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Battle of Cannae
Definition
by Joshua J. Mark
published on 20 December 2011
In 216 BCE, Roman military tactics were still in their infancy.
AlthoughRome had won many impressive victories during the
First Punic War, they continued to rely on their old tactic of placing a
numerically superior force in the field to overwhelm the enemy. The
typical Roman formation was to position light infantry toward the
front masking the heavy infantry and then coordinating light and
heavy cavalry on the back wings. This formation had worked well in
Rome’s wars with theGreek King Pyrrhus who, although victorious at
the Battle of Asculum (279 BCE), lost so many men that his army
could not continue on to take the city. Pyrrhus used much the same
strategy as the Romans did: he would place a large force in the field
and rely on the superior numbers and the charge to break the Roman
ranks. At the Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, however, the Romans
would learn an important lesson in military strategy from a general
who fought like no other had before him.
HANNIBAL'S SKILLS & ROME'S RESPONSE
The Carthaginian general Hannibal started the Second Punic War when
he attacked the city of Saguntum, a Roman ally, in southern Spain in
218 BCE. He then invaded northern Italy by marching his army across
the Alps from Spain. Once descended onto the plains, he began
advancing through Roman territory taking small cities and villages
and defeating Roman forces twice; once at Trebia, at the Ticino River,
and again at Lake Trasimene. By 217 BCE, Hannibal held all of
northern Italy and the Roman senate feared he would march upon
Rome. Little was being done, they felt, by the consulQuintus Fabius
Maximus, who controlled the army and was following a policy of
harassing Hannibal and thwarting his plans through strategic
movements rather than full engagement.
“IT WAS A SUPREME EXAMPLE OF
GENERALSHIP, NEVER BETTERED IN
HISTORY". DURANT
In 216 BCE the consul Minucius Rufus was elected to command with
Fabius and called for direct confrontation with the invading
Carthaginian army. He was swiftly defeated by Hannibal who used
tactics which the Roman command could not understand until it was
too late. According to the historian Durant, “The Romans could not
readily forgive him [Hannibal] for winning battles with his brains rather
than with the lives of his men. The tricks he played upon them, the
skill of his espionage, the subtlety of his strategy, the surprises of his
tactics were beyond their appreciation” (48). With the defeat of Rufus,
Rome scrambled to mobilize another force to take the field.
THE BATTLE AT CANNAE
The two consuls Lucius Aemilius Paulus and Caius Terentius Varro led
a force of over 50,000 against Hannibal’s less than 40,000 and met
him in battle at Cannae. Hannibal disguised his intentions by placing
his light infantry of Gauls at the front to mask his heavier infantry
whom he positioned in a crescent formation behind them. At a given
signal just before battle, the light infantry fell back to form two wings
of reserves. Hannibal’s light and heavy cavalry were positioned at the
extreme wings of the position. The Romans, following their usual
understanding of battle in which superior forces would overwhelm by
sheer strength, arrayed their forces in traditional formation with light
infantry masking the heavier and the cavalry also to the wings.
Battle of Cannae - Destruction of the Roman Army
When the Roman legions began their march toward the Carthaginian
lines, the Carthaginian infantry fell back before them. The Romans
took this as a positive sign that they were winning and pressed on.
The Carthaginian light infantry, who had earlier fallen back, now took
up position on either end of the crescent formed by their heavy
infantry. At this same time the Carthaginian cavalry charged
the Roman cavalry and engaged them. The Roman infantry
continued their charge into the enemy’s ranks but, precisely because
of their traditional formation, could make no use of their superior
numbers. Those soldiers toward the back of the ranks merely served
to push those before them onward. At the same time, the Carthaginian
heavy cavalry drove back the Roman cavalry, opening a breach in the
lines to the rear of the infantry. As the cavalry forces engaged, and as
the Roman infantry continued its advance, Hannibal signaled for the
trap to close. The light infantry which formed the ends of the crescent
of the Carthaginian line now moved up to form an alley in which the
Roman forces found themselves trapped. The Carthaginian cavalry fell
upon the Roman infantry from behind, the light infantry attacked from
the flanks, and the heavy infantry engaged from the front. The
Romans were surrounded and were almost completely annihilated. Out
of the over 50,000 who took the field, 44,000 were killed and 10,000
managed to escape to Canusium. Hannibal lost 6,000 men, mostly the
Gauls, who had made up the front lines.
THE AFTERMATH
According to Durant, “It was a supreme example of generalship, never
bettered in history. It ended the days of Roman reliance upon infantry
and set the lines of military tactics for two thousand years” (51).
Among those Romans who escaped Cannae was the twenty-year old
Publius Cornelius Scipio. Scipio would remember Hannibal’s tactics at
Cannae and, further, would study his other successful engagements.
Fourteen years later, at the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE, Scipio would
use Hannibal’s own tricks to defeat him and win the Second Punic War.
Roman skill on the battlefield, through which they became masters of
the world, can be traced directly back to Scipio Africanusand his
adaptations of Hannibal’s strategies at Cannae.
Battle of Zama,
(202 BCE),
victory of the Romans led by Scipio Africanus the Elder over the Carthaginians
commanded byHannibal. The last and decisive battle of the Second Punic War, it
effectively ended both Hannibal’s command of Carthaginian forces and also Carthage’s
chances to significantly oppose Rome. The battle took place at a site identified by the
Roman historian Livy as Naraggara (now Sāqiyat Sīdī Yūsuf, Tunisia). The name Zama
was given to the site (which modern historians have never precisely identified) by the
Roman historian Cornelius Nepos about 150 years after the battle.
