The Alps of Hannibal

What it is

A book by William John Law, published in 1866 in two volumes, studying the route Hannibal took across the Alps. It was digitized from a library copy with funding from Microsoft and is held by the Internet Archive.

Why it matters

Law's book tackles a question that had divided historians for a long time: exactly which path through the Alps Hannibal used on his famous invasion of Italy. The book shows how much effort later scholars put into reconstructing Hannibal's movements from ancient accounts, and how uncertain some details of his campaign remain even today.

Why it matters

Look closer

• Why would the exact mountain route matter so much to historians?
• What kinds of clues might a 19th-century scholar have used to guess at an ancient route?
• What does the long disagreement over this route tell us about the limits of ancient sources?