The Slaughter At Cannae
Though he had been from the first on the right wing,
and had taken part in the cavalry engagement, Lucius Aemilius
still survived. Determined to act up to his own exhortatory speech, and seeing that the decision of the battle rested
mainly on the legionaries, riding up to the centre of the line
he led the charge himself, and personally grappled with the
enemy, at the same time cheering on and exhorting his soldiers
to the charge. Hannibal, on the other side, did the same, for
he too had taken his place on the centre from the commencement. The Numidian horse on the Carthaginian right were
meanwhile charging the cavalry on the Roman left; and though,
from the peculiar nature of their mode of fighting, they neither
inflicted nor received much harm, they yet rendered the
enemy's horse useless by keeping them occupied, and charging
them first on one side and then on another. But when
Hasdrubal, after all but annihilating the cavalry by the river,
came from the left to the support of the Numidians, the Roman
allied cavalry, seeing his charge approaching, broke and fled.
At that point Hasdrubal appears to have acted with great skill
and discretion. Seeing the Numidians to be strong in numbers,
and more effective and formidable to troops that had once
been forced from their ground, he left the pursuit to them;
while he himself hastened to the part of the field where the
infantry were engaged, and brought his men up to support the
Libyans. Then, by charging the Roman legions on the rear,
and harassing them by hurling squadron after squadron upon
them at many points at once, he raised the spirits of the
Libyans, and dismayed and depressed those of the Romans.
It was at this point that Lucius Aemilius fell,
in the thick of the fight, covered with wounds:
a man who did his duty to his country at
that last hour of his life, as he had throughout its previous
years, if any man ever did.
1 As long as the Romans could
keep an unbroken front, to turn first in one direction and then
in another to meet the assaults of the enemy, they held out;
but the outer files of the circle continually falling, and the
circle becoming more and more contracted, they at last were
all killed on the field; and among them Marcus Atilius and
Gnaeus Servilius, the Consuls of the previous year, who had
shown themselves brave men and worthy of
Rome in the battle.
While this struggle and carnage were going on, the Numidian
horse were pursuing the fugitives, most of whom they cut down
or hurled from their horses; but some few escaped into
Venusia,
among whom was Gaius Terentius, the Consul, who thus sought
a flight, as disgraceful to himself, as his conduct in office had
been disastrous to his country.
