Wood Brothers's blog

Our long cycling journey following Hannibal’s trail has come to an end, appropriately where the Carthaginian general met his first and last major defeat – at the Battle of Zama.

Hannibal had been recalled to Africa to defend his homeland against an invasion by the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio. For nearly 20 years Hannibal had waged war from Spain to Italy without seeing his native land. Coming home must have been an unusual experience for him after spending most of his adult life – 15 years – fighting Romans in Italy. 

When we talk to people on our route about Hannibal the two most known facts about him are his elephants and the battle of Cannae.

After the Carthaginian victory at Trebbia, Hannibal waited until the warmer months to continue his march towards Rome. He once again did what was least expected and marched through the now mostly drained Arno swamps.

It took the Carthaginians four sleepless days to traverse the marshes during which time one of Hannibal's eyes became infected and he eventually lost it. The Roman Consul Flaminius was waiting for the invaders on the other side near Arretium (modern Arezzo).

On the banks of the Ticinus river in Pavia are the remains of a bridge destroyed in World War II. The footings break the flow of the river and its disappearance has broken the aesthetic layout of the town.

Hannibal is best known for crossing Europe’s biggest mountain chain, the Alps, into Italy with about fifty thousand men and forty elephants. More than two thousand years later we still don’t know which path he took and this mystery continues to puzzle scholars and amateur adventurers. History’s heavyweights like Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte had opinions on Hannibal’s route and over the years more than half a dozen possible mountain crossings, or cols, have been proposed.

We have just crossed Hannibal's first big natural obstacle on his way to Italy – the Rhone river. Where exactly he crossed isn't known, but Polybius says it was four days march north of the mouth of the river. This is difficult to judge due to changes in the coastline over 2000 years, but it was most likely somewhere north of Arles. Some scholars even put it further north than Avignon.

After Cartagena, Saguntum is the next significant historical point on our bike ride up the Spanish Mediterranean coast. Today, Saguntum is a vast and very impressive castle ruin that overlooks the modern town of Sagunto. Saguntum was pro Roman and Hannibal felt it necessary to take the town before marching further north. We arrived there after five days of hot, difficult cycling, and climbed through the steep medieval streets to the castle – a pastiche of Moorish, medieval and Roman ruins – which covers the ancient remains of an Iberian stronghold called Arse!

In 218 BC Hannibal left the Spanish city of Cartagena with one hundred thousand soldiers and nearly forty elephants. We've just left the same city on three bicycles followed by our BBC television crew.  Our aim is to follow Hannibal's path along the coast of Spain, through France, over the Alps, down the length of Italy and back to his home city of Carthage, now a suburb of the city of Tunes, capital of Tunisia.