Crossing the Rhone On Hannibal's Trail


Crossing the Rhone

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We're on ten-week journey cycling 3,500 kilometres

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on the trail of the great Carthaginian warrior Hannibal.

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Over 2,000 years ago, Hannibal marched his army from the south of Spain,

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across the Alps, and into Italy.

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He launched a spectacular assault on the heart of Roman power.

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Hannibal's brothers, Hasdrubal and Mago, were his generals.

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I'm Danny Wood. I'm a journalist.

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And, like Hannibal, I'm travelling with my brothers -

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Ben, a computer expert, and Sam, an archaeologist.

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Hannibal marched with over 100,000 soldiers, armed with swords, spears

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and 37 elephants.

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We're armed with three bikes.

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-Three tents.

-And a bike cam.

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So far, we've cycled over a thousand kilometres up

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the east coast of Spain, over the Pyrenees and into France.

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We're now well on our way to the Alps.

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But, before climbing any mountains,

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Hannibal and his vast army had another obstacle to cross -

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the river Rhone.

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So, we have to cross it, too.

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Day 15 of our journey -

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around 1100 kilometres from Cartagena where our journey began,

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still nearly a thousand kilometres to Rome.

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We're deep into France now and, like Hannibal's invading army, we feel like foreigners here.

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CAR HORN BLARES

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The locals don't seem that pleased to see us.

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HORNS BLARE

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That's what we have to put up with. Did you see that?

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French impatience. Bonjour.

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-Sam, that was slightly more polite that time.

-Definitely.

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It's not hard to be polite

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when you're in a car and people are on bikes.

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But, unfortunately, that doesn't seem to happen very often in France.

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The Spanish were much nicer drivers.

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We're arriving in Arles.

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The city was used by the Greeks as a trading port from the 6th century BC.

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But this feels like a Roman city.

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It even has its own Coliseum.

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Sam went to find out what it was like in Hannibal's day.

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We know that, in the Greek times, the town was named Theline.

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That, in Greek, means the "feeding one", the "giver of food"

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if you want. It means that it was a rich town.

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It was a huge town, a big one.

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We are thinking it was about 40 hectares,

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as big as Marseilles, the Greek town.

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And it huge place for trade between the north of Europe and the Mediterranean world.

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-Gosh, so it was a very interesting town. Do we have any archaeological remains?

-Yes, a bit.

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Not a lot, because here we've got so much remains of the Roman times.

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Maybe you'll have to dig up the amphitheatre to find out more about Hannibal's time?

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Oh! We'd like to in some small part, but we just can't destroy it!

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By this time, news of Hannibal's march had reached Rome.

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The Romans despatched an army to stop him.

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It was led by one of Rome's top generals, Publius Scipio.

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His warships put into port at Marseilles.

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Scipio was planning to march into Spain to meet Hannibal's army.

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He had no idea that Hannibal had already crossed the Pyrenees into Gaul.

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Nor that he was determined to cross the Alps.

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The Romans never dreamed that Hannibal would dare to strike at the heart of the Roman republic.

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Hannibal knew the Romans would do anything to stop his attack on Rome.

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But he had no idea that Scipio and his legions were only a few days' march away. The race was on.

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Hannibal knew he had to cross the Alps fast before the Romans found out what he was up to.

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Surprise was his most powerful weapon.

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I'll race you.

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Like Hannibal, we have an unforgiving schedule.

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-So we've left Arles, and are making our way north.

-Bonjour.

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It's easy cycling, but soon Hannibal had to cross the Rhone with his vast army and 37 elephants.

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It's hard as three brothers on bikes to convey the size

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of the 15km column of cavalry, livestock and elephants.

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It must have been like a small town on the move through this fertile countryside known as the Camargue.

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We know it's a bit of a bread basket.

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We've been riding through continuous vineyards until now.

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We're passing into different territory.

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We've seen lots of sunflowers which have already been harvested in the pastures around us.

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It was obviously a good place for Hannibal's troops to get easy supplies.

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There's a lot of good agricultural produce to be had for cyclists like us and for a big army.

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There's a centuries old debate about where exactly Hannibal led his men and animals across the river Rhone.

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The trick would have been to find a place where the river was shallow and the current slow.

