Chapter XIV: Cannæ

The battle was not until two days later, for Hannibal had been mistaken in imagining on the previous day that Paullus Æmilius had been in command, since it had been Varro.

On the morning that Hannibal wished to fight, he drew up his army in battle array, but Æmilius, not being satisfied with his ground, which he clearly saw was far too favourable to the enemy’s cavalry, declined to come out of camp, and Hannibal, therefore, marched his men in again. He revenged himself, however, by despatching his cavalry to cut off the Roman watering parties that evening. Again, on the following morning, he sent the cavalry to prevent the Roman watering parties from approaching the stream. And this time, being sure of his man, Hannibal knew that he would not have long to wait, and so once more he drew up his troops in battle array and expected Varro. Terentius Varro, who had been furious the day before at his colleague’s delay, and was irritated beyond measure at the insolence of the Carthaginian horse in attacking his water parties, instantly put his forces in motion. Like a nest of hornets the vast army issued from the two camps, the larger force on the south side joining the troops from the lesser camp on the north side of the river. And soon he had no less than eight thousand horse and eighty thousand infantry men in line face to face with Hannibal’s thirty thousand. Varro had left ten thousand more men in camp, with instructions to attack the Carthaginian camp during the battle; but Hannibal, ever wide awake, foresaw this move, and had also left ten thousand in his camp to resist any such enterprise.

What a magnificent sight must have been those two huge armies, the Romans considerably more than double the Carthaginians, in battle array, and facing each other, before the commencement of one of the most awful combats that the world has ever known--the terrible battle of Cannæ!

Hannibal had crossed to the north side of the river into the loop already mentioned, and had thrown out to the front, in skirmishing order, his Balearic slingers and spearmen; the Romans had likewise covered their front with their light-armed men. Thus the action began by the engagement of the skirmishers with each other. Meanwhile, the two armies, taking no part in this combat, remained face to face.

While they are waiting thus, we may as well take a glance at the mutual dispositions of the two armies, beginning with that of Hannibal. He, facing northward, had the horse of his right wing resting on the right bend of the river, and the horse on the left wing resting on the left bend of the river, while the back of the whole of his force was to the river also.

The Romans, seeing that glittering stream flowing thus in rear of their foe on every side, confidently reckoned upon soon turning it into a river of Carthaginian blood. With this object they massed their maniples closer than usual, and to double the usual depth. The Roman forces even then considerably overlapped the Carthaginian army on both sides of the loop, the river thus protecting both Hannibal’s flanks for him, as he had intended that it should.

But the Romans imagined that by the sheer weight of their thousands of heavy-armed infantry thus massed together they would forcibly sweep the Carthaginian foot clean off the plain and into the river behind them. And so, no doubt, they would have done, had it not been for the skilful disposition that Hannibal had made of his own infantry, which utterly frustrated their intention. For he had massed the whole of his heavy infantry in the centre of the plain in the form of the crescent moon, the convex side being towards the enemy and the thinner parts, the horns, bending backwards on each flank towards the river. It was an enormous crescent, certainly, and very thick in the centre, which, being composed of alternate

[IMAGE: ./images/img_240.jpg CAPTION: Battle Field of Cannæ at Commencement of the Action Showing the distribution and Number of the Various Troops Engaged]

companies of Iberians and Gauls, was intended to bear the brunt of the first part of the hand to hand fighting. Of these the Iberian infantry wore short white linen tunics, bordered with purple stripes; but the Gauls were naked to the waist. The Iberians had Roman swords, which could thrust as well as cut; while the Gauls were armed with huge weapons, meant for cutting only. Both Iberians and Gauls had a serviceable shield. The flanks of this enormous crescent were composed of the staunch Libyan infantry, whom Hannibal wished to reserve to the last. They were all armour-clad, and their armour having been captured at Thrasymene, armed identically with the Romans opposed to them, namely, with throwing spears, sword, and shield. The appearance of this motley mass of soldiers of three nations must have been equally terrible and frightening to the Romans as was the appearance of the Roman infantry with their tall, waving plumes to the Carthaginians. Hannibal stationed himself with the centre of the crescent to lead it into action, while Hanno commanded under him. All of the heavy Libyan and Iberian horse on the left were under the command of Hasdrubal, and all the Numidian light horse on the right were under Maharbal’s orders as usual.

The Romans had placed their cavalry in front of their flanks. Paullus Æmilius was in command of the right wing, Terentius Varro of the left, while the two consuls of the previous year commanded the centre. These were Cnœus Servilius and Marcus Atillus, who had gallantly volunteered to remain with the army and fight under their successors. Minucius and young Scipio were respectively with the horse on the Roman right and left wing.

