Cannae: The epitome of decisive victory

[torongill]

Gentlemen, may I turn your attention to two facts that haven't been addressed so far?

First, why is it that despite what both Polybius and Livius state, virtually all modern representations feature a east-west facing armies? True, the river for the most part crosses the Cannae plain in an eastern direction, but that may not have always been the case. Furthermore, a river doesn't have to be very wide to represent an obstacle. In fact, the banks would be much more important than the river depth itself.

Second, and that's actually in a way a modification of the KISS principle in my opinion: By doubling the depth and at the same time eliminating the spaces between each maniple, Varro constricts the eight legions under his command(actually sixteen - eight Roman and eight Allied foot) to the same frontage that a consular army(2+2 legions) would have if deployed in the usual order. If Varro was indeed a commander of limited experience as he has been portrayed, having the normal frontage would simplify immensely battlefield communication as far as he was concerned. True, the formation would've become very unwieldly, but that was alright with him, since he must have expected the cavalry to pin and hold the Carthaginian horse, while the legions punch through the enemy center as they had managed to do in the two previous battles against Hannibal(At Trebia the Roman center managed to break through the Carthaginian line, despite being attacked from the back and the sides; At Trasimene the Extraordinarii and/or the Roman vanguard slaughtered their way though the ambush, which might have been what Hannibal wanted, since the bottlestopper were light troops iirc.). The fact that just the first couple of ranks would be able to throw their pila would be compensated by the quadruple depth of the velites present. So from the PoV of Varro, it would be like a normal consular battle, except that the cavalry wouldn't break and the infantry would have much more momentum and would require much less time to break through the enemy line.

[Duptar]

torongill and CBR,

I am in Florida at the moment for vacation. I can get back to you all in a few days. Yes Hanny's on leave for a month.

Duptar

[Blood Raven]

Of all Rome's defeats, Cannae was decisive in one way because it sets Rome's path towards empire with scipio's invasion of Carthaginian Spain, I'd say the varian disaster and the battle of Adrianople were far more decisive in that the varian disaster completely halted permanent expansion beyond the rhine and adrianople would lead indirectly to the sack of Rome in 410 AD. Cannae merely slowed Rome down but did'nt finish it.

[HannibalB]

Of all Rome's defeats, Cannae was decisive in one way because it sets Rome's path towards empire with scipio's invasion of Carthaginian Spain, I'd say the varian disaster and the battle of Adrianople were far more decisive in that the varian disaster completely halted permanent expansion beyond the rhine and adrianople would lead indirectly to the sack of Rome in 410 AD. Cannae merely slowed Rome down but did'nt finish it.

The Romans invaded Spain at the start of the war, not after Cannae.

[Ludicus]

Of all Rome's defeats, Cannae was decisive in one way because it sets Rome's path towards empire.

Precisely, post 45.
William Weir,
Cannae was decisive in another way. ... The Roman Republic, a state governed by its citizens, disappeared. Under Augustus Caesar it became the Roman Empire"

[torongill]

True, if by citizens you understand a self-proclaimed elite minority. Historically the plebs had received its rights only after refusing to die for the crumbs of the pie while the Senate got the big slices.

[Duptar]

Since your looking at frontages, you can compare the authors numbers used, to the fact that a Scutum is 33 wide

It actually isn't 33 inches wide that's the distance around the shield for the square ones, it's actually around 24 inches.

Also on the manpower figures, didn't Rome have a larger fleet? Most of the Roman manpower was unrecruitable? How much ships could Carthage have in pre-Fabrication?

In a real siege, the wall is manned by lookouts while the bulk of the defenders except for those involved in missiles are under cover until an actual attack via wall scaling, breach.....etc.

Each day 15 miles

I know we made this as an assumption when doing the calculations, but when we measure the marching column of the Carthaginians wouldn't it be too long to march 15 miles?

How long was the Saguntum wall, but yet Spanish citizens defended it so well. Why?

[Ludicus]

True, if by citizens you understand a self-proclaimed elite minority

A different, but excellent topic

[Duptar]

I made a post here http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...7#post11908747 that points out a few relevances for Cannae:

For primers, if we have the lines for the legions charging in their approach to the Gauls it is possible for them to throw up to 60 meters. Also the replacement system by file and ranks seems plausible for Cannae, which would at least help the front line not get tired.

Another thing I saw on another forum recommended that the rear Century places itself inside the space normally given to each Legionary. The Velites could've ran through a regular formation and then the Maniples could have then closed the spaces.

Even though it wasn't standard practice for a velite to withdraw through spaces between legions, could it have been done, logically?

There are a few more links I found that I would like to comment on in the near future:

http://garyb.0catch.com/camp3_dimens...imensions.html
http://garyb.0catch.com/deploy4_march/deploy_march.html
http://garyb.0catch.com/deploy2_exit/deploy_exit.html
http://garyb.0catch.com/deploy3_asse..._assemble.html

Duptar

[Duptar]

There was a few things I received via email that I would like to share with this thread:

What of the 10,000 troops detailed to attack Hannibal's camp? I think you are right to consider this as the job of the extraordinarii: this kind of mission is right up their street. Eight allied alae would give 8,000 extraordinarii infantry, and the other 2,000 may well be velite camp guards (Polybius VI.35 points out that 'the whole outer perimeter of the camp is guarded by velites') who would have stayed on guard while the army trooped out and hence missed being included in the order of march, but would then have joined the extraordinarii for their bit of fun. Varro had more than enough velites and would not feel he was being deprived for the main battle.

Why Varro was on the left was for the same reason as Metellus in Sallust's Jugurthan War 50: he had led the army out of camp, and because they moved from right to left to occupy their battle position, he ended up on the left, or as Salust put it: "took on himself the command of the cavalry on the left wing, which, on the march, had become the van".

5,000 for guarding the Carthaginian camp is alas a figure 'remembered from somewhere'. It is not in any of our primary sources (I just checked) so it is presumably a more modern guess that will need to be taken with a certain amount of salt. All that Polybius (III.117) says is that Hannibal left a 'strong enough detachment' (phulaken arkousan = a sufficient guard), so your guess would be as good as any other.

Polybius is the one I trust on this: he calls them 'grosphomachoi', i.e. 'fighters with the grosphos'. 'Grosphos' seems to be a weapon unique to Roman velites, probably matching the description in Livy XXVI.4 ("seven javelins [iacula] each, four feet in length, and pointed with steel [praefixa ferro] in the same manner as the spears used by light-armed troops [hastis veitaribus]").