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We're going to cross here.

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It's the ancient trading town of Beaucaire, which means beautiful stone.

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Hannibal was a master strategist.

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Since arriving in Gaul,

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he'd been currying favour with the local tribes.

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They now sold him boats for the crossing, as his troops amassed on the river bank.

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Our tight budget means we haven't exactly showered the locals with gifts,

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but we've turned to the town's boat club for help.

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Ben asked the club's director where he thought Hannibal might have crossed.

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Can you tell us about the current here,

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and are there any dangerous sections of the Rhone?

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For our crossing, we've chosen a nice calm stretch of river,

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a branch known as the sleeping Rhone.

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So we're setting up our tents before it gets too dark and before the mozzies eat us.

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And tomorrow, we're using canoes to cross the Rhone,

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which is one of the forms of transport Hannibal would have used to get across.

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I think we've got it a lot better than Hannibal did.

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He used to sleep in his cloak. We've got quite nice airbeds actually.

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Of course it's funny to be sinking pegs into this earth which is probably the same earth that

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thousands of soldiers camped on thousands of years ago

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when they were about to cross this massive obstacle, the Rhone,

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which is the first big physical obstacle Hannibal had to cross.

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As we huddle round our mosquito-beating campfire,

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we can only imagine what Hannibal's men would have been doing.

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They would have probably been very drunk. That's my best guess.

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I suppose his army would have had entertainment.

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-There would have been singing, drinking, pigs roasting.

-Yeah, maybe prostitutes.

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THEY LAUGH

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We stay just one night on the river bank.

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Hannibal's army would have spent days going back and forth,

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transporting thousands of men and animals across the Rhone.

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The army was so big that they would have had to construct additional vessels from scratch.

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Hannibal's men would have hollowed out tree trunks to make canoes, and lashed logs together for rafts.

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The preparations along this river bank would have made a spectacular sight.

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But the crossing wasn't Hannibal's only challenge.

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He also had to deal with a hostile local tribe, the Volcae,

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notorious for their shield waving and demented screaming

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when going into battle.

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The Volcae were now ranged along the opposite bank of the river.

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They were determined to smash the intruders and loot the spoils from Hannibal's army.

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Hannibal secretly sent some troops, led by his nephew, Hanno,

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to cross the Rhone upstream and make a surprise attack on the Volcae.

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So we send Ben off to cross upriver, like Hanno.

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Hanno had a force of elite North African and Spanish soldiers with him.

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They marched up the river under cover of darkness to make their crossing undetected.

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It was an operation that would have required discipline and concentration.

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I was bit naughty. I wasn't thinking about Hannibal or elephants.

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I was thinking how nice it was to be alone.

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Being alone was a great feeling.

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About the first time in about three weeks really.

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Having a few hours paddling on a river was just very nice.

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Hanno's force made their way down the river bank.

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They then crept up behind the enemy camp,

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and waited for an early morning ambush.

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Once in position, Hanno sent a smoke signal.

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He was ready for battle.

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Hannibal's army started crossing the river to do battle.

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The Volcae were howling and chanting and brandishing their weapons on the other side.

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The Volcae had no idea they were about to be attacked on two fronts.

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Hannibal and his forces launched their assault on the Volcae from the river.

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Hanno seized his chance.

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He and his troops launched the surprise attack.

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The Volcae scattered in total chaos.

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It was a textbook strategy for attack that's still used in military campaigns to this day.

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It's so nice to be doing something other than riding a bike.

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And paddling across the Rhone is a pretty nice thing to be doing,

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even if we're supposed to be attacking the Volcae.

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No artefacts have ever been dredged up to indicate where Hannibal crossed the Rhone with his men.

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-I'm stuck!

-But I'm about to leave some evidence of our crossing for future archaeologists.

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I'm just looking for my Flip Flop.

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It disappeared somewhere into this mud with my foot. I don't think I'll find it.

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I think it will be consigned to the past with the men who would have sunk through here 2,000 years ago.

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With the Volcae defeated, Hannibal could now transport his 37 elephants over to the other side.

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As you can see, getting bikes across a river is a lot easier than getting elephants across.

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Legend has it that the elephants crossed the Rhone on rafts.

