Thursday, December 29, 2011

My Two Hannibal Crosses the Alps Posts


I have written two articles about Hannibal’s march across the Alps. The first was posted on February 23, 2009 and the second on August 19, 2010.

The first post had a poor satellite view because Google Earth had combined views from different times which impacted the image.

I wrote the second article to provide a better image and for other reasons. I did some additional research on the subject and found myself more willing to mark what I consider the correct route as opposed to marking a generalization based on the work of previous scholars. I also had located diaries of the trip from Polybius and Livy. These are valuable because they add some important detail to the story. Lastly, I found a picture taken near the summit, which I found useful to convey the geography.

For reasons I can’t explain other than the quirks of internet searching, the original post gets all the reads. As of today, the newer post has been visited 480 times while the original has been viewed 4,697 times!

1 comment:

Danny said...

Hi Mike,
I've just found your posts about Hannibal's passage over the Alps. Very interesting...it is a shame you can't watch BBC2 in the UK, because tonight our series dealing with Hannibal's invasion of Italy via the Alps starts at 830pm. We cycled over the Alps and tried out various routes including Mt Genevre, Col de la Traversette, Col du Clapier and Col d'Agnel(carrying our bicycles where necessary) and Mont Genevre wasn't one of our top options, but we thought it was still very possible. Long Live Hannibal! All the best. Danny