Why It Sucked to Be Hannibal's War Elephant

You're a young elephant, around 220 BC, and Hannibal needs you to walk from Spain to Italy over the Alps. There are 37 of you. How many make it? Hannibal's war elephants crossed the Rhone on rafts disguised as solid ground, climbed the Alps in the snow and met Rome's army at the Trebia. Your elephant is the one the Greek historian Polybius says survived the Trebia. No ancient writer named it, so the video doesn't either. Where Polybius and Livy disagree, the video says so, and every fact is sourced below. Chapters 0:00 The Accidental Recruit 1:23 Life with a Mahoot 3:14 Crossing the Rone River 5:51 Scaling the Alps 11:02 The Final Swamp March 📚 RESEARCH & SOURCES: ▸ Pits, barley juice and Surus: Pliny the Elder, Natural History, book 8 (attalus.org translation). African elephants caught in pitfalls, tamed with barley juice; Cato named one elephant and no generals. https://www.attalus.org/pliny/hn8a.html ▸ The 37 and the Rhone: Polybius, Histories 3.42-46 (Paton translation, LacusCurtius). 37 elephants; earth-covered rafts; the ones that jumped survived and their drivers drowned. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html ▸ The Alps: Livy, History of Rome, book 21 (Roberts translation, Wikisource). Nine days to the summit, snow, starving animals; five months from New Carthage, fifteen days in the Alps. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/From_the_Founding_of_the_City/Book_21 ▸ The broken path: Polybius, Histories 3.55 (Shuckburgh translation, Perseus). Three days to cut a path wide enough for the elephants, who were in a miserable state from hunger. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0234:book=3:chapter=55 ▸ The Trebia: Polybius, Histories 3.72-74 (Shuckburgh translation, Perseus). A snowy, bitterly cold day; the elephants broke both Roman wings; afterwards all the elephants except one died. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0234:book=3:chapter=74 ▸ Hannibal's eye: Livy, History of Rome, book 22 (Roberts translation, Wikisource). Four days and three nights in the marshes; Hannibal rode the only surviving elephant and lost the sight of one eye. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/From_the_Founding_of_the_City/Book_22 ▸ The chisel: Livy, History of Rome 27.49 (Latin text with Italian translation). More elephants killed by their own drivers than by the enemy; Hasdrubal introduced the method. The English wording in the video is the channel's own translation. https://www.studiaremeglio.it/la-morte-di-asdrubale/ ──────────────────── PEOPLE, PLACES & EVENTS IN THIS VIDEO: ▸ Hannibal: Carthage's general in the Second Punic War, who marched from Spain into Italy in 218 BC. Your owner, and the last one to ride you. ▸ Hasdrubal: Hannibal's brother, killed at the Metaurus river in 207 BC. He gave the drivers their chisels. ▸ Scipio: The Roman general who beat Hannibal at Zama in 202 BC. He figured out elephants: open the lanes and blow the trumpets. ▸ Cato the Elder: Roman senator and historian who refused to name generals in his history. He named one elephant instead. ▸ Surus: "The Syrian," the bravest elephant in the Carthaginian army by Cato's account, with one broken tusk. Maybe you. Nobody knows. ▸ Pliny the Elder, Polybius and Livy: The ancient writers this story rests on. They don't always agree, and the video tells you when. ▸ Panormus: The battle in Sicily, around 250 BC, where Rome captured Carthage's elephants. What happened to them next is why you can't lose. ▸ New Carthage and the Rhone: Hannibal's base in Spain, and the river crossing in southern France. Stage one on the map. ▸ The Numidians: North African soldiers in Hannibal's army. They cut your path across the cliff. ▸ Battle of the Trebia: Hannibal's win over Rome in northern Italy, December 218 BC. Your best day, and the herd's last. ▸ The Arno marshes, Lake Trasimene and Cannae: Hannibal's route and victories in 217 and 216 BC. You're in the first, and missing from the other two. ▸ Raphia, Metaurus and Zama: Elephant battles in 217, 207 and 202 BC. Your kind's career ends with a lane and some loud trumpets. ▸ Jumbo (1959): A Turin Zoo elephant walked over an Alpine pass by a British expedition. Nobody made Jumbo fight a Roman army at the bottom. ──────────────────── 🔔 Subscribe if you'd rather read about the Alps than cross them on four feet. https://www.youtube.com/@StickTory?sub_confirmation=1 Disclaimer: This video is educational entertainment. It dramatizes real historical practices through a second-person character, and some scenes depict historical violence, punishment and hardship for educational context. It is not an endorsement of any of it. Historical sources sometimes disagree, and where they do, we follow the sources listed above. Nothing in this video is professional, legal or medical advice. #Hannibal #PunicWars #WarElephants #StickTory #HistoryAnimated