How Hannibal's crossing of the Alps with 30,000 soldiers was even harder than first thought

Daily Mail ^ | 17 February 2018 | Claudia Joseph

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks mairdie.

[BobL]

Thanks, that’s quite a compliment!

[SunkenCiv]

:^)

[beebuster2000]

great find, good article. thanks

[dsc]

Maybe I missed something, but it seems to me that the article says they found horse dung on a bridle path, and therefore Hannibal took that route.

Wouldn’t one expect horse dung on a bridle path whether or not Hannibal had passed? How do they know it belongs to horses that belonged to Hannibal?

[mairdie]

I wondered about that, too. The only thing I can think is that they found a LOT of the horse dung that carbon dated to the right time.

[SunkenCiv]

BTW, had Hannibal managed to get all his elephants across the Alps, he'd have had his ass handed to him earlier, and/or would have ended up feeding elephant meat to his troops just to keep them alive, which is probably what he did with those which survived the crossing. He is easily the most overrated ancient war leader.

Hannibal's Elephant Army - The New Evidence [couchtripper]