Battle of Cannae
About
Hannibal's double-envelopment trapped and annihilated a Roman army twice the size of his own, killing an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 men in a single day. It remains one of history's bloodiest one-day battles. Rome lost more citizens here than on any other day in its history, yet refused to negotiate and eventually won the war. Military academies still teach the maneuver.
What happened here
A Roman army fights the way it camps: in lines, by drill, on ground chosen if possible. The legions form up in cohorts with gaps that let ranks rotate, throw a volley of heavy javelins at close range, and then close with the short sword, pushing behind the shield. Auxiliaries hold the flanks and do most of the cavalry work and most of the skirmishing. Battles are short and decided by whether one line breaks, and the killing happens in the pursuit rather than the fighting. The camp is dug and palisaded every night regardless. Afterwards the dead are stripped and the field is looted for days; the ground is remembered locally long after the campaign is a paragraph in someone's history.
In ancient writing
- Polybius, Histories 3.107–117
The line that bows forward and then folds in, the cavalry closing the back, and a casualty figure the author says he took from men who were there.
Sources
Nearby
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