by Plutarch
15. Varro insisted on observing the practice whereby each consul took command of the army on alternate days. He then pitched his camp opposite Hannibal’s on the banks of the River Aufidus53 near the town named Cannae,54 and at daybreak hoisted the signal for battle, which is a scarlet tunic hung out over the general’s tent. At first even the Carthaginians were dismayed, not only by the Roman commander’s apparent boldness, but also by the strength of his army, which was more than double their own. Hannibal ordered his troops to prepare for action, while he himself with a few companions rode out to the crest of a gently rising slope, from which he could look down on the enemy as they formed their order of battle. When one of his companions, an officer of equal rank named Gisco, remarked that the numbers of the enemy seemed amazingly large, Hannibal looked grave for a moment, and said: ‘There is another thing which you have not noticed, Gisco, which is even more amazing,’ and when Gisco asked what this was, he replied, ‘The fact that in all this enormous host there isn’t a single man called Gisco.’ The joke caught the whole party off guard and they all began to laugh; then, as they rode down from the high ground, they repeated it to everyone they met, so that their high spirits quickly spread among the troops, and the officers of Hannibal’s staff were completely overcome with laughter. The Carthaginians took heart when they saw this, for they thought that their general must have great contempt for the Romans if he could laugh and joke like this in the face of danger.
16. In the battle itself Hannibal made use of a number of stratagems. First he took advantage of the ground to post his men with the wind behind them. It was a scorching wind which swept across the bare and sandy plains like a hurricane, whipping up choking clouds of dust that blew over the Carthaginian lines, straight into the faces of the Romans, who were thrown into confusion as they turned away to avoid the blast. His second ruse lay in his order of battle. His best and most warlike troops were stationed on the wings, while the weakest were concentrated in the centre, which he intended to use as a wedge projecting far ahead of the rest of the line. The orders given to the crack formations were as follows. The Romans would cut the Carthaginian centre to pieces, and as they pressed forward in pursuit, the centre would fall back forming a hollow, until the Romans had penetrated deep into their enemies’ line of battle. At this moment the Carthaginian wings would wheel sharply inwards, attack the Romans from the flanks and envelop them by closing in upon the rear. It was this manoeuvre, it seems, which brought about the fearful carnage that followed. When the Carthaginian centre gave ground and the Romans surged forward in pursuit, Hannibal’s line was transformed into a crescent; thereupon the commanders of the picked troops on the wings wheeled them swiftly to right and left and attacked the enemy on their unguarded flanks, so that the Romans were overwhelmed and slaughtered to a man, except for the few who escaped before their encirclement was complete.
It is said that the Roman cavalry also suffered an unexpected misfortune. Paullus’ horse, it appears, was wounded and threw its rider, whereupon one man after another of his staff dismounted and came on foot to help the consul. When the main body of the cavalry saw this, they assumed it was a general order, with the result that every man dismounted and engaged the enemy on foot. Hannibal saw this and remarked, ‘This is better than having them all delivered over to me in chains.’ However, for episodes of this kind I may refer the reader to those historians who have reported the war in detail.55
As for the two consuls, Varro galloped off with a few followers to the city of Venusia,56 but Paullus, caught in the surging torrent of the rout, covered with the barbs which still hung in his wounds, and overwhelmed in both body and spirit by the weight of his misfortune, sat with his back against a stone and waited for the enemy to dispatch him. His head and face were so streaked and disfigured with blood that scarcely anyone could recognize him; even his friends and attendants passed him by, unaware that this was their general. At last Cornelius Lentulus,57 a young patrician, caught sight of him and knew who he was. He jumped from his horse, led it up to Paullus, and besought the consul to take it and save himself for the sake of his fellow-citizens, who had never needed a brave commander so much as at that moment. But nothing could persuade Paullus to give way to his entreaty, and he compelled the young man, in spite of his tears, to mount his horse again. Then he rose to his feet, clasped Lentulus’ hand and said to him, ‘Tell Fabius Maximus, and you yourself bear witness, that Aemilius Paullus followed his friend’s advice to the end and stood by every one of the undertakings he had given, but he was vanquished first by Varro and then by Hannibal.’ When he had given Lentulus this message, he sent him away, and, plunging into the midst of the slaughter, he met his death. It is said that 50,000 Romans were killed in this battle and 4,000 captured alive, while after the fighting no fewer than 10,000 were captured58 in the camps of the two consuls.
17. After this overwhelming success, Hannibal’s friends urged him to follow up his good fortune and force his way into Rome on the heels of the retreating enemy, and they assured him that, if he pressed on, he would be dining on the Capitol on the fifth day after his victory. It is not easy to say what consideration could have held him back. It almost seems as if his evil genius or some divine power intervened at this moment to fill him with the timidity and irresolution which he now showed. This is why Barca the Carthaginian59 is reported to have said to him angrily, ‘You know how to win a victory, Hannibal, but you have no idea how to exploit it.’ In spite of this, his victory brought about a tremendous change in his situation. Before it he had not controlled a single city, trading station or seaport in Italy, and had found great difficulty in obtaining even a bare supply of provisions by foraging; he had not possessed any secure base of operations, but had been obliged to roam about the countryside with his army, as if it were a whole troop of brigands. But after Cannae he brought almost the whole of Italy under his control. Most of its peoples, and the most significant of them, came over to him of their own accord, and Capua,60 which was the most important city after Rome, gave him her complete support.