By the year 203 Carthage was in great danger of attack from the forces of the Roman
general Publius Cornelius Scipio, who had invaded Africa and had won an important
battle barely 20 miles (32 km) west of Carthage itself. The Carthaginian
generals Hannibal and his brother Mago were accordingly recalled from their campaigns
in Italy. Hannibal returned to Africa with his 12,000-man veteran army and soon
gathered a total of 37,000 troops with which to defend the approaches to Carthage.
Mago, who had sustained battle wounds during a losing engagement
in Liguria (near Genoa), died at sea during the crossing.
Scipio, for his part, marched up the Bagradas (Majardah) River toward Carthage,
seeking a decisive battle with the Carthaginians. Some of Scipio’s Roman forces were
reinvigorated veterans from Cannae who sought redemption from that disgraceful
defeat. Once his allies had arrived, Scipio had about the same number of troops as
Hannibal (around 40,000 men), but his 6,100 cavalrymen, led by
the Numidian ruler Masinissa and the Roman general Gaius Laelius, were superior to
the Carthaginian cavalry in both training and quantity. Because Hannibal could not
transport the majority of his horses from Italy, he was forced to slaughter them to keep
them from falling into Roman hands. Thus, he could field only about 4,000 cavalry, the
bulk of them from a minor Numidian ally named Tychaeus.
Hannibal arrived too late to prevent Masinissa from joining up with Scipio, leaving Scipio
in a position to choose the battle site. That was a reversal of the situation in Italy, where
Hannibal had held the advantage in cavalry and had typically chosen the ground. In
addition to utilizing 80 war elephants that were not fully trained, Hannibal was also
compelled to rely mostly upon an army of Carthaginian recruits that lacked much battle
experience. Of his three battle lines, only his seasoned veterans from Italy (between
12,000 to 15,000 men) were accustomed to fighting Romans; they were positioned at
the rear of his formation.
Before the battle, Hannibal and Scipio met personally, possibly because Hannibal,
perceiving that battle conditions did not favour him, hoped to negotiate a generous
settlement. Scipio may have been curious to meet Hannibal, but he refused the
proposed terms, stating that Carthage had broken the truce and would have to face the
consequences. According to Livy, Hannibal told Scipio, “What I was years ago
at Trasimene and Cannae, you are today.” Scipio is said to have replied with a message
for Carthage: “Prepare to fight because evidently you have found peace intolerable.”
The next day was set for battle.
As the
two armies approached each other, the Carthaginians unloosed their 80 elephants into
the ranks of the Romaninfantry, but the great beasts were soon dispersed and their
threat neutralized. The failure of the elephant charge can likely be explained by a trio of
factors, with the first two being well documented and most important. First, the
elephants were not well trained. Second—and perhaps even more vital to the
outcome—Scipio had arranged his forces in maniples (small, flexible infantry units) with
broad alleys between them. He had trained his men to move to the side when the
elephants charged, locking their shields and facing the alleys as the elephants passed
by. That caused the elephants to run unimpeded through the lines with little, if any,
engagement. Third, the loud shouts and blaring trumpets of the Romans may have
disconcerted the elephants, some of which swerved to the side early in the battle and
instead attacked their own infantry, causing chaos on the front line of Hannibal’s
recruits.
Scipio’s cavalry then charged the opposing Carthaginian cavalry on the wings; the latter
fled and were pursued by Masinissa’s forces. The Roman infantry legions then
advanced and attacked Hannibal’s infantry, which consisted of three consecutive lines
of defense. The Romans crushed the soldiers of the first line and then those of the
second. However, by that time the legionnaires had become nearly exhausted—and
they had yet to close with the third line, which consisted of Hannibal’s veterans from his
Italian campaign (i.e., his best troops). At that crucial juncture, Masinissa’s Numidian
cavalry returned from their rout of the enemy cavalry and attacked the rear of the
Carthaginian infantry, who were soon crushed between the combined Roman infantry
and the cavalry assault. Some 20,000 Carthaginians died in the battle, and perhaps
20,000 were captured, while the Romans lost about 1,500 dead. The Greek
historian Polybius states that Hannibal had done all that he could as a general in battle,
especially considering the advantage held by his opponent. That Hannibal was fighting
from a position of weakness does not in any way diminish Scipio’s victory forRome,
however. With the defeat of Carthage and Hannibal, it is likely that Zama awakened in
Rome a vision of a larger future for itself in the Mediterranean.
The Battle of Zama left Carthage helpless, and the city accepted Scipio’s peace terms
whereby it ceded Spain to Rome, surrendered most of its warships, and began paying a
50-year indemnity to Rome. Scipio was awarded the surname Africanus in tribute of his
victory. Hannibal escaped from the battle and went to his estates in the east
near Hadrumetum for some time before he returned to Carthage. For the first time in
decades, Hannibal was without a military command, and never again did he lead
Carthaginians into battle. The indemnity Rome set as payment from Carthage was
10,000 silver talents, more than three times the size of the indemnity demanded at the
conclusion of the First Punic War. Although the Carthaginians had to publicly burn at
least 100 ships, Scipio did not impose harsh terms on Hannibal himself, and Hannibal
was soon elected as suffete (civil magistrate) by popular vote to help administer a
defeated Carthage.
Conclusively ending the Second Punic War with a decisive Roman victory, the Battle of
Zama must be considered one of the most important battles in ancient history. Having
staged a successful invasion of Africa and having vanquished its canniest and mostimplacable foe, Rome began its vision of a Mediterranean empire.