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The ancient Greek historian Polybius writes that, as soon as the rafts were cut from their moorings,

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the elephants panicked and jumped into the river.

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Their drivers were thrown off and crushed or drowned.

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According to Polybius, the elephants then walked under water

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using their trunks as snorkels until they reached the shore.

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That sounds like an amazing scene.

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But there's one fact that Polybius clearly wasn't aware of.

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Elephants can swim!

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More than 100 years after Polybius, the Roman historian Livy wrote his own account of Hannibal's journey.

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He entertains the idea that the elephants made it across by themselves.

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Livy suggests that the elephant drivers would have aggravated a male elephant

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until it chased them into the water.

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Elephant experts have confirmed that the herd instinct would have been to follow an angry male.

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Once in the water, they'd all happily swum to the other side.

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Hannibal's Rhone crossing has passed into legend.

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We may never know exactly how he did it, but we do know there were even greater obstacles to come.

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Always planning ahead, Hannibal dispatched 500 of his Numidian

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cavalrymen into the territory east of the river.

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What they found was completely unexpected.

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The Numidians ran into a force of 300 of Scipio's cavalry.

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In the battle that followed, around half the Roman force was lost.

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But more than 200 Numidians were slaughtered.

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The surviving Numidians escaped and returned to Hannibal

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with the news that the Romans were after him.

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Hannibal now had to decide -

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stand and fight?

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Or march on to Italy?

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Hannibal chose to press on to Rome.

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Scipio now understood that Hannibal was planning

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to invade Rome via the Alps.

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He gave up the chase and headed home to Italy where he planned to ambush Hannibal on his arrival.

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We are on our way to Maillane, a sleepy Provencal village

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tucked away on this quiet country road near Avignon.

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Deep beneath its streets, Maillane has a secret -

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a key to the mystery of Hannibal's route.

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We're off to see if we can find it.

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It's said that in the late 18th century, a local farmer,

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Barthelemy Daillan, was digging a cellar in one of these houses.

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Amazingly, though, no-one seems to know which one it was

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Anyway, Daillan dug up some bones that turned out to be part of a 12-foot long elephant skeleton.

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He also found a huge elephant tooth, a molar!

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That not all. It's also said he found a copper medallion engraved with an elephant.

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He kept it and fixed it to the handle of his pickaxe.

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This is Rue du Geant,

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Giant Street.

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It's said to be named in honour of the elephant unearthed here.

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We found two local historians who share our interest in Hannibal.

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They also happen to be brothers.

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I ask them about Daillan's discovery.

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Like almost everything connected with Hannibal, the pickaxe with the elephant medallion was lost.

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And nobody knows what happened to the elephant skeleton.

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It's said that Daillan's widow kept the elephant tooth until the day she died.

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But then, another tiny part of the Hannibal trail goes cold.

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What we do know about the next part of Hannibal's march on Rome is that he turned east

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for the most physically gruelling leg of his journey.

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We're beginning to see mountains,

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and something that will give us a taste of the struggle ahead -

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Mount Ventoux, known locally as The Giant.

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The Gauls believed that a mountain God lived at the top.

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And this nearly 2,000 metre climb is a notoriously gruelling section of the Tour de France.

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Ventoux means windy. It's named for the powerful mistral wind that's been

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known to blow at speeds up to 200 miles an hour across its summit.

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We've decided to pit ourselves against The Giant, and each other,

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in a Wood Brothers mini-Tour de France.

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The view from the top is supposed to be spectacular!

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We're going to need a good night's sleep before we attempt the long climb to the summit.

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It's hard to race your brothers.

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I mean, we're competitive in some things, but not in much really.

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The occasional tennis game maybe but,

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yeah, hard to know who's going to win.

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I think it really could go any way.

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It's taken me a long time to get used to being beaten by my younger brothers.

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And I probably am, I'm not sure.

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I think we're all very competitive.

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My brothers think I'm the most competitive.

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But I have noticed in this light I'm looking a bit older than I think of myself.

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My grey hair seems to stand out.

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So I'm hoping I can stave off old age until I get up this hill.

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I'm actually looking forward to the difficulty and

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putting myself in difficulty, and I'd quite happily come last.

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I'm not fussed to be honest.

