The phrase has been attributed to Hannibal; when his generals told him it was impossible to cross the Alps by elephant, this was supposedly his response. The first part of the sentence, "inveniam viam", "I shall find a way," also appears in other contexts in the tragedies of Seneca, spoken by Hercules and by Oedipus, and in Seneca's "Hercules Furens" (Act II, Scene 1, line 276) the whole sentence appears, in third person: "inveniet viam, aut faciet."