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Hannibal Occupies Cannae
Thus through all that winter and spring the two
Autumn, B. C. 216.
armies remained encamped facing each other.
But when the season for the new harvest
was come, Hannibal began to move from the
camp at Geronium; and making up his mind that it would
be to his advantage to force the enemy by any possible
means to give him battle, he occupied the citadel of a town
called Cannae, into which the corn and other supplies from
the district round Canusium were collected by the Romans,
and conveyed thence to the camp as occasion required.
The town itself, indeed, had been reduced to ruins the year
before: but the capture of its citadel and the material of war
contained in it, caused great commotion in the Roman army;
for it was not only the loss of the place and the stores in it
that distressed them, but the fact also that it commanded the
surrounding district. They therefore sent frequent messages
to Rome asking for instructions: for if they approached the
enemy they wo
Skirmishes Before Cannae
Next morning the two Consuls broke up their camp,
The Roman army approaches Cannae.
and advanced to where they heard that the enemy
were entrenched. On the second day they
arrived within sight of them, and pitched their
camp at about fifty stades' distance. But when Aemilius observed that the ground was flat and bare for some distance
round, he said that they must not engage there with an enemy
superior to them in cavalry; but that they must rather try to
draw him off, and lead him to ground on which the battle would
be more in the hands of the infantry. But Gaius Terentius being,
from inexperience, of a contrary opinion, there was a dispute
and misunderstanding between the leaders, which of all things
is the most dangerous. Terentius Varro orders an advance. It is the custom, when the two Consuls
are present, that they should take the chief command on alternate days; and the next day
happening to be the turn of Terentius, he
ordered an advance with a view of
The Order of Battle
When he took over the command on the following
Dispositions for the battle of Cannae.
day, as soon as the sun was above the horizon,
Gaius Terentius got the army in motion from
both the camps. Those from the larger camp
he drew up in order of battle, as soon as he had got
them across the river, and bringing up those of the smaller
camp he placed them all in the same line, selecting the south
as the aspect of the whole. The Roman horse he stationed
on the right wing along the river, and their foot next them in
the same line, placing the maniples, however, closer together
than usual, and making the depth of each maniple several
times greater than its front. The cavalry of the allies
he stationed on the left wing, and the light-armed troops he
placed slightly in advance of the whole army, which amounted
with its allies to eighty thousand infantry and a little more
than six thousand horse. At the same time Hannibal brought
his Balearic slingers and spearmen across the
The Battle of Cannae
The battle was begun by an engagement between
The battle, 2d August, B. C. 216.
the advanced guard of the two armies; and
at first the affair between these light-armed
troops was indecisive. But as soon as the
Iberian and Celtic cavalry got at the Romans, the battle
began in earnest, and in the true barbaric fashion: for there
was none of the usual formal advance and retreat; but when
they once got to close quarters, they grappled man to man,
and, dismounting from their horses, fought on foot. But
when the Carthaginians had got the upper hand in this encounter and killed most of their opponents on the ground,—
because the Romans all maintained the fight with spirit and
determination,—and began chasing the remainder along the
river, slaying as they went and giving no quarter; then the
legionaries took the place of the light-armed and closed
with the enemy. For a short time the Iberian and Celtic
lines stood their ground and fought gallantly; but; presently
overpow
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
Hannib
The Consequences of the Battle of Cannae
The result of this battle, such as I have described it,
The results of the battle. Defection of the allies.
had the consequences which both sides expected. For the Carthaginians by their victory
were thenceforth masters of nearly the whole
of the Italian coast which is called Magna Graecia. Thus the
Tarentines immediately submitted; and the Arpani and some
of the Campanian states invited Hannibal to come to them;
and the rest were with one consent turning their eyes to the
Carthaginians: who, accordingly, began now to have high
hopes of being able to carry even Rome itself by assault.
On their side the Romans, after this disaster, despaired of retaining their supremacy over the Italians, and were in the
greatest alarm, believing their own lives and the existence of
their city to be in danger, and every moment expecting that
Hannibal would be upon them.Fall of Lucius Postumius in Gaul. See supra,
ch. 106. For, as though Fortune were
in league wi
Review of Achaean History
IN my former book I explained the causes of the second
B.C. 220-216.
war between Rome and Carthage; and described Hannibal's
invasion of Italy, and the engagements which took place between
them up to the battle of Cannae, on the banks of the Aufidus.
I shall now take up the history of Greece during
the same period, ending at the same date, and
commencing from the 140th Olympiad. But I shall first recall
to the recollection of my readers what I stated in my second book
on the subject of the Greeks, and especially of the Achaeans;
for the league of the latter has made extraordinary progress up
to our own age and the generation immediately preceding.
I started, then, from Tisamenus, one of the sons of Orestes,Recapitulation of
Achaean history, before B.C. 220, contained in Book II., cc. 41-71.
and stated that the dynasty existed from his
time to that of Ogygus: that then there was an
excellent form of democratical federal government established: and that then th