THE BATTLE OF CANNAE
THE BATTLE OF CANNAE, One of the most accurate ancient battle depictions in modern media en wikipedia org/wiki/Battle of Cannae Swearing vengeance against Rome for the humiliation they inflicted on Carthage Hannibal Barca in his Iberian kingdom set out on an audacious plan to strike at Romes heart in Italy by marching an army of between 60000 and 80000 men overland through southern Gaul and over the Alps Somewhere over 40000 arrived in Italy with Hannibal some months later With inferior numbers Hannibal wielded a tactical and strategic genius which allowed him to twice outsmart and defeat the Roman armies at Lake Trasimene and the River Trebia Appointed Dictator by the Senate of Rome Quintus Fabius Maximus was not about to let Hannibal demolish and humiliate the Romans again He began a policy of delaying a war of attrition which would starve Hannibals army out of Italy This policy lasted as long as Fabius Maximuss Dictatorship After it expired the new Consuls for the year Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus raised an army of some 16 legions numbering between 80000 and 90000 men Roman and Italian to meet Hannibal Barca and defeat him once and for all The ensuing days battle would be the turning point for the Second Punic War and the course of Roman and Carthaginian history Hannibals tactics would be studied and admired by Rome for hundreds of years to come The strategy as it unfolded began by presenting Rome with an unavoidably appealing target the Carthaginian infantry line slightly ragged shaped like a crescent The cavalry met first with Hannibals Iberian Gallic and Carthaginian cavalry quickly defeating the Romans and chasing them off the field completely The Roman army pressed into the infantry which gave ground steadily flexing the crescent shape around and creating a sort of crater for the front lines of the Romans to crash into Much of the center would be stuck in place by the sheer mass of the army moving forward On cue the elite African and Libyan troops of Hannibals army extended the lines and attacked the Roman flanks leaving one line of escape This was sealed shut by the returning heavy cavalry While virtually every Carthaginian line could fight the Romans only the Roman lines on the extreme flanks rear and front could fight while the rest were crushed in the center left to panic that they were surrounded and undoubtedly losing the battle Estimates put the Roman casualties at 50000 with Consul Paullus dead and over eighty Roman Senators killed Carthage lost 6000 dead and 10000 wounded Despite the stunning victory Hannibal Barca did not press on Rome itself Theories range claiming Hannibal could have taken Rome by force while others put forth that because Barca had no siege equipment he would have bled his army out on the walls as the Romans had left a garrison in the city and would scrape together all the troops they could to defend the city to the death Hannibal was ultimately defeated by Publius Cornelius Scipio at the Battle of Zama after spending over a decade in Italy victim of returning Dictator Quintus Fabius Maximuss delaying tactics an entire Roman army keeping Hannibal pinned in Italy while Scipio led another army to ultimately destroy Hannibals kingdom in Iberia Hannibal risked the journey to Carthage with his ragged army when Carthage itself was threatened by Rome