Sources

The workings.

Every interactive on this site is a reconstruction: real terrain, real primary sources, and honest guesswork where the record runs out. Here is where it all comes from.

Hannibal's Crossing

  • Polybius, The Histories, Book 3 — the closest thing to an eyewitness account. Polybius interviewed survivors and walked parts of the route himself. The army figures (46,000 in, ~26,000 out) and the fifteen-day crossing come from him.
  • Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, Book 21 — written about two centuries later, more dramatic and less reliable, but the source of several famous episodes along the march.
  • The three candidate passes reflect the main scholarly camps. Neither Polybius nor Livy names the pass, and historians have argued about it for over two thousand years — so the map lets you march all three instead of declaring a winner.
  • Elevation data: Terrain Tiles on AWS — © Mapzen and USGS, rendered as a real heightfield of the western Alps.

Attila — The Walls That Held

  • Priscus of Panium, Fragments — the gold standard: a contemporary diplomat who dined at Attila's court. The Margus bishop, the siege of Naissus, the treaty terms and the bones by the river all come from him.
  • Jordanes, Getica (551), Marcellinus Comes (the earthquake and the 57 fallen towers), Callinicus's Life of Hypatius (the «more than a hundred cities»), and the rebuilt walls' own inscriptions — still in place at the Mevlevihane Gate.
  • Dates the historians still argue about are flagged on the cards: most scholars put the fall of Naissus and Serdica in the first Balkan war (441–443); a minority redates them to 447. The map follows the majority and says so.
  • Modern guides: E. A. Thompson, The Huns; Maenchen-Helfen, The World of the Huns; Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire; Christopher Kelly, Attila the Hun.
  • Terrain: Terrain Tiles on AWS (© Mapzen/USGS); coastlines and rivers from Natural Earth. Routes between stops are schematic connectors, not surveyed marching routes.
  • The card illustrations are AI-generated artistic interpretations made for this map, not period artwork — expect the occasional anachronism (the great domed Hagia Sophia, for one, wasn't built until 537).

Routes, day counts and figures are best-effort reconstructions, not settled fact. If you spot an error, send word — corrections are gratefully received.