On Hannibal's Trail

We're setting off on a ten-week journey, cycling 3,500km

on the trail of the great Carthaginian warrior Hannibal.

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

across the Alps and into Italy.

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

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

I'm Danny Wood. I'm a journalist and like Hannibal, I'm travelling with my brothers.

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

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

and 37 elephants.

ELEPHANT TRUMPETS

We're armed with three bikes...

Three tents... and a bike-cam.

We'll ride wherever Hannibal marched his troops and elephants.

Across rivers and over the Pyrenees and the Alps.

And we'll discover how he won some of the greatest victories in history,

bringing Rome to the brink of destruction.

Cartagena in southern Spain.

Hannibal's march on Rome started here.

And over 2,000 years later, the locals haven't forgotten him.

We've been invited to a party thrown by the local Carthaginians and Romans Society.

CHEERING

Every year, they dress up and celebrate the days

when their city was called New Carthage, ruled by Hannibal and his family.

And Hannibal and his two brothers, Hasdrubal and Mago, are here tonight.

So you're Hannibal. What do you think Hannibal was like?

Do you have any advice for us?

Do you have any advice for when we march to Rome?

Don't leave any Roman alive!

We'll do our best. Good luck. Thanks. We'll need it.

Oh, thank you. Thank you very much.

'As the night wears on, we all get more and more into the Carthaginian spirit.'

First night and we're in a hotel.

It could be the last time we're in a hotel for a while.

But, er, the Carthaginians and Romans dinner was absolutely fantastic.

Danny, Ben and I got to meet Hannibal, Hasdrubal and Mago,

the three guys we're following in history,

but these were the modern versions,

who were dressed up and it was really odd, but it was excellent.

It really kind of brought it to life early on.

I'm equipped with Hasdrubal's coin.

He was very nice, Hasdrubal, at the dinner tonight.

Hopefully it'll be a good luck charm cause I think it's going to be very difficult.

Not just the riding,

but the filming. But I'm very, very excited about it, too.

With thicker heads than is wise at the start of a 3,500km bike ride,

we're ready to leave Cartagena.

Our Carthaginian friends have come to cheer us on our way.

Hannibal set out on his long journey to Rome in May 218 BC.

He was 30 years old and ruler of much of Spain,

which was then part of the mighty Carthaginian Empire.

So it's the first day of our ride and we've just passed through

a town called Dolores, which in Spanish means pain, or pain in plural.

And I'm sure we'll be experiencing a lot of that over the next ten weeks.

It's so amazing to be on the road.

We've been thinking about this for two years and planning it.

And we're coming to about our 50th kilometre of 5,000,

so I hope that feeling will last.

I can remember as a kid of three or four being dragged round the ruins of Delphi

in Greece and really from that age I've been pretty fascinated with things ancient,

and the idea of following Hannibal, Rome's greatest enemy,

is just to me something that is spectacular and fantastic.

Oh, well. First night in the tent.

It was a bit of an initiation by fire today.

The riding was very hot, it was much, much longer than we expected.

Got here at last.

A day which started quite early this morning ended about half an hour ago

and we've just put up our tents and we've all done a pretty bad job of it,

especially by looking of the side of my tent.

It's pretty hard actually, getting into a tent

when it's dark and you arrive at a campsite and you've got to set it up.

I'm sounding a bit like a whinger, but it's tougher than I thought,

and...yeah, I just hope we get a good night's sleep in these things.

Day two and Ben is chief navigator.

So, we're using a lot of modern technology to find our way along Hannibal's trail.

We plot our route online and transfer it to our little GPS units

and trust that they'll tell us the right way to go.

Now, of course, this is completely different to how Hannibal would

have navigated his way through enemy territory.

He had guides, and this is our little guide.

The ancient town of Elche.

These palm trees were already growing here when Hannibal passed through.

A vital part of the local economy, they were cultivated

for their dates and used as a building material.

This place was under Carthaginian control,

so Hannibal would have been welcome here.

One of Hannibal's greatest challenges was how to feed such a vast army.

He needed a constant supply of food and wine.

Friendly places like Elche were a godsend.

It gave him the chance to stop, take stock and re-supply

before continuing the long march north.

