Early in the spring of 218 BC Hannibal assembled a Carthaginian army of 90,000
foot, 12,000 horse and 37 elephants, to attack the Romans on their own Territory.
His plan was to cross the Mediterranean
Sea and then march through the Iberian peninsular and (Transalpine) Gaul,
then cross the Alps, into Cisalpine Gaul (modern Northern Italy), conquering not
only Gaul, Etruria, and the other provinces, but Rome itself.
Once he crossed
the river Iberus, his troubles began. The tribes there fought with
him for every inch of the way, and when he came to the foot of the the Pyrenees
(
Pirenčus,
Pirineus,
Pyrénées)
the fourth part of his army had been killed. At the sight of the snow-topped
Pyrenees mountains 11,000 soldiers refused to go further. Hannibal,
reasoning that unwilling soldiers make bad fighters told them to leave if they
wanted, and off they went. 
Leaving
about 20,000 troops with his brother Hasdrubal, Hannibal left Spain ahead of the
Roman army he knew would be arriving. Hannibal marched on with the
remainder of his army over the Pyrenees, through what is now the Languedoc, recruiting
reinforcements from Celtic tribes as he went. The route taken by Hannibal
probably broadly corresponds to the Via
Domatia later built by the Romans, running from (modern) Italy to (modern)
Spain, and to the modern A9 highway, "La Languedocienne", National Road 112.
Hannibal's route continued onto the Alps, which he crossed by a route that seemed
so difficult that it was not even guarded. He went on the further success,
but, disasterously, never got round to attacking Rome itself. For more information
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