‘It is no small evil’, Euripides tells us, ‘to put friends to the test,’61 and the same, it would seem, applies to prudent generals. The very strategy, which before the battle had been condemned as passive and cowardly, now came to be regarded as the product of a superhuman power of reasoning and almost miraculous intelligence capable of penetrating the future and of prophesying a disaster which could scarcely be believed by those who experienced it. So it was upon Fabius that the Romans centred their last hopes. His wisdom was the sanctuary to which men fled for refuge, as they might to a temple or an altar, and they believed that it was his practical capacity above all which had preserved the unity of Rome at this moment, and had prevented her citizens from deserting the city and dispersing, as had happened during the disasters of the Gallic invasion.62 For before, when the people had felt secure, it was Fabius who had appeared to be cautious and timid, but now, when all others were giving way to boundless grief and helpless bewilderment, he was the only man to walk the streets with a resolute step, a serene expression and a kindly voice. It was he who checked all womanish lamentations, and prevented those who wished to bewail their sorrows from assembling in public. On the other hand, he persuaded the senate to continue to hold its meetings, stiffened the resolution of the magistrates and made himself the strength and the moving spirit of all the offices of state, since every man looked to him for guidance.
18. He placed guards at the gates of Rome to prevent the frightened crowds from abandoning the city, and he regulated the times and the places at which it was permissible to lament the dead.63 Those who wished to go into mourning were ordered to do so in their homes for a period of thirty days, at the end of which all mourning was to cease and the city was to be purified of such rites. Since the festival of Ceres64 happened to fall within these dates, it was thought better to cancel both the sacrifices and the procession, since the small numbers and the dejection of those taking part could only b
ear a painful witness to the magnitude of the disaster; for it is the honours they receive from the fortunate which give most pleasure to the gods. However, all the rites which the augurs recommended to appease the anger of the gods or to avert inauspicious omens were duly performed.65 Besides this, Pictor,66 a relative of Fabius Maximus, was sent to consult the oracle at Delphi, and when two of the Vestal Virgins67 were found to have been seduced, one of them was buried alive, according to the traditional custom, and the other took her own life.
But perhaps what may impress us most of all today was the spirit of calm composure which the city displayed when Varro, the surviving consul, returned after his flight from the battlefield. He arrived in a state of the deepest dejection and humiliation, as a man who had brought a most terrible and disgraceful calamity upon his country, to find himself met by the senate and the whole populace, who welcomed him at the gates. As soon as calm had been restored, the magistrates and senior members of the senate – of whom Fabius was one – praised him because even in the midst of such a disaster he had never abandoned hope for the city, but had presented himself to take up the duties of government and to invoke the aid of the laws and of his fellow-citizens, confident that their salvation lay in their own hands.
19. When at length the citizens learned that Hannibal had turned aside after the battle and set off for the other parts of Italy, their courage revived and they once more sent armies and generals into the field. The most remarkable of these were Fabius Maximus and Claudius Marcellus, both of whom earned high praise, although for qualities which were almost diametrically opposed. Marcellus, as I have related in his Life, was a brilliant leader who possessed a dynamic energy and audacity, a doughty fighting-man of the same breed as those noble warriors whom Homer calls ‘mighty in combat’ and ‘lovers of battle’.68 Accordingly, he conducted his first operations against Hannibal in a spirit of enterprise and daring which matched Hannibal’s own. Fabius, on the other hand, clung to his original ideas and placed his faith in the principle that if nobody fought with Hannibal, or even harassed him, his army would wear itself out and its fighting qualities would swiftly decline, like an athlete whose physique has been overtaxed and exhausted. This was the reason, so Poseidonius tells us, why their countrymen called Fabius the shield and Marcellus the sword of Rome,69 because the combination of the steadiness and caution of the one with the warlike ardour of the other proved the salvation of their country. In his frequent encounters with Marcellus, it was as though Hannibal had to face a raging torrent, which battered and swept away his forces, while against Fabius, whose tactics were slow, silent and yet relentless in their steady pressure, his strength was gradually and imperceptibly undermined and drained away. In the end, he was reduced to a situation in which he was exhausted with fighting Marcellus, and afraid of Fabius because he could not fight him.
