1-Acest articol este copiat !
2-Istoria ramane pasiunea mea nr-1.
3-Inteligenta lui Hannibal a facut posibila o asa miscare-militara .
Hannibal's way through the Alps
The millennia dilemma on the exact path taken by the Carthaginian to invade Italy could be close to a solution, thanks also to a handful of horse manure. An array that certainly did not go unnoticed. A question being ascked, for two thousand years, the stories about Hannibal's enterprise: how did the Carthaginian leader marching from Spain, crossing the Pyrenees and the Alps with 30,000 soldiers in tow (in addition to 15,000 horses and 37 elephants), to arrive in Italy and bring the Roman legions to their knees?
Now an international study coordinated by York University in Toronto (Canada) may have traced the transit point of Hannibal and his troops on the eve of the Second Punic War (218-201 BC): the Carthaginians could have passed through the Colle delle Traversette, an Alpine pass at almost 3,000 meters above sea level on the border between the Po Valley, in Italy, and the Guil Valley, in France.
AN OLD KNOWLEDGE. The name is not new for those who deal with the subject: it was already proposed more than a century ago, but then discarded in favor of nearby locations with less tortuous passes, such as Colle Clapier (2,491 m), also mentioned by the historian Roman Titus Livy.
The Colle delle Traversette is still a difficult pass to pass through today .
"MEMORY". But Colle delle Traversette has one more element than other hypothesized locations: microbiological analyzes and pollen deposited in the area have revealed, near the pass, the presence of a large deposit of manure, probably from horses, which analyzes radiocarbon date to 200 BC approximately. The droppings were left beside a lake or swamp, the only one in the area large enough to water a large number of animals. Genetic analyzes revealed a prevalence of Clostridia, a characteristic bacteria of horse faeces at the site. Minor quantities of these microbes, whose genetic material is preserved even for thousands of years, have also been found in other points of the pass.
DEFENSIVE TACTICS. Further analysis of the finds - and, with a little luck, the discovery of parasites inside them - could clarify whether elephant dung is also found in the manure, and perhaps also the geographical origin of the animals. But assuming that Hannibal passed through here, why did he choose the difficult path? For historians, he would have had no choice. Before arriving in Rome, in fact, he had to defend himself from the attack of other populations scattered throughout the Alps, such as the Gauls: a higher and less traveled path could have avoided the risk of sudden assaults.
TERRIBLE TRIP. The passage of the Alps was obviously not painless. Avalanches decimated the Carthaginian army, wiping out thousands of soldiers and hundreds of horses. The frost and the populations of the Alps did the rest: of 37 (or 38 or 34 according to other sources) war elephants who were part of the expedition only 21 survived the crossing.
SUITABLE FOR WAR. The first to use elephants in battle were the Indians, then copyed by Alexander the Great (4th century BC), but they had employed Asian elephants, smaller and easier to tame. Hannibal's secret weapon - used in battle only once, on the Trebbia river (near Piacenza) - was instead the elephant of the subspecies Loxodonta africana cyclotis or African forest elephant. At that time this species also lived on the heights of the Atlas (North Africa), reaches 2.3 meters in height (less than the African savannah elephant) and had been domesticated for war purposes by the Numidians. After crossing, terrified, the Rhone on makeshift rafts and facing the rugged Alpine passes, only one of Hannibal's elephants survived the harsh winter in northern Italy.
April 5, 2016 Elisabetta Intini author
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