The History of Rome, Book III - Theodor Mommsen
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Battle on the Trasimene Lake
No plan was ever more successful. In haste, the consul followed the
line of march of the enemy, who passed by Arezzo and moved slowly
through the rich valley of the Chiana towards Perugia. He overtook
him in the district of Cortona, where Hannibal, accurately informed
of his antagonist's march, had had full time to select his field of
battle--a narrow defile between two steep mountain walls, closed at
its outlet by a high hill, and at its entrance by the Trasimene lake.
With the flower of his infantry he barred the outlet; the light troops
and the cavalry placed themselves in concealment on either side. The
Roman columns advanced without hesitation into the unoccupied pass;
the thick morning mist concealed from them the position of the enemy.
As the head of the Roman line approached the hill, Hannibal gave the
signal for battle; the cavalry, advancing behind the heights, closed
the entrance of the pass, and at the same time the mist rolling away
revealed the Phoenician arms everywhere along the crests on the right
and left. There was no battle; it was a mere rout. Those that
remained outside of the defile were driven by the cavalry into the
lake. The main body was annihilated in the pass itself almost without
resistance, and most of them, including the consul himself, were cut
down in the order of march. The head of the Roman column, formed of
6000 infantry, cut their way through the infantry of the enemy, and
proved once more the irresistible might of the legions; but, cut off
from the rest of the army and without knowledge of its fate, they
marched on at random, were surrounded on the following day, on a
hill which they had occupied, by a corps of Carthaginian cavalry,
and--as the capitulation, which promised them a free retreat, was
rejected by Hannibal--were all treated as prisoners of war. 15,000
Romans had fallen, and as many were captured; in other words, the
army was annihilated. The slight Carthaginian loss--1500 men--again
fell mainly upon the Gauls.(3) And, as if this were not enough,
immediately after the battle on the Trasimene lake, the cavalry of
the army of Ariminum under Gaius Centenius, 4000 strong, which Gnaeus
Servilius had sent forward for the temporary support of his colleague
while he himself advanced by slow marches, was likewise surrounded by
the Phoenician army, and partly slain, partly made prisoners. All
Etruria was lost, and Hannibal might without hindrance march on Rome.
The Romans prepared themselves for the worst; they broke down the
bridges over the Tiber, and nominated Quintus Fabius Maximus dictator
to repair the walls and conduct the defence, for which an army of
reserve was formed. At the same time two new legions were summoned
under arms in the room of those annihilated, and the fleet, which
might become of importance in the event of a siege, was put in order.
Hannibal on the East Coast
Reorganization of the Carthaginian Army
But Hannibal was more farsighted than king Pyrrhus. He did not march
on Rome; nor even against Gnaeus Servilius, an able general, who had
with the help of the fortresses on the northern road preserved his
army hitherto uninjured, and would perhaps have kept his antagonist
at bay. Once more a movement occurred which was quite unexpected.
Hannibal marched past the fortress of Spoletium, which he attempted in
vain to surprise, through Umbria, fearfully devastated the territory
of Picenum which was covered all over with Roman farmhouses, and
halted on the shores of the Adriatic. The men and horses of his
army had not yet recovered from the painful effects of their spring
campaign; here he rested for a considerable time to allow his army to
recruit its strength in a pleasant district and at a fine season of
the year, and to reorganize his Libyan infantry after the Roman mode,
the means for which were furnished to him by the mass of Roman arms
among the spoil. From this point, moreover, he resumed his long-
interrupted communication with his native land, sending his messages
of victory by water to Carthage. At length, when his army was
sufficiently restored and had been adequately exercised in the use
of the new arms, he broke up and marched slowly along the coast into
southern Italy.
War in Lower Italy
Fabius
He had calculated correctly, when he chose this time for remodelling
his infantry. The surprise of his antagonists, who were in constant
expectation of an attack on the capital, allowed him at least four
weeks of undisturbed leisure for the execution of the unprecedentedly
bold experiment of changing completely his military system in the
heart of a hostile country and with an army still comparatively small,
and of attempting to oppose African legions to the invincible legions
of Italy. But his hope that the confederacy would now begin to break
up was not fulfilled. In this respect the Etruscans, who had carried
on their last wars of independence mainly with Gallic mercenaries,
were of less moment; the flower of the confederacy, particularly
in a military point of view, consisted--next to the Latins--of the
Sabellian communities, and with good reason Hannibal had now come into
their neighbourhood. But one town after another closed its gates; not
a single Italian community entered into alliance with the Phoenicians.
