So many people and institutions have been instrumental in the research and writing of this book that it is impossible to name and credit all of them. I am also indebted to visionary institutions whose leadership encouraged the fieldwork that enabled much of my research, including National Geographic Expeditions Council and Stanford University. These institutions helped me assemble and direct excellent teams through departmental student grants and other research grants over several decades, officially between 1994 and 2012 and unofficially to this day. The Archaeological Institute of America has also sponsored my lectures as a National AIA Lecturer to many academic institutions since 2009, where I have been able to learn much through collegial dialogue at universities and museums. I am also grateful to the Liechtensteinisches Landesmuseum (Liechtenstein National Museum) for opportunities to share research via lecture and to multiple Swiss cantons for different phases of fieldwork, including Valais, St. Gallen, and Graubunden, as well as the Soprintendenza Archeologica del Piemonte and the Soprintendenza per i Beni e le Attività Culturali del Valle d’Aosta, both in Italy, and the Commune of Bramans in Savoie, France, among others. National Geographic Learning and its partner Cengage have also been generous in publishing aspects of our fieldwork as well as providing lecture opportunities to share research. The United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, has also been generous in inviting me to lecture on several occasions to military historian colleagues and graduate students there; its Naval War College Review has also published some of my reviews. Both the Society of Military History (of which I am a member and occasional publication reviewer in its journal) and the Royal Geographical Society (where I am an elected Fellow) have encouraged geographical studies related to topography and war. Wiley’s Encyclopaedia of Ancient History and Encyclopaedia Britannica have also provided me a forum for concise written scholarship on ancient history, especially the latter for Hannibal-related entries.
Individuals at Stanford University who have been tremendous personal resources for my Hannibal research include Vice Provost Dr. Charles Junkerman and Associate Dean Dr. Dan Colman (both for postgraduate teaching opportunities), Professor Susan Treggiari (Classics, on Roman life), Emeritus Professor Antony Raubitschek (Classics, on Greek epigraphy), Professor Josh Ober (Classics, on Political Theory and Hannibal), Professor Michael Wigodsky (Classics, on Polybian Greek), Professor Richard Martin (Classics, on the Greeks), Professor Walter Scheidel (Classics, on ancient economy and slavery), Professor Ian Morris (Classics, on war), Dr. Adrienne Mayor (Classics), and Dean and Professor Richard Saller (Classics, on Rome). All have been inspirational. Professor Victor Davis Hanson (Hoover Institution at Stanford) has also been greatly helpful on ancient warfare. Elsewhere, I am indebted to Professor Roger Wilson at the University of British Columbia (for Roman history); Professor Edward Lipiński at Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven (for Phoenician studies); the late Professor Frank W. Walbank, Emeritus at Liverpool University and Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge (for Polybian studies); and Professor Andrew Wilson, Oxford University (for archaeological science). Professors Timothy Demy, Michael Pavković, Yvonne Masakowski, and Jeffrey Shaw, all at the United States Naval War College, have also been enormously helpful in providing military history insights. Among my own teachers, I must also thank Professor Anthony Snodgrass of Cambridge University; while he was Sather Professor and briefly teaching the Sather Graduate Seminar at University of California, Berkeley, his knowledge of Greek warfare inspired much of my thinking on ancient war. Along the way, I met and conversed with Professor Frank Walbank, as mentioned, at British Museum colloquia, where I was invited to speak in 1996, and when I was a doctoral student at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, I met Professor Lawrence Keppie, University of Glasgow, and learned from his Roman military expertise. I was also fortunate to participate in events during Sir John Boardman’s distinguished Eitner Lectureship at Stanford, including hosting him for dinners and related conversations.
Other colleagues and collaborators who have been most helpful for many years include Dr. François Wiblé, Office of Archaeological Research, Canton of Valais, Martigny, Switzerland, and John Hoyte and Sir Richard Jolly—friends, fellow authors, and fellow mountaineers over Alpine passes who brought an elephant over the Alps in 1959 and with whom I’ve had many relevant conversations while we hiked—as well as archaeologists and friends Dr. Irving Finkel (Department of Middle East), Dr. Ian Jenkins (Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities), and Dr. Jonathan Tubb (Keeper, Department of Middle East) at the British Museum in London. I am also grateful to Dr. Jean-Pascal Jospin, Directeur du Musée archéologique de Grenoble and at the Musée Dauphinois in Grenoble, whose work on the Allobroges Celts has been greatly useful; archaeologist Dr. Paolo Visonà on Punic numismatics; Sir John Boardman of Oxford on Roman history, as mentioned; Professor Lionel Casson at New York University on ancient seafaring and travel; Professor Dr. Rainer Vollkommer, Director of the Liechtenstein National Museum; Dr. Thomas Reitmaier, Archäologischer Dienst Graubünden, Canton of Graubunden, Switzerland; Dr. Martin Schindler, Archäologischer Dienst St. Gallen, Canton of St. Gallen, Switzerland; archaeologist Davide Casagrande of Vercelli on Piemontese archaeology; archaeological scientist Dr. Lorenzo Appolonia of the Soprintendenza of the Valle d’Aosta; historian Geoffroy de Galbert, whose books and hypotheses on Hannibal are important resources; and officers of the Voreppe Historical Society in France, as well as Dr. Samuel Wolff and Professor Lawrence Stager while both were affiliated with the Harvard Semitic Museum and after their Carthage Tophet excavations. Other fellow Hannibal authors whom I know and respect include the insightful Andreas Kluth; John Prevas, a brilliant writer and friend; and Emeritus Professor William Mahaney, indefatigable scientist. Even though we may not agree on minutiae, these individuals have shared a common passion for Hannibal studies. Conversations with Adrian Goldsworthy have always been enormously profitable.
Scholars whose Hannibal work I know and respect greatly have also been enormous assets even though I do not know them personally. These include Dexter Hoyos, Nigel Bagnall, Giovanni Brizzi, Barry Strauss, Richard Miles, Robert Garland, Richard Gabriel, Robert O’Connell, Michael Fronda, Everett Wheeler, Paul Erdcamp, Nic Fields, Eve MacDonald, Peter van Dommelen, and Mark Healy. I also learned from military historians such as John Lazenby, H. H. Scullard, Basil Liddell Hart, and Serge Lancel. All of these authors have made valuable and permanent contributions even while embracing different viewpoints. If I have overlooked or forgotten debts, it is not intentional. And although they are relatively distant, I acknowledge that Napoléon and Carl von Clausewitz were also instrumental in my own Hannibal quests; both were intrigued by his tactics, and Napoléon even attempted to follow Hannibal in multiple Alps crossings—hedging his bets—plus also copying aspects of his marches and maneuvers.
Finally, last but not least, I can never thank enough my most patient editor at Simon & Schuster, Bob Bender, Vice President and Executive Editor, who endured my absences over a decade of archaeological field seasons as this book evolved and whose encouragement has sustained years of research and writing. I also thank Johanna Li, Associate Editor, always efficient but also amazingly sensitive to nuance; Phil Metcalf, Associate Director of Copyediting and a most careful proofreader; and their publishing team. All errors in this book that have escaped attention are my own; if they are interpretive only, perhaps time will settle some debates even as it may leave others unsolved. My family has been most supportive even during fieldwork absences and late nights poring over details, especially my wife, Pamela, whose gentle exhortations will never be repaid or forgotten. To all these, my many debts are obvious while they have enriched my life in uncountable ways.
Stanford, 2017