It was a glorious morning in the beginning of August, and the grass upon the plain near the river bank, that was so soon to be crimson with blood or hidden by the heaped-up corpses, was all emerald green, and studded with daisies and buttercups, wild campion and meadow-sweet. The blackbirds and thrushes were merrily singing away in the branches of the occasional plane trees, while, as the several parties of skirmishers advanced upon each other, coveys of young partridges, or small flocks of quail, rose before them with a whirring sound, and, frightened by the lines of glittering spears, and the dazzling gleam of the armour to be seen in all directions, flew frequently over the heads of the opposing forces, the men in jest striking at them with their spears. In the same way the hares, of which there were a great number on the plain, being alarmed by the skirmishers, ran among the feet of the men of the two armies, for there was no exit for them. And the thousands of men, while standing thus and waiting to engage in mortal combat, amused themselves by capturing the timid animals rushing between their legs.

A lovely morning indeed it was, with fur and feather of animal life moving in all directions around. And yet it was a day consecrated to the slaughter, not of mere game, but of man himself--and what a slaughter! For who ever heard of such a battle as that of the battle of Cannæ?

As has been said, Hasdrubal was in command of the heavy Iberian and Celtic cavalry on the left. Now old Sosilus, who was on the field, as usual making notes, had attached himself to this force, and as Polybius learned from him, and recorded later, there was soon some grand fighting on the left wing. For no great results transpired, nor were they expected from the fighting of the light-armed troops. Hasdrubal, therefore, set his cavalry in motion! They were no less than eight thousand in number, and soon, with many a warlike shout, they were thundering over the plain to charge the Roman cavalry, chiefly composed of knights and senators, in front of the Roman right flank. With these were not only the ex-dictator Minucius, but the Consul Paullus Æmilius, who led them in person. And now the account of what happened as given by the worthy Sosilus to the historian Polybius is very pretty and very graphic. He related it much in the following words:

As soon as the Iberian and the Celtic cavalry got at the Romans, the battle began in earnest, and in the true barbaric fashion, for there was none of the usual formal advance and retreat. When they got to close quarters, they grappled man to man, and dismounting from their horses fought on foot, and when the Carthaginians had got the upper hand in this encounter, and killed most of their opponents on the ground, because the Romans all maintained the fight with spirit and determination, they began chasing the remainder along the river, slaying as they went, and giving no quarter. Then the legionaries took the place of the light-armed and closed with the enemy, that is, the Roman infantry attacked the Carthaginian infantry.

For a short time the Gallic and Iberian lines stood their ground and fought gallantly, but presently overpowered by the weight of the heavy-armed Romans, they gave way and retired to the rear, thus breaking up the crescent. The Roman maniples followed with spirit, and cut their way through the enemy’s line, and closed up from the wings towards the centre, the principal point of danger. The two Carthaginian wings did not come into action at the same time as the centre, because the Iberians and Gauls, being stationed on the arc of the crescent, had come into contact with the enemy long before the wings.

The Romans, however, going hastily in pursuit of these troops and closing towards their own centre, now fell into the trap that Hannibal had designed for them. For the Libyan troops that he had placed on either flank now wheeled inwards, the left flank wheeling to the right and attacking the Roman right flank, and the Libyans on the right wheeling in a similar manner to the left and falling upon the Romans’ left. Still the Romans fought bravely, facing outwards; but owing to their numbers, they were so crowded together that they got none of the advantages that those numbers should have given them, for only the outer files could fight. Now Æmilius had been with the cavalry on the left, and fought most manfully against the charge of Hasdrubal; but although severely wounded, after the cavalry reverse, seeing that the decision of the battle rested chiefly on the legionaries, he rode up to the centre of the line and led the charge himself, cheering on and exhorting his men.

Hannibal on the other side did the same, for, as already stated, he had taken his place in the centre from the commencement. Meanwhile the Numidian horse on the right under Maharbal were repeatedly charging the cavalry on the Roman left, and although by their peculiar mode of fighting they neither gave nor received much harm, they rendered them useless by keeping them constantly employed, charging first on one side and then on the other. And now Hasdrubal behaved splendidly and with most soldierly judgment. For he rode along the whole rear of the Romans, attacked with a murderous charge the cavalry force under young Scipio, and with which Maharbal was engaged, and having entirely broken them up, left Maharbal and his Numidians to pursue. He himself returned to the rear of the Roman centre, and then hurled the whole of his heavy cavalry upon the rear of the legionaries in a most fearful rush, the charge being delivered at full gallop. The shock was terrible, and the result upon the Romans most disastrous. And now all their cavalry being defeated, with the heavy cavalry on their rear and the heavy-armed Libyans on both flanks, the Iberians and Gauls having moreover rallied on their front, the wretched Romans were enclosed on every side. So closely were they jammed together that they could not even draw their swords. And thus a fearful slaughter of the Romans set in, and the massacre continued for no less than eight hours. For the outer ranks being constantly mown down in succession, the Carthaginians gradually fought their way over the piles of corpses from all sides towards the centre, and thus, powerless to resist, the Romans were cut down like penned-up sheep by thousands where they stood. The Carthaginian heavy cavalry, being no longer able to urge their horses onward over the piles of the armoured dead, dismounted and continued steadily fighting their way on foot to the centre from the rear.