This was a great, in fact an all-important, gain for the Romans.
Nevertheless it was felt in the capital that it would be imprudent to
put the fidelity of their allies to such a test, without a Roman army
to keep the field. The dictator Quintus Fabius combined the two
supplementary legions formed in Rome with the army of Ariminum,
and when Hannibal marched past the Roman fortress of Luceria towards
Arpi, the Roman standards appeared on his right flank at Aeca.
Their leader, however, pursued a course different from that of his
predecessors. Quintus Fabius was a man advanced in years, of a
deliberation and firmness, which to not a few seemed procrastination
and obstinacy. Zealous in his reverence for the good old times, for
the political omnipotence of the senate, and for the command of the
burgomasters, he looked to a methodical prosecution of the war as
--next to sacrifices and prayers--the means of saving the state.
A political antagonist of Gaius Flaminius, and summoned to the head of
affairs in virtue of the reaction against his foolish war-demagogism,
Fabius departed for the camp just as firmly resolved to avoid a
pitched battle at any price, as his predecessor had been determined at
any price to fight one; he was without doubt convinced that the first
elements of strategy would forbid Hannibal to advance so long as the
Roman army confronted him intact, and that accordingly it would not be
difficult to weaken by petty conflicts and gradually to starve out the
enemy's army, dependent as it was on foraging for its supplies.
March to Capua and Back to Apulia
War in Apulia
Hannibal, well served by his spies in Rome and in the Roman army,
immediately learned how matters stood, and, as usual, adjusted the
plan of his campaign in accordance with the individual character of
the opposing leader. Passing the Roman army, he marched over the
Apennines into the heart of Italy towards Beneventum, took the open
town of Telesia on the boundary between Samnium and Campania, and
thence turned against Capua, which as the most important of all the
Italian cities dependent on Rome, and the only one standing in some
measure on a footing of equality with it, had for that very reason
felt more severely than any other community the oppression of the
Roman government. He had formed connections there, which led him to
hope that the Campanians might revolt from the Roman alliance; but in
this hope he was disappointed. So, retracing his steps, he took the
road to Apulia. During all this march of the Carthaginian army the
dictator had followed along the heights, and had condemned his
soldiers to the melancholy task of looking on with arms in their
hands, while the Numidian cavalry plundered the faithful allies far
and wide, and the villages over all the plain rose in flames. At
length he opened up to the exasperated Roman army the eagerly-coveted
opportunity of attacking the enemy. When Hannibal had begun his
retreat, Fabius intercepted his route near Casilinum (the modern
Capua), by strongly garrisoning that town on the left bank of the
Volturnus and occupying the heights that crowned the right bank with
his main army, while a division of 4000 men encamped on the road
itself that led along by the river. But Hannibal ordered his light-
armed troops to climb the heights which rose immediately alongside
of the road, and to drive before them a number of oxen with lighted
faggots on their horns, so that it seemed as if the Carthaginian army
were thus marching off during the night by torchlight. The Roman
division, which barred the road, imagining that they were evaded and
that further covering of the road was superfluous, marched by a side
movement to the same heights. Along the road thus left free Hannibal
then retreated with the bulk of his army, without encountering the
enemy; next morning he without difficulty, but with severe loss to
the Romans, disengaged and recalled his light troops. Hannibal then
continued his march unopposed in a north-easterly direction; and
by a widely-circuitous route, after traversing and laying under
contribution the lands of the Hirpinians, Campanians, Samnites,
Paelignians, and Frentanians without resistance, he arrived with rich
booty and a full chest once more in the region of Luceria, just as
the harvest there was about to begin. Nowhere in his extensive march
had he met with active opposition, but nowhere had he found allies.
Clearly perceiving that no course remained for him but to take up
winter quarters in the open field, he began the difficult operation
of collecting the winter supplies requisite for the army, by means of
its own agency, from the fields of the enemy. For this purpose he
had selected the broad and mostly flat district of northern Apulia,
which furnished grain and grass in abundance, and which could be
completely commanded by his excellent cavalry. An entrenched camp
was constructed at Gerunium, twenty-five miles to the north of
Luceria. Two-thirds of the army were daily despatched from it to
bring in the stores, while Hannibal with the remainder took up a
position to protect the camp and the detachments sent out.