These men were Hannibal’s opponents almost continuously, either as praetor, consul or proconsul, for each of them was elected consul five times.70 However, while Marcellus was serving his fifth term as consul, Hannibal contrived to lure him into an ambush in which Marcellus was killed,71 but although he tried every kind of ruse and stratagem against Fabius, he never gained an advantage over him. Once, it is true, he was able to deceive him and very nearly inflicted a crushing defeat. He forged a number of letters which were supposed to have come from the leading citizens of Metapontum72 and sent them to Fabius. They offered to surrender the city if he would present himself there, and indicated that the conspirators were only waiting for him to come and show himself in their neighbourhood. Fabius was impressed by their letters, and resolved to detach a part of his army and set out for Metapontum by night. But when he found out that the auspices were unfavourable, he decided to cancel his plan, and soon afterwards he discovered that the letters had been cleverly forged by Hannibal, who was waiting in ambush for him near the city,73 and we may perhaps attribute this escape to the favour of the gods.
20. When several of the Italian cities attempted to revolt and there were uprisings among the allies, Fabius believed that the best policy was to reason with them sympathetically and to dissuade and restrain them by lenient measures, without inquiring too closely into every case of doubtful loyalty or treating every suspected person harshly. It is said, for example, that when a certain Marsian soldier,74 a man of note among the allies both for the nobility of his birth and his courage, was found to be discussing with some of the soldiers the prospects of deserting to the enemy, Fabius showed no sign of anger, but admitted that the man had been unjustly passed over. This much, he said, was the fault of his commanders, who were apt to show favouritism rather than give courage its due when they awarded honours, but in future it would be the man’s own fault if he did not come directly to Fabius whenever he wished to make a request. Having said this, he presented him with a charger and other rewards for valour, and from that time onwards there was no more faithful or devoted man in the army. Fabius thought it a shame that trainers of horses and dogs should be able to soften the obstinacy, discontent and savage spirit of their charges by means of care, intimate knowledge and a regular diet, rather than by the use of whips or heavy collars, and yet that an officer who has the command of men should not base his discipline mainly upon kindness and gentleness, but should treat them with more harshness and violence than even farmers do with wild figs, olives or pear trees, whose nature they can domesticate by careful cultivation, until they bear excellent olives and pears and figs.
In the same way, when his officers reported to him that another soldier, this time a Lucanian,75 was repeatedly deserting his post and absenting himself from the camp, Fabius asked them their opinion of him in other respects. All of them testified that it would be difficult to find a better soldier, and quoted several of his exploits in which he had shown extraordinary courage. When the general had inquired further into the cause of the man’s disobedience, he found that the soldier was in love with a girl and frequently took the risk of making long journeys from the camp to meet her. Accordingly, Fabius sent some of his men to arrest the girl without her lover’s knowledge, and hid her in his own tent. Then he summoned the Lucanian to a private interview and told him, ‘I know that you have many times spent the night outside the camp contrary to the customs and regulations of the Roman army. I also know that you have done good service in the past. In consideration of this, I propose to overlook your present offence, but for the future I shall hand you over to the charge of someone who will be answerable for you.’ Then, to the soldier’s amazement, Fabius produced the girl and put her into his hands, saying: ‘This is the person who has given her word that you will stay in the camp with us. Now you can prove by your conduct that you had no other discreditable motive, but that this girl and your love for her was the only reason that made you desert your post.’ Such is the account that we have of this episode.76
21. Fabius succeeded in recapturing the city of Tarentum,77 which the Romans had originally lost by treachery,78 and here another love affair played its part. There was a young Tarentine in the Roman army whose sister was particularly devoted to him. The commander of the garrison stationed by Hannibal to defend the city, who was a Bruttian,79 had fallen deeply in love with this girl, and this fact encouraged her brother to hope that he might turn it to the advantage of the Romans. Fabius gave his consent to the scheme, and the young man made his way into the city under the pretence of having deserted the army to visit his sister. For the first few days of his stay the Bruttian remained at home, since the girl supposed that her brother knew nothing of their love affair. Then her brother said to her: ‘When I was in the Roman army, there were rumours that one of the commanders of the garrison has been paying court to you. Who is he? If he is a man of high reputation who is well known for his courage – as I have been told – it makes little difference what country he belongs to, since war throws all our affairs into confusion and mixes all the nations together. It is no disgrace to yield to necessity. On the contrary, in these days when righ
t has so little power, we must think ourselves lucky if might, supposing we are obliged to surrender to it, turns out not to be too disagreeable.’ After this the girl sent for the Bruttian and introduced him to her brother, who quickly won the barbarian’s confidence. Not only did he encourage the love affair, but it was clear that he persuaded his sister to show more tenderness and compliance to her lover than before. From here it was a simple step, since the Bruttian was not only a lover but a mercenary, to persuade him to transfer his allegiance to the Romans by the promise of a large reward which he would receive from Fabius.
This is the commonest version of the story.80 But some writers say that the woman who seduced the Bruttian from his allegiance was not a Tarentine but was herself a Bruttian, and that she had previously been Fabius’ concubine. When she discovered that a fellow-countryman and acquaintance of hers was in command of the garrison, she informed Fabius, met and spoke with the man beneath the city walls and gradually won him over to the Roman cause.