Battle of Cannae - Hannibal at Cannae

To add to their trouble, only a few days afterwardsward Cannae they got word that their army in Cisalpine Gaul had been ambushed and destroyed by the Gauls. At near ten thousand men escaped the battle and make their way to Venusia and Canusia, far too few even to require an "army in being," the more so since in believe of their experience their battle-readiness must have been poor and their morale worse.

The manakin of the state of war that followed Cannae was fundamentally different from the war as it had been fought in its first two years, from the fall of 218 when Hannibal descended into Italy until Cannae in the summer of 217. Although the succeed phase, a war of maneuver, was foreshadowed by the strategy followed by Fabius during his totalitarianism (and for a few months thereafter), the two opening years of the war were characterized by battles, the two set-piece battles of Trebia and Cannae, and the enormous ambush at Lake Trasumennus. still in the last, though the Romans never had a chance there to deploy into battle order, the ambush was set up by Flaminius' determination to bring Hannibal to battle.

After Cannae, there were no but regular set-piece battles between Hannibal and the Romans on an equivalent scale, or with such decisive results, until Zama fully sixteen years later. The Romans avoided full-scale engagements in the field through much of that period, initially because after Cannae they had no army to fight one, and subseque

In the conclusion to Book III, Polybius says that he has "described the events in Spain and Italy that occurred during the 140th Olympiad," including by implication the entire year 216. A summary by Athenaeus of the lost beginning of Book septette hints that Polybius dealt there with the rebellion of Capua against Rome, contains this summary, referenced to Athenaeus 12.528. and perhaps he similarly discussed there the entire strategic aftermath of Cannae. If so, he set his formal chronology in the interest of dramatic unity, and if by few miracle the full text of Book VII should turn up, it whitethorn have Polybius' analysis of Hannibal's decision not to march on Rome.

Sabin, Philip. The mechanics of battle in the Second Punic War.

In Cornell, Tim; Rankov, Boris, and Sabin, Philip; The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal. London: represent of Classical Studies, 1996, 59-80.

drawn-out but not initially bloody nature of ancient infantry confrontations [is] that a lot more time was

notable for the losses on both sides than this would

Moreover, Hannibal is describe to have told the the prisoners, on making the ransom proposal, that "he was waging, he said, no war of extermination with them, but was contending for honour and dominion." This sounds real close to being a preliminary feeler for armistice terms. If the Romans accepted the release and repatriation of their prisoners in turn for ransom--i.e., a ramify of tribute--the groundwork would be laid, and a certain momentem established, towards a negotiated settlement, the net terms of which might include a further tribute, and for certain would include Roman abandonment of the war effort and of their alliance-system of conceal through Italy.

Polybius. Histories. W.R. Paton, trans. 16 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1922.

Immediately after Cannae, as noted earlier, the only field force the Romans had was comprised of the survivors of Cannae at Venusia and Canusium, who
Order your essay at Orderessay and get a 100% original and high-quality custom paper within the required time frame.