Fabius and Minucius
The master of the horse, Marcus Minucius, who held temporary command
in the Roman camp during the absence of the dictator, deemed this a
suitable opportunity for approaching the enemy more closely, and
formed a camp in the territory of the Larinates; where on the one hand
by his mere presence he checked the sending out of detachments and
thereby hindered the provisioning of the enemy's army, and on the
other hand, in a series of successful conflicts in which his troops
encountered isolated Phoenician divisions and even Hannibal himself,
drove the enemy from their advanced positions and compelled them to
concentrate themselves at Gerunium. On the news of these successes,
which of course lost nothing in the telling, the storm broke, forth
in the capital against Quintus Fabius. It was not altogether
unwarranted. Prudent as it was on the part of Rome to abide by the
defensive and to expect success mainly from the cutting off of the
enemy's means of subsistence, there was yet something strange in a
system of defence and of starving out, under which the enemy had laid
waste all central Italy without opposition beneath the eyes of a Roman
army of equal numbers, and had provisioned themselves sufficiently for
the winter by an organized method of foraging on the greatest scale.
Publius Scipio, when he commanded on the Po, had not adopted this view
of a defensive attitude, and the attempt of his successor to imitate
him at Casilinum had failed in such a way as to afford a copious fund
of ridicule to the scoffers of the city. It was wonderful that the
Italian communities had not wavered, when Hannibal so palpably showed
them the superiority of the Phoenicians and the nullity of Roman aid;
but how long could they be expected to bear the burden of a double
war, and to allow themselves to be plundered under the very eyes of
the Roman troops and of their own contingents? Finally, it could not
be alleged that the condition of the Roman army compelled the general
to adopt this mode of warfare. It was composed, as regarded its core,
of the capable legions of Ariminum, and, by their side, of militia
called out, most of whom were likewise accustomed to service; and, far
from being discouraged by the last defeats, it was indignant at the
but little honourable task which its general, "Hannibal's lackey,"
assigned to it, and it demanded with a loud voice to be led against
the enemy. In the assemblies of the people the most violent
invectives were directed against the obstinate old man. His political
opponents, with the former praetor Gaius Terentius Varro at their
head, laid hold of the quarrel--for the understanding of which we must
not forget that the dictator was practically nominated by the senate,
and the office was regarded as the palladium of the conservative
party--and, in concert with the discontented soldiers and the
possessors of the plundered estates, they carried an unconstitutional
and absurd resolution of the people conferring the dictatorship, which
was destined to obviate the evils of a divided command in times of
danger, on Marcus Minucius,(4) who had hitherto been the lieutenant
of Quintus Fabius, in the same way as on Fabius himself. Thus the
Roman army, after its hazardous division into two separate corps had
just been appropriately obviated, was once more divided; and not only
so, but the two sections were placed under leaders who notoriously
followed quite opposite plans of war. Quintus Fabius of course
adhered more than ever to his methodical inaction; Marcus Minucius,
compelled to justify in the field of battle his title of dictator,
made a hasty attack with inadequate forces, and would have been
annihilated had not his colleague averted greater misfortune by the
seasonable interposition of a fresh corps. This last turn of matters
justified in some measure the system of passive resistance. But in
reality Hannibal had completely attained in this campaign all that
arms could attain: not a single material operation had been frustrated
either by his impetuous or by his deliberate opponent; and his
foraging, though not unattended with difficulty, had yet been in the
main so successful that the army passed the winter without complaint
in the camp at Gerunium. It was not the Cunctator that saved Rome,
but the compact structure of its confederacy and, not less perhaps,
the national hatred with which the Phoenician hero was regarded on
the part of Occidentals.
New War-like Preparations in Rome
Paullus and Varro
Despite all its misfortunes, Roman pride stood no less unshaken than
the Roman symmachy. The donations which were offered by king Hiero of
Syracuse and the Greek cities in Italy for the next campaign--the war
affected the latter less severely than the other Italian allies of
Rome, for they sent no contingents to the land army--were declined
with thanks; the chieftains of Illyria were informed that they could
not be allowed to neglect payment of their tribute; and even the
king of Macedonia was once more summoned to surrender Demetrius of
Pharos. The majority of the senate, notwithstanding the semblance
of legitimation which recent events had given to the Fabian system
of delay, had firmly resolved to depart from a mode of war that was
slowly but certainly ruining the state; if the popular dictator had
failed in his more energetic method of warfare, they laid the blame
of the failure, and not without reason, on the fact that they had
adopted a half-measure and had given him too few troops. This error
they determined to avoid and to equip an army, such as Rome had never
sent out before--eight legions, each raised a fifth above the normal
strength, and a corresponding number of allies--enough to crush an
opponent who was not half so strong. Besides this, a legion under
the praetor Lucius Postumius was destined for the valley of the Po,
in order, if possible, to draw off the Celts serving in the army of
Hannibal to their homes. These resolutions were judicious; everything
depended on their coming to an equally judicious decision respecting
the supreme command. The stiff carriage of Quintus Fabius, and
the attacks of the demagogues which it provoked, had rendered the
dictatorship and the senate generally more unpopular than ever:
amongst the people, not without the connivance of their leaders,
the foolish report circulated that the senate was intentionally
prolonging the war. As, therefore, the nomination of a dictator was
not to be thought of, the senate attempted to procure the election of
suitable consuls; but this only had the effect of thoroughly rousing
suspicion and obstinacy. With difficulty the senate carried one of
its candidates, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, who had with judgment
conducted the Illyrian war in 535;(5) an immense majority of the
citizens assigned to him as colleague the candidate of the popular
party, Gaius Terentius Varro, an incapable man, who was known only by
his bitter opposition to the senate and more especially as the main
author of the proposal to elect Marcus Minucius co-dictator, and who
was recommended to the multitude solely by his humble birth and his
coarse effrontery.
Battle at Cannae
While these preparations for the next campaign were being made in
Rome, the war had already recommenced in Apulia. As soon as the
season allowed him to leave his winter quarters, Hannibal, determining
as usual the course of the war and assuming the offensive, set out
from Gerunium in a southerly direction, and marching past Luceria
crossed the Aufidus and took the citadel of Cannae (between Canosa
and Barletta) which commanded the plain of Canusium, and had hitherto
served the Romans as their chief magazine. The Roman army which,
since Fabius had conformably to the constitution resigned his
dictatorship in the middle of autumn, was now commanded by Gnaeus
Servilius and Marcus Regulus, first as consuls then as proconsuls,
had been unable to avert a loss which they could not but feel. On
military as well as on political grounds, it became more than ever
necessary to arrest the progress of Hannibal by a pitched battle.
With definite orders to this effect from the senate, accordingly, the
two new commanders-in-chief, Paullus and Varro, arrived in Apulia in
the beginning of the summer of 538. With the four new legions and a
corresponding contingent of Italians which they brought up, the Roman
army rose to 80,000 infantry, half burgesses, half allies, and 6000
cavalry, of whom one-third were burgesses and two-thirds allies;
whereas Hannibal's army numbered 10,000 cavalry, but only about 40,000
infantry. Hannibal wished nothing so much as a battle, not merely for
the general reasons which we have explained above, but specially
because the wide Apulian plain allowed him to develop the whole
superiority of his cavalry, and because the providing supplies for
his numerous army would soon, in spite of that excellent cavalry, be
rendered very difficult by the proximity of an enemy twice as strong
and resting on a chain of fortresses. The leaders of the Roman forces
also had, as we have said, made up their minds on the general question
of giving battle, and approached the enemy with that view; but the
more sagacious of them saw the position of Hannibal, and were disposed
accordingly to wait in the first instance and simply to station
themselves in the vicinity of the enemy, so as to compel him to retire
and accept battle on a ground less favourable to him. Hannibal
encamped at Cannae on the right bank of the Aufidus. Paullus pitched
his camp on both banks of the stream, so that the main force came to
be stationed on the left bank, but a strong corps took up a position
on the right immediately opposite to the enemy, in order to impede his
supplies and perhaps also to threaten Cannae. Hannibal, to whom it
was all-important to strike a speedy blow, crossed the stream with the
bulk of his troops, and offered battle on the left bank, which Paullus
did not accept. But such military pedantry was disapproved by the
democratic consul--so much had been said about men taking the field
not to stand guard, but to use their swords--and he gave orders
accordingly to attack the enemy, wherever and whenever they found him.
According to the old custom foolishly retained, the decisive voice in
the council of war alternated between the commanders-in-chief day by
day; it was necessary therefore on the following day to submit, and
to let the hero of the pavement have his way. On the left bank,
where the wide plain offered full scope to the superior cavalry of
the enemy, certainly even he would not fight; but he determined to
unite the whole Roman forces on the right bank, and there, taking up
a position between the Carthaginian camp and Cannae and seriously
threatening the latter, to offer battle. A division of 10,000 men
was left behind in the principal Roman camp, charged to capture the
Carthaginian encampment during the conflict and thus to intercept the
retreat of the enemy's army across the river. The bulk of the Roman
army, at early dawn on the and August according to the unconnected,
perhaps in tune according to the correct, calendar, crossed the river
which at this season was shallow and did not materially hamper the
movements of the troops, and took up a position in line near the
smaller Roman camp to the westward of Cannae. The Carthaginian army
followed and likewise crossed the stream, on which rested the right
Roman as well as the left Carthaginian wing. The Roman cavalry was
stationed on the wings: the weaker portion consisting of burgesses,
led by Paullus, on the right next the river; the stronger consisting
of the allies, led by Varro, on the left towards the plain. In the
centre was stationed the infantry in unusually deep files, under the
command of the consul of the previous year Gnaeus Servilius. Opposite
to this centre Hannibal arranged his infantry in the form of a
crescent, so that the Celtic and Iberian troops in their national
armour formed the advanced centre, and the Libyans, armed after the
Roman fashion, formed the drawn-back wings on either side. On the
side next the river the whole heavy cavalry under Hasdrubal was
stationed, on the side towards the plain the light Numidian horse.
After a short skirmish between the light troops the whole line was
soon engaged. Where the light cavalry of the Carthaginians fought
against the heavy cavalry of Varro, the conflict was prolonged,
amidst constant charges of the Numidians, without decisive result.
In the centre, on the other hand, the legions completely overthrew
the Spanish and Gallic troops that first encountered them; eagerly the
victors pressed on and followed up their advantage. But meanwhile, on
the right wing, fortune had turned against the Romans. Hannibal had
merely sought to occupy the left cavalry wing of the enemy, that he
might bring Hasdrubal with the whole regular cavalry to bear against
the weaker right and to overthrow it first. After a brave resistance,
the Roman horse gave way, and those that were not cut down were chased
up the river and scattered in the plain; Paullus, wounded, rode to the
centre to turn or, if not, to share the fate of the legions. These,
in order the better to follow up the victory over the advanced
infantry of the enemy, had changed their front disposition into a
column of attack, which, in the shape of a wedge, penetrated the
enemy's centre. In this position they were warmly assailed on both
sides by the Libyan infantry wheeling inward upon them right and left,
and a portion of them were compelled to halt in order to defend
themselves against the flank attack; by this means their advance was
checked, and the mass of infantry, which was already too closely
crowded, now had no longer room to develop itself at all. Meanwhile
Hasdrubal, after having completed the defeat of the wing of Paullus,
had collected and arranged his cavalry anew and led them behind the
enemy's centre against the wing of Varro. His Italian cavalry,
already sufficiently occupied with the Numidians, was rapidly
scattered before the double attack, and Hasdrubal, leaving the
pursuit of the fugitives to the Numidians, arranged his squadrons
for the third time, to lead them against the rear of the Roman
infantry. This last charge proved decisive. Flight was not possible,
and quarter was not given. Never, perhaps, was an army of such size
annihilated on the field of battle so completely, and with so little
loss to its antagonist, as was the Roman army at Cannae. Hannibal
had lost not quite 6000 men, and two-thirds of that loss fell upon
the Celts, who sustained the first shock of the legions. On the other
hand, of the 76,000 Romans who had taken their places in the line of
battle 70,000 covered the field, amongst whom were the consul Lucius
Paullus, the proconsul Gnaeus Servilius, two-thirds of the staff-
officers, and eighty men of senatorial rank. The consul Gaius Varro
was saved solely by his quick resolution and his good steed, reached
Venusia, and was not ashamed to survive. The garrison also of the
Roman camp, 10,000 strong, were for the most part made prisoners of
war; only a few thousand men, partly of these troops, partly of the
line, escaped to Canusium. Nay, as if in this year an end was to
be made with Rome altogether, before its close the legion sent to
Gaul fell into an ambush, and was, with its general Lucius Postumius
who was nominated as consul for the next year, totally destroyed
by the Gauls.