Posted on 04/30/2020 6:30:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The year was 220 B.C. and the young Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca had to return to his winter quarters in Qart Hadasht - now Cartagena in southeast Spain - after taking Helmatica - now Salamanca in the northwest of the country - from the Vettones tribe. It was spring or summer, and the 27-year-old and his troops had to overcome two obstacles to get to their destination: firstly, the wide rivers and high mountains that were difficult for their 40 elephants to cross; the secondly, the hostile local Carpetani, Vettone and Olcade tribes, who sought revenge for the destruction of their crops and cities.
With just 25,000 soldiers, Hannibal managed to defeat 100,000 enemies. Nobody knows where exactly this battle took place, only that it happened somewhere along the banks of the Tagus River, which stretches 1,007 kilometers from the province of Teruel in Spain to Lisbon in Portugal...
The new study not only takes these descriptions and pieces of evidence into account, it also considers the physical characteristics of the Tagus and the most logical route that Hannibal would have taken to return to his winter quarters in Cartagena.
The authors of the study are convinced that Hannibal used an ancient route which would later be improved by the Romans, joining Complutum, now Alcala De Henares in Madrid region, to Carthago Nova, now Cartagena in Murcia, crossing the Tagus River close to Driebes, not far from Carpentani fortified settlement of Caraca. "The decision to attack Hannibal there was made by the Carpetani, as they knew the area well and it would also give them a leadership role within the coalition formed with the Vettones and Olcades," explains Emilio Gamo.
(Excerpt) Read more at english.elpais.com ...
Hannibal hated the Romans, they hated him, they wandered the earth looking for glory.
I went to Tunisia and Libya, Italy too, these guys went everywhere
The Romans were in the Carpathians but Categena?
I worked with this guy from Tunisia Maddi Ben Salah
What a dick
My hero! one of them!
LOL!
Best Roman pristine ruins where in Libya, not sure now.
I think at one point during the trip through the Alps they had to use vinegar to break up a boulder blocking the way. At any rate when Jefferson was in France he wrote a friend who was planning a trip from France to Italy and the letter discusses whether the friend might need to use vinegar like the Carthaginians had done.
Hannibal tried to out shine the Romans, even marched to Afghanistan, where are your foot prints Hannibal?
You lose, where is Tunisia on the map? You should have traded and done commerce.
ah greeks still in the west
Great post!
Seeing Hannibal from home - if you can ever visit here, it will blow your mind.
http://www.bardomuseum.tn/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&Itemid=73&lang=en
Carthage had conquered a good bit of Spain. Hannibal's family had been fighting the Romans in Spain, and he wanted to drive them right out and swoop around to attack Italy. The Carthaginians had gotten pretty rich, and tended to park their plump behinds on cushions and use mercenaries for fighting on land and sea. The Barca family had political enemies and it was easy to get the backing of the home front to send Hannibal out of town. He had a handful of major victories in Italy during the impressive fifteen years he spent in Italy. But, he had no siegecraft, so walled towns simply shut the gates and refused him entry. He managed to live off the land, but he couldn't replace lost troops, failed to build local alliances, and eventually he was considered worn down enough to be evacuated by Carthaginian ships. The Romans waved bye-bye and didn't try to stop the evacuation.
While this was going on Scipio booted the Carthaginians out of Spain. He persisted in Spain until he cleaned the clocks of Carthaginian commanders and their forces, returned to Rome, raised an army without support from the Senate, sailed for Africa, linked up with the former ally of Carthage (won over by Scipio), then destroyed Carthaginian forces, which led to Hannibal's recall from Italy.
The Battle of Zama led to the dismantling of Carthage's fleet (there's a really nice segment about the artificial harbor and the fleet of Carthage in "Engineering an Empire", btw), war indemnity, and the Romans kept Spain, Cisalpine Gaul (includes the Riviera), Italy of course, and everything was going quite well. The king of Macedon had more or less allied himself with Hannibal and was trying to grab the eastern Adriatic coast, but as soon as the little Hannibal matter was cleared up in Italy, the Romans destroyed him and conquered Greece.
After Zama there was a period of quiet settlement, but Hannibal went back to his plotting another attack on Italy. Scipio and his brother prevailed against a major eastern ally of Hannibal, the Carthaginians finally tired of his BS, and he was booted from the city, into exile, and hunted by Rome, until he killed himself somewhere in the east end of the Med.
Naturally, with the corrupticratic regime of the Roman so-called republic, no good deed went unpunished. Scipio and his brother were both investigated and prosecuted (sound familiar?). I'd take Scipio over Hannibal any freakin' day, btw.
"We just got another order for an elephant ear sandwich!"
"What's the problem? We've got a lot of the ears left."
"We do, but we're running out of the big rolls!"
thanx I read Livy i down to 20o when his manuscripts were lost.
I was wondering why they attacked Rome from Spain instead of taking a straight line.
:^)
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