Hannibal's Route in the Second Punic War
Hannibal Barca's invasion route from Iberia across the Alps into Italy during the Second Punic War, 218–201 BC.
In 218 BC the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca marched an army — including its famous war elephants — out of Iberia, through southern Gaul, and over the Alps into Italy, catching Rome entirely off guard. He crushed Roman armies at the Trebia, Lake Trasimene, and, most devastatingly, at Cannae in 216 BC, where some 50,000 Roman soldiers died in a single day. Yet Hannibal could never take Rome itself, and after fifteen years campaigning on Italian soil he was recalled to defend Carthage, where Scipio Africanus defeated him at Zama in 202 BC. The war's financing, drawn from the silver mines of Spain, is explored in our article on the Barcid silver mines.
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