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But we'll all try our hardest and see what happens.

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-Hi, Sam.

-Hi.

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-Pretty good. you're up first.

-Yeah.

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We know all the professionals shave their legs, so today I'm becoming a professional.

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We're all quite anti-leg shaving.

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Only because it doesn't improve the performance, so I'm testing out today

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whether it's going to help me climb Ventoux.

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The troublesome spot is behind the knee.

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-Hi.

-Hi.

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-Looks lovely.

-Yeah, should be nice with coffee.

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Sam's the strongest cyclist.

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That's what you keep saying, but I think that's the double bluff.

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It is the double bluff.

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I've tried to reclaim my rightful place as older brother and best at everything.

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-But I can never do it.

-When did you lose that title?

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-When I was about 12.

-I think probably in the first few kilometres I'll try and break you both.

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I made secret preparations.

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It's pretty good.

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So you shaved your lower leg.

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-You didn't shave the top bit though.

-Yeah, well I didn't have time.

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I only done one leg.

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So I'm a bit worried I'll be going round in circles due to aerodynamics.

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-You look like a professional.

-I'll be half a professional.

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-Have you ever shaved your legs before?

-No. Have you?

-No.

-Have you, Danny?

-I don't think so.

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-You don't think so?

-No, I'm sure I haven't. I don't think I would have.

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Well, Nana always said I had nice legs, lovely legs.

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From that photo in the kilt, isn't it?

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-I think Nana was a bit obsessed with kilts.

-Yeah, and lovely legs!

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THEY LAUGH

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-To Ventoux.

-Good luck.

-Thank you.

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Now it just remains for us to locate our inner warriors and steel ourselves for the battle ahead.

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We each prepare for the race in our own unique way.

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So far on Hannibal's trail, we've been working very well together as a team.

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Mending punctures together, setting up tents. Today, up Mont Ventoux, that may all change.

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I suppose, to see myself lose to my brothers on TV,

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and everyone else in the world to see it,

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is a bit worrying, so I think I'd better win.

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So now, the gloves are off.

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Good luck, gents.

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It beautiful Saturday morning as we set off, and it feels like half the country is also out for a ride.

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We've been on the road for nearly three weeks now,

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and covered about 1200 kilometres of Hannibal's journey.

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But this is the first time we've been really tested.

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It gives you renewed respect for the stamina of the Carthaginian soldiers.

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A very difficult middle part of the climb. It's got to be easier now.

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Sam's very strong. He just left.

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And none of us could stay with him.

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We sort of split up all at the same time.

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Not sure where Danny is. But hopefully not too far behind.

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In fact, I'm still about half an hour behind,

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and starting to wonder if I can make it to the top.

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It's constant 21 kilometre uphill climb.

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A victorious Sam crosses the finish line in an impressive two hours ten minutes.

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Not much to say.

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I'm stuffed.

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Ben makes it about 20 minutes later. But he's having trouble.

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Sam, Sam, Sam. Hammy, hammy, hammy.

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Just drop it, drop it, drop it. Oh!

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Can we get off now? 'And my time is around two hours 40 minutes.'

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'But I'm not disappointed.'

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It's the toughest thing I've ever done.

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Gosh.

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I think the prunes kept me going.

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Honestly. Granny's favourite food.

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I just dug into my bag and stuffed them in my mouth. I'm just going to lay down.

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I kept stopping for cramp and hoping Danny would come round the corner just so I could say hello.

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And he did eventually.

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And then we sort of leapfrogged each other as we got cramps.

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We've managed to conquer the Giant of Provence, and the view from the top is spectacular.

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There is a reward for all that suffering. It's one hour downhill freewheeling.

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-That'll be a lot of fun.

-Lead the way.

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Today's been tough, but this journey would have been much tougher for Hannibal and his army.

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Yee-ha!

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It makes you wonder what drove them on.

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It must have been Hannibal's obsession with bringing Rome to its knees.

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In the next programme - Hannibal gets cut off from his men.

0:28:080:28:14

We try to work out which route he took across the Alps.

0:28:140:28:19

And we catch sight of Italy where all roads lead to Rome.

0:28:190:28:23

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:28:230:28:27

E-mail [email protected]

0:28:270:28:30

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