaigns in ancient history.

(02:46:05) but the elephants here posed a significant challenge. These animals were terrified of water, and so, to get them across, the Carthaginians built enormous rafts built from whole tree trunks and covered them with earth and turf so that the elephants would believe they were still standing on dry land. In that way, they were able to coax two of the females onto the rafts and across the river, and from there, the rest of the herd were

(02:46:36) ferried across. Hannibal then followed the river road north and found a tribe of Gauls who agreed to help him achieve his impossible plan; to cross the vast natural barrier of the Alps. These Gauls gave Hannibal and his men supplies and warm clothing for the mountain crossing, but the task ahead was still staggering. By this time, it was October. Winter was closing in, and the passes of the Alps

(02:47:10) were choked with ice and snow. The later Roman writer Ammianus Marcellinus writes one account of these treacherous alpine passes. In these Alps, there rises a lofty ridge which scarcely anyone can cross without danger, for as one comes from Gaul, it falls off with sheer incline, terrible to look upon because of overhanging cliffs on either side; then over precipitous ravines on either side and chasms rendered treacherous through the accumulation of ice, men and

(02:47:46) animals descending with hesitating steps slide forward, and wagons as well. In winter, the ground, caked with ice, and as if it were polished and therefore slippery, drives men headlong in their gait, and the spreading valleys, made treacherous by ice, sometimes swallow up the traveler. The march to the top of the pass took nine days, and we can only imagine the hardship that these men, their horses and