Battle of Cannae
2 August 216 BCE · in Battle View, played out step by step on the ground where it was fought
Hannibal encircled and destroyed a much larger Roman army in southern Italy, one of the most famous tactical victories in history.
The sides
- Rome, led by Varro and Aemilius Paullus: about 86,400 men
- Carthage, led by Hannibal: about 50,000 men
States that fought: Roman Republic, Carthage.
How it went
Battle of Cannae
Two years after crossing the Alps, Hannibal has beaten Rome at the Trebia and at Lake Trasimene. Rome answers with the largest army it has ever raised, eight legions and as many allies under the consuls Varro and Paullus. They find Hannibal at Cannae in Apulia, where he has taken their grain store, and on 2 August 216 BCE they offer battle.
The armies deploy
Morning on the plain by the Aufidus. Rome puts its legions in a deep, narrow block to smash through the middle. Hannibal faces it with a thin bow of Gauls and Spaniards bulging forward, his best men, the Libyans, held back on either end, and his horse on the wings.
Skirmishers open the battle
Light troops run out between the lines. Roman velites throw javelins; Balearic slingers answer with stones. Neither side gives way.
Hasdrubal breaks the Roman horse
By the river there is no room to manoeuvre. Hasdrubal's heavy horse crashes into the Roman cavalry, men dismount and fight on foot, and the Roman horse is cut down. Paullus, wounded, joins the infantry.
The legions push into the bow
The legions drive into the Gauls and Spaniards. Step by step Hannibal's centre gives ground, as he intended, until the bow bends inward and the Romans crowd forward into the hollow.
Varro's horse flees
Hasdrubal rides right round the back of the Roman army and falls on the allied horse, already busy with the Numidians. It breaks and runs, Varro with it. The Numidians chase it off the field.
The trap closes
Now the Libyans, untouched so far, turn inward on both flanks of the packed Romans, and Hasdrubal's horse comes back to strike them from behind. Some 70,000 men are surrounded, too tightly packed to use their weapons.
Slaughter
Through the long afternoon the ring tightens. By evening perhaps 50,000 to 70,000 Romans and allies lie dead, Paullus among them, in one of the bloodiest days of fighting in history. Hannibal loses about 6,000, most of them Gauls.
Numbers after Polybius. Where exactly on the Aufidus the battle was fought is still argued over; this follows one common reading.
People and wars
- Hannibal (c. 247 BCE – 183 BCE): Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps with war elephants in the Second Punic War and inflicted major defeats on Rome, notably at Cannae in 216 BCE.
- Second Punic War (218–201 BCE): War in which Hannibal invaded Italy across the Alps and won major victories before Rome, under Scipio, defeated Carthage at Zama in 202 BCE.