The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic
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33. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 31–2.
34. Rankov, “The Second Punic War at Sea,” in Cornell, Rankov, and Sabin, eds. The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, p. 50.
35. Livy, 30.43.12–13.
36. Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 24.
37. Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 35.
38. See for example Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, p. 182ff.
39. Lancel, Hannibal, pp. 4–5; Lancel, Carthage, p. 365.
40. Polybius, 1.20.1–2.
41. Lazenby, The First Punic War, pp. 71–2.
42. Ibid, p. 81.
43. Cape Bon is the modern terminology.
44. Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 110.
45. Diodorus, 23.4.1; Polybius, 1.17.4–6; Diodorus, 23.8.1; Polybius, 1.38.1–5; 1.44.1–2.
46. Tenney Frank, Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), p. 685.
47. Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 114.
48. Appian, History of Rome: Book 6: The Wars in Spain, 4; Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 144.
49. Since Hannibal was nine when his father brought him to Spain in 237, it seems likely that he was born around the time his father left for Sicily.
50. Hoyos, “Hannibal’s War: Illusions and Ironies,” p. 87.
51. Polybius, 1.56.3.
52. Ibid., 1.59.7.
53. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 10; C. Nepos, Hamilcar, 1.5.
54. Lazenby (The First Punic War, p. 164) is quite typical when he says: “We have no census-returns from Carthage, of course, … but … their losses cannot have been high.”
55. Hoyos, “Hannibal’s War: Illusions and Ironies,” p. 88.
56. Appian, The Wars in Spain, 4.
57. Hoyos, “Barcid Proconsuls and Punic Politics,” pp. 250–1.
58. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 135–6.
59. Polybius, 1.72.3.
60. Appian, The Wars in Spain, 4.
61. Nepos, Hamilcar, (3.5–8).
62. Hoyos, “Barcid Proconsuls and Punic Politics,” p. 251.
63. Polybius, 3.11.5–7; Livy, 35.19.
64. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 41; Dodge, Hannibal, pp. 145–6.
65. Hoyos, “Barcid Proconsuls and Punic Politics,” p. 274.
66. Lancel, Carthage, p. 379; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 36.
67. Lancel, Carthage, p. 378.
68. Lancel, Hannibal, pp. 40–1.
69. Scullard, A History of the Roman World, pp. 196–7.
CHAPTER IV: HANNIBAL’S WAY
1. See for example Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 157–8.
2. Plutarch, “Fabius Maximus,” 6.3; Appian, Hannibalic War, 14; 28.
3. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, 3. 103.
4. B. D. Hoyos, “Maharbal’s Bon Mot: Authenticity and Survival,” The Classical Quarterly, New Series, vol. 50, no. 2 (2000), pp. 610–14.
5. Plutarch, Fabius, 15.2–3; Livy, 27.16.10.
6. Livy (21.3–4) even cites a tradition that has Hannibal, after his father’s death, repatriated to Carthage, only to have Hasdrubal urgently request that he return to Spain.
7. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 256. The five occasions were at Lake Trasimene, at Cannae, the destruction of Marcus Centenius’s force, the first battle at Herdonea, and the second battle at Herdonea.
8. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 62.
9. Livy, 25.11.16.
10. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 257.
11. Ibid., p. 27; Hoyos, “Hannibal’s War: Illusions and Ironies,” p. 89; Daly, Cannae, p. 10.
12. Abram N. Shulsky, Deterrence Theory and Chinese Behavior (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 2000), p. 30.
13. Louis Rawlings, “Celts, Spaniards, and Samnites: Warriors in a Soldier’s War,” in Cornell, Rankov, and Sabin, eds., The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, p. 84; Oakley, “Single Combat in the Roman Republic,” p. 407.
14. Head, Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars, p. 57; see for example Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 14.
15. Head, Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars, p. 37.
16. Rawlings, “Celts, Spaniards, and Samnites: Warriors in a Soldier’s War,” p. 83.
17. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 139; Jones, “Rome’s Relationship with Carthage: A Study in Aggression,” p. 28.
18. Polybius, 2.28.10; 2.31.1.
19. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” pp. 11, 18.
20. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 140.
21. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 352.
22. Lancel, Carthage, p. 384.
23. Polybius, 3.15.7–8; Appian, The Wars in Spain, 10.
24. Polybius, 3.8.6–7.
25. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, pp. 57–8; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 155; Rich, “The Origins of the Second Punic War,” p. 18.
26. Polybius 3.33.17–18.
27. Polybius 3.35.1; Appian, Hannibalic War, 1.4.
28. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” p. 20; Daly, Cannae, pp. 127–8.
29. Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 17.1.
30. Dodge, Hannibal, p. 241.
31. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 33.
32. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 85; see also Goldsworthy, The Roman Arm, Appendix: Logistics.
33. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 84; Livy 21.23.4.
34. Polybius, 3.60.5; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 34.
35. Livy, 21.30.8.
36. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 355.
37. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 50.
38. Polybius, 3.40.2–13; Livy, 21.25.10–14; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 151.
39. Polybius, 3.49; Livy, 21.31.8.
40. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 71.
41. Lancel (Ibid.) notes that at the end of the nineteenth century a French scholar counted more than three hundred books and articles on the crossing, and Lancel opines that today a second lifetime would be necessary to cover the entire literature that now exists about the crossing.
42. Ibid.; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 166.
43. Polybius, 3.50.3–6.
44. Livy, 21.33; Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 114.
45. Hoyos, “Hannibal’s War: Illusions and Ironies,” p. 90; Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, pp. 127, 151.
46. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, pp. 129–30; Dodge, Hannibal, p. 217.
47. Roger Dion, “La voie heracleenne et l’itineraire transalpine d’Hannibal,” in Melanges a A Grenier (coll. “Latomus,” LVIII) (Brussels: 1962), p. 538; Werner Huss, Geschichte der Karthager (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft series, vol. 3, no. 8) (Munich: Beck, 1985), p. 305.
48. Eduard Meyer, “Noch einmals Hannibals Alpenubergang,” Museum Helveticum, vol. 21 (1964), pp. 90–101.
49. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 172.
50. Livy, 21.35.8–10.
51. Polybius, 3.55; Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 150.
52. Polybius, 3.56.4.
53. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 168.
CHAPTER V: THE FOX AND THE HEDGEHOG
1. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 133.
2. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 311.
3. Polybius, 3.61.1–6.
4. Livy, 21.39.3.
5. Livy (21.42) and Polybius (3.62–3) have similarly elaborate versions of the same story, apparently believing it emblematic of Hannibal’s character and mindset.
6. Livy (21.46.7) is the main source for this vignette, although Polybius (10.3.3–7) mentions it. Livy is also honest enough to note that Coelius Antipater gives credit for the rescue to a Ligurian slave. Nevertheless, Scullard (Scipio Africanus, p. 29) argues that Coelius’s version was probably a later invention designed to discredit Africanus.
7. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 53.
8. Ibid.; Daly, Cannae, p. 42.
9. Polybius, 3.66; Livy, 21.47.
10. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 172.
11. Charles-Picard, Vie et
Mort de Carthage, p. 239; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 84; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 174.
12. See Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 175–6, for an examination of this line of reasoning.
13. Polybius, 3.72.11–13. Livy, 21.55.4, says the Romans numbered eighteen thousand, but Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 56, considers this mistaken.
14. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 178.
15. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 56.
16. Polybius, 3.74.1.
17. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 180.
18. Livy, 21.56; Polybius, 3.74.11.
19. Polybius, 3.75.1.
20. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 58.
21. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 181; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 59–60.
22. Polybius, 3.77.3–7.
23. Ibid., 3.78.1–4; Livy, 22.1.3–4.
24. With apologies to Mel Brooks.
25. Appian, Hannibalic War, 8.
26. Livy, 21.63.1; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 183–4.
27. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 61.
28. Polybius, 3.78–79; Livy, 22.2.10–11.
29. Polybius, 3.82; Livy, 22.3.8–9.
30. Ovid (Fasti, 6.767–8) says the battle took place on June 21. The site of the battle is subject to some dispute. Those interested in the various arguments should see Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 62–3; Connolly, Greece and Rome, pp. 172–5; and J. Kromayer and G. Veith, Antike Schlachtfelder in Italien und Afrika (Berlin: Weidmann, 1912), pp. 148–93. However, it seems that the whole basis for any certainty is undermined by the likelihood that the lake’s level and shore must have shifted significantly over the course of twenty-two hundred years.
31. Dodge, Hannibal, p. 299.
32. Livy, 22.5.8.
33. Goldsworthy (The Punic Wars, p. 189) attributes this figure to Fabius Pictor.
34. This passage of Livy’s (22.7. 6–14) is particularly vivid and illustrates the historian’s almost cinematic qualities.
35. Goldsworthy, Cannae, pp. 59–60.
36. F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, vol. 1 (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 410–11.
37. John F. Shean, “Hannibal’s Mules: The Logistical Limitations of Hannibal’s Army and the Battle of Cannae,” Historia, vol. 45, no. 2 (1996), p. 181.
38. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 195.
39. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 101.
40. Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 1; Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 39.
41. Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 4.
42. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 68; Livy, 22.11.3–4.
43. Polybius, 3.87.1–3; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars.
44. Polybius, 18.28.9.
45. Daly, Cannae, pp. 89–90, takes this position.
46. Head, Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars, p. 144. Polybius uses the term “long-chophoroi,” which is sometimes translated as “pikemen,” but it is clear from his use of such troops as skirmishers that he does not mean they were used in a phalanx, nor that they carried pikes.
47. Polybius, 3.87.4–5.
48. Ibid., 3.88.9.
49. Livy, 22.12.4–5.
50. Dodge, Hannibal, p. 317; Shean, “Hannibal’s Mules,” p. 181.
51. Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 5.
52. Livy (22.13.5–8) says that was only one guide, but Plutarch (Fabius Maximus, 6.3) maintains it was a number of guides.
53. Polybius, 3.93–94.5; Livy, 22.16–17.
54. Livy, 22.23.4–5.
55. Polybius, 3.100.4.
56. Ibid., 101–102.
57. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 72.
58. Polybius, 3.104–5; Livy, 22.28.
59. Polybius, 3.105; Livy, 22.29–30.
60. Shean, “Hannibal’s Mules,” p. 183.
CHAPTER VI: CANNAE
1. Livy, 22.35.37.
2. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 74.
3. Livy, 22.39–40.4; Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 14.
4. Ibid., 22.45.
5. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 60.
6. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 199.
7. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 74.
8. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 67.
9. Ibid.
10. The force that defeated the Gauls at Telamon was of a similar size, but this had been the accidental result of two double consular armies trapping a large body of Gallic troops between them.
11. Polybius, 3.107.9–15.
12. Daly, Cannae, p. 27.
13. Samuels (“The Reality of Cannae,” p. 12) argues that there is little sign of any formal Roman military training beyond experience. This seems extreme. It is true that the evidence is fairly shallow, but there do seem to have been well-established procedures. When, for instance, Scipio Africanus established a training program for his troops at New Carthage (Polybius, 10.20.1–4), it seemed far too well organized to have been simply extemporized.
14. See for example Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 77; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 200–1.
15. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 200; Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 67.
16. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” p. 12.
17. Livy, 22.37.7–9.
18. Livy, 22.41–43; Polybius, 3.107.1–7.
19. Dodge, Hannibal, pp. 348–50.
20. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 75.
21. Ibid., p. 57.
22. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” pp. 18–19.
23. Polybius, 3.114.5; Livy, 22.46.6; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 81; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 207. However, Daly (Cannae, p. 29) adds that this figure does look “suspiciously like an estimate.”
24. Lazenby (Hannibal’s War, p. 81) estimates around 28,600 line infantry, with 11,400 skirmishers, while Goldsworthy (The Punic Wars, p. 207) and Parker (Cannae, p. 32) assign around 32,000 to the heavy infantry and 8000 to skirmishers.
25. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 326.
26. Foster Grunfeld, “The Unsung Sling,” MHA: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, vol. 9, no. 1 (Autumn 1996).
27. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” pp. 19–20.
28. Appian, Han. 17, also states that Hannibal was short on supplies; Paul Erdkamp, “Polybius, Livy and the ‘Fabian Strategy,’” Ancient Society, vol. 23 (1992), pp. 127–47.
29. Polybius, 3.110–112; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 78.
30. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 315.
31. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 101.
32. Dodge, Hannibal, p. 396.
33. See Appian, Han. 22; Livy, 22.48.
34. Edward Fry, “The Field of Cannae,” The English Historical Review, vol. 12, no. 48 (1897), p. 751, for the geography of the battlefield.
35. Polybius, 3.112.
36. Polybius, 3.117.8; Daly (Cannae, p. 29) discusses the disposition of those left behind and agrees with Polybius that the great majority would have been left in the main camp, since the smaller camp would be behind the Roman line and therefore need no more than a token garrison.
37. Polybius, 3.113.2–3.
38. K. Lehmann, Klio, vol. 15 (1917), p. 162; Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, pp. 324–5.
39. J. Kromayer and G. Veith, Antike Schlachtfelder, vol. 3, no. 1 (1903–31), pp. 278–388; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 77–9.
40. Connolly, Greece and Rome at War, p. 184; Goldsworthy, Cannae.
41. Polybius, 3.113; Livy, 22.46.1.
42. Appian, Han. 20; Ennius, Fragment, 282; Livy (22.46.9) also refers to the dust problem.
43. Appian, Han. 21; Livy, 22.47.1; Polybius, 3.115.1.
44. Martin Samuels’s characterization of the Roman cavalry (“The Reality of Cannae,” p. 13) as being more like “an English public school outing, rather than a military unit,” is probably appropriate, considering the losses it had recently taken.
45. Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 16. Livy (22.47.1–5) roughly follows this version also.
46. Daly, Cannae, p. 165.
47. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 316.
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48. Goldsworthy, Cannae, pp. 111–12.
49. Daly, Cannae, pp. 185-6.
50. Adrian Goldsworthy’s insights (Cannae, pp. 127–39) into the nature of this kind of combat are very persuasive. See also Zhmodikov, “The Roman Heavy Infantrymen in Battle,” p. 71.
51. Lazenby, Hannibal, p. 83.
52. Polybius, 3.116.5–6.
53. Polybius, 3.117.2
54. Daly, Cannae, pp. 195–6.
55. Sabin, “The Mechanics of Battle in the Second Punic War,” p. 76.
56. Victor Davis Hanson, “Cannae,” in Robert Cowley, ed., Experience of War (New York: Norton, 1992), p. 42.
57. Daly, Cannae, pp. 196–8.
58. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 153.
59. Polybius, 3.117.1–2; see also Appian, Han. 24.
60. Grossman, On Killing, p. 71.
61. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 155.
62. R. J. Ridley, “Was Scipio Africanus at Cannae?” Latomus, vol. 34 (1975), p. 161.
63. Lazenby (Hannibal’s War, p. 84) reaches this number using a variety of Livy’s figures from 22.49–54.
64. Daly, Cannae, p. 198.
65. Polybius, 3.117.7–11.
66. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 159; Frontinus, Stratagems, 4.5.7; Livy, 22.52.4.
67. Livy’s figures (22.49.15) are the most convincing and consistent in this regard.
68. Livy, 22.51.5–9.
69. Again, this is Lazenby’s compilation (Hannibal’s War, p. 84) using Livy’s figures.
70. Polybius (3.117.6) puts Carthaginian losses at four thousand Gauls, fifteen hundred Spaniards and Libyans, and two hundred cavalry, while Livy (22.52.6) places the losses at around eight thousand total.
71. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 108.
72. There is considerable disagreement about whether the incident ever took place. John Lazenby (“Was Maharbal Right?” in Cornell, Rankov, and Sabin, eds., The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, p. 39) argues that “like most good stories, this one is probably apocryphal.” Lazenby maintains that because Polybius does not mention Maharbal in his accounts of Cannae, Maharbal was probably not there. On the other hand, Dexter Hoyos (“Maharbal’s Bon Mot,” pp. 610–11) points out that Livy did have Maharbal commanding the Numidians at Cannae, and that Maharbal may well have urged Hannibal to march on Rome after Trasimene and possibly again after Cannae, because, after all, it was good advice.
73. Shean, “Hannibal’s Mules,” pp. 167–73.
74. B. L. Hallward, “Hannibal’s Invasion of Italy,” in Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930), p. 55.