Superiority in Cavalry Wins Battles
Such was the end of the battle of
Cannae, in which
both sides fought with the most conspicuous gallantry, the
conquered no less than the conquerors. This is proved by the
fact that, out of six thousand horse, only seventy escaped with
Gaius Terentius to
Venusia, and about three hundred of the
allied cavalry to various towns in the neighbourhood. Of
the infantry ten thousand were taken prisoners in fair fight, but
were not actually engaged in the battle: of those who were
actually engaged only about three thousand perhaps escaped
to the towns of the surrounding district; all the rest died
nobly, to the number of seventy thousand, the Carthaginians
being on this occasion, as on previous ones, mainly indebted
for their victory to their superiority in cavalry: a lesson to
posterity that in actual war it is better to have half the
number of infantry, and the superiority in cavalry, than to
engage your enemy with an equality in both. On the side of
Hannibal there fell four thousand Celts, fifteen hundred
Iberians and Libyans, and about two hundred horse.
The ten thousand Romans who were captured had not,
as I said, been engaged in the actual battle;
and the reason was this. Lucius Aemilius
left ten thousand infantry in his camp that,
in case Hannibal should disregard the safety of his own
camp, and take his whole army on to the field, they might
seize the opportunity, while the battle was going on, of
forcing their way in and capturing the enemy's baggage; or if,
on the other hand, Hannibal should, in view of this contingency, leave a guard in his camp, the number of the enemy in
the field might thereby be diminished. These men were
captured in the following circumstances. Hannibal, as a
matter of fact, did leave a sufficient guard in his camp; and
as soon as the battle began, the Romans, according to their
instructions, assaulted and tried to take those thus left by
Hannibal. At first they held their own: but just as they were
beginning to waver, Hannibal, who was by this time gaining
a victory all along the line, came to their relief, and routing the
Romans, shut them up in their own camp; killed two thousand
of them; and took all the rest prisoners. In like manner the
Numidian horse brought in all those who had taken refuge in
the various strongholds about the district, amounting to two
thousand of the routed cavalry.