Not much is known for sure about Hannibal's story,

but luckily for us, we do have the work of two ancient historians,

Polybius and Livy, to guide us.

Polybius was a Greek soldier and historian.

He was writing about 50 years after Hannibal

and like us, he followed in the great commander's footsteps.

But the great thing is, he was able to speak to people who took part in the war.

Livy, on the other hand, was writing about 150 years after Polybius.

He was a Roman and very anti-Hannibal.

He didn't hesitate to accuse Hannibal of inhuman cruelty

and a disregard of truth and honour.

Sometimes the accounts of the two historians differ, but one of the things

Polybius and Livy do agree on is why Hannibal was so determined to defeat Rome.

His father, Hamilcar, had ingrained in him a deep hatred of the Romans.

When Hannibal was just nine years old,

his father took him to a temple where he was preparing a sacrifice.

He led the small boy to the altar, and made him lay his hands

on the sacrificial lamb and swear an oath to the Carthaginian God Baal

to prove himself as soon as he could an enemy of the Roman people.

For Hannibal and his father, this was personal.

In Hamilcar's day, the Carthaginian Empire stretched across north Africa,

the Mediterranean islands and the south coast of Spain.

Rome only held central and southern Italy,

but was beginning to flex its imperial muscles.

These two great superpowers clashed over domination of the Mediterranean.

The Romans drove Carthage out of Sicily and Sardinia.

Hannibal's father, Hamilcar, vowed vengeance.

He was determined to re-build Carthaginian power and influence

and he chose Spain to do it.

He was remarkably successful. Within ten years, he'd conquered

many of the local tribes, including the Turdetani and the Contestani.

So Hamilcar transformed southern Spain into a Carthaginian power base.

It was from here that Hannibal would launch his strike at the heart of Rome.

Livy described Hannibal as a man with the devil in his heart and a torch in hand.

Once he was in charge in Spain, war with Rome was inevitable.

Before hitting the road again, we bump into some fellow cyclists

on a special journey of their own.

Sarah and Chris, what are you doing in Elche?

We got married two days ago, so for our honeymoon

we're cycling from Alicante to Gibraltar.

You're cycling for your honeymoon?! Hundreds of kilometres?!

And we're camping as well. So are you still recovering from your wedding?

Yes. I lost my voice, unfortunately, through over-ceilidh-ing and

disco-ing and lots of raucous behaviour.

So you guys sound like very experienced touring cyclists.

We're actually following Hannibal's route from Cartagena over the Alps.

Brilliant. That's absolutely superb.

What sort of advice would you have for a ten-week cycling trip?

Get rid of any excess luggage. Just send it all home.

That's me.

You don't need much, we can assure you.

All you need is a toothbrush and a pair of underpants.

And you'll be able to cut the handle off the toothbrush.

To reduce weight, yes. Really, you need to cut back.

This morning we were on a beautiful wind-y road, snaking its way up the coast.

Now with no other choice, we're stuck on one of Spain's one-lane highways.

This is the Costa Blanca, or the Costa del Concrete, as it should be called.

As we pass through Alicante, we come across a modern army.

An army of cyclists.

This is La Vuelta, Spain's largest bike race, and it's just arriving in town.

A fellow Australian is in the leading team.

So you guys were coming first?

Yeah. Um, with a good team leader it provides

good motivation to keep that going,

which hopefully we can until the end, and it's really exciting.

We noticed earlier when you were being handed your bike

by the mechanic and he basically lifted it up with one finger. Yeah.

So, Matt we've both got very long rides ahead today.

We were thinking we could possibly swap bikes.

What do you think of lifting this?

I think I would've gone home sick after stage two.

That is incredible.

Yeah. This is incredible, too.

Yeah, it's amazing. The lightness of this.

That makes me feel like an absolute peasant.

It's just very different.

A different style of riding. See you later.

Yeah. Good luck.

'Well, it was worth a try.'

As Matt and La Vuelta head south,

we continue north along the beaches of the Costa Blanca.

Hannibal would have laid waste to vast swathes of countryside

as he marched through here.

And there's been a more recent invasion force.

Just riding along the promenade here in Benidorm. Quite difficult.

I have to dodge a lot of the British tourists here.

It's possible that Hannibal's soldiers