While this terrible carnage was going on, Hannibal had not been unmindful of his camp, upon which a most determined attack was being made by the ten thousand Romans who had been left in their own camp for the purpose. Seeing that he had now enclosed the legionaries so that they could not get out, and half of them being slain already, and the other half with horror in their eyes waiting their inevitable turn to die, he now took away as many troops as he could spare from the slaughter. Recrossing the River Aufidus, which was not soiled by the blood of a single Carthaginian soldier, after all the men had taken a refreshing drink of the pure water, Hannibal led them up the hill to the rescue of his camp. Here he arrived in the very nick of time, for the garrison were, after a prolonged and spirited resistance, just beginning to waver. Now, however, the Romans found themselves between two forces, and in consequence the ten thousand, or such as survived of them, not wishing to be all killed to a man, as they could see was happening across the river to their comrades, laid down their arms and surrendered themselves as prisoners.

In addition to those taken prisoners, the Romans that day lost no less than seventy thousand in killed. For the Carthaginians slew and slew until they were too weary to strike any longer, and thus at length, of the ninety-eight thousand horse and foot who went into action, either in the big battle or in the fighting round the camp, a miserable remnant of some ten thousand only in all struggled through by degrees to the town of Canusium.

Meanwhile, Maharbal, who had long continued the pursuit and slaughter of the Roman cavalry, returned. He had, comparatively early in the fight, severely wounded young Scipio in the side and in the left arm. It was while he was, with his two thousand Numidians, keeping occupied a vastly superior number of the enemy, that Scipio had boldly ridden forth, and, for the third time in this history, challenged Maharbal to single combat.

The young Roman’s bravery was great, but neither in strength nor in dexterity was he a match for the Numidian, who wounded and unhorsed him after a short hand-to-hand combat, in which Maharbal himself received a trivial wound on the wrist at Scipio’s first violent onslaught. Scipio was overthrown and cast to the ground, his sword falling from his hand. Maharbal leaped to the ground after him and secured the sword.

“Now, Scipio,” he said, holding the point of the blade at his prostrate antagonist’s throat, “could I slay thee with thine own weapon; but I will not, but spare thee even on this the third occasion, as on the two former ones, merely on account of thy bravery. Rise, therefore, and take thy sword and thy horse, and see to it that in the future ye meddle no more with Maharbal the son of Manissa, for thou art by no means any match with him. Fight thou with thine equals!” He helped the wounded warrior on to his horse again. “Now go thou forth,” he said disdainfully, “and see to it that ye trouble me no more.”

And thus he drove off Scipio with scorn, as though a whipped cur, from before his face.

A few days later that same sword came in useful for Scipio in preserving the honour of Rome. For with its blade bared, he rushed in among a body of nobles who had escaped from Cannæ, and were about to fly beyond the seas. And he swore that with it he would slay anyone who would not bind himself not to desert his country.

Meanwhile, as we have said, Maharbal was returning with his men from the pursuit, and carefully threading his way across that terrible plain, whereon of the Roman leaders, Minucius and all of the consuls, except Varro, who escaped to Canusium, lay dead. Seventy thousand corpses lay there, with pale faces and glazed, staring eyes turned up to the skies, many of them displaying bleeding, ghastly wounds as they lay in pools of blood. Horses, either dead or dying, were strewn all over the plain, having in many instances imprisoned beneath them in their fall some wounded warrior, whose agonised face bespoke his misery and fear as he saw the dreaded Numidians approaching. But they left all such to die a lingering death.

“The might of Rome is crushed! ay, absolutely crushed for ever!” exclaimed Maharbal to Chœras by his side, and crossing the Aufidus, he galloped up the hill to where he perceived Hannibal on horseback outside the camp.

“Hannibal, I salute thee, Conqueror of Rome!” he cried, and he flung himself from his horse and grasped his general’s hand. “Hannibal, for ever more the might of Rome is crushed! Send thou me on with the cavalry, do thou follow behind, and in five days thou shalt sup in the Capitol!”

Hannibal warmly returned his friend’s pressure, but made no reply.

END OF PART III.