Hannibal crosses the Alps

Hannibal's crossing of the Alps in 218 BC was one of the major events of the Second Punic War and one of the most celebrated achievements of any military force in ancient warfare.

Hannibal led his Carthaginian army over the Alps and into Italy to take the war directly to the Roman Republic, bypassing Roman and allied land garrisons and Roman naval dominance.

The two primary sources for the event are Polybius and Livy, who were born c. 20 years and c. 160 years after the event, respectively. The Alps were not well-documented at the time, and no archaeological evidence is available, so all modern theories depend on interpreting the three place names used by Polybius (Island, Skaras and Allobroges) and Livy's wider range of tribe and place names, and comparing them with modern geographical knowledge.

The 2022 book Hannibal in the Alps by Dutch historian and publicist Jona Lendering concludes that the two primary historical sources provide too little accurate information and too much conflicting information, combined with a lack of historical geographical knowledge and current knowledge of historical armies in order to define the route of Hannibal's army over the Alps. French historians have coined the phrase 'Hannibalism' for trying to answer a question that is intrinsically